HELP 410 cab question

[MVE]

So is there somewhere to find a schematic or something?

Yes.
greenboy.us speaker enclosures

 

[Heavision]

Some clarification: 1) my buddy builds cabinets for a living. He works at a place that builds high-quality cabs for other amplifier companies and they put their badge/name on them. That’s all they do. Same thing as Friedman, Bogner, Soldano etc, who do not build their cabs in house, they’re built by Boutique Amps Distribution, to the company’s specs. This is what my buddy does—not at BAD though. His level of expertise is such that making the leap from a guitar 410 to a bass 410 is firmly within reason.

2) At this point I’m not interested in “just buy a 410 from a big company” or whatever. If this enterprise of researching and building a cab proves to be too much of a PITA, I’ll reconsider. Buying from my friend also means I can choose tolex colors, grill cloth, piping and so on. That’s kick-ass.

3) We are in the research, feasibility stage. Which is why I started this thread. People seem keen to tell me I’m making poor decisions and bass 410s are more technical than guitar cabs and I need to educate myself on the matter. Forgive me if I’m mistaken but I thought signing up on TB and asking questions was precisely that. Also, very few responses have elaborated: they say “you can’t do that. You’re headed for disaster, bass cabs are totally different.” Ok, how so? Specifically. School me. Please.

 

[swarfrat]

For starters your criteria was "a 410". You have no business spec'ing a design if you can't articulate the design criteria. What are you wanting to build that you can't buy? That's a good starting point.

A 410 could be a lot of things. Huge boomy lows, extended bass shelf, compact sealed with a high rolloff. If you aim at nothing you're sure to hit it. And if you're paying someone else to build it you also pass on the wood splinters and glue fumes.. I mean joy of something you built.

You sound like you're wanting someone (other than your buddy) to articulate what you should be wanting. If you want something weird then by all means build it. But if you want an Ampeg 410HLF just go buy one.

 

[deegan]

hey strongly - STRONGLY - advise against sourcing stuff yourself for a cab. Bass cabinet components are not plug and play. there is real science and immensely complicated construction for these things. If you go to the barefaced site you can read a bunch of really really great columns about the basics of low frequency reproduction. I bought one of their 1x12s a couple of years ago, was all i could afford and it was and remains amazing

 

[Lobster11]

Some clarification: 1) my buddy builds cabinets for a living. He works at a place that builds high-quality cabs for other amplifier companies and they put their badge/name on them. That’s all they do. Same thing as Friedman, Bogner, Soldano etc, who do not build their cabs in house, they’re built by Boutique Amps Distribution, to the company’s specs. This is what my buddy does—not at BAD though. His level of expertise is such that making the leap from a guitar 410 to a bass 410 is firmly within reason.

2) At this point I’m not interested in “just buy a 410 from a big company” or whatever. If this enterprise of researching and building a cab proves to be too much of a PITA, I’ll reconsider. Buying from my friend also means I can choose tolex colors, grill cloth, piping and so on. That’s kick-ass.

3) We are in the research, feasibility stage. Which is why I started this thread. People seem keen to tell me I’m making poor decisions and bass 410s are more technical than guitar cabs and I need to educate myself on the matter. Forgive me if I’m mistaken but I thought signing up on TB and asking questions was precisely that. Also, very few responses have elaborated: they say “you can’t do that. You’re headed for disaster, bass cabs are totally different.” Ok, how so? Specifically. School me. Please.

It sounds to me like you're not really grokking the main point here. You have a guy who evidently is a great checkers player, but now you're asking him to be a chess master.

 

[deff]

For starters your criteria was "a 410". You have no business spec'ing a design if you can't articulate the design criteria. What are you wanting to build that you can't buy? That's a good starting point.

A 410 could be a lot of things. Huge boomy lows, extended bass shelf, compact sealed with a high rolloff. If you aim at nothing you're sure to hit it. And if you're paying someone else to build it you also pass on the wood splinters and glue fumes.. I mean joy of something you built.

You sound like you're wanting someone (other than your buddy) to articulate what you should be wanting. If you want something weird then by all means build it. But if you want an Ampeg 410HLF just go buy one.

There is so much wrong with this post despite however well intentioned it is.

There are plenty of people that are cabinet makers building bass cabs on designs that are given to them by bass players. There are also plenty of people that have good 410 designs. It doesn't need to be something weird or a 410 HLF.

The OP came here for help and his complaint over comments like this justify his response.

 

[Redbrangus]

Pick your drivers first and then build your box to accommodate them. Eminence and Celestion both make their design parameters available. Here's a link to a page of some suggested designs for the Eminence Basslite SC10C, a good modern neodymium driver.

https://www.parts-express.com/pedocs/specs/290-5182--eminence-basslite-sc10-16-cabinet-design.pdf

Note the manufacturer does not provide specific plans but does supply recommended internal volumes and porting/ducting information. There are a couple of sealed 410 cabs among the ones there, which should make it pretty easy. Parts Express has links from each driver in their catalog to copies of the manufacturer's design pages. That, along with your buddy's cabinet building skills should get you pointed where you're wanting to go.

 

[Lobster11]

I would steer you away from a 410 configuration no matter who made it. I think the only reason the 410 exists is because a pair of them is easier to move than a single 810. They're big, heavy, and too many of their speakers are at ankle height. Get a pair of 210 cabs. Or even better, get a quality pair of 112s. Then stack them vertically to get as much height out of them as you can.

Yes!!!! A vertical 4x10 -- typically (but not necessarily) constructed by stacking a pair of 2x10s -- has many advantages over a 4x10 box.

 

[agedhorse]

There is so much wrong with this post despite however well intentioned it is.

There are plenty of people that are cabinet makers building bass cabs on designs that are given to them by bass players. There are also plenty of people that have good 410 designs. It doesn't need to be something weird or a 410 HLF.

The OP came here for help and his complaint over comments like this justify his response.

There are also plenty of DREADFUL home-brew designs that could have been avoided with a little better understanding of what sort of things make a bass cabinet perform.

If you want to design a cabinet that exceeds the performance of a dreadful design, it's going to take a lot of work and some learning. This experience isn't automatic, it is developed over many different designs and the successes/failures that naturally happen during this process.

To assume that you are going to hit a home run on your first cabinet clearly shows that you have under-estimated the challenges. I have been designing commercial speaker products (as a professional engineer) to 40 years, and I can guarantee you that my percentage of successes in my earlier years was a lot lower than it is today. Even with all of my experience, I still don't hit a home run with every design.

What exactly are you hoping to accomplish with the performance of your new cabinet? F3? F6? F10? Sensitivity? LFQ/alignment? Mechanical power handling? mid frequency voicing?

 

[aprod]

Why try to reinvent the wheel? There are so many great manufactures out there to choose from.

 

[deff]

Yes!!!! A vertical 4x10 -- typically (but not necessarily) constructed by stacking a pair of 2x10s -- has many advantages over a 4x10 box.

Yes, like being way easier to tip over and not being able to mount a larger sized head on top.

There are also plenty of DREADFUL home-brew designs that could have been avoided with a little better understanding of what sort of things make a bass cabinet perform.

If you want to design a cabinet that exceeds the performance of a dreadful design, it's going to take a lot of work and some learning. This experience isn't automatic, it is developed over many different designs and the successes/failures that naturally happen during this process.

To assume that you are going to hit a home run on your first cabinet clearly shows that you have under-estimated the challenges. I have been designing commercial speaker products (as a professional engineer) to 40 years, and I can guarantee you that my percentage of successes in my earlier years was a lot lower than it is today. Even with all of my experience, I still don't hit a home run with every design.

What exactly are you hoping to accomplish with the performance of your new cabinet? F3? F6? F10? Sensitivity? LFQ/alignment? Mechanical power handling? mid frequency voicing?

Yes Andy and there are plenty of people out there with enough intelligence to figure out what designs they like and be able to simulate/steal them. I know that may not make you happy, but it's the truth. I've played through a few friends cabs that designed theirs off of information they had on cab designs they liked and it worked out just fine.

There are also plenty of resources out there to help people learn about that sort of thing, but apparently not here. The answer is always, just go buy a Subway cab. We all get that you have years of knowledge and respect that, but plenty of people here who have posted don't and all of them just seem to just want to discourage or outright mock the OP. Seriously problematic.

 

[Redbrangus]

The answer is always, just go buy a Subway cab.

Hmmm... I'm pretty sure you're the first person to offer that suggestion in this particular thread.

But your point is well taken -- it ain't exactly rocket science and the resources are out there to design and build a successful cab with only a little basic knowledge, but that certain minimal base line of knowledge is still required. I tried to point toward a resource that was informative, but the user will still have to inform himself of the meaning of a couple of technical terms, even if he doesn't fully understand the concepts behind them.

 

[ashtray]

Some clarification: 1) my buddy builds cabinets for a living. He works at a place that builds high-quality cabs for other amplifier companies and they put their badge/name on them. That’s all they do. Same thing as Friedman, Bogner, Soldano etc, who do not build their cabs in house, they’re built by Boutique Amps Distribution, to the company’s specs. This is what my buddy does—not at BAD though. His level of expertise is such that making the leap from a guitar 410 to a bass 410 is firmly within reason.

2) At this point I’m not interested in “just buy a 410 from a big company” or whatever. If this enterprise of researching and building a cab proves to be too much of a PITA, I’ll reconsider. Buying from my friend also means I can choose tolex colors, grill cloth, piping and so on. That’s kick-ass.

3) We are in the research, feasibility stage. Which is why I started this thread. People seem keen to tell me I’m making poor decisions and bass 410s are more technical than guitar cabs and I need to educate myself on the matter. Forgive me if I’m mistaken but I thought signing up on TB and asking questions was precisely that. Also, very few responses have elaborated: they say “you can’t do that. You’re headed for disaster, bass cabs are totally different.” Ok, how so? Specifically. School me. Please.

The Greenboy designs are modern, “high performance” designs for people to make a killer cabinet. They usually involve 2-3 speakers and a crossover. You can look up fEarful and Fearless - I always get them mixed up. That reading should keep you busy.

User “agedhorse” is an industry pro who has designed bass amps and cabs for some of the top companies. If he chimes in to a thread, read his words carefully, bc he knows what he is talking about.

There is software you can use to design bass cabs - as far as putting in the speaker’s specs, and then measuring the internal volume of the cab and then figuring out the size of the tuning port. Even if you don’t build one, you can play with the software to get a feel for everything that is involved, and then research deeper in to what frequency you may want to tune a cab to, and why.

Guitar cabs are so easy by comparison. Throw a couple 12’s of different specs in an open back cabinet, and it sounds good. Bass cabinets are like learning a new science.

Good luck!!

 

[KevInDaBassment]

OP, at this point people are just trying to help you not destroy the speakers with bad cabinet design. We haven't even scratched the surface on tonal preferences yet

If you and your buddy are dead-set on the DIY route, check out the Greenboy or Bill Fitzmaurice cab designs. Just make sure you're following these to the letter and using the speakers they suggest. It's gonna be awful hard to beat sourcing a good, used cab or two though....

 

[agedhorse]

Yes, like being way easier to tip over and not being able to mount a larger sized head on top.

Yes Andy and there are plenty of people out there with enough intelligence to figure out what designs they like and be able to simulate/steal them. I know that may not make you happy, but it's the truth. I've played through a few friends cabs that designed theirs off of information they had on cab designs they liked and it worked out just fine.

There are also plenty of resources out there to help people learn about that sort of thing, but apparently not here. The answer is always, just go buy a Subway cab. We all get that you have years of knowledge and respect that, but plenty of people here who have posted don't and all of them just seem to just want to discourage or outright mock the OP. Seriously problematic.

Actually, I NEVER said to just go out and buy a Subway.

If you would please re-read my comments, you will see that I did not discourage the OP but noted that based on his posts, he did not understand the challenges. I also suggested that he spend some time learning rather than guessing and hoping somebody would provide a design based on his "needs" that have yet to be articulated.

DIY is fine if either you spend the time and effort to learn how something works, or you don't particularly care how the project performs. My suggestion several times to the OP was to learn more before assuming, and there were others with exactly the same suggestions.

 

[Doug P]

It’s not the building that’s the problem, it’s the design behind the build that’s important.

unless I remember “wrong”, it’s about the design. I again thought it was a good view

 

[And I]

Ok, how so? Specifically. School me. Please.

You've gotten a few responses that elaborate the differences. Also you've been pointed to greenboy / fEarful, and this is what i would suggest you do (i built a pair of 12/6s and they are amazing). Your cab builder friend can see the exact dimensions that have had all the complex math and science applied to match a cabinet design to a specific speaker, and simply follow that design and add their own aesthetic flare to make it something special.

Check out this thread too: DIY bass cabinets

Good luck!

 

[mb94952]

You must be the nicest guitar player. I wish mine would buy me a cab.

THIS , for example.
Eminence Legend BP102-4 Set of 4 | Reverb

OR the Rube Goldberg method is you could find a trashed 410 on craigslist, GC used, etc and take out the speakers and install them and have spare parts.

 

[GreyBeard]

The guy who is going to build the 410 is a very experienced cabinet builder. He builds 412s, 410s, 212s, you name it. But his experience is with guitar cabs. He and I are now trying to find info on specs for a bass 410. So I was trying to find out if he can maybe start with a guitar 410 and make the necessary changes. Or maybe he needs to start from scratch? Either way I’m confident in his abilities. He built me a 412 and it’s stellar; excellent craftsmanship, vintage Marshall spec. He’s also trying to get his hands on a friend of his’ Ampeg 410 so he can reverse engineer it.

Bill Fitzmaurice sells plans with recommended drivers

 

[crazyBassClown]

He’s also trying to get his hands on a friend of his’ Ampeg 410 so he can reverse engineer it.

Unless you are using the ampeg drivers this is pointless.

. I think the only reason the 410 exists is because a pair of them is easier to move than a single 810.

An SVT or head of similar proportions doesn't exactly fit the vertical 10 or 12 stack particularly well...

they say “you can’t do that. You’re headed for disaster, bass cabs are totally different.” Ok, how so? Specifically. School me. Please.

Nobody can teach you speaker design in a post on a forum.
Try reading this or something similar on speaker design. And be prepared to spend a long time learning.