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Stevie’s 12” FRFR Cab Build Thread (Basschat Cab v3)


funkle

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2 hours ago, 6v6 said:

Hi all, not been on the forum for quite a while but just checked out this thread and the cab design looks great! 👍

I built a DIY cab back in 2013 (using the Beyma SM212, similar to the v1 basschat cab design) and it's been great, still gigging it now.

May get some bigger gigs soon, and also starting to use some FX which may benefit from a full-range cab (current one is only a single driver), so this new design looks ideal.

Would this likely pair OK with the existing cab or would it be better to build two (one with no mid/tweeter/crossover) as a modular solution?

Any info on the flatpack kits?  Looks like a great time-saver vs sourcing locally and cutting it all up myself 😀

 

Welcome back, helping you with your build also contributed to the MK1 design which led to myself and Stevie (also Lawrence and John) getting together etc etc… Glad you are still using the cabs.

You might want to build Stevie's design, he did much more work than I did on optimising the damping of the cab and reducing the weight. If not a really cheap method of upgrading suggests itself. One of the early iterations of Stevie's design (I think we called it the Mk2 was with a Celestion horn driver and an SM212. We did a shoot out last year at the bass bash down here with the mk2 and mk3 up against a Fearless and a MarkBass cab, whisper it quietly but my favourite was John's Mk2. There wasn't a lot in it to be fair, the Mk3 was louder and slightly more forward in the mids and the Fearless was bloody good too but you could relatively cheaply just add the crossover and horn to one of your existing cabs at just the cost of those plus a new baffle

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1 hour ago, Chienmortbb said:

Richard is correct. A lower cabinet with a limited top end will help, two full range cabinets is not such a good idea and Stevie has hinted at an idea to run a lower cabinet with a limited bandwidth. 

However I know he has been busy lately. I think that putting this cabinet on top of your "MK1" may work but it may be a bit middy. 

Keep an eye o this thread.

John didn't we try the Mk1 with one of your cabs?

 

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Thanks for the reply @Phil Starr - I actually only built one of the SM212 loaded cabs, that's been ample for the pub gigs I generally do - I will check out the Mk2 design though, as I'm pretty happy with the sound of the SM212 cab, so adding another with the same driver could be a good way to go.

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18 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

John didn't we try the Mk1 with one of your cabs?

 

We tried the Mk 3 on top of  my MK2. The MK2 had the horn stuffed with a micro fibre cloth and so it was effectively a single 12 with an 2 kHz LPF. 

The results were very encouraging although Stevie thinks 800Hz would be a better. The sound was not noticeably louder and there was no excessive LF/Bass but the lower cabinet seemed to reinforce the sound of the MK3. 

Edited by Chienmortbb
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23 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

...  two full range cabinets is not such a good idea ...

 

Slightly surprised to see this. Would you like to say any more to help me understand?  I've been using a pair of EA VL110s which are definitely full range cabinets, and they sound great together. 

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A little more progress on my build. After carefully leaving the top panel off till I'd done the felt, I put the top panel on, then realised I hadn't done the felt. Bah. Still, managed to get it done fairly easily. Left to do - sanding and filling, shaping edges, paint front panel, Tuffcab the rest, put it all together.

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On 31/01/2020 at 13:34, Chienmortbb said:

two full range cabinets is not such a good idea and Stevie has hinted at an idea to run a lower cabinet with a limited bandwidth. 

 

6 hours ago, pete.young said:

Slightly surprised to see this. Would you like to say any more to help me understand?  I've been using a pair of EA VL110s which are definitely full range cabinets, and they sound great together. 

I don't think it is a bad idea but just that there are 'issues' which will affect the sound, some good some not so good. The important thing though is that if what you have sounds good it is good. It's what your bass sounds like that matters. If an Ampeg 8x10 sounds great for the sound you are aiming for it may be loads of cheap drivers in an inappropriately designed box but it isn't 'wrong', for anyone who wants that sound it's just a set of compromises that work.

The plus side of using two cabs is that you get more sound, 3dB from doubling the power and 3dB from greater efficiency at the lower frequencies. That means you can turn the amp down everything runs cooler so you don't get thermal compression and you don't overload stuff and get distortion so easily.

The downside is that if two drivers are producing the same sounds but are separated in space by something in the region of a wavelength you can get cancellation or reinforcement and it messes up your frequency response and radiation pattern. 

If you put the two cabs on top of each other so the speakers are vertically aligned then this will only happen in the vertical plane, side to side you will be fine. That means it will be fine for the audience in most cases. If you are using two cabs stack them with the drivers in line to get the best out of them, which is probably what you do anyway.

Stevie is engineering a system, he only wants the lower frequencies reinforced and he is trying to control the vertical plane so the bassist hears what the audience hear, so he doesn't want the frequencies above 800Hz interacting and filtering them out of the 'sub' makes perfect sense.

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19 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

 

I don't think it is a bad idea but just that there are 'issues' which will affect the sound, some good some not so good. The important thing though is that if what you have sounds good it is good. It's what your bass sounds like that matters. If an Ampeg 8x10 sounds great for the sound you are aiming for it may be loads of cheap drivers in an inappropriately designed box but it isn't 'wrong', for anyone who wants that sound it's just a set of compromises that work.

The plus side of using two cabs is that you get more sound, 3dB from doubling the power and 3dB from greater efficiency at the lower frequencies. That means you can turn the amp down everything runs cooler so you don't get thermal compression and you don't overload stuff and get distortion so easily.

The downside is that if two drivers are producing the same sounds but are separated in space by something in the region of a wavelength you can get cancellation or reinforcement and it messes up your frequency response and radiation pattern. 

If you put the two cabs on top of each other so the speakers are vertically aligned then this will only happen in the vertical plane, side to side you will be fine. That means it will be fine for the audience in most cases. If you are using two cabs stack them with the drivers in line to get the best out of them, which is probably what you do anyway.

Stevie is engineering a system, he only wants the lower frequencies reinforced and he is trying to control the vertical plane so the bassist hears what the audience hear, so he doesn't want the frequencies above 800Hz interacting and filtering them out of the 'sub' makes perfect sense.

I probably should have said it is not ideal  to run two full range cabinets and Stevie aims for a no compromise approach. 

Phil has explained  better than I could, but if we ignore the issues Phil mentions, there are real benefits for the DIY builder. 

These  are weight, not using the compression driver and horn saves about 0.5Kg or over one pound weight.

Secondly, cost. A good comp driver and horn with cost £70+. 

Two commercial cabinets may sound great but as we are building ourselves, the cost and weight saving make it more than worthwhile,
 

 

 

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Taxi...

Just some proud dad photos of #16 finished. Big thanks to Stevie, Phil, Chienmortbb and all involved in the design. Also thanks to funkle and all the other posters on this thread enabling me to actually have some idea how to build it! My build was pretty much as described. Finished with 4 coats of Tuffcab pro, Grille background is 3 coats of Fascinating Finishes Aerosol Grey Acid Etch primer. Final weight came out at 14.5kg per the bathroom scales.

Artwork for the grille courtesy of my 11 year old daughter.

BC Cab - from front.jpg

BC Cab - from above.jpg

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2 hours ago, RichardH said:

Bit more progress on my build.... 

Ready for the edges to be sanded flush and then rounded over. 

 

Rebated handle with backing/damping behind.

 

Ditto for the back connection panel

 

 

How did yhou find the etch primer? The spray one I used was not tghat good and I need to startt again on the grilee.

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27 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

How did yhou find the etch primer? The spray one I used was not tghat good and I need to startt again on the grilee.

I'm guessing this was for me since RichardH didn't mention primer.

There was protective plastic film on one side of my grille which I took off then I lightly sanded both sides of the grille before painting (I think with 100 grit from memory).The Fascinating Finishes Aerosol went on beautifully (usual precautions required of breathing protection and good ventilation - it's nasty stuff) and looks great with really good coverage after a couple of coats. I did have one spot where, when I was taping down the stencil for the artwork on the front, the tape (packing tape since I'd run out of masking tape) pulled off a small amount of the finish on the back of the grille in one spot. Easily touched up but slightly worrying - possibly caused by over-eagerness to get the artwork done so not waiting long enough for the primer to fully dry/cure/go off/whatever etch primer is supposed to do. Other than that in its short life I've not had any problems with durability yet, but really too early to tell on that front.

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1 hour ago, OzJzF said:

I'm guessing this was for me since RichardH didn't mention primer.

There was protective plastic film on one side of my grille which I took off then I lightly sanded both sides of the grille before painting (I think with 100 grit from memory).The Fascinating Finishes Aerosol went on beautifully (usual precautions required of breathing protection and good ventilation - it's nasty stuff) and looks great with really good coverage after a couple of coats. I did have one spot where, when I was taping down the stencil for the artwork on the front, the tape (packing tape since I'd run out of masking tape) pulled off a small amount of the finish on the back of the grille in one spot. Easily touched up but slightly worrying - possibly caused by over-eagerness to get the artwork done so not waiting long enough for the primer to fully dry/cure/go off/whatever etch primer is supposed to do. Other than that in its short life I've not had any problems with durability yet, but really too early to tell on that front.

Thanks that helps.

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10 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

What standoffs were used?

Stevie supplied 4x triangular (for the corners) and 2x rectangular (for the sides) wood standoffs with the 2nd round of flat pack kits for those of us planning to use the aluminium grille. Not sure exactly how tall (same as the battens I assume but I didn't check). With foam tape on top of them, my grille has ended up being only slightly recessed - maybe 1-2mm

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For builders who haven't got round to fitting the grille yet, and others who are cutting their own wood, the four corner standoffs are triangular in shape, made from 21 (or 20mm) x 30mm softwood batten. The height is 21mm and the outside dimensions of the triangles are 30mm x 30mm.

You simply glue them into the corners and paint them the same colour as the baffle. You can also cut two rectangular pieces 30mm x 12mm from the batten and glue them to the sides of the cab. Once you've painted them, stick some of the thin foam strip onto them that you used under the handle.

Builders who had kits from the last batch received these parts along with the 4.8mm x 19mm flange-headed screws and M4 neoprene washers.

At a guess, a full picture-frame batten in 20mm softwood weighs close to half a kg. So using the standoffs not only saves time but it also gives you a useful weight saving.

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Hey!

I finally finished the cab on Thursday and used it on a gig yesterday! I'm happy with the sound, just have to figure out a good position for it so I hear myself In a good way. I had it on a pno chair yesterday and the was fine but at times I heard too much highs because the horn is higher up in the cab. I was thinking to maybe add a mount for a speaker stand and put it up higher so I get a full sound from behind even with a loud drummer, especially when there is a PA and it's mostly for my stage sound. But maybe it's smarter to put it on the floor and tilt it so it faces upwards to have more low and I guess especially when there's no pa it might sound better for the audience 🤔.

The option of the v1 of the cab combined with v3 is really appealing also. that definitely would sound awesome, just a lot to carry😅

I used it with an acoustic image top and blended microphone and pickup. That works pretty well for double bass, a Fullrange cab with an uncolored top. 👌🏽 I have to experiment more but I was pretty happy with the sound and got good feedback also from the audience! 

The grill I got is a bit thin so it needed more support and I think I'll actually buy some pieces of wood to make a nice frame for it. For more I just had to improvise and I also added some screws to make it solid before the gig.

 

 

 

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Yes, excellent work Jonannes. The grille material is a great choice for the natural wood finish – it's fencing panel if I'm  not mistaken. To make a picture-frame grille, use some pine batten - width between 9 and 11mm and depth 18-21mm.

As far as positioning the cab is concerned, it's been designed to be flat response on the ground. If you raise it up, like in your photo, you'll lose some bottom end, which you could also interpret as having too much top end.

Don't worry about not being able to hear yourself. The horn directs the mids and highs that get lost in traditional cabs towards the player's ears. The other benefit of having a proper compression driver/CD horn crossing low down is that the mids and highs that are a vital part of the sound of the bass reach the audience properly. In traditional bass cabs, these frequencies get lost the further back you go. Which leads to the muffled, indistinct bass tone we've all heard a thousand times.

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2 hours ago, stevie said:

Yes, excellent work Jonannes. The grille material is a great choice for the natural wood finish – it's fencing panel if I'm  not mistaken. To make a picture-frame grille, use some pine batten - width between 9 and 11mm and depth 18-21mm.

As far as positioning the cab is concerned, it's been designed to be flat response on the ground. If you raise it up, like in your photo, you'll lose some bottom end, which you could also interpret as having too much top end.

Don't worry about not being able to hear yourself. The horn directs the mids and highs that get lost in traditional cabs towards the player's ears. The other benefit of having a proper compression driver/CD horn crossing low down is that the mids and highs that are a vital part of the sound of the bass reach the audience properly. In traditional bass cabs, these frequencies get lost the further back you go. Which leads to the muffled, indistinct bass tone we've all heard a thousand times.


Thanks! I first ordered a grill from bluearaan but they said they can't ship these things anymore for some reason. Then I found a company in rotterdam and called them ordering this model that I found on their spreadsheet (without pictures). Wasnt quite sure what I'll get but it turned out nice 😅

And thanks for sending the dimensions for the frame, I'm gonna add  it when I have time. That will make it even more solid💪

I should have asked about the positioning before, only thought about it on the gig. I'll definitely have it on the ground  next time, looking forward to test that!

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