Which bass speakers to buy

[Andrew Truscott]

Hi everyone. My name is Andrew and I have been playing bass for 56 years, when career allowed. At last after retiring I have formed my dream band which is a tribute to FREE and BAD COMPANY, although to me it's really all about FREE. I own a 1973 Gibson EB3 and play through an Orange Terror 500w amp with valve pre-amp, into a lightweight Bareface 1 x 12" (maybe 700w) cab + a Lightweight Orange 1 x12" 400w cab. For years I have been focussed on getting those punchy, overdriven but precise notes that Andy Fraser produced with Free. I have the right guitar, although maybe 6 years newer, and I play through the bridge pickup and use my fingers close to the bridge, so I have got close to his style. What alludes is the tone. I can get pretty close but never clean enough and I wondered if anyone has a view about gear, especially speaker cabs. At our local studio I use their huge Roland 4 x 10" combo and with everything set flat this gives the right sound, but at 73 years old I am past lugging big gear and I only use light weight now. Does anyone think using 10" speakers, like the Roland, would add more clarity?    

[SpondonBassed]

Welcome Andrew.

[SpondonBassed]

Paging @Phil Starr.

 

You seem to have a good understanding of cones and horns and the boxes they are mounted in...

 

Andrew (above) is search for his holy grail.  Failing that... he'll settle for a good reproduction of Andy Fraser's tone

[ezbass]

Can’t help you with your tone question, unfortunately, but 

[Phil Starr]

1 hour ago, SpondonBassed said:

Paging @Phil Starr.

 

You seem to have a good understanding of cones and horns and the boxes they are mounted in...

 

Andrew (above) is search for his holy grail.  Failing that... he'll settle for a good reproduction of Andy Fraser's tone

 

That's kind but I'm better at theory than I am at tones. I'll do my best for Andrew though. I had a quick look and at the Isle of Wight in 1970 Andy Fraser was standing in front of a couple of full Marshall stacks and there seems to ba a WEM stack over there too. The only one I could see clearly was  a couple of 4x12's with 100W valve amps on top. The nearest one seemed to be guitar cabs and the ones stage right looked a little chunkier and may have had different drivers in. However it was common in those days to split the guitar and bass stacks cross the stage so they were both sides of the drummer and guitar and bassist could hear each other. Something I used to do at the time when doing sound for bands. In 1971 Jim Marshall was still serving in the shop in Cricklewood and building amps himself as I found out when he remembered building the amp I took in to the shop for some spares. Yes Andrew I know what it is like to be 73

 

I suppose what I'm saying is that in those days there were very few purpose built speakers for instruments and free may have had things made up specially for them. Bassists were quit likely to use the same drivers as guitarists so that may be part of his sound. Certainly there isn't a lot of deep bass and not a lot of top end in the tne he has there. The studio tone is probably the result of a miked cab and DI mixed. Anyway i had a good time listening to the live tracks on the Free Story which was fun.

 

So yes in general the tone you hear is that of lots of cheap drivers packed together in a big cab, lot's of 10's is really more of a late 70's early eighties thing and I think he might have used 12's for live work as above. In any case it's more about the individual speaker rather than it's size so you can get similar tones from 10's 12's or 15's. I suppose I'm saying buy a cab because it sounds right not because it has a 10" driver. 

 

You have two possible approaches. You could probably achieve something close to that tone in the studio taking the output straight from your bass and eq'ing it after it's recorded, maybe adding in some fx too. On stage you can do the same by using a neutral toned/flat response cab (FRFR) Nowadays you can get bass cabs that will do the same job as a studio monitor like the LFSys range and there are all sorts of tone settings you can download where someone else has done the work. You won't be the only Andy Fraser fan. It's even possible that someone has recorded the bass and used a computer to work out the response of the cab. You then feed that into your Barefaced which has a reasonably flat response

 

The second approach would be to look for a cab engineered to give an old school sound. The Barefaced One10 mcomes to mind but I think that will be a bit warmer than the Free live sound. You can add in fx and tweak the eq to get closer to the sound you want. Other people will be better at guiding you then me. Apart from anything else I've got considerable hearing loss from standing too close to big speakers and even bigger drummers too often.

 

Welcome to BassChat

[Stub Mandrel]

From photos, I'd be pretty confident that Andy Fraser used 4x12 cabs with his Marshall 100W bass heads.

 

I think his tone was mostly in his fingers.

[chris_b]

In the 70's very few club players, even the well known ones were playing pristine gear. The drivers in the cabs, mostly 412's, could be any combination of replacement speakers.

 

What makes me like those guys is what they played not how they sounded.

[Phil Starr]

No help in getting his tone other than understanding where it was coming from. Go back to the 1950's and there were no proper musical instrument speakers in the UK though Fender and others were building guitar combos inthe States. Materials used in building loudspeakers were still primitive, magnets were weaker, speaker coil often wound on paper formers and glued on with domestic adhesives. Amps were all valve jobs and usually limited in power. the first Fender amp was 7W and drove an 8" speaker. PA's were designed for public address rather than music, usually column speakers and adopted by bands. The real problem was volume, just being loud enough to be heard at all. The vox AC30 was a revolution followed very quickly by other companies including Marshall. 

 

You'll notice tha 30W was seen as a powerful amp and the AC30 needed two 12" speakers to handle the power. 25W was the handling of the typical 12" speaker in the sixties because the heat in the coil literally burned the paper formers andbroke down the glue. Because of the magnets lack of power the cones were made lighter to get more volume and the magnet gap was limited to increase the efficiency, meaning excursion was limited and there was little bass output. If you used a single 4x12 Marshall you'd need to pair it with a 50W amp if you wanted it to last very long. We suffered many blown speakers then and re-coning was pretty common. 1970 was a bit of a turning point, ceramic magnets came into wide use, heat resistant adhesives and formers increased power handling and the money generated by bands meant specialist music speakers were being designed. The first 100W solid state amps were recently introduced and though unreliable they were a bit cheaper and a lot lighter than the old valve amps. Power available was about to take off. The USA was a way ahead of the UK but both knowledge and physical imports were trickling in. Just as importantly Thiele and Small published their papers on speakers and we finally had some solid mathematical theory to bring to cab design. 

 

Free would have known nothing of this. Most UK companies were still building gear using 25-30W 12" speakers with a few 15's and 18's used for bass. Celestion, Goodmans and Fane dominated the British market. That's waht you are hearing in the Andy Fraser sound, bass is limited by excursion and lightweight cones, the lower mids are boosted to give a semblance of bass and to bring out the bass and make it sit just below the guitars. Those thin paper cones would be breaking up and giving a boost in the mids but very little output at high frequencies and they wouldn't have been using horns at this stage. Few bassists would have been using ported cabs in the UK as the theory for designing them just wasn't there, we could tune a cab but not match it to the physical and electrical characteristics of the speaker. 

 

One of the things that struck me last night listening to the live recordings is how well the bass works with the guitars in the mix, musicians in those days used their ears to work within the limits of their gear to create a great sound. Now that is creativity  They were so young too!

[chris_b]

My Marshall 412 was rated at 50 watts, that's 12 1/2watts per driver. Most cabs were 30" square because that was the smallest size that would fit 4 x 12 drivers. The bottom cab in a stack was sometimes larger, but I didn't like those because they were much heavier. There was no science in our sound in the 70's.

 

I think bass and guitar worked together because we didn't have "bass". The best we could hope for was low mids, and lots of bass lines were also played up the neck.

[SpondonBassed]

 

3 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

No help in getting his tone other than understanding where it was coming from.

 

That's why I called you.

 

Don't tell yourself short.  Your posts on speaker design are both fascinating and helpful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chris_b]

There is an Aguilar TH500 and 2 SL112's in the Classifieds. They will get you as close to a vintage sound as you can get in a sensible, well designed package. If Andy Frazer was playing today, and carrying his own gear, I'm sure he'd be using Aguilar.

[ian61]

There's TV studio footage of them in Germany with Marshall, Hi-Watt BL which seems live and he sounds exactly the same so I would imagine as with many of us he sounds the same whatever he's playing due to his bass, strings, and technique.

[Andrew Truscott]

19 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

 

That's kind but I'm better at theory than I am at tones. I'll do my best for Andrew though. I had a quick look and at the Isle of Wight in 1970 Andy Fraser was standing in front of a couple of full Marshall stacks and there seems to ba a WEM stack over there too. The only one I could see clearly was  a couple of 4x12's with 100W valve amps on top. The nearest one seemed to be guitar cabs and the ones stage right looked a little chunkier and may have had different drivers in. However it was common in those days to split the guitar and bass stacks cross the stage so they were both sides of the drummer and guitar and bassist could hear each other. Something I used to do at the time when doing sound for bands. In 1971 Jim Marshall was still serving in the shop in Cricklewood and building amps himself as I found out when he remembered building the amp I took in to the shop for some spares. Yes Andrew I know what it is like to be 73

 

I suppose what I'm saying is that in those days there were very few purpose built speakers for instruments and free may have had things made up specially for them. Bassists were quit likely to use the same drivers as guitarists so that may be part of his sound. Certainly there isn't a lot of deep bass and not a lot of top end in the tne he has there. The studio tone is probably the result of a miked cab and DI mixed. Anyway i had a good time listening to the live tracks on the Free Story which was fun.

 

So yes in general the tone you hear is that of lots of cheap drivers packed together in a big cab, lot's of 10's is really more of a late 70's early eighties thing and I think he might have used 12's for live work as above. In any case it's more about the individual speaker rather than it's size so you can get similar tones from 10's 12's or 15's. I suppose I'm saying buy a cab because it sounds right not because it has a 10" driver. 

 

You have two possible approaches. You could probably achieve something close to that tone in the studio taking the output straight from your bass and eq'ing it after it's recorded, maybe adding in some fx too. On stage you can do the same by using a neutral toned/flat response cab (FRFR) Nowadays you can get bass cabs that will do the same job as a studio monitor like the LFSys range and there are all sorts of tone settings you can download where someone else has done the work. You won't be the only Andy Fraser fan. It's even possible that someone has recorded the bass and used a computer to work out the response of the cab. You then feed that into your Barefaced which has a reasonably flat response

 

The second approach would be to look for a cab engineered to give an old school sound. The Barefaced One10 mcomes to mind but I think that will be a bit warmer than the Free live sound. You can add in fx and tweak the eq to get closer to the sound you want. Other people will be better at guiding you then me. Apart from anything else I've got considerable hearing loss from standing too close to big speakers and even bigger drummers too often.

 

Welcome to BassChat

19 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

 

That's kind but I'm better at theory than I am at tones. I'll do my best for Andrew though. I had a quick look and at the Isle of Wight in 1970 Andy Fraser was standing in front of a couple of full Marshall stacks and there seems to ba a WEM stack over there too. The only one I could see clearly was  a couple of 4x12's with 100W valve amps on top. The nearest one seemed to be guitar cabs and the ones stage right looked a little chunkier and may have had different drivers in. However it was common in those days to split the guitar and bass stacks cross the stage so they were both sides of the drummer and guitar and bassist could hear each other. Something I used to do at the time when doing sound for bands. In 1971 Jim Marshall was still serving in the shop in Cricklewood and building amps himself as I found out when he remembered building the amp I took in to the shop for some spares. Yes Andrew I know what it is like to be 73

 

I suppose what I'm saying is that in those days there were very few purpose built speakers for instruments and free may have had things made up specially for them. Bassists were quit likely to use the same drivers as guitarists so that may be part of his sound. Certainly there isn't a lot of deep bass and not a lot of top end in the tne he has there. The studio tone is probably the result of a miked cab and DI mixed. Anyway i had a good time listening to the live tracks on the Free Story which was fun.

 

So yes in general the tone you hear is that of lots of cheap drivers packed together in a big cab, lot's of 10's is really more of a late 70's early eighties thing and I think he might have used 12's for live work as above. In any case it's more about the individual speaker rather than it's size so you can get similar tones from 10's 12's or 15's. I suppose I'm saying buy a cab because it sounds right not because it has a 10" driver. 

 

You have two possible approaches. You could probably achieve something close to that tone in the studio taking the output straight from your bass and eq'ing it after it's recorded, maybe adding in some fx too. On stage you can do the same by using a neutral toned/flat response cab (FRFR) Nowadays you can get bass cabs that will do the same job as a studio monitor like the LFSys range and there are all sorts of tone settings you can download where someone else has done the work. You won't be the only Andy Fraser fan. It's even possible that someone has recorded the bass and used a computer to work out the response of the cab. You then feed that into your Barefaced which has a reasonably flat response

 

The second approach would be to look for a cab engineered to give an old school sound. The Barefaced One10 mcomes to mind but I think that will be a bit warmer than the Free live sound. You can add in fx and tweak the eq to get closer to the sound you want. Other people will be better at guiding you then me. Apart from anything else I've got considerable hearing loss from standing too close to big speakers and even bigger drummers too often.

 

Welcome to BassChat

 

[Andrew Truscott]

Thank you everyone for your help. Especially I enjoyed Phil Starr's explanation of speaker development and it has taken me a long way towards understanding why they sounded as they did. One of the advantages, Phil, of being 73 is that I saw Free at the IOW in 69 and they were brilliant. I also owned a Marshall 50 watt in the late 70's, then traded it for a solid state, but I wish I still had it. My stage tone comes from overdriving the valve pre-amp a little, using the dirty switch on the amp, only using the bridge pickup (often turned to full treble) and playing with my fingers right up near the bridge, which as you know is hard work. I always ask for my cab to be mic'd, rather than DI, and I get a reasonably close sound to Andy Fraser, but it's still not clear enough and tends towards too much bass. I wonder if my bareface super compact could be some of the cause. One of their cabs can fill a whole venue by being multi-directional, and maybe this brings the room acoustics into the equation more. To be honest I am not very technical but I am grateful for any opinions.   

 

Pic is me in 69 in my first band. Back row, left.

[Stub Mandrel]

2 hours ago, Andrew Truscott said:

and I get a reasonably close sound to Andy Fraser, but it's still not clear enough and tends towards too much bass. I

 

As a fellow Terror 500 user, have you tried rolling the bass back a bit and maybe upping the treble?

[Phil Starr]

Sorry I'm such a nerd.

 

There's a problem with all bass cabs and that is putting them on the floor, at low frequencies the floor reflects the sound and effectively reinforces the bass giving an extra 6db but only in the bass region. If there is a rear wall that adds to the effect and so does a side wall, when you get to this stage your speaker is effectively sitting at the end of a room sized horn. Just by room placement you can get the effect of cranking the bass control to full boost. 

 

At rehearsal try winding the bass control back to 3 o'clock and maybe even all the way just to get a feel of what that sounds like. In a really resonant room I've found I have to back the bass off startlingly. Most of those old Celestion drivers have a resonance around 70-80Hz so anything below that is not what you are hearing in Andy's tone, well not much anyway.

 

I don't think it is a problem with your amp which is well regarded as being good at that sort of tone and to be fair I don't think it is a problem with the Super Compact. You can probably save some money by not rushing to buy a new cab.

 

It might be worth going over to other parts of Bass Chat and asking if anyone else has nailed the Andy Fraser tone. Either General Discussion which is read by nearly everyone or Effects where the real tone monsters prowl would se you question and be able to offer more help.

 

Also look in Events and see if there is a bass bash near you. It's a gathering of bassists who all bring along a lot of gear and we get to try each others kit as well as swap ideas. The South West bash is soon and there is one in the South East coming up. With so few music shops remaining its probably the only place where you will see such a wide range of basses and amplification under one roof.

Edited 19 hours ago by Phil Starr

[SpondonBassed]

15 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

Sorry I'm such a nerd.

 

Glad you're such a nerd.

 

Don't you realise that this sort of information is like gold dust to most of us pluckers and plonkers?  May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 19 hours ago by SpondonBassed

[WalMan]

Welcome

 

If you're using a BF BigBaby cab I would suspect it's more down to the amp than the cab  

[Dan Dare]

The issue with replicating the sound you hear on records is that you don't have access to extensive, high quality eq and production tools that were used in the studio when the recording was made. There is also a big difference between achieving a particular sound at moderate volume in a domestic environment and doing so at high volume in a live situation.

 

As others point out, Andy Fraser used valve heads and 4x12 cabs. Even then, what you heard when he played live would be from the PA (I'm old enough to have seen Free play several times), not direct from his rig. If you want that sound live without it dirtying up too much (you mention you have issues getting it clean enough), you need a lot of amplification and cabs to shift enough air without running into too much distortion.

 

A single 12 isn't going to cut it at anything higher than moderate volume, I'm afraid. You mention that the 4x10 at your rehearsal room is better. That isn't to do with the driver size, but because it can shift more air without struggling too much. The only option, unless you are running the bass through the PA and can keep the level low on stage, is a bigger rig. Modern lightweight stuff will ease the load on your back, but it will still be bulky. I'd also suggest the Orange Terror isn't the best amp to achieve what you're looking for. It has a strong baked-in sound - very punchy and in your face and perfect for some things, but not for what you want. Something like a Tone Hammer would be more like it, but look at the 700w version so you can keep it clean at higher volume.

 

As always, don't take our word for it. Go shopping and try stuff.

Edited 5 hours ago by Dan Dare

[Stub Mandrel]

His tone was pretty consistent between live and studio.

 

Bear in mind that recording bass in the early '70s he would have probably gone straight into the desk while live it could have been that or more likely miked up speakers. 

 

This is probably the gold standard live recording of Andy Fraser:

 

 

Note the very badly positioned (ribbon?) Microphone placed lined up with the centre of the four speakers about a foot out and angled down a bit. Surprising they got a decent tone...

 

He gets a similar but brighter tone on the studio recording of mr big:

 

 

 

I suspect he used the bridge mute on his EB3 as well as a lot of muting by alternating index and middle right hand fingers

 

Flats? Probably.

 

If I want an Andy Fraser sound I'd choose my Squier Jazz fitted with old style mutes. 

 

 

 

[chris_b]

Many years ago I used to dep in a Free tribute band and they were happy with me using my Lakland 55-94, Thunderfunk amp and Berg 112 cabs. They were after the feel of Free rather than the sound.