GUITAR AND BASS SPEAKERS & CABS: How they work, how to improve them, or build your own to get the best tone Guitar and bass guitar players know a lot about their guitars, a bit about the amps they play through, but very little about speakers and cabs they use. Yet, all three are part of the "instrument", and tonally, speaker cabs are at least as important as guitars and amps - if not more! Changing speakers inside a cab and hoping for a better tone is as far as most guitarists go. In this unique book, we take you on a discovery journey above and beyond such simple swaps. Modifying and improving your speaker cab is faster and easier than messing around with your amp, and usually results in more significant changes to the overall tone and loudness. You don't need specialized knowledge of electronics, there's no need to buy expensive test instruments, no dangerous electricity to mess around with, and you don't have to pay technicians to do it - this unique book will show you how to do it yourself! Unhappy with black, bland, & boring boxes that commercial speaker makers sell? Build your own awesome-looking and even better-sounding speaker cab, the ultimate expression of your musical and aesthetic taste and your individuality! Here, you'll find drawings and specs for dozens of different designs and speaker cabinet types, all tried and tested, together with their photos and measurements. Many more radically different conceptual designs and intriguing ideas are also suggested, should you be whacky or brave enough to try them out. You'll be able to perform simple yet revealing tests and measurements using a few basic test instruments - a multimeter, an SPL meter, and a function generator; many used ones are offered for sale and will cost you surprisingly little. Even if you don't feel like building or modifying anything, this practical and in-depth manual will help you decide what kind of cab to buy, how to get the best tone out of it, and even how to record its awesomeness in a studio. You will learn how speakers work, how and why they fail (and how to quickly check their condition), how to decipher often confusing speaker specs and parameters, how to match and interface them with guitar amps, and how to connect multiple speaker cabs to one amp. If your current amp-speaker setup is too loud, we show you the only way to continuously control and reduce its loudness while keeping that awesome tone you currently get only with your amp fully cranked up - something even expensive attenuators cannot achieve. CONTENTS: 1. ACOUSTICS 101 - STUDIO & VENUE ACOUSTICS, AND TIPS FOR RECORDING GUITAR SPEAKERS 2. HOW LOUDSPEAKERS WORK 3. DECIPHERING SPEAKERS' SPECIFICATIONS AND PARAMETERS 4. SPEAKER TONE SECRETS 5. ENCLOSURES GALORE - TYPES OF SPEAKER CABINETS 6. MATCHING AMPS AND SPEAKERS - OUTPUTS, IMPEDANCES & INTERACTIONS 7. MULTI-SPEAKER CABINETS 8. DIY CORNER - HOW TO DESIGN AND BUILD YOUR OWN SPEAKER CAB 9. THE WOODWORKING CORNER: CABINET CONSTRUCTION TIPS & TRICKS 10. MODIFYING & CONVERTING VARIOUS TYPES OF SPEAKER CABS FOR GUITAR USE 11. LOUDSPEAKER FAULTS & FAILURES: QUICK CHECKS, SIMPLE FIXES, AND EASY MODS 12. THE ELECTRONIC CORNER: CROSSOVERS AND COMPENSATION NETWORKS 13. LESLIE AND OTHER ROTATING-TYPE SPEAKER CABINETS
