On February 11, 2012 I will be returning to a club where the volume level is kept to a minimal state. Something I found out the hard way. We used to rock this place with dual 15s, and dual 18s. After a 9 month absence from the venue and then being asked to return we agreed. The first night back I brought in my usual rig of dual 15s and dual 18s. After about 3 minutes of sound check I was forced down to 1 dual 15. The following month, I thought that I would be slick and bring in the BOSE COMPACTS (2 of them) and use as Front Of House speakers. To much surprise, I got more compliments on my sound than I have ever had. The following month, I did it again...the same result. So, we will go with the trifecta and do it again. I am running them straight out of my board with internal 31 band EQ on them. I am going dual mono with Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Bass, Kick Drum (natural and triggered), Snare Drum, and my break music for between sets.
Got my new toy in today! L1 Mod 1 with 2 B1s. This will be the FOH for this mid-sized club this weekend. Will be bringing the Compacts as well. I will be doing an A/B test if I get the time to do so.
Here was my setup... PreSonus Studiolive 16.4.2 controlled by my MacBook Pro with Universal Control and SL Remote (FOH and Monitors controlled via my iPad). I used no outboard Eqs (the Universal Control has 8 31 band Eqs). Mixer out (mono) into Channel 1 of the L1 Model 1 with Dual B1s. Preset 00. Gain on the Main out of the Mixer was at about -20 db. Input on the L1 Model 1 was at about 3. I really could not believe the power of the L1 system. I daisy chained this big system out to a L1 Compact on the other side of the stage via the line out into channel two of the Compact. Set the input to 12 o'clock (later on in the evening I moved it up to about the 1 o'clock position). Full mic setup tonight with the band (kick drum, snare, tom 1, tom 2, fl tom, bass di, acoustic set at ¾ output (T1 mixer set at preset Taylor T5 with channel trim, input and master output at 12 o'clock), electric guitar amp mic'd with SM 57, 3 vocal mics (two Sennheiser 835s and an Audio Technica Wireless). 5 separate Monitor mixes 4 with wedges the lead singer getting two separate (wedge and IEMs). The last time I was in this club, I used a dual mono L1 Compact setup for the FOH with the kick drum triggered with a ddrum acoustic drum trigger into an Alesis DM5 drum module with full mic setup. The was great with the trigger kick being the driving force behind the kick drum. Vocals were the only problem sending the Compacts into the limiters. Volume level was low and extremely vivid, meaning that each instrument was heard clearly in its own. Main problem with this setup was getting the vocals above the instruments at all times. Tonight's gig was just awesome! It was easy to get the vocals above the instruments and in some cases it seemed as if they might have been a little too much above the instruments. I did not get use the trigger on the kick drum as I brought in the wrong power amp case. However, the acoustic kick did a great job capturing a natural kick drum sound. The bass was clear and punchy. Vocals were amazing without muddiness. I believe that the real “special moment” was with harmonies and guitar instruments. The clarity in the leads, vocals and acoustic guitar really made me a believer that Bose has got something going with the L1 speaker system.
