ST

Of subject here but these a bar size bowling machines.

The bowling balls are about the size of a large grapefruit.

I will keep all of you informed and I think I am going to video with my DVD Camcorder.

When the time comes, maybe one of you can teach me how to attach video.

Well

We set up in the VFW and tweak the L1's.

I have to say, after 1 1/2 years of using the L1's in our duet, I was amazed at the sound it put out for a band.

We started playin and adjusting. We set the gain correctly and put the Master volume at 1:00. My wife and our soundman (who runs our 3 tier system and who was a skeptic of the L1's) said it was too loud. So we turned them down to 12:00. They said it was good but on the verge of being still too loud. I have read on this forum many times that most run the Master volume at 12:00 and I could never believe..well, I'm a believer.

It is amazing how the sound doesn't drop off. I stood in front of the drums and then walk to the back of the room..sounded the same.

Also, once we had the band set pretty good, I tried an Audix OM5 Mic. The soundman and my wife both said it sounded better than the Beta 87. Once again, the forums advice was correct, many of you suggest the OM5.

Lastly, my bass player has 2 B1's...then he made a big mistake, he plugged into the drummers system with a Packlite set-up. I think he will be buying a Packlite for his bass set-up.


Thanks again for your help. Our next show will be for a Fireman's Dance and we will be on a stage that is like a cave and 4 feet in the air.
Any suggestions, should we tip the L1's slightly?

quote:

Our next show will be for a Fireman's Dance and we will be on a stage that is like a cave and 4 feet in the air.
Any suggestions, should we tip the L1's slightly?

Steve

Tilt....yes, absolutely. Act like you're aiming a 7 foot wave of sound at the audience.

Cave stages are the worst. If there is any way you can get the towers mostly out of the cave, you will be much better off. Even if that means you have your toes on the front of the stage, and the towers are only 3 feet behind you.

You have the huge advantage of using V drums (isn't that correct?). That will eliminate alot of the sound reverberating around that can occur if you have to be in the cave.

Do anything you can do to keep those cylindrical waves from bouncing off the side walls (for example, turning the outermost towers inward).

If there is no way out, here is a cool suggestion from Cliff-at-Bose:

http://bose.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/301107819/m/1...=188103899#188103899

Hope that helps.

Best Wishes,
Jeff

quote:

When the time comes, maybe one of you can teach me how to attach video.

Steve,
I found the easiest way for me is to upload it on You Tube. Then you can just copy and paste the address to the video in your post.

OK holliwil

I am signed up on You Tube.

How do you upload a video when it is to big?

Steve,
You can edit the video with Windows Movie Maker (if you have a recent version of windows, it should be in your computer). This program allows you to make clips, compress the file size, add titles, effects, etc. Then you can export the finished product back to a folder on your computer, and upload it to You Tube.

It might take a little playing around, but you'll get the hang of it. I'm really looking forward to seeing it.

Best Wishes,
Jeff

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

We have an upcoming cave gig.
Here's how we deal.

Pete,

This looks like a very good solution.

Do you have any trouble monitoring (hearing) the guitar and bass from this position?

Well

We played our 2nd show using 100% Bose equipment.

My bass player bought a Pack-lite and he is pretty happy.

We played for a Fireman's Dance and the age group was 20 to 70 year old.

The man that booked us asked if could keep it down (we have a rep for being loud due to all the 3 tier gear / amp racks / soundman).

Anyway, I am pretty sure nobody even knew where the speakers were. They were sitting in the back of stage in a non-lominated location.

When we finished the same guy that told us to not be so loud said we did the best job ever and it was the most successful dance they ever had! He said even the "older generation" liked it and they didn't have to go in the backroom to get away from the noise. Meanwhile, the dance floor was full.

I had a musician friend in the crowd and he was sitting in the back and said he could hear everything and said it sounded great.

Many interested people asking about the speakers and complimenting on the sound.

I have 2 issues that I need help with.

1) I can't seem to get enough highs out of my bass players guitar. I think we use preset 66 (Classic) and he turns his tone all the way to the treble side. We also adjusted the eq on the remote to have alot of highs. (High 2 o'clock / Mid 3 o'clock / bass 1 o'clock). He plays a Warwick 5 string. It still doesn't have much clarity in the audience. Any suggestions?

2) We seem to hear each other on stage better than we hear ourselves. We were about 6 feet in front and off to the side about 2 feet. The bass player was in the middle and said I was blowing him away. The L1's were 2 to 3 feet apart.I was to his left as was my L1. Any suggestion for this issue?

Our remotes never went past 12:00 o'clock all evening and my ears didn't ring!

Thanks again for any help / suggestions.

Hi Steve,

I am glad for you, that your second show went so well.

The last time we played a Fireman's dance we were in a converted firehall, and wow, what a live room.



Can't help with the Bass except to suggest that you try some of the other presets.

As for hearing each other. It sounds like you could stand to move the L1™s farther apart. You want each person to be closer his/her L1™ than to anyone else's.

Well

Did our 3rd show with all Bose.

The bass response on the drums and bass guitar is really good with Packlite extension. I was surprised when my drummer did a sound check and only had 2 B1's running (forgot to turn on his Packlite amp). With all 4 B1's, no issue with low end.

I am also happier with my XTLive. I figured out how to save sounds from on bank to another and am using some factory settings instead of creating.

I had suggestions to "turn-up" my guitar, so I will keep working on this. I never was a "loud-on-stage" musician. Always let the soundman handle that.

Drummer still struggling with his TD-20's, but I think over time he will warm up to them. We carry in his whole kit, so we call it insta-drums. Tear down was about 15 minutes compared to 2 hours.

My ear hurt so we still have to work on volume. We were running at about 12:30 on the Master volume. Also, we have to learn that when someone is doing a solo, the others have to back off. My drummer was on one end and I was on the other. He said he could hear my guitar ok.

Our L1's were about 6 feet apart from each other so we may have to work on placement alittle.

Finally, my bass player made a great comment at the end of the night. He said, "Using the Bose is like getting back to the roots, meaning, using you own amps and hearing what the audience hears." He is 50 years old and has been playing since he was 10 in his family band. He remembers using the house PA for square dances and everything else was acoustic.

Later and sorry for getting so long.

quote:

Finally, my bass player made a great comment at the end of the night. He said, "Using the Bose is like getting back to the roots, meaning, using you own amps and hearing what the audience hears." He is 50 years old and has been playing since he was 10 in his family band. He remembers using the house PA for square dances and everything else was acoustic.

That is a profound thing he said.

I just dug up the first sketch of Cliff's original idea, now known as the L1 system, and later today I'll post it here.

On the sketch the artist made a note, obviously from the conversation we were having in describing the gestalt of the invention.

The note astounded me looking at it some ten years later.

Film at eleven.

Ken

Here is the sketch.

It was drawn by a very gifted person who can translate words into pictures.

This sketch was done on the kind of tissue paper roll that architects and designers use to make first sketches of things: their napkins, if you will.

One time, on another project, I just couldn't "see" what he was drawing for me, which was rare.

I told him about this. He was sitting across the table from me.

He said "I'm drawing it upside down so it's right side up for you."

I had been interpreting the drawing as upside down assuming of course that he was drawing it for him and then would flip it around for me.

My jaw dropped to the floor, my tongue hung out, and I gasped.

That guy.

Anyway, he scribbled down a phrase on the sketch, as you can see.

It says, roughly:

quote:

Everything can be answered: Look back to before the middle of the 20th century.

I believe that is something of what your bass player meant too.

Well we played for the 5th time lat night using the 100% Bose set-up.

I hate to say but there may be trouble in paradise. We played last night and we had a full house of college students (200 to 250). I know what I describe you all will have heard before but here I go...

1) The crowd noise was high and we couldn't get over top.
2) My drummer can't get a good sound with his TD-20's. He is using a Packlite but we had complaints of no "low end thump." Also, we can't seem to get a solid sound out of his kit. And when we were playin, it seems to "mush out" and not stay clear. It is like reverb is added eventhough there isn't (I may post on the drummer instrument section about this). They just don't cut thru the mix. I think next time we will add some 18's to get more air movement, which means amp and heavy cabs
3) I struggled with my Line 6 XTLive and am not comfortable playing at the volume needed to be heard. I know that sounds weird but I like the stage sound to blend and not be over-top out of my L1.
4) My ears are ringing and we were about 1:00 on the Master Volume. It seems to be such a fight to get a good sound and this goes against all the concept of the Bose units.
5) The bass player is the happiest and he doesn't seem to struggle but he only worries about his area on stage and doesn't get to involved with the over all sound situation.

Anyway, we will keep experimenting but again, I am concerned with our future direction. You've all done a great job in giving advice and more is appreciated.
Thanks

Wow

I am surprised nobody is chimming in on this issue.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Steve,

We've all had that scenario. It's frustrating while your band is still adjusting to the sound & the balance. Sometimes you just have to play at the level you're comfortable & wait for the audience to listen to you. It's tough with a younger crowd who's used to being blown out of the water.

My only advice is have patience & keep working at it. We all have bad nights every so often.

Tom

quote:

Originally posted by srmbr:
We played last night and we had a full house of college students (200 to 250).

1) The crowd noise was high and we couldn't get over top.

I suppose there are systems that will allow you to "get over top" of the noise that 250 college students can make, but I doubt that you would want to haul, load in, setup, tear down, load out, haul again and then store them, and still call playing music fun.

Relax, play at a level that is good for the band, try to do some music that will make them stop and listen every third tune or so, and hope they will come around.

This is a battle that can't be won with bigger subs and more powerful amps. You must fight on the level of artistic control, improved performance quality, less time consumed for the pay you get, and a belief that in time, the music consumer will only come to see musicians that show respect to the audience by playing with the L1.

OK. I'm a little over the top with this comment, but don't give up yet. I believe there is a balance that can be achieved if you just hang in there.

O..

I've had to play square dances at some venues packed with happy, loud, college age folks.

Our "non-standard" solution was to switch to "dual-mono" and spread towers around the room so that no single tower needed to be especially loud. Also raising the towers helped.

See message thread at:
old message with concern about volume

and chained L1s

and Volume challenged experiment that did not work

I also provided sound for a swing dance this past weekend that came out great - Speakers behind the band were too loud for the band ... moved the speakers to far right and far left in front of the band (but angled to provide coverage for the band and room), and fed about 1/3 of each sticks primary signal to the opposite speaker.

I think that both statements are true:
1. Sometimes we think we need to be louder than we really need to be.
2. Sometimes we really do need more volume than is comfortable behind us.

Hope this helps.
Jim Mead

Happy New Year to all,

Thought I give an update about the bands progress on going 100% Bose. Last night we played a New Years Eve dance with 560 people. Things went pretty well and got alot of compliments. Some change points:

1) I went back to using my Mesa Boogie Mark II-C. What a difference from the XTLive. I didn't have to worry about what pedal to step on next to get the best sound. My Boogie is pretty easy, straight forward, and sounds great. So I was relaxed and able to focus on playing and having fun. Big change in the overall sound and togetherness of the band.

2) My drummer used to EAW 18's / QCS EX4000 amp with his rig. The low end thump was really good (of course, it should be but now we have the extra work of carrying in 2 18's and the amp. This is still better that going back to the 3 tier set-up). Over time, I hope this changes and he goes back to just using the 4 B1's.

3) Bass player added a Bass EQ pedal and this gave him some good flexibility and was able really get his highs to cut and clean up the muddiness on his bass. His bass a nice "growl" to it and moved the stage floor.

So we are evolving and finding out what works best for us. We still struggle with volume control on stage, but this was in the 2nd half of the night when things got really going. We had a conersation about getting control and making sure the vocal are primary and stay on top.

-Side note: the dance was a Wild West Theme. We rented a fake fire (lights and fan type) and put it the middle of the floor at the start of the 2nd set. My bass player and I played acoustics and did campfire songs (Oh Suzana, She be coming around the Mountain, etc...) The crowd, dressed as cowboys and indians, all set around us on the floor and sang along...really cool.

I should also clarify..

I used a Beta58 on my booige and used the L1 to disperse the sound. Got away from the 12' speaker "HOT SPOT" on the Boogie. I used preset 00 for this mic but next time I will experiment with the correct Beta58 preset and see how it sounds.