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 yesterday at 12:53 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 yesterday at 13:58 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;

 

 

[Rosie C]

2 hours ago, Pea Turgh said:

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

 

 

 

Thank you, this is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind!

 

[Phil Starr]

18 hours ago, Obrienp said:

21 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

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?

You caught me

 

Because I am always tinkering, and these are always prototypes I always screw the baffle on so I can remove it to make modifications. You can fit side to side braces through the speaker cutout.

[rwillett]

Any recommendation for the glue to use please?

 

Just off to Skipton to collect the Plywood. 

[Phil Starr]

2 minutes ago, rwillett said:

Any recommendation for the glue to use please?

 

Just off to Skipton to collect the Plywood. 

Just use white woodworking glue (PVA) There are all sorts of additives they use to make it waterproof or quick setting but it is always stronger than the wood so it's not something to obsess over. Probably best to check the 'open' time which is usually 1-4hours in which time you can pull the cab apart if you've made a mistake but most of the brands will be fine. Once it is glued the bond will go on curing so it will get stronger over the next 24-48 hours. You can handle and even finish the cab but don't try standing on it during this time.

[Richard R]

12 minutes ago, rwillett said:

Just off to Skipton to collect the Plywood. 

 

My son volunteered at a youth camp near Grassington for a year after uni. They referred to Skipton as " The big metropolis"

 

[rwillett]

2 hours ago, Richard R said:

 

My son volunteered at a youth camp near Grassington for a year after uni. They referred to Skipton as " The big metropolis"

 

 

Grassington is lovely, since they film some of the Vets stuff there it's a lot more touristy. 

 

We looked at moving there when we came from London but chose Clapham instead. 

 

Skipton is a small market town. It has a genuine old castle and a really good Saturday market. It also has real night clubs according to my daughter. I would have no idea to be honest. There's great walks along the canal both north and south. You can cycle from Leeds to Skipton along the canal side. Quite easy apart from the locks at Bingley. 

[Richard R]

I did like Skipton. I think it was there that had the most upmarket Oxfam bookshop ever, no cheap paperbacks but first folio editions of properly expensive books.

 

None on bass cab building though 🙄 

[rwillett]

I now have the wood to make three of these, so I think I'll make two and the third one will be the extractor fan box for a spray booth. I got some of the wood from Skipton and still ended up in Kendal for other reasons, so tried B&Q. Their website says they have loads of 21mm x 21mm PSE in isle 35. Nope not a single piece of wood 21mm x 21mm. I forget why I never liked B&Q but its good to be reminded.

 

I have done the port already, clearly in red as I have an awful lot of that left  Not sure how I'll mount it but suspect I'll try silicone or possibly wood glue or if all else fails, three screws through. I'll try and make the port using a small hand router and print a routing template so I end up with a nice finish. Pity I can't easily print the whole cab  

 

 

Am going out now to fire up the circular saw. Wish me luck....I may be gone some time....

 

Rob