Bass Guitar Cab Builds

[killersoundz]

I'm currently working on these bass guitar cabs. Customer is old school and just wants some cabs to mix and match. I wasn't even going to bother to try and talk him in to letting me build him just a single 3-way bass cab with his 'vintage' attitude.

He also had a kind of strange request that both cabs be 4 ohms so he can oven bake his amp with a lot of current, my words not his. Instead of just upgrading to a more powerful amp, he's sticking with something from the 70's. I hope he at least bi-amps these in the future.

They're nothing fancy on the speaker end, just woofers no XO, again 'vintage'. The woofers are 2x10 Eminence Delta 10A and a 1x15 Eminence Legend something. I'm not too thrilled about the 15" woofer but it's the only 4 ohm 15" I could find as per his demands. For the same price there is better, oh well! The real star here is the 2x10, those Delta's are very efficient and have a respectable response for bass guitar.

Here's my google sketchup:





These aren't exact. I ended up winging most of these cabs in the shop which made me feel a little nervous at times, I usually have everything completely figured out in google sketchup, but my printer is out of ink and I didn't bother with it!!



I got all the panels quickly cut out. I had to make a new jig for my router to cut out the slot port on the baffle.


This slot port was actually glued together even before I dado'd it, but I then put some screws in afterwards 'just in case'.




Jumping pretty quickly here I got the slot port made up. I made it as it's own box separately and then secured it to the baffle with recessed screws and glue. The slot port itself was way heavy so I dado'd out a lot of the material from it.

I also rounded over the woofer cut outs on the front, leaving space for t-nuts. This is something I've seen done on here and I thought it was cool so I stole the idea, thanks guys!


I didn't get any picture of them being glued together, but I just use titebond and a lot of clamps. The way they're made they go together without any headaches.





Here's the handle recesses cut out with my router and jigs.



Ready for the tweed!

Also, the holes you see around the baffle are to screw the grill cloth frame in from the back.

[D, Rose]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

Very cool project! You just reminded me about an old SWR #4-10 cab with a horn; the 'ole "Goliath II". I was always going to try to make me another one of those!

[killersoundz]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds



Testing the fit of the Delta



I'm going to use wood screws in the remaining driver holes that are not secured with t-nuts.



tweed




This stuff kind of makes my corner cuts look funky because of the stripes but I can assure you they are done well. I guess you don't typically see tweed shown like that. I will have metal corners on these cabs but they won't cover up the entire thing (kind of unfortunately).

[AJ]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

Nice looking cabs! I like the tweed; it's not seen very often on bass equipment.

I built a ported 1x15" cab last year sometime based on a DeltaLite II 2515 (back when they were affordable, and good value. Today I would have used a regular Delta. For someone else I would have included a mid but I don't need it for my sound. I haven't covered it yet, but will probably stick to black tolex when the time comes. I've also thought about rebuilding it with 1/2" ply and extra bracing like the talkbass guys are doing it, but for how often I move it I'm not sure it's worth the effort to go all lightweight.

I still haven't built the tube amp to go with it...

[killersoundz]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

Thanks. Yeah I asked him if he wanted me to build them out of 12mm baltic birch instead of 18mm he said No.

These things are quite fat. The 2x10 must be 50lbs without the speakers. I'll weigh them when they're all done.

They're a relatively small size though so they're not awkward to carry despite the weight. I'm not sure I'm quite on board with the ultra lightweight trend, sounds like people need to hit the gym a little more. I might be a little biased being over 6ft and naturally a little strong, so I understand most people aren't like that . :D

If I did make these out of 12mm it would require a lot more bracing than I'm using now and due to the design there's not a lot of places to put that bracing so you're kind of SOOL.

My only real weight saving attempt on these was the slot port, I cut out a few LB's by dadoing most of it away, it was unnecessarily heavy.

The Deltalite is ok but I think the regular Delta whoops it for bass. If it was in the budget, this would make a ****** Bass 10" http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=294-679

This particular bass player doesn't need a tweeter either. He requested not to have any. Whenever I record Bass Guitar in my studio I'd rather mic up just a 10" woofer by itself, it always sounds better than trying to mic up a 2-way or 3-way cab, which can be a challenge, although they do sound good live.

[AJ]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

Depends on the application. For 'installed' pro equipment that doesn't normally move anyway, 3/4" or more is a no brainer. For the travelling musician that just needs an onstage monitor I see no reason not to go for lightweight, as long as the performance compromises are acceptable. For non-ideal venues with multiple floors and narrow stariways, the goal for most (guitarists and bassists) is to get it down to one trip. Then they can help the drummer (or not, in most cases :D ).

[dantheman]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

Looks great Killer! I prefer Orange to tweed, but whatever floats the boat. ;)

OK, I'll duck out of here b4 we talk Gibson vs. Fender,

Dan

[killersoundz]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

Well I got the cabs all finished up and they're at their new home, here's a pic of the final setup:



He had me recover his bass head too. It gets ultra hot running at 2 ohms it's probably going to smoke it which I won't necessarily be sad about. He could use a better amp with these cabs...

The cabs themselves sound nice. It's a hacked together bass rig that is surprisingly coherent. The 2x10's dominate the 1x15 from the mid range on up so there is minimal negative effects from the full range combo. You can hear the sound change on the horizontal axis from the 2x10 in the upper midrange but not as much as I would have thought, and the overall off axis response of it is fine.

I did a close mic measurement of the cabs and according to the dips in the response the 2x10 final tuning is 58hz and the 1x15 is 40hz. I would have liked the 2x10 to be lower around 50hz but the port was already as long/small as I could make it. I would have loved to try the 'sugar test' but I didn't have the time. (I need to get a woofer tester to do impedance sweeps still).

The 2x10 does have port noise (!!!!) if you crank a sine wave through it below the tuning (duhhh). Thankfully with just 300 watts the woofers seem fine even well below the Fb. Roundovers on either side of the slot port would make it better but there's no room on the front for them.

Overall the sound is huge even with just the rated 300 watts from that head, we were rattling the crap out of the drop ceiling in this place earlier today. The light fixtures squeak so much! These will put out that kind of low sub bass that sounds like subwoofers in a car no problem. I personally go for more of a strong midbass tone though.

Also I need to recant my statement about "not being on board with the lightweight cabs", alright I'm totally on board! These things are ****ing obese! If I had to load these in and out of my house and a bar all the time I'd be hating life! The 2x10 is heavier than the 1x15 actually. I didn't get a chance to plop them on a scale either but just know they're ****ing heavy duty.


I'm going to post some more pics and info later..

[jcpahman77]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

Impressive build. I wonder if I could ask a couple of bass cab related questions. I'm looking for some advice in regards to configuring or building a bass cab for my church. What I have found is that there seem to be 3 different setups that show up from week to week and the only thing they have in common is in order for the bassist to hear them on stage they need to be at such a level that there is almost no point in connecting him to the mains; except that, the cabs are boomy and always overpowering.

So my two questions are these, and I'm sorry if this is a thread jack or too off topic; first, do you have any advice/suggestions to improve a generic bass cab; and second, if you were to build/design a cab knowing that the bass is going to be connected to a much larger sound system, what and how would you build it?

Again, I'm sorry if this is too off topic, but you clearly know what you're doing and I could use some advice.

[killersoundz]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

Impressive build. I wonder if I could ask a couple of bass cab related questions. I'm looking for some advice in regards to configuring or building a bass cab for my church. What I have found is that there seem to be 3 different setups that show up from week to week and the only thing they have in common is in order for the bassist to hear them on stage they need to be at such a level that there is almost no point in connecting him to the mains; except that, the cabs are boomy and always overpowering.

So my two questions are these, and I'm sorry if this is a thread jack or too off topic; first, do you have any advice/suggestions to improve a generic bass cab; and second, if you were to build/design a cab knowing that the bass is going to be connected to a much larger sound system, what and how would you build it?

Again, I'm sorry if this is too off topic, but you clearly know what you're doing and I could use some advice.

The short answer is to run the bass direct (either line out/DI out of the bass head or from the actual bass if you have to) and tell them to turn their rig down and that you'll give him some juice through the monitor. If they don't listen to you (which they never do) make it into a big deal that he's bleeding over into the drum mikes and everything else.

[jcpahman77]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

He is DI'd, should have mentioned that. Our drums aren't mic'd, yet, they haven't needed to be yet, but it does over power the mains; which isn't to say that I can't get the mains louder than his setup, it's just not conducive to a Sunday morning service. I'll have to work on a monitor for him somehow. I'm already using 3 sends to the floor and I don't like putting the bass guitar into monitors that need to be used for vocals.

[killersoundz]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

He is DI'd, should have mentioned that. Our drums aren't mic'd, yet, they haven't needed to be yet, but it does over power the mains; which isn't to say that I can't get the mains louder than his setup, it's just not conducive to a Sunday morning service. I'll have to work on a monitor for him somehow. I'm already using 3 sends to the floor and I don't like putting the bass guitar into monitors that need to be used for vocals.

Oh I see. Yeah sometimes you have to get in there and mess around with the settings on the amp, some guys won't like it but when you're running a setup like that what can you do?

[jcpahman77]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

Sounds like some locktite is in his future lol. I've just about got the electric guitarist trained, although if I had my way he wouldn't have an amp of his own at all, but the bass gets out of hand real easy.

Thanks for the advice, truly quality work on the project. If our sanctuary didn't have a killer sound system I'd ask you to help build a nice bass cab, but the subs the church has are phenomenal, so why screw with a good thing?

[Brian Steele]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

I did a close mic measurement of the cabs and according to the dips in the response the 2x10 final tuning is 58hz and the 1x15 is 40hz.

Theoretically, this could produce response anomalies between those two frequencies due to phase differences between the two boxes, if they're both run full range. Did your measurements pick this up?

[killersoundz]

Re: Bass Guitar Cab Builds

Theoretically, this could produce response anomalies between those two frequencies due to phase differences between the two boxes, if they're both run full range. Did your measurements pick this up?

That's an interesting theory I never thought of it that way. I blatantly thought of it as an overall advantage like a dual tuned box, but you're right we're talking about acoustic output here and phase can get ugly. I did do many measurements on the cabs out of curiosity with holmimpulse (individually and both running full range) and of course they were not pretty like we're used to seeing with hi-fi speakers but I did not notice anything going on in the bass that was drastic, it looked rather uniform down there actually, most of the 'crap' would be through the mid range, and varied depending on where the measurement mic was. I would have posted a measurement or two but I'm not sure that would prove anything for a MI amp like this...

I will say that *ideally* these cabs would be bi-amped. That old school head he has there actually has a built in crossover but only one amp. It has a crossover high and crossover low output, if you wanted to use the amp with either one of those you could patch it back into itself and then use another amp for the other, respectably. I kind of hope that thing gets fried by all the current and he picks up a power amp and a active XO so he can biamp them..

If it was completely up to me and it was in his budget I would have built him a 3-way bass cab with a passive XO, that would be the ticket. Sometimes it's hard to talk people out of the traditional 10's and 15's (randomly clustered together to boot) for bass guitar.. even just a beefy 15 an a beta 8 crossed over nicely would have filled the bill