New BassChat 8"Cab design

[rwillett]

4 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Sounds like me getting ready for a night out.

 

My idea of a good night out is staying in!

[Phil Starr]

22 hours ago, rwillett said:

Phil

 

Thanks very much for the comprehensive reply. I actually understand it an awful lot better now.

 

Is there any disadvantage in more than one brace in the same direction? or using a sheet of plywood with holes as somebody else posted earlier in the thread? Or does this introduce all sorts of unknowns and a simple brace is better? Simplicity is best?

 

Thanks

 

Rob

Essentially any extra bracing is good, the downside is extra weight and more work to do. There is always going to be a point where extra bracing becomes silly and you might even have to increase the volume of the cab to accommodate it for very little and inaudible changes in the sound. You can see that @stevie and I take different positions where I am more minimalist. If I were building cabs commercially and had access to CNC cutting I'd probably go the way of the LFSys cabs and for FRFR cabs it's worth going the extra distance. My designs are intended to be as easy as possible, I build and trial all the designs and if there are no problems I publish them. In the case of the 8" cab the original was built for someone else and out of 18mm ply to match an existing cab. It needed no additional bracing. I re-designed the cab to make it fit more easily onto a sheet of ply and used 12mm ply because people here wanted some weight saving. The only serious panel resonance was solved by the brace in the picture and that is the cab I use so I'm happy to recommend it. I want people to build the cabs so I deliberately keep it 'easy build' which means as simple as possible.

 

Where we agree is that you should build the cab and try it, with or without the recommended brace. the cab is then customisable and it's good fun to try different bracing and stuffing. When I've done this in the past I've usually ended up removing the wadding except for the rear panel because I prefer the sound. I've seen how iterative your method is with the guitar builds so I know you are probably going to do this anyway  Maybe some printed braces are in order?

 

[rwillett]

52 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

Essentially any extra bracing is good, the downside is extra weight and more work to do. There is always going to be a point where extra bracing becomes silly and you might even have to increase the volume of the cab to accommodate it for very little and inaudible changes in the sound. You can see that @stevie and I take different positions where I am more minimalist. If I were building cabs commercially and had access to CNC cutting I'd probably go the way of the LFSys cabs and for FRFR cabs it's worth going the extra distance. My designs are intended to be as easy as possible, I build and trial all the designs and if there are no problems I publish them. In the case of the 8" cab the original was built for someone else and out of 18mm ply to match an existing cab. It needed no additional bracing. I re-designed the cab to make it fit more easily onto a sheet of ply and used 12mm ply because people here wanted some weight saving. The only serious panel resonance was solved by the brace in the picture and that is the cab I use so I'm happy to recommend it. I want people to build the cabs so I deliberately keep it 'easy build' which means as simple as possible.

 

Where we agree is that you should build the cab and try it, with or without the recommended brace. the cab is then customisable and it's good fun to try different bracing and stuffing. When I've done this in the past I've usually ended up removing the wadding except for the rear panel because I prefer the sound. I've seen how iterative your method is with the guitar builds so I know you are probably going to do this anyway  Maybe some printed braces are in order?

 

 

Phil

 

Appreciate the comments and I am absolutely not trying to make waves or cause a fuss, my questions are due to me being a complete novice/muppet/idiot* here. I will probably experiment as you say.

 

I wouldn't think that 3d printed braces would help as the plastic would be lighter than the wood, also I can't print something 364mm high on my printer. However I could join two pieces together and try that. Perhaps that's an idea, so I've not actually even started and I'm already making changes and thinking about mods, why do I do this to myself? I'm fool/muppet/idiot*

 

Thanks

Rob

* Delete where applicable

[Chienmortbb]

Just a though, would smaller braces, at an angle, to brace the sides, top, bottom to each other.

Edited 3 hours ago by Chienmortbb

[Obrienp]

2 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

Essentially any extra bracing is good, the downside is extra weight and more work to do. There is always going to be a point where extra bracing becomes silly and you might even have to increase the volume of the cab to accommodate it for very little and inaudible changes in the sound. You can see that @stevie and I take different positions where I am more minimalist. If I were building cabs commercially and had access to CNC cutting I'd probably go the way of the LFSys cabs and for FRFR cabs it's worth going the extra distance. My designs are intended to be as easy as possible, I build and trial all the designs and if there are no problems I publish them. In the case of the 8" cab the original was built for someone else and out of 18mm ply to match an existing cab. It needed no additional bracing. I re-designed the cab to make it fit more easily onto a sheet of ply and used 12mm ply because people here wanted some weight saving. The only serious panel resonance was solved by the brace in the picture and that is the cab I use so I'm happy to recommend it. I want people to build the cabs so I deliberately keep it 'easy build' which means as simple as possible.

 

Where we agree is that you should build the cab and try it, with or without the recommended brace. the cab is then customisable and it's good fun to try different bracing and stuffing. When I've done this in the past I've usually ended up removing the wadding except for the rear panel because I prefer the sound. I've seen how iterative your method is with the guitar builds so I know you are probably going to do this anyway  Maybe some printed braces are in order?

 

I’m a little puzzled as to how you experiment with braces once the cab is glued up, or are you just attaching the baffle with screws until you are ready to finalise the build?

[rwillett]

@Chienmortbb

 

I've gone from thinking how to make a small box 400mm x 300mm with a speaker in, to looking at bracing and wadding, to 3d printed vertical braces (that are too long to be printed) to a newer diagonal brace which is sqrt(150^2+200^2)= 221mm (which is printable) and I haven't brought the plywood yet

 

By tomorrow evening it will have probably evolved into a sentient life form....

 

Rob

[tauzero]

On 13/10/2025 at 22:46, Stub Mandrel said:

I once tried out a bass through a Crush 50, at any volume could only get overdriven tones whatever I did.

 

Later, when I was older and wiser I discovered the 'blend' control effectively pans from a clean channel to a dirt channel. If it's been left dialled to the dirty side, you'll get exactly the symptoms you describe. 

 

The blend control just made it quieter, so cab it is.

 

I've got the materials in, just need to start making sawdust which means I need a spell of good weather.

[Rosie C]

I've been um-ing and ah-ing about building a Bass Chat 8" cabinet. I mostly play from battery and my original plan was to use it with the 12V amp stripped from a Crate TX30. But in the end I sold the Crate and bought a Roland Cube Street Ex. Which is pretty good for bass ukulele, but I find very lacking for double bass. 

 

I used to have a Mark Bass Mini Marcus and a GR carbon fibre cabinet, which I sold to another bass chatter. I did find having separate amp and cabinet a bit of a nuisance - when trying to carry bass, amp, cab, gig bag from the car in one go. Then I had an Orange Crush 50, conveniently in one package but it was too heavy. Lately I've been managing with a Crush 25 which is a lovely little amp but lacks the oomph I sometimes need for gigging.

 

So I'm looking at the TE Elf combo (which seem fairly rare secondhand), and thinking how I might build one of the Bass chat cabs with some sort of capacity to house an Elf... anyone gone down this route?

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Rosie C

[rwillett]

3 minutes ago, Rosie C said:

I've been um-ing and ah-ing about building a Bass Chat 8" cabinet. I mostly play from battery and my original plan was to use it with the 12V amp stripped from a Crate TX30. But in the end I sold the Crate and bought a Roland Cube Street Ex. Which is pretty good for bass ukulele, but I find very lacking for double bass. 

 

I used to have a Mark Bass Mini Marcus and a GR carbon fibre cabinet, which I sold to another bass chatter. I did find having separate amp and cabinet a bit of a nuisance - when trying to carry bass, amp, cab, gig bag from the car in one go. Then I had an Orange Crush 50, conveniently in one package but it was too heavy. Lately I've been managing with a Crush 25 which is a lovely little amp but lacks the oomph I sometimes need for gigging.

 

So I'm looking at the TE Elf combo (which seem fairly rare secondhand), and thinking how I might build one of the Bass chat cabs with some sort of capacity to house an Elf... anyone gone down this route?

 

 

 

I am thinking about how to do the same with a Warwick Gnome and the Basschat 8" as well, but that'll have to wait until we've defeated Skynet as my speaker evolves into a Austrian accented killing machine, so probably Sunday afternoon....

[tauzero]

4 minutes ago, Rosie C said:

I've been um-ing and ah-ing about building a Bass Chat 8" cabinet. I mostly play from battery and my original plan was to use it with the 12V amp stripped from a Crate TX30. But in the end I sold the Crate and bought a Roland Cube Street Ex. Which is pretty good for bass ukulele, but I find very lacking for double bass. 

 

I used to have a Mark Bass Mini Marcus and a GR carbon fibre cabinet, which I sold to another bass chatter. I did find having separate amp and cabinet a bit of a nuisance - when trying to carry bass, amp, cab, gig bag from the car in one go. Then I had an Orange Crush 50, conveniently in one package but it was too heavy. Lately I've been managing with a Crush 25 which is a lovely little amp but lacks the oomph I sometimes need for gigging.

 

So I'm looking at the TE Elf combo (which seem fairly rare secondhand), and thinking how I might build one of the Bass chat cabs with some sort of capacity to house an Elf... anyone gone down this route?

 

Ibanez did this quite a few years ago with the original Promethean, and the GR Bass Cube combos are the same idea. You'd need to stretch the side panels back a bit to accommodate the Elf and leave the rear panel reasonably exposed for the mains and speaker leads.

[Rosie C]

3 minutes ago, rwillett said:

 

I am thinking about how to do the same with a Warwick Gnome 

 

Interesting. There are a few micro amps around, the killer feature for me would be an external power pack and DC input - like the early PJB double-4's. Then my speaker could evolve to have a battery pack, wheels, handle, laser weapon... 😉 

[tauzero]

4 minutes ago, rwillett said:

I am thinking about how to do the same with a Warwick Gnome and the Basschat 8" as well, but that'll have to wait until we've defeated Skynet as my speaker evolves into a Austrian accented killing machine, so probably Sunday afternoon....

 

Surely you'll just 3D print a sleeve for it and screw it to the back?

[rwillett]

1 minute ago, tauzero said:

 

Surely you'll just 3D print a sleeve for it and screw it to the back?

Probably, but it would be good to actually get the speaker built and tested first....

[tauzero]

2 minutes ago, rwillett said:

Probably, but it would be good to actually get the speaker built and tested first....

 

You'll want to put the orifice for the input sockets on the cab below where the head would come to, in anticipation of future developments.

[rwillett]

2 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

You'll want to put the orifice for the input sockets on the cab below where the head would come to, in anticipation of future developments.

Thats a good point, thanks

[Obrienp]

7 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

Ibanez did this quite a few years ago with the original Promethean, and the GR Bass Cube combos are the same idea. You'd need to stretch the side panels back a bit to accommodate the Elf and leave the rear panel reasonably exposed for the mains and speaker leads.

 

6 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

Surely you'll just 3D print a sleeve for it and screw it to the back?

I am thinking of doing something very similar with the 12” and a HB GPA-100 power amp, to make an active cab I can use with a preamp pedal. My idea is to stretch the side panels sufficiently to accommodate the amp in a compartment on the top of the cabinet, so the enclosure volume would remain the same. Taking the idea a step further, I could have the top, front and rear panels of the compartment lift off to be used as a wedge under the cabinet to tilt it up (one panel would have to be hinged so it could be folded flat to form the wedge). A full width compartment would provide sufficient space to store power and other cables in transit. 

[Pea Turgh]

Hey @Rosie C!  @JohnDaBass made a combo by modifying Phil’s plans;