Lay aside every weight....a new cab thought.

[floaded27]

so i've noticed that there are a lot of loudspeakers used in live sound settings that are made of polypropylene (a type of plastic polymer), the ones i often see being from JBL or Peavey. So has anyone played bass through one of these? Does the material make much of a difference on sound?

As we all know, those MDF cabs are heavy as heck. So I had the idea about using one when I was fixing on of the JBLs we have at my church and then again when me and my brother took the powered set of JBLs that we have and used them to do sound for an outdoor event.

So Im in GC (randomly looking for reasons to pull this pretty card they gave me out of my wallet lol) and i come across this bad boy



Now a 15" speaker you can grab with one hand and walk around as if it was the little practice amp in your room?  And although not totally rectangular, not that much bigger than my current travel right thats a 12", but much lighter. How could i NOT consider this as a viable way to improve my travel rig? at around $200 for the 15" (and $170 for the 12") if the speaker was cheap i could replace it with a neo bass speaker, but even if i got a regular bass speaker, eliminating so much of the weight from the cab itself will still have me coming out much lighter.

What are u guys take on this?

[Mysteryman]

I doubt it will sound as full body as a bass cabinet. You also may have an issue with the cabinet buzzing from the low frequency. I would play it with the bass before buying it.

[docjohn]

This is an area that the manufacturers haven't explored.I wonder why they don't consider a 3 pc. modular system,lite,that could be used for bass,keys,etc.Have a 15" woofer pointing down in a ported cabinet,middle pair of 10" s or 12" for mids,and some tweeters in a top cabinet.Be able to mix/match -use as a combo with the right amp/crossovers.Maybe have the amps/crossovers rack mounted-might require 2 trips;but if it is ALL lite wt.;could be do=able.

Sort of what Joey DeTrancesco is doing with his Motion Sound rig.

[jeremyr]

you'd be better with something like this

http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/single.php?product=LS1503

from what I hear it wounds fantastic for bass

[floaded27]

This is an area that the manufacturers haven't explored.I wonder why they don't consider a 3 pc. modular system,lite,that could be used for bass,keys,etc.Have a 15" woofer pointing down in a ported cabinet,middle pair of 10" s or 12" for mids,and some tweeters in a top cabinet.Be able to mix/match -use as a combo with the right amp/crossovers.Maybe have the amps/crossovers rack mounted-might require 2 trips;but if it is ALL lite wt.;could be do=able.

Sort of what Joey DeTrancesco is doing with his Motion Sound rig.

you'd be better with something like this

http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/single.php?product=LS1503

from what I hear it wounds fantastic for bass

Travel rig for me means I'm getting on the train with this thing by myself. No 2 trips, no help, no car. Train in NYC (sometimes during rush hour). So for portability i'll sacrifice some bass clarity, but not all of it.

So 1 piece is what i need (im using my GK mb2500 bass head, which can fit in my gig bag). 2 trips is not an option, since sometimes im playing at places 1 hour from my house but i go straight from work, which is about halfway.

That carvin looks nice and im sure it sounds good, but looks like a monster to even attempt to carry up and down the stairs especially in crowded areas. I only considered  a 15 because of what i saw in GC. Looked at the 12", but when i saw the 15" and it was super light, i started thinking...

[floaded27]

i picked this sucker up today at GC. it was on sale for $179. I brought my lil trusty hand cart and took it home on the train for a test run. It was the best. Up the stairs, down the stairs single handed. try that with the average 15. it a little bigger than my 12" cab, but for the gained ease of transport, WHO CARES!!!! Totally passed the travel test.

Took it to my church (so convenient that i live right down the block. lol) and was ready for the sound test. This thing rocked. Had everything on my GK mb500 flat, and the tone was clear. I got a bit of a boost in the highs, so i had to back down on the treble, but that seemed to give me a better slap tone, nice and crisp. Went full volume, and it handled the low B well enough. it was a little boomy, but thats what they ask me for when im playing with the jurisdictional choir, but tweaking my eq got me the sound that i normally go for when playing at my church. Totally passed the sound test.

So far best purchase ever. Cant wait to give it a test run next week in the real travel setting.

[Mysteryman]

Glad to hear it worked out. I would have thought it would rattled but I guess they improved the rubber casings since i heard one years ago.

[docjohn]

Great!!!!! Over the years PV gets good/bad/ugly rap.I've played thru their bass/keys amps;and not bad.Aren't you going to have to be careful to not fry the tweeter with bass?

I'm in the process of selling off my less  used stuff and get a good amp for my Motif XS

[kevmove02]

From time to time, I run sound in one of our stores that is hosting a live band. I always run the bass, guitar and keyboards direct to a Behringer EuroRack and tell the performers to use their amps as monitors for themselves. We use two speakers similar to EVs on speaker stands and a sub on the floor. I eq each instrument into its proper bandwidth / frequency so they don't step on each other. I don't know your situation, but if you have a good sound guy, maybe he will impose some frequency separation between instruments and you won't need so much power to be heard.

[floaded27]

its a travel rig because Im going to different places. theres no sound guy (or even a proper setup) at most of these churches (i made this comment in another thread where most churches dont invest in their sound). i never play through the house (most places dont even have the capacity for me to do so) and that time back in March during the conference when my amp conked out and i had to come through the house that one night, they just kept turning me on and off whenever they felt like it.

i would love for me to be able to control my stage volume and someone else monitor my house volume and adjust properly, but i'd probably be better off just asking for world peace.

[ssab]

Floaded27, is it possible you can post a video of you playing with your new cab? i would love to here it.

[browntree]

I'm glad it worked out. 

I was going to comment however that the resonance achieved from bass cabinets is a combination of the speaker, wood, and air flow (ports/or lack thereof) used.  It's tough to simulate...


Browntree


And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of music, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy. I Chronicles 15:16

[sbyrd1978]

yo floaded27! Hey man you just spread a south Texas tradition to the whole world. LOL. Man that's how we used to play for years. I've played entire concerts through JBLs and Peavey monitors and a lot of times, I liked the punch in the tone better than some of the cabs. You're right, its a lot lighter and easy to travel with. Back when I first started playing, all I had was an Eden head and my bass. I used to look for floor monitors that weren't being used just so I could have an amp. The first concert I played with a legit group, I didn't have any gear but a bass. My rig was an old 24channel mixer (talk about over kill) and a monitor. LOL. We rocked that night too man. I have a lot of stories like that. Matter of fact, of all the churches I've played at across the country, The best sound I've ever had was in Chicago at Morgan Park (Bishop Ellis' church) and they didn't even have a bass rig. The great Ernie Allen had me run into a DI box and straight through the house. Man!!! My floor monitor sounded incredible!!! I never sounded that good coming out of any bass rig man. Enjoy your revolutionary rig man! Blessings!

[ssab]

Sean i think im going give that try soon. btw, i used to play at morgan park before E llis was the pastor.