quote:

Originally posted by ST:
Hi David,
What did you turn up?
Guitar?
PreAmp?
Power Stand Channel Trim?
R1 Remote Channel?
R1 Remote Master?

R1 remote master and channel. Did not turn red.

Hi David,

It sounds like it is time to move to a voice-to-voice conversation. Support will be open tomorrow.

Call Bose® Product & Technical Support at (877) 335-2673 (U.S. and Canada only)
Monday-Friday: 8:30 AM - 9:00 PM ET
Saturday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM ET
Currently no support available on Sunday

Yeah, today was a step backwards. Set up the same as yesterday, and it worked fine for about 20 minutes, then without changing a thing the Bose started distorting and cutting out. To make matters worse, we had 25 to 30 mph winds, and the entire L1/B1 system wound click and sputter and cut out for 2-3 seconds at a time. From 2 - 4 PM. Not fun. Perhaps the wind was making the tower tilt enough to break connections? PA worked fine. Luckily, I was only using it for monitor and near-by front audience re-enforcement. My PA with 12" mains was doing the bulk of the work. I was running Line out from PA Main to Channel 3 on Bose, same as yesterday.

Time to make a call. I have two evenings I may be able to set up in my yard and call Bose and trouble shoot.

I'm not ready to give up. When it's working it is awesome.

David

What a difference a couple days makes!

Used it with my duo for the first time Tuesday afternnon. Outdoors at a Farmers Market. We heard comments that the last vendor in the row (150 - 200 feet away) could hear us clear as day. Not loud, but CLEAR. Now that's cool. This was my duo partner's (he plays harmonica and mando) first experience with the Bose. All he could say was WOW. "I've never heard myself that well. Or you." He wrote me an email when he got home to say it again. Did I mention we had a gas generator running 15' away? NO trouble hearing ourselves! And the master was only on 5 or 6.

I think I've figured out it was my preamp gain (too low) and input level setting on Bose (too low) that was starving the Bose for a signal.

Next real test will be a beer garden on the 21st. We will need to push the volume a bit I'm sure. I'll report back after that.

I should probably mention that I haven't called Bose Support. I feel that before I call I should have the system setup and the proble recreated, all ready to debug. Between work and gigging, I just have not had time to do that. Hopefully, I won't have to.

David

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dberch,

Hi David,

Thanks for the update on the journey.

Please keep an eye on the Signal / OL LEDs on the Power Stand - the ones beside the inputs. You are looking for a solid green light with occasional flickers of red.


--== click the picture to see it in context ==--

Hi David!

You may have seen or read this already, but in case you haven't, take a look and read this information in the Wiki about gain staging.

It will only take a few minutes to read and maybe something there will help you with something you have been overlooking. Just a suggestion...

John

Will do, ST. Thanks.

Question: How do I set Level on Channel 3? I'm using that for iPod to play during setup and breaks. I read somewhere to set level at 5 or 6 and raise player volume until you see solid green. But, there's no light. Do you have to go by ear and listen for distortion?

Hi David,

quote:

Originally posted by dberch:
Will do, ST. Thanks.

Question: How do I set Level on Channel 3? I'm using that for iPod to play during setup and breaks. I read somewhere to set level at 5 or 6 and raise player volume until you see solid green. But, there's no light. Do you have to go by ear and listen for distortion?

Flying out the door here so I'll give you the short 'operational' answer. Theory later if you want.

Set the iPOD at 75% of full volume (this should be the highest you will run it).

Turn down the R1 Remote Master Level.

Note your current trim level on the PPS1 Powerstand: Channel 1 - so you can put it back.

Plug the iPOD into Channel 1 (Preset doesn't matter).

Set the trim so you get solid green with occasional red flickers.

Note the setting.

Move the iPod to Channel 3.
Use that setting for Channel 3.

Put Channel 1 trim back where it was.

That's it.

Catch you later.

I think I'm getting the hang of this! That is exactly what I was going to try.

Thanks!
David

Excellent, ST. I have a nice quiet indoor show Thursday night. I will have time to try this and also try to optimize gain staging on my guitar. My guitar preamp has no signal/OL LED so I'm left to listening for distortion to find max setting. I've never heard any at low volume...

Just read the gain staging section of the wiki. This isn't rocket science! Just should take some patience and a few extra minutes during setup.

Thanks for all your help, everyone!!!

David

The quest continues...

Played at Redfire Grille last night. Nice quiet restaurant. Got there plenty early to spend some time setting levels on my guitar.

I set my K&K Pure XLR preamp at max volume (trim on L1 and remote both at 2)and turned up the gain could until I could hear some distortion from the L1. Turned it back until it sounded clean. This is the procedure for setting max gain as documented in the K&K manual.

Next I turned remote channel 1 and master to 0. Turned up channel 1 on L1 until I saw some red and turned it back to all green. This left it at about 6. Turned up channel 1 on the remote until it turned red, then back to solid green. This was about 6 or 7. Turned up the master unitl I could hear fine over the low noise level - about 2.5. Wonderful full rich sound.

Played there all night. Got several positive commnets on my sound. All is good!

After the show, and everyone is gone, so I tell the owner I'm going to test some volume levels and it might get a bit louder. She says "Go for it!" So, I turn the master up to 9 or 10. Loud! And distorted as heck. If this were my old PA, I'd think my speakers were blown. One of the waiters also said it sounded horrible - he used the word "rough".

Turned back to 3 - wonderful clean full sound.

So.... Help please?

Thanks,
David

David,

I played at a benefit concert for a local girl who was almost killed in a car accident.

The venue was a local events center which is about the size of 1/2 a football field. There were 1200 people there, and I never got above 12:00 or 12:30 on the master volume.

I gain staged my channel levels to get about 11:00 or 12:00 and just blinking red on the loudest strumming, and then brought the levels up on the master to where I had people on the other end of the building wave when they thought that it was loud enough. This was with no crowd in the building during sound check. I was at about 10:30 on the master at that point, and when all the people were there, I went to about 12:00 or 12:30 at the loudest.

This would be between 5 and 6 on the master.

I can't imagine that there would be a location that you would go above 2:00, or 7/8 even for an outdoor gig.

Also I had about 10 feet between myself and the L1 when I was at 12:00.

Any less and I got some feedback.

I have played my Ipod alone at about 3:00 or 7/8 on the R1 master, but there is no chance for feedback on that when you aren't using a mic or pickup. Very loud and very clean.

Hi David,

quote:

Played there all night. Got several positive commnets on my sound. All is good!

After the show, and everyone is gone, so I tell the owner I'm going to test some volume levels and it might get a bit louder. She says "Go for it!" So, I turn the master up to 9 or 10. Loud! And distorted as heck. If this were my old PA, I'd think my speakers were blown. One of the waiters also said it sounded horrible - he used the word "rough".

Turned back to 3 - wonderful clean full sound.

Was the 'rough' sound on the Guitar alone or did you get it on the vocal microphone as well.


When you turned the Master up to 9 or 10 are we talking 9 or 10 out of the possible 12 shown on the red dial or the R1 Remote Master Level? (like say 3:00 o'clock if this were a clock face?). If you did not change anything except the R1 Remote Master Level, then there should have been no red lights anywhere. If there were, then something (before the input) changed or I would suspect that there is something abnormal going on in the unit. I've pushed really hard and not experienced what I think you are describing.


I'm getting the feeling that we may be missing something between the lines with all this typing.

Let me encourage you to call support and get some real-time voice-to-voice interaction going.

Call Bose® Product & Technical Support at (877) 335-2673 (U.S. and Canada only)
Monday-Friday: 8:30 AM - 9:00 PM ET
Saturday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM ET
Currently no support available on Sunday

Hi ST. No red lights. I was careful not to channge anything but the R1 Master. I did not try the vocal channel. That would have been a PERFECT time to call Support. DOH! It did not occur to me. I was in a hurry to tear down and get home.

Yes, time to call support. Wish there was someone close by who could come in person and hlep me figure this out.

David

I called support. He gave me some things to try:

- Verify if distortion happes with vocal channel or not
- try guitar directly into L1 (cut out all external stuff)
- Try different guitars (my idea )

I'll report back after testing.

David

David -

I use a K&K Pure preamp (not the XLR model, but the 1/4" in/outs) with both my basses into my L1 system. I have noticed in the past when the 9V battery begins to die in the preamp, I get an "automatic fuzz tone" when I play harder. Playing soft doesn't seem to bother things, it's just when I play harder. As soon as I change the battery, everything is back to normal, no more "fuzz tone". I was just wondering if you have changed your battery recently in your K&K preamp?

The other things to try are different guitar(s), different or no preamp, and cable(s). If you can get the same results with different guitars, preamps, or cables, then my focus would be on the L1/B1 combination. You may have a bad L1, B1 or R1 for some reason. If so, you'll have a chance to exercise your warranty options!

If I could get to Bloomington this weekend, I would try and help you troubleshoot. But, I'm busy this weekend and next. The following weekend might be an option. Hopefully, you'll have things under control by then, though!

John

Hi John. Thanks for the comments. I just put a new battery in last week, but I suppose it could be bad. I just got the new Pure power supply and I'll be trying that at next show. That will eliminate the battery concern!

David

David -

quote:

I use a K&K Pure preamp (not the XLR model, but the 1/4" in/outs) with both my basses into my L1 system. I have noticed in the past when the 9V battery begins to die in the preamp, I get an "automatic fuzz tone" when I play harder. Playing soft doesn't seem to bother things, it's just when I play harder. As soon as I change the battery, everything is back to normal, no more "fuzz tone". I was just wondering if you have changed your battery recently in your K&K preamp?

David,

I had the same problem. As you know, I sold the K&K pre and now use a Yamaha mixer for the pre on both a K&K mini guitar and a Fishman UST. The K&K pre sounded better until I turned up. Hope the power supply corrects it.

Update!

Did a show Friday night with my Duo at a Restaurant/bar. Three hour show and it went Extremely well. It was a small stage, so we were only 3 ft from the cylinder. Still, with proper gain/trim settings on base and R1, I was able to get a huge sound at only 3 or 4 on the Master. If I tried to turn up beyond that, I would get bass feedback, but that does not surprise me much. I'm sure I can fix that with a longer cable to the B1 and set it off stage somewhere.

Set up took 30 minutes as opposed to an hour with the old PA, and sound check was ridiculously simple.

I set master volume at a level that sounded good on stage at 2 on R1 Master, and was very happy with the sound. Audience seemed to be able to hear OK. The booking agent was a 20-something, and thought we should turn up a bit, so that's when I pushed it to 4 and was on the verge of low register feedback. Never got out of hand all evening, though.

I should probably mention that I've been using the L1M1/B1 without the Boss AD-8, which I had previously used for EQ and feedback control. Haven't needed it! Just going from K&K Pure XLR into Boss TU-2 tuner and straight to Channel 1.

I think I'm getting the hang of it!

David -
Thanks for the update and report!

I'm curious if you used the new power supply with your K&K preamp for this gig. Also, would you say you were able to get as much sound/volume out of your L1™ Model I system as your AER Compact 60, a Roland AC-100, a Yamaha EMX640 and two 12" mains this time? Being only 3 or so feet from the L1™ Model I system and having the Master between 3/4, I bet you felt some air moving!

quote:

Set up took 30 minutes as opposed to an hour with the old PA, and sound check was ridiculously simple.

So, tell us, what did you do with your other 30 minutes???