15 or not 15? What do you think?

[BigRedX]

2 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

 

There is/could be an argument that the sound you are creating is 'your' sound and it is what you want the audience to hear, they have no say in how it should be... good or bad.    

 

I suppose it's a bit like your Helix generated tone that is sculpted by you, to your exacting spec.  The audience don't get to choose how that sounds, indeed you are reliant on the FOH for the final tone and I've seen many PA set ups that are a dog's dinner (hired in pub/club); we've all read that subs need to be placed 'x' distance apart or located next/on top of each other... yet I see more 15" mid/tops mounted on poles above 15" subs 20 feet apart.    However, we digress back to another BC favourite!  LOL

 

I've played in bands where various members seem to want it sound like the recording on stage, and I have a admit that in the past I was like that too, but now I've realised that so long as I can tell I'm in tune and in time with the rest of the band, that will do me. IMO it's more important to sound good FoH because the audience are the people who are hopefully going to say nice things about the band on social media, buy our merch, and come back and see us play again. If it sounds great on stage too, that's a bonus, but it's the great songs that fire me up for a performance not a perfect on-stage sound. We spend as much time working on the band mix in the rehearsal room as do practicing playing the songs together, so getting a good FoH sound is generally fairly easy. During the sound check I'll go out front and make some suggestions if I think there are obvious problems with the band's overall sound, but in a way I'm lucky in that I play both "bass" and "guitar" parts with my Bass VI and once the "guitar" sounds right the bass will be right too.

[SimonK]

3 hours ago, BigRedX said:

However, if you rely on your rig to project your bass sound into the whole venue, then what sounds awesome when you are stood next to it may well sound entirely different out in the audience and not necessarily in a good way due to the different dispersal characteristics and the drivers and the cabs they are contained in.

 

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!

[Musicman20]

19 hours ago, Bagman said:

I used the Black Widow 15" from Peavey cabinet for many years - hundreds of gigs

Same. Absolutely loved that cab. I had the 4x10 to 'match' but used the 1x15 for most things. mid 90s to mid 00s.

 

The Trace cabs sounds far superior, tone wise, in that video. It will give up volume wise because it's an old 1x15 that was no doubt rated for lower wattage amps.

 

If a manufacturer can design a 1x15 cab with that high mid/treble detail, but to handle say 400W and be as light as possible, that would be great. 

 

I later had the Orange 4x10 and 1x15 setup with the AD200b Mk3 - sold that years ago. The 1x15 was fantastic, again.

Edited yesterday at 15:19 by Musicman20

[W1_Pro]

I use a Markbass 1x15" combo (not the Jeff Berlin one) and a 1x15" extension cabinet. I like it. Its a nice compromise between musicality and carryability IMHO. Always had a soft spot for 15's.....

Edited yesterday at 13:57 by W1_Pro

[BigRedX]

A lot of the time the most cost-effective thing bands could do to improve their FoH sound would be to employ someone as a sound engineer for all their gigs rather than spending more money on gear. I've been in two bands in the past that had their own dedicated FoH engineer and the difference it made to our live sound was massive. The engineer for one band even used to attend rehearsals so that he was completely knowledgable about the new songs we had written and were rehearsing for inclusion into the set.

[Bolo]

Never 15. 12s for me.

[Chienmortbb]

To judge those 15s, you must listen using decent headphones or speakers. As I heard it, the Trace sounded best followed by the Barefaced next and the Markbass sounded like a P bass with 90-year-old rounds on, no clarity at all.  I know that Markbass cabs are Marmite. In a cab shoot-out. In consequent years, at the South west Bass Bash, Markbass were voted best and worst cabs.

 

In 2025 surely the benefit of 12s and 10s, in a well-designed cab has been proven. Cabs for Barefaced and LFSys have proven that 12s are the modern sweet spot for bass, especially when crossed-over properly to a decent compression driver horn combination That gives you the benefits of that Trace 15 with the power handling to go loud.  Even the simple crossover on the BC110T sounds better than most commercial cabs.

 

[Chienmortbb]

4 hours ago, BigRedX said:

A lot of the time the most cost-effective thing bands could do to improve their FoH sound would be to employ someone as a sound engineer for all their gigs rather than spending more money on gear. I've been in two bands in the past that had their own dedicated FoH engineer and the difference it made to our live sound was massive.

 I agree, but Sound Techs vary.  I saw a band two weeks ago where the singer (a great singer *) was singing in a band and as the band were introduced, she thanked her Dad on the IPad? Her Dad, a drummer, but clearly no Sound Tech as the sound was shite all night. Sadly I have seen big names with a so-called pro Sound Tech sound shite as the Bass drum was eq'd and compressed to within an inch of the audiences' life. Every time the drummer hit the bass drum, the rest was obliterated for 2–3 seconds.

 

*Aimi Knight, I know he is on Apple Music, not sure about Spotify.

[BigRedX]

10 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

 I agree, but Sound Techs vary.

 

Absolutely. The whole point of having your own Sound tech is to have a good one who knows how your band is supposed to sound.

[SimonK]

4 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

Absolutely. The whole point of having your own Sound tech is to have a good one who knows how your band is supposed to sound.

 

...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... 🙂 )!

 

 

[neepheid]

5 minutes ago, SimonK said:

 

...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... 🙂 )!

 

 

 

Well, in an ideal world, free from constraints (for example monetary or physical space) then I'd be trying whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Life's not like that. Limits exist. As I said before, the reason I won't touch 15" cabs with a bargepole is mostly because they won't fit in my car. It has nothing to do with them being 15s, they just don't fit into my life and the way I want to live it.

 

Also, frankly I'm just not that excited about amps and cabs. To me, they're a necessary component in order to make noise and that's about it. Apart from the 30W practice amp I started with, I've only owned 4 amps and 4 cabs in about 20 years, and almost always one at a time.

 

Amps. Cabs. Eh, I'd rather buy another bass.

[BigRedX]

16 minutes ago, neepheid said:

Also, frankly I'm just not that excited about amps and cabs. To me, they're a necessary component in order to make noise and that's about it. Apart from the 30W practice amp I started with, I've only owned 4 amps and 4 cabs in about 20 years, and almost always one at a time.

 

Amps. Cabs. Eh, I'd rather buy another bass.

 

Exactly. One of the many reason why I no longer use a bass amp and cabs and go straight into the PA. The big rig might have looked impressive on stage, but for most of the gigs I played it was at best a personal monitor and a lot of the time simply a big, heavy and expensive stage prop.

 

It seems completely backwards to me that the bass players who benefit most from having expensive amps and cabs are those who are technically on the lowest rung of the gigging ladder playing pubs with a vocal-only PA. That's an observation and not a slight on those playing pubs, but from experience the bigger the venue and stage the less important the personal amplification for the bass player becomes (see my experience above). Only when you get to play really big venues where there is room for acoustic screening around the backline and the cabs can be isolated and mic'd up, do expensive rigs start to make sense again.

 

For me any spare cash would be better spent on studio time for the band with a great producer.

[W1_Pro]

14 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

To judge those 15s, you must listen using decent headphones or speakers. As I heard it, the Trace sounded best followed by the Barefaced next and the Markbass sounded like a P bass with 90-year-old rounds on, no clarity at all.  I know that Markbass cabs are Marmite. In a cab shoot-out. In consequent years, at the South west Bass Bash, Markbass were voted best and worst cabs.

 

In 2025 surely the benefit of 12s and 10s, in a well-designed cab has been proven. Cabs for Barefaced and LFSys have proven that 12s are the modern sweet spot for bass, especially when crossed-over properly to a decent compression driver horn combination That gives you the benefits of that Trace 15 with the power handling to go loud.  Even the simple crossover on the BC110T sounds better than most commercial cabs.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head in your post. Its subjective. People like different stuff at different times...even the same time...for different reasons.  Red also made a valid point which is almost certainly correct (IMHO anyway) about a sensible use of band cash would be sacking the backline altogether and paying an engineer.  However, lots of people still use Marshall stacks in unfeasible multiples. I've been following that heavy metal band from Doncaster (can't remember their name) who've been supporting Airbourne on thier European Tour. I think I counted twelve stacks (so 24 boxes) which most of the time they seem to have to carry in and out of the gig themselves. None of this is rational. At all. 

[BigRedX]

17 minutes ago, W1_Pro said:

I've been following that heavy metal band from Doncaster (can't remember their name) who've been supporting Airbourne on thier European Tour. I think I counted twelve stacks (so 24 boxes) which most of the time they seem to have to carry in and out of the gig themselves.

 

I suspect that at least some (if not most) of them were empty lightweight boxes just for show.

 

There's nothing wrong with having an image and the wall of cabs is almost mandatory in some genres. 

[Chienmortbb]

Irrational? I have been extolling the virtues of single 10s and 12s for some time but can I get rid of that feeling that I need a second to stack? It would  mean that I did not need to bend to adjust my amp but is that worth another outlay of £700-900? 
 

Bass cab therapy anyone?

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

33 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

I suspect that at least some (if not most) of them were empty lightweight boxes just for show.

 

There's nothing wrong with having an image and the wall of cabs is almost mandatory in some genres. 

And for that there's this:

[Musicman20]

59 minutes ago, W1_Pro said:

I think you hit the nail on the head in your post. Its subjective. People like different stuff at different times...even the same time...for different reasons.  Red also made a valid point which is almost certainly correct (IMHO anyway) about a sensible use of band cash would be sacking the backline altogether and paying an engineer.  However, lots of people still use Marshall stacks in unfeasible multiples. I've been following that heavy metal band from Doncaster (can't remember their name) who've been supporting Airbourne on thier European Tour. I think I counted twelve stacks (so 24 boxes) which most of the time they seem to have to carry in and out of the gig themselves. None of this is rational. At all. 

I've seen their social media. Fair play to them, that is a LOT of work. I wouldn't personally bother hahahaa.

[Lozz196]

1 hour ago, W1_Pro said:

However, lots of people still use Marshall stacks in unfeasible multiples. I've been following that heavy metal band from Doncaster (can't remember their name) who've been supporting Airbourne on thier European Tour. I think I counted twelve stacks (so 24 boxes) which most of the time they seem to have to carry in and out of the gig themselves. None of this is rational. At all. 

Asomvel - just did a search, I’d never heard of them til this post but gonna get their latest CD, must be a great eve both them and Airbourne.

[W1_Pro]

Asomovel. Thats the one. Thanks Lozz.  A proper old fashioned heavy metal band and the bass player uses a rather lovely Washburn B20.  I have a feeling (responding to Reds point above) from watching their social media all of the boxes are real and loaded. I remember a couple of gigs I did about thirty five years ago with Saxon (in a very lowly PA tech type capacity). They were doing small rooms and we were touring a PA. Biffs only rule was that everything had to go in.  A 45' trailer of Martin F2 plus twenty eight Marshall 4x12's.  All of them loaded with four speakers. That was hard work.

Edited 2 hours ago by W1_Pro

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

2 hours ago, W1_Pro said:

  I have a feeling (responding to Reds point above) from watching their social media all of the boxes are real and loaded.

Could be, but plugged in? the last time I saw ZZ Top they had two dozen or so Magnatones on the stage.  I asked their road manager how many they were actually using. He told me Billy and Dusty were using two apiece, the rest were 'eye candy for the kiddies'. 😄