Yay, mixer! Is that a recent pic with your 2-year-old-ish R500c with the top marketing card still on it?
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Yay, mixer! Is that a recent pic with your 2-year-old-ish R500c with the top marketing card still on it?
Why yes! It IS a recent pic with the top marketing card still on it!Yay, mixer! Is that a recent pic with your 2-year-old-ish R500c with the top marketing card still on it?
Just took the pic today!
Just following up on this.
Since I had a R100 give up the ghost on me, I stripped it for parts, and now have a spare plastic logo for one of my Rumbles if one were to break.
I do appreciate the offer! Thanks!
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Ya just never know what end up getting adopted!
Who knows, a t-Bird might follow me home at some point, like the purple 55-02 did!
I used this stuff sold as sound dampening foam/material:Posting this photo reminded me...
I have been thinking about adding some damping material to the back side of my R100.
I would like to use a sheet of the same type of material Fender uses to line the backs of the R200, R500, etc.
Just a nice, thick sheet of polyester fiber lining, sturdy but "fluffy".
The material fender uses is about 1-1/2 inches thick
I can't find a source for the stuff ANYWHERE, at a decent price!
I've tried the craft/fabric stores (Hobby Lobby, Michael's, etc.), speaker building suppliers (Parts Express) and various online fabric and upholstery sites, and I can't find just simple sheets/rolls of lightweight polyester fiber of the proper thickness.
I don't want stuffing, and I don't need damping/vibration suppression, and I'm not interested in heavy-duty sound absorption. And not recycled denim or carpet padding.
I Just want to use a sheet of the stuff Fender uses at the factory.
The ONLY sources I've found are eBay and Amazon, which both offer the exact same size and quantity of the material from multiple vendors,
"Speaker Absorbing Polyester Fiber 100x50x5CM Sound Absorber Acoustic Insulation Material"
which every vendor is selling for $20.00!!!
Amazon.com: CCeCCe Speaker Absorbing Polyester Fiber 100x50x5CM Sound Absorber Acoustic Insulation Material Subwoofer Damping HiFi DIY Repair Audio Interior Replacement : Musical Instruments
It is nice and thick, looks like this:
View attachment 7364084
This is EXACTLY what I'm looking for, but I'm NOT paying that outrageous price for a sheet of fluffy padding!
It MUST be hard to find, or else folks wouldn't be buying from these guys...
So, anyway, does anyone know of a source for this material at a reasonable price?
Thanks!
It's an inch thick (2.5cm) and did not cost a fortune for a sheet of 1 x 0.5 meters sheet. (<10USD in my country)
There is an almost double thick version (4.5cm) for around 12 USD which I tought was overkill for the purpose.
Should be cheap as hell TBH, but cutting, managing inventory, storing, selling, packing and shipping them does add cost.
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I'm not an acoustic engineer, but I would think covering like 50% to 60% of each interior surface, alternating so that, as much as possible, no adjoining surfaces have the same treatment - alternating bare surfaces and damping material.
That should break up standing wave resonance, without choking the tone (which too much damping can do).
Next time I open my R100c, I'm going to try that - previous owner covered almost all interior surfaces.
Although, I don't think my modified unit sounds choked at all, but I won't know for sure if it will improve the tone unless I try it.
That should break up standing wave resonance, without choking the tone (which too much damping can do).
Next time I open my R100c, I'm going to try that - previous owner covered almost all interior surfaces.
Although, I don't think my modified unit sounds choked at all, but I won't know for sure if it will improve the tone unless I try it.
I also experimented with plug/unplug ports 0/1/2 last rehearsal, and it makes a noticable difference at that volume level (light pop/rock set gig volume, as an r100 is kinf of perfect for that application). Despite sealed is the "tightest" lowend, it drops the low-mid/bass volume significantly, aka: less rumble. Not that I couldn't get a good tone anyways with EQ, but You always learn something.
Stock I liked both ports plugged more andp push master, with the Basslite so far 1 port plugged was the sweet spot to me with brand new Steve Harris flatwounds on a P bass.
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Interesting!I also experimented with plug/unplug ports 0/1/2 last rehearsal, and it makes a noticable difference at that volume level (light pop/rock set gig volume, as an r100 is kinf of perfect for that application). Despite sealed is the "tightest" lowend, it drops the low-mid/bass volume significantly, aka: less rumble. Not that I couldn't get a good tone anyways with EQ, but You always learn something.
Hi all. I just purchased my first Rumble bass amp. A Rumble 500. I needed something with a lot of punch for playing gigs. I haven’t received it yet but I am looking forward to it. I am hoping I really like the vintage setting. Can anyone tell me how the amp sounds on this setting? I wanted the Stage 800 but didn’t have quite enough cash for it after also buying a new Fender Player II P Bass. I am hoping it sounds good for R&B, jazz, gospel, Motown and of course Memphis Soul. Even though my avatar show Dee Dee Ramone I don’t really play punk except for my own enjoyment.
This could give You a hint what EQ curves preset buttons set and what frequencies knobs control: rumble wiki
Also the https://www.talkbass.com/wiki/fender-rumble-500-frequencies/'s "tone pool" contains some user-posted settings as starting points:
Just not to get confused, this is how "we" rumblers reference knob positions: https://www.talkbass.com/wiki/clock-knob-reading/
Hola, Soul-man! @Memphis Soul, you are now member #1881 in the Fender Rumble Club. Congratulations and welcome. Please put that number in your TalkBass Signature for safe keeping. Then make yourself at home here and on your Rumble Club Wiki page, the repository of all Rumbling wisdom and knowledge.
The Vintage voicing will tend to give you a great Motown sound, Memphy! A nice phat tone with punch. Enjoy!
How about telling us a bit more about yourself, such as your bass experience in general and your Rumble journey in particular? You'll fit right in here since we have all kinds. But we all love to ... ... ...
Rumble On!
Welcome to the club, Mr Soul.
Once I was testing all sorts of tone combinations with my then new 500 head/210 cab. It really got stupid, combinations most people, not insane, would even consider using. HA HA, lot of fun. Reset the knobs and stop playing around.
Well in the days that followed I thought the amp sounded unusually good. I guess I did the human thing where you invent all sorts of unreasoned reasons why it sounded so good. Reasons like, 'I just needed to crank it up, blow the carbon out', so to speak.
Well, later I discovered that I hadn't disengaged the Vintage button from that crazy session. Sounded great. Not so much 'solo' but while playing along with recordings.
What it did was let me see how versatile this little amp is (I have since given the 500 to my brother and upgraded to the 800.) Sound-wise I think they are incredibly similar.
Guess what! When I bought my r100 second hand (from a gigging bassist who needed moar rumble so bought a 500), EQ was all at 12, Vintage on. Coincidence?
The Vintage setting really kicks in the lows. The amp will be great for what you're doing. Old Motown in particular just begs for the Vintage setting. So do early Allman Brothers tunes, FWIW.
Standing waves are notoriously difficult to control. Mid to high frequency standing waves are not a problem because the wavelengths are so short that they are easy to absorb or diffuse and even a tiny variation in sound source position (tweeter surface), atmospheric pressure (that can be changed by pressure mode propagation of low frequency sound waves), temperature or even wall vibration makes them constantly changing. Couple that with the fact that they're largely impossible to hear (because irregular ear surface will break them up) and they're irrelevant.
Low frequency standing waves are a different matter. They're not broken up by variations mentioned above, they travel as pressure modes in a room and they arrive with largely the same pressure at the ear, so there's no material for your brain to work out the proper sound, and it will arrive as boomy and overpowering at certain frequencies and positions (peaks) or thin and impossible to make out (nulls).
Absorbing a low frequency wave would require an absorber at least as thick as a quarter wavelength. Faster local speed of sound makes the requisite depth thinner, and some aerogels are a promising avenue of research, but foams are a wash — some have slower speed of sound, some have faster. And you have to consider the boundary layer since the greater the difference, the more sound will be reflected rather than absorbed.
Suffice to say that the second harmonic of low E string is 82 Hz, which is 4.18 meters long in air. Quarter wave is 1.05 m. Suppose there was a foam that had half the speed of sound in air, then quarter wave is 0.53 m. Still a lot for an absorber in a room.
Let alone in a cab... There's not a lot you can do. Best that is done is putting bracing inside the cabinet which breaks up some standing waves, and an alternative would be to use rubber wedges that would make inside surfaces non-parallel so that standing waves are limited to only certain lines, maybe planes, rather than entire volume between two parallel walls.
Great explanation, @toughluck Thank you.
And, it gave me a nostalgic smile.
My intro to technology and engineering came in high school in the late 60s when I got my first ham radio license. All about frequencies and the resultant wavelength calculations. Fun memory. Thanks!
I think I should have just said "resonance" instead of "standing wave resonance".
As soon as I posted that comment, I felt like something was off.
There is a reason (most of the time) for using some acoustically dampening material and there is a reason (most of the time) for not using too much dampening material.
What I am suggesting is a "possible" way to find a happy medium for almost any speaker enclosure (of course, I could still be full of bovine pucks).
I was also looking at something like these Bass Traps Acoustic Foam Corner that are 12 pieces of 12"x3"x3" stair-stepped foam - which might be all you would need.
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Stuffing can also make cabs "virtually" "act" bigger.
But for ported cabs (like rumbles) You should be careful not to overdo it, so it does not mess up port tuning.
Can also reduce sound volume (more reflecions/absorbs inside until sound can finally come out), hence for the same amount of "rumble" the speaker/amp has to work harder. (converting a rumble to a sealed box does similar, as I mentioned in an earlier comment when testing plugging 0/1/2 ports here)
So for theese "low power" amps like rumble 100 and smaller, it actually makes sense to not line/stuff/seal them. (not just a cost saving move, as people tend to say)
Google AI summarizes it quite well:
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And very loud! I’ve run a 500C through an extension cabinet in the past, it can put out an insane amount of volume!
NAD! R100
Long story short: I sold all my amps except my v1 R30. It’s a nice little amp, but I’ve been ramping up bass playing again so I was thinking about a v3R40 or something similar so I can get the line out feature.
Well, my local shop had this minty, tags-still-on “used” R100 priced at $250. Throw in a $50 gift card I had, I walked out with this bad boy for $200! Should be all the amp I’ll need for the foreseeable future, I’m a happy camper!
Long story short: I sold all my amps except my v1 R30. It’s a nice little amp, but I’ve been ramping up bass playing again so I was thinking about a v3R40 or something similar so I can get the line out feature.
Well, my local shop had this minty, tags-still-on “used” R100 priced at $250. Throw in a $50 gift card I had, I walked out with this bad boy for $200! Should be all the amp I’ll need for the foreseeable future, I’m a happy camper!
