SimonK

Thanks Richard for the offer but I think you can probably find a better home for it as we are spoiled for amp choices!

It was a soundcraft desk, although I did occasionally use a huge Allen and Heath. The other fun thing you could do with this arrangement is essentially a bass drop - so cut all the low frequencies out for the intro or other parts of a song and then send it all back in as needed. Not entirely useful but there were one or two songs in the set where this could give quite a nice lift - Wild Cherry "Play that Funky Music"- was one.

That's a really kind offer - we have a 17 year old bass player who is in need of an amp so I tried to give him one of my Trace Elliot combos but after trying to pick it up he asked if I could give him a preamp with a headphone out instead - youth of today aren't as rock 'n roll as we were! This looks far more sensible for church use although I'm too far away.

Soundchecks are more important for singers than anyone else. It's been a few years since I was regularly doing sound, but for me sound check was for the band and especially the singers to get their stage levels right as this was not something I could do for them. I would only get the FOH approximate because as soon as the punters came in the FOH mix changed, but I could adapt pretty quickly during the first couple songs. Thus said, I did quite like to set my overall EQ using a squeak test (ideally with grey noise) to get some more headroom, but almost never had time to do it properly (the quick version was getting someone to cup their hand over a mic as I cranked the gain)! There was a Behringer unit that used to try to do it automatically but it never seemed to work so well. But for me ALWAYS a quick soundcheck after the linecheck.

I have a suspicion that one of my latest creations will be looked at with approval by some on this thread who probably think this is the best use for a speaker cab (although I will point out that I did this after using the speakers to fix the cabs shown in my earlier post, so yes one 4x10 died, but two other broken cabs were revived!)

This was done on analogue desks - not too difficult to set up and you can always mute the channel and mix as normal if you want to so long as the desk has a couple options for buses/sub-mixes. I agree, however, on the convenience of savings things on digital desks, however we currently use one that needs to be rebooted every time a new programme is loaded before it will apply changes which is a bit irritating - I think it's a Yamaha something or other but I generally stay away from it!

...and as variables go the overall sound of a band will be far more dependent on the muppet (or not) running the PA rather than the bass players choice of 10s or 15s! Someone above mentioned only ever using 12s as the sweet spot. I can see merit to that argument (merely becasue 12 falls between 10 and 15) but I think to say you ONLY use one size of speaker is a bit limiting. At the end of the day half the fun of playing electric instruments is trying different things be they pickups, pedals, amps or cabs. It's just interesting that certainly on this forum the choice of speaker size raises so many passions (there's possibly a rude joke in here somewhere... 🙂 )!

Thought I'd add a gratuitous rig picture only because I was playing it last night and it does sound awesome. The amp is a GP7 SM300 running into 2x10 and 4x10 cabs, although I would say these (the cabs) make a bigger difference to the sound than the different trace amps I have tried. I would suggest to the OP that going into the same cab many of the Trace amps will sound similar, but if you start changing the cab as well as the amp you will get a much bigger variation.

I've always viewed it that the best sound comes from an acoustically good room with an excellent PA, silent stage (IEMs), and all run by a competent engineer. But as we live in the real world FOH sound is a bit of a lottery, and so long as it isn't terrible punters are often not too picky. So if using an amp I generally only worry about what it sounds like where I am standing as the rest is well beyond my control. At the moment a combination of speaker sizes gives me a good sound, and my suspicion is that phase cancellation between the 10s and 15s/18s won't be the main variable that affects the front of house sound!

So I play a fair amount in churches that, certainly going back to the early 90s, have used projectors for songs/words rather than hymn books. This started off as acetate OHPs albeit some places made up and projected slides (which for whatever reason always had a dark blue background and white text!). But then from about twenty years ago (I make it around 2000ish) projectors have been pretty standard, with large screen TVs beginning to make an appearance over the last couple years. One main challenge is that there is almost always a good amount of daylight coming into the room so positioning of screens is really important no matter how powerful the projector. Also never ever put it behind the band - above the band or to the side of the band is fine, but having to avoid the projection while playing (and getting occasionally blinded) is a real pain. Short-throw projectors can work well, but they do seem to be less powerful. When the room is dark having a dark background for anything projected is a very good idea so as to avoid unwanted light pollution/inteference with any lighting rig. In a bright room during daytime the opposite works best.

Maybe ☝️ is the important thing. Mixing different speakers is a bit random but if it sounds good go for it. BUT trying to get more of a sound you already like by adding additional speakers is actually quite hard if you are not just adding more of the same. Thus said there is a caveman side of me that does think more is more.... 😈 🤘

I've used a bus configuration on a desk before, taking a pre-signal from all the channels with anticipated lower frequencies (bass, kick, keys and male vocals) and routing them all into a new channel where I have rolled off the highs and mids, and essentially used it just to control lower frequencies. I did this in acoustically challenging rooms when I did not want to touch the overall system EQ due to needing to control resonant frequencies etc. Also means that you can have more or less bass frequencies on a per song basis if you want. It's fun to do but I wouldn't say necessarily a game changer.

I think I got scared off by people saying you shouldn's mix speaker sizes, and given I prefer the sound of 2 or 4x10s over 1x15, kind of went down that route for the last ten years or so. But then when I hooked a 15 up again a few months back I realised that actually regardless of what people say online, the combination of speaker sizes do sound really good. As such I am returning to the 20th century view of a stack with one big 15/18 and some 10s regardless of cancellation or whatever else scaremongers might say...

If you are referring to my picture the top two cabs are the Trace Elliot compact 1153 and 2103X (I just took the badges off as I don't like them sideways)! And yes the 2103x had two 5 inch and two 10 inch drivers. Stingray is a translucent blue/green colour - possible my favourite colour for instruments!

I've got back into 15s and 18s this last year following about ten years of only playing 10s. Indeed I'm beginning to like the combination of 10s and 15s/18s in some of the following cabs. Yes I get that there can be cancellation when you do that however move slightly and it's not a problem! The combination just seems to give an interesting dimension to the sound for me. Current rig of favour: Two other fun options:

OP may want to check out some of the information on the thread below. Personally my preference is the SMX amps, but I think this is more for nostalgic reasons in that they were "the" amp at the time I was 18 and unable to afford one! I had a Mark V AH250 for a while but it was too heavy to be practical and I also didn't like how the little green buttons used to stick.

RE battery boxes, I've replaced them on both my stingrays (3EQ, 1998 & 2001) with the following which fits perfectly: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322826391603 RE the jack socket, I think you can get pretty close with standard parts: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265241820441

https://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/products/music-man-jack-for-sting-ray-3eq-old-2eq-and-gtrs-with-on-off-switches-mc244x?srsltid=AfmBOor93KWUEFtGm9gusGAklyBeKPmfOcrrj2MPPuPG4Fnt5OnU14dz

Yes this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Barrina-Blacklight-Aluminium-Fluorescent-Halloween/dp/B0CPHSLQTQ/ and poked the lead out through the old speakon input hole. It actually looks a lot cooler than in the pictures but doesn't quite photo so well. You get a neat glow through the tweeter as well. My daughter nabbed the other bar for her bedroom.

Behold - the finished cab drawers (and the other two cabs are very grateful for the speaker donation):

....and that's the project done (decided I could live with the wonky drawers)! Probably make a nice home for random pedals and leads - I'm actually tempted to take it with me to gigs as a way of storing things coz it looks so cool!

...and as it was a rainy afternoon got the drawers done. Not my best piece of woodwork - I may end up re-doing the drawers as while they do work there are a lot of rough edges. Also ended up riveting the bottom and back sections to the sides as screws were not working in the HDF. Also not happy with the lime green paint so have bought some fluorescent tape instead. Now just waiting for the tape and of course the black light to turn up...

..and lots more progress this morning thanks to the black spray paint drying really quickly. Also managed to get the first coat of a fluorescent lime green paint on ready for the black light which I have just ordered, and fitted the runners...

Happy Easter everyone. Had our pro drummer return for a visit at the service this morning. Neither of us could make the practice on Friday so we rocked up and just played - much easier to do when the drummer knows what he's doing! Finished with "Happy Day" which is quite a rocking song.

After cutting out most of the bracing fitted some support for the two drawers to attach and sanded everything down. Now ready to spray!