Phil Starr

I tried this with my Peavey Minimax last night, wow that surprised me, it really is quite a satisfying sound in a family sized room. The extra couple of litres gained by not having the amp built in makes a real difference to the bass. I think this would be a real contender as ideal home practice set up. The single six gives it a really useful extra bit of top end and dispersion and the use of a 'proper' PA driver gives some respectable bass at these volumes. I didn't drive it hard because it was loud enough but it was happy with a fair amount of bass boost so there is a bit of headroom available.

From the point of view of the speaker cabinet design the crucial thing is the volume, You'd want the same internal volume and space to fit the speaker(s) and port. Any volume that is substantially different would need a different tuning port. The cab we are building is of 12mm ply, anything thinner/less rigid is pushing towards the point where quite extensive bracing will be needed. This cab itself will be improved by bracing and we will no doubt discuss that later, once the basic design is finalised. At that point the success of the cab would depend upon the exact structure of the flight case. If you love that look then go for it, but I think you'd have to be prepared to do some mods or get it custom made.

Cabinet is complete in it's basic form. It weighs just 5kg and I've noticed that Jewsons where i bought the ply are advertising it now as poplar cored, when i bought it it was sold as Baltic birch though it looks like a generic hardwood on the outer veneers. the Chinese are making 'poplar' cored Eucalyptus skinned ply at the moment which is what I suspect this actually is. Anyway poplar cored is a nice bonus as the cab is extraordinarily light and i didn't pay a fortune for the ply. It has some voids which is a nuisance but It's tough to find a source of really good ply at the moment without going to specialist suppliers. It's good enough and 5kg is a very pleasant surprise. Photo's soon

They don't stack at the moment, I'll have to put rubber feet on. The other problem is finding grille cloth. there's a limited range out there from UK suppliers. The USA is much better served. I can't find anything to match the Kustom amp. If I had something similar enough i could change the cloth on that so the two cabs match but i'm struggling to find something I like. Any colour I like so long as it's black

Although I quite like the big corners on the cab. It looks faintly silly but it also makes the cab look even more tiny. What do you think?

OK I went for Vinyl, genuine 1970's Vynide brand, I had to scrub the cobwebs off!

Blue Aran are really cheap for the bits and pieces, I recently looked for some new corners and even the direct from China stuff can be more expensive. They are also the stockists for Tuff Cab the textured paint we all tend to use for cabs nowadays so worth thinking about ordering at the same time to save postage costs.

So a little progress with a few holes cut, all done with a jig-saw and using the blades shown above. You can see the marks for the original positions but Stevie wanted the horn closer to the bass driver. I've allowed for the extra width of the speaker surround and the lip of the horn and the bass port which will all cover up the minor imperfections

Yes I use the T101A blade, in fact I was using it 2 mins ago. Obviously it is not ideal for straight cuts. For speakers I use a down cutting blade the T101BR and cut from the side that will be on the outside of the cab. Don't use pendulum when down-cutting with a jigsaw and be aware that the cutting stroke pushes upwards so hold the saw stady and start with it away from the cut as it will jump a little if the blade is touching the timber. The T101B is the blade to use for general purpose cutting of ply MDF , the other blades are for deeper materials and coarser/faster cutting.

A jigsaw is good and you can get special blades for cutting curves which makes it easier. I'll put some practical tips into the build diary when we get to the end. We've chosen a port which has a lip which will cover up any inaccuracies

Now you have us thinking, we could do the crossover with one of these and these for connecting the speaker, no soldering needed.

Here's the cab, corners and cutouts tomorrow.

I've got the PR300 at £111 and the 320 at £120 so not much in it. The sensitivity is quoted at 2db higher but the 300 has a broader mid range peak under cone break up, the sensitivity in the bass is similar. What you gain is extra excursion so less chance of over excursion and ultimately more deep bass. Having said that using either as a single speaker without a tweeter the choice would come down to the sound you prefer. The Beyma's are only around a kilo heavier. However the SM212 is about to be discontinued and has also become expensive. However you are right, designing any cab is always a matter of making compromises and it is squeezing balloons. you squeeze down on one thing and something else pops up elsewhere. We've tried the Faital 320 (with a horn) and it works well, we haven't tried it in the smaller cab yet though. It'll be interesting to look at how the 10 and 12 model in the 30l cab. I'm trying to spend time actually doing the woodwork at the moment.

On it's way, just a couple of holes to cut and the edges to be routed off, then finishing. Anyone know where I can get some grille cloth to match? Can't decide whether to go for Tolex or Tuff Cab, I prefer Tuff Cab but I have a roll of vinyl roughly matching 70's WEM. It's not a great match but it is vinyl. Ho hum????

Don't tell Stevie I'm building this instead of his

I'd go for the Faital PR320 if you wanted a neo, lots of bang for your £££'s. Traitor We can put up the predicted bass responses later so you can compare. If you want a horn then obviously the top end is going to be determined by that and the crossover. Whatever choice you make you can always just screw the baffle down so you can replace the front panel if you decide to try the other option.

I couldn't resist this, it's going to become a 'stack'. I'm building a cab for a second Fane 6-100. I've intended doing it anyway as i want to try it as a vocal monitor and also to do some development work on a bright-box idea. The only change is in the size/shape of cab which I'm now going to make to match the existing combo. I should also be able to get an extra 5db out of a stack compared to the combo on it's own. Also I'm in lockdown and it's fun. It's too cold to work in the workshop you can never have too many clamps

Nice work. You probably already know this but others may not. If your speaker is following the red line for excursion then the coil has moved out of the magnetic field for part of the time, so motion is going to be non-linear for all the frequencies not just the bass. This means that there will be increased distortion across the board. Keeping the coil in the magnet gap also helps with heat dispersal. You get a lot of gains from that HPF

Please don't try running it if the fault is present, you could go on and damage the amp further. I've had to repair a couple of amps with similar faults and it is no fun at all getting the contents of a large capacitor off the circuit board and other components. You could write off the amp as an economic repair.

This is strangely reassuring. All the time in the world to do the things i want and I'm not motivated without the pressure of performing live. Recently a fellow band member started doing some recording and asked me for some bass and bv's. My goodness I'm so rusty. That's at least motivated me to go back to maintenance mode where I do enough bass playing not to get any worse but that's it. I'm trying to motivate myself a bit by rehashing some of the fun songs I played years ago that I don't have an opportunity to play now. I still think it likely that we will be back playing at least open air gigs this summer, this will come to an end so hang in there everyone. The lower the infection rate now the better chance we have long term. Good luck everyone.

It's really hard to diagnose a fault from a distance particularly an intermittent one. However when it happens you say it is unaffected by the controls. This means it is happening after the pre amp stages or possibly in the power supply. Thunder implies a loud and changing sound so my guess would be to look at the power supply capacitors first. On an old Peavey they may have leaked and this can be obvious sometimes. However the power supply caps can provide a nasty, potentially lethal shock, even when the amp is unplugged. Probably one for a tech if you don't know what you are doing.

C'mon guys give them a break. It's a publicity thing. I see they are offering custom builds and designs too, maybe this started off as one of those. If Barefaced suddenly and unexpectedly offered an 8x15 we'd all be hooked into it. I'd absolutely love to play in front of that Grateful Dead PA even though I know it's 'all wrong' and would be completely blown out of the water by a modern line array. Anyone remember this Custom 8x15 bass cabinet - Amps and Cabs - Basschat Of course he chose speakers that would more or less work together, is that engineering? Who cares, it's a bit of fun, nobody here is going to buy the thing, but if we saw it in Metallica's back line???? Of course it's all wrong, those 8 speakers should be in a vertical line with proper crossovers and maybe in a D'Appolito alignment with the horns at ear level so the bassist can 'really' hear what they are playing. Think of this as like those giant figures on Route66 or the world's biggest pencil in the pencil museum in Keswick. If someone wants a custom 4x18 I'm up fr a commission

I can't resist these, as a retired science teacher i used to love the curve-balls the kids used to throw at me. Strings are going to deteriorate by chemical processes mainly oxidation but will also react with environmental substances of which I would think most will be coming from your fingers. There will also be a slow build up of dirt between the windings wich will affect the strings physically adding mass, affecting the flexibility of the strings and maybe adding some damping and lowering the Q of the string. Only the chemical processes will be affected by freezing the strings, if you don't play 'em they won't get mucky. Metals are extremely stable, any effect is likely to be extremely small. The chemical processes will go much faster if water is present so keeping them dry is crucial as you know. The chemical reactions take place when molecules collide and all molecules constantly move at any temperature above absolute zero. In fact they roughly double their movement for every 10 degree C rise. If you lower the temperature from room temperature to -10 in the freezer you will slow the chemical processes 30 degrees or by a factor of 8. If they are't in a sealed pack then condensation will build up on them and ice will form. IMO that would be worse than the gain in slowing chemical processes. The only way to test this of course would be to take a significant number of strings, store half in the freezer and the rest at room temperature and test them after a significant period of time. I've used string sets 6 years old and they've been fine so eight times that would be 48years later. As far as I know nobody has done this as a serious study. It might be possible to spot deterioration much earlier of course but I don't think it would show up as a change in the sound. Without a proper study the answer to your question is nobody knows. As a bass player rather than as scientist my answer would be that it probably isn't worth bothering. Within a couple of weeks of playing the deterioration of use is going to overtake any advantage you might gain. Set that against the unlikely probability of your freezer being a stable environment over many years and why bother. I certainly wouldn't put paper wrappings in the freezer over years and I'd expect plastic wrapping to become brittle and tear over time too. FWIW I use the previously mentioned Dean Markley Blue Steels which I buy in batches when they are cheaper. I store them in a cool dry cupboard and they last me about a year per set so i guess the oldest ones are 5 years old. As far as I can tell no deterioration at all happens over 5 years of storage. I've used 15 year old strings on my banjo (yes i know )and they have been fine too.

Don't dismiss the little mixer option. If space is limited then a bass combo isn't going to play the music well. A small PA speaker or two will sound pretty good with your bass and make the music sound good too. If you want bass amp sounds something like the Zoom B1four has good simulations of all sorts of amps and speakers. You can then choose deafening volumes if you don't want headphones.

Looks like I'm going to have to make some sawdust. My wife will be pleased.