Building a bass cab

I going to build my own bass guitar cabinet, can I get some ideas about the kind of wood, what size the cab should be and how to build it. I'm trying to find some details like how many screws to use, what kind of carpet. Just everything that there is to know about building a bass cab I would like to hear some ideas. I was thinking about having a 3 speaker cab with a 15 and two 10s around 400 - 500w.

or

If there is a thread already made for this can get the link to it.

Thanks

Alex

You might have more look over at http://music-electronics-forum.com/

Dimensions based on the speaker specifications is ultra critical.

A bass cabinet without the proper air volume will not faithfully reproduce

the bass guitar notes and all the note power can be eaten up by phase cancellation.

The result is you have notes on the bass you play that are completely dead while others

may boom out. If the cab is properly "Tuned" to the speaker, the notes played on the bass

will resonate at equal volumes.

The wood will be 3/4" plywood. You can finish it with whatever you want. 3M spray glue and

carpet is easy. Spray on Bedliner is pretty durable. Tolex needs to have the cab well prepped so

the wood is super smooth.

First you need the speaker type and specifications.

There are on line calculators where you can key in the specs and get the needed air volume to faithfully

reproduce bass notes. Once you have the air volume calculation you can figure out the dimensions the cab has to be.

The other method is to just copy the exact specs of another cab and hope for the best. Frequency reproduction

may be off a but you can usually use the amps EQ settings to smooth out the sound just so long as its not off too much.

Here's some very detailed plans for great bass cabs. The plans are free to download. They are designed for specific drivers, and they have detailed construction notes on the website too. They don't have a 15 +10 + 10 cab, those type of cabs are out of style now.

http://greenboy.us/fEARful/

By the way, if you think you're going to save a ton of money by building your own cab, think again. By the time you buy drivers, wood, covering materials, ect, your cost will be at least as much as used cab from craigslist or that huge music store chain. Either way, good luck.

Here's some very detailed plans for great bass cabs. The plans are free to download. They are designed for specific drivers, and they have detailed construction notes on the website too. They don't have a 15 +10 + 10 cab, those type of cabs are out of style now. http://greenboy.us/fEARful/

I agree with you there. I have an older EV bass cab with an 300w 18" and 2X10".

Its not as efficiant as it could be given the quality of the speakers in it and its a beast to move around.

I have an older folded horn Sunn cab with a single 200w 15" that can blow its doors off and can really

fill a hall with decent bass tone. Folded bass bins are not an easy build though. They can provide a really big sound

in a compact box but construction takes allot of planning and detailed work. Its a better project if you have all the

shop tools available to you. With hand tools or a first project, something like a bassman, traynor, Ampeg B52 cab

with 2x15's is about as easy as it gets. With the efficiancy of the drivers these days a single 15" cab or maybe 4X10"s

isnt all that hard either. A half stack SVT type cab kicks butt in just about any club situation.

well how how often does someone build a cab, just thought it would be a fun project, I checked out fearful and liked the 1212/6, but I understand the cost that it takes, I do see cabs on craigslist and guitar center used for 300 to 400...

Another vote for http://greenboy.us/fEARful/

This forum has a few threads dedicated to fEARful and there are other building threads in the forum.

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f15/

I should probably preface this post by saying that I'm not recommending anybody build what I did as it's not going to be everybody's thing, and you'd save money by simply buying a new or used cab. "Modern" cabs are far more efficient than the old designs, and much easier to move around. I only made this beast because I wanted something closer to a 70's sound for a couple bands that I'm in, and I've got the means to build it.

After seeing this setup at the Dallas Guitar Show, I got the urge for a W-Bin:

Some searching yielded plans for a 15" W-Bin put out by Celestion and on the Dancetech website.

Next step was to find a suitable driver. I suppose you could use any decent 15" bass speaker, but after more searching I found that different designs work better in folded horns and W-bins than others. The Eminence Legend looked like a better fit than their higher end speakers based on the spec's, and I definitely liked the lower cost. For a few minutes I thought about getting an 18" to match the Acoustic's, but the Celestion plan was based on a 15" so I stuck with that.

Building this sucker presented some unique challenges. If I had the need to build another one, I'd probably laminate a hard surface on top of Baltic Birch ply, or use Jig Ply. The thing would be impossible to paint when it's completed, so I had to figure out how to build it modularly, paint the interior surfaces, then assemble. There are some fun miters in there, too. The weight and size made it difficult to manage during the build, too. The sound, though, is absolutely perfect in a retro way as long as I'm playing a place that requires a long throw. The casters on the bottom are going to get replaced by a couple large wheels mounted to the back and a bar handle near the top like a hand truck.

If you like to build go for it. It can be a forfilling project when completed.

I wouldnt even want to count the number of cabs I've built over the years.

Most of the earley ones I did were long before the internet and most were

pretty pathetic failyres for tone. Others were pertty cool. I built more than

one cab out of old trunks. Those were kind of cool because you could open them

up and have a fairly good open backed cab.

I dont bother much with building cabs these days. I can walk into any one of a hundred

pawn shops here in Houston and buy all the cabs I need for less than I can build. They may

need new drivers but even those are dirt cheap these days.

I do plan to make a pair of 2X10 mid cabs for the PA one of these days. I have all the materials

and its just a matter of getting motivated to do it. The last set of cabs I built Parts Express had

20W paper coned car speakers on sale for $1 apiece. I bought 16 of them and built some bose type

cabs for them. Thay make decent mid cabs but I may eventually redo them. I didnt need to put

piezo tweeters in them. they are full ranged speakers and dont need the extra highs.

I built some cabs recently for my bass player, he has a super deep tone and wasnt happy with any cab he played out there. He ended up with a 2x15 and a 2x12+2x10 for a stack. The 15s and 12s are ported to 48hz and 56hz IIRC and the 10s are closed back around 90hz. I tried to make them sort of overlap in the range he likes (60-200hz) so its a bit spikier than the average bass cab but they are holding up pretty nicely with 1000w and his tonal earthquakes.

Build is super critical, bass cabs can shake themselves apart in the ranges im talking about. I also just stained and sealed his cabs.