Regular readers of this forum know that I routinely set up and perform in a house concert venue. For years, all the shows in that venue have been powered by Bose.

Last night I was at a show in that same venue only last night there were no L1®s. I thought you might be interested in this comparison. But first let me say that when everything was all set up, the sound was good. Different than I am used to hearing in this space, but it was good.

The event was a special information session and show put on by a very organized fund raising group. They were pretty much a show-in-a-box. Given a venue with a stage and enough room to set up 100 seats and they just plug in and do their show.

This is how the stage was set last night.



and this how the stage looked two weeks ago at the last event I did there. Compared to Sketches I posted a couple of weeks ago, I have pulled things of the stage to show comparable instruments. Here is my gig report from that other event. Lots of Acts; Lots of L1®s



Last night I was there to help with physical set-up of the space. This included removing my L1®s. I had offered to do the sound but this group had their way of doing things and understandably they weren't up for experimenting.

So the differences?

• I missed the clarity that comes from having each performer playing through his/her own L1®.
  
  
• Stage volume was higher than I like. But I wasn't performing.
  
  
• Performance volume at the front of the audience was louder than I would have done it, but this was necessary for things to be loud enough at the back of the audience.
  
  

General observations as I watch setup and sound check.

• The person doing the sound was the Drummer. He hauled in all the PA gear and everyone else brought their instruments and back line amps.
  
  I think that his time to haul in the PA gear was probably comparable to mine using L1®s. The heaviest part of my gear is the Classic Power Stands at 35 pounds. I'd guess that the mixed bag of speakers on sticks and monitors were probably 35-70 pound each.
  
  
• Physical setup took longer and that was probably due to with having to unpack and lay cables for the loudspeakers and monitors and making sure that everything that was supposed to make noise, did make noise.
  
  I'd guess perhaps 20 minutes longer than my comparable L1® setup.
  
  
• Sound check took much longer. I heard all the dialogue, and most of it would not have been part of an L1® situation.
  
  "Can I have more in my monitor?"
  "I can't hear myself."
  "Can you fix the EQ? It is too ____________"
  "I can't hear ______________"
  "I need more reverb."
  "I need less reverb in the monitor."
  "I hear too much _______________"
  "I still can't hear myself"
  
  ...
  
  I normally have this kind of sound checking done in less than 5 minutes. This took closer to half an hour for this group.
  
  
• After the stage mix was set then they brought up the mains (front of house system). After doing that they had to re-EQ the monitor mix. The mains were energizing the room in a different way and now things sounded different.
  
  "I hear something ringing - it's just about to feed back"
  and all the comments from the point above were repeated.
  
  That may have taken another 5-10 minutes.
  
  
• "How does it sound out there?"
  I was determined not to speak unless spoken to. I was at the back of the room enjoying that this was someone else's show and that by that point my work was largely done.
  
  When they asked "How does it sound out there?" I was able to tell them that the instruments were burying the vocals. These were seasoned musicians. I am sure that everything sounded fine up on the stage. And when I was up there helping to move things around, it did sound okay. But the stage mix was not the same as the house mix. The fellow who was doing the sound was the Drummer and so he couldn't hear the house mix either.
  
  

By the time it was time for the show they sounded pretty good. It just took them longer to get there.

Great report ST

I can't imagine ever going back to all that just to sound close to, or even as good as I sound now.It just isn't worth the effort.