I'm sure somewhere this has been discussed.

I've spent several weeks now trying to gather some fairly basic idea's with soooo many varying degrees of opinions...my head's spinning.

Hopefully someone here has some info and or even someone from Bose might chime in.

We have a duo. Two guitars, one vocal. We have been playing together in one form or another for almost 30 years. We are adamant and aggressive about having the best live sounding acoustic guitars in the universe...well maybe just on Earth. Both of us finger pick. Maybe use a pick on two songs a night. We've worked HARD over the years on acoustic guitar sounds.

We were set on an L1 model II when someone mentioned we'd be (for our style) better off with two compacts instead of one L1. That started the lunatic search for what and or which is more effective.

Reverb is not so important for us. We'd use it but sparingly. Compression is sonewhat important but not so much so we couldn't go outboard. Pages of effect parameters also not so important. Good clean LOUD, GREAT sounding acoustic guitars with a single great vocalist is.

Neither one of us is Michael Hedges but we're a long shot from a strum and grin Jimmy Buffet duo....NO OFFENSE TO JIMMY BUFFET FANS

What say you? Two compacts or one L1 model II?


edit: Title previously "I'm sure somewhere this has"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Forum-Admin,

Hi Joseph,

Thank you for joining the forum.

I would like to help out here if I can, but it would be great to have a little more information from you.

Please tell us more about your music:

• What kind(s) of music you play?
  
• Where you do it (size, type of venue)?
  
• Who is there (audience) - how many, what are they doing while you are performing?
  
• What kinds of Guitars are you using (make and model please).
  
• What (if anything) is between the Guitars and whatever you are using for amplification now? (Preamps, signal processing, eq... make and model please).
  
• What kind of vocal microphone are you using? (make and model please).
  
• Do you have a web site?
  

I play solo and in several duos and other larger groupings: sometimes with Model II's, sometimes with Compacts, sometimes with L1® Classics, sometimes we mix and match depending on who, what, and where.

In most of the duos, we are two Guitars and Vocals, finger-picking most of the time, rarely use reverb unless covering a song in which reverb was a prominent feature of the original.

Most of the shows involve a great deal of trading of roles (Guitar and Vocals), so at any given time either one player could be taking the lead role for Vocal or Guitar, or else just bouncing parts back and forth.

If you can tell me more about what you are doing, I might be able to line that up with some of my experiences and make some suggestions.

Thank you.

Hi Joseph,

My only reason for suggesting two Compacts is that each of you will have your own system.
It would just make things easier.
A T1 would make a nice addition.

A Model II to share will get louder no doubt, if you need that.
They are both awesome systems.
Who will be taking it home?

Sure I can!

A sampling of songs;

Fragile (Sting) Too many Angels, Barricades of Heaven, These Days and For a Dancer (Jackson Browne) Frozen Man, Mill Worker, (James Taylor) Beautiful World, Don't think I'll ever get over You, Waiting for my real to Begin (Colin Hay) Belief, Love song for no One (John Mayer) Silver Thunderbird (Marc Cohen and JoDee) Triad (David Crosby). Into the Mystic (Van Morrison) A handful of instrumental stuff as well


Venues;

Usually small 50 and under, usually bar type settings. We try very hard to pick environments that are more conducive to listening and shy away from the beer sloshing crowds. If people aren't "really" listening the act falls apart. Unfortunately we have no margaritaville set to pull out to get folks drinking more and dancing.


The audience; hopefully listeners and not folks that wish to hear Brown Eyed Girl. No offense to Brown Eyed Girl fans


Guitars;

My partners guitar is a Taylor. It's a maple 14 series (not the grand concert but not the dread either) He uses a Fishman dual system that includes an internal mic and well as a UST. He also uses an OLD DBX compressor that he's had since the dawn of time...wish I had one...compressors as they should be. Light and very non intrusive.

I have a Breedlove Revival. A small ooo size guitar. After thousands of UTS attempts and combo attempts I've grown very fond of the LR Baggs M1 especially for finger picking. It goes from there to an instrument level in Art 5 band parametric eq. 450htz and 1K are the only frequencies dropped. Then to a Grace 101 used as a direct box only (no pre-amp). I used to carry a Lexicon MPX 1 for reverb but the time I spent deep paging the parameters was ultimately lost in the rooms..just not worth the effort. At times I'll switch the rig out to an LR Baggs Para DI as I often think the simplicity makes for a more impactful sound.

Microphones.

Neuman KSM 105's

I should also add that the way we work guitar parts are always separated.That is we're never playing the same part. We work hard at finding two guitar parts that fit and are not sonically in the same place. There's a capo used by one of us on virtually every tune.

Either one of us plays leads and sometimes the leads are assigned (especially if there is melody in the lead part that ties the song together) others times we just wank

Hi Joseph,

Thank you.

I'm thinking that you want two Compacts with two T1 ToneMatch® Audio Engines (with T1 ToneMatch® Audio Engine power supplies).

Look for comments below for details.

quote:

Originally posted by Joseph Hanna:
Sure I can!

A sampling of songs;

Fragile (Sting) Too many Angels, Barricades of Heaven, These Days and For a Dancer (Jackson Browne) Frozen Man, Mill Worker, (James Taylor) Beautiful World, Don't think I'll ever get over You, Waiting for my real to Begin (Colin Hay) Belief, Love song for no One (John Mayer) Silver Thunderbird (Marc Cohen and JoDee) Triad (David Crosby). Into the Mystic (Van Morrison) A handful of instrumental stuff as well

Lots of detail and room for arrangements here. Either system (Model II or Compact) would do except for your comments about the way you create your arrangements. I think you definitely want two systems. See my next post for more thoughts on this.

quote:

Venues;

Usually small 50 and under,

Compacts will work very well for groups this size.

quote:

usually bar type settings. We try very hard to pick environments that are more conducive to listening and shy away from the beer sloshing crowds. If people aren't "really" listening the act falls apart.

These comments and a few others tell me that you take control of your environment and your sound. This tells me that you will want T1®s.

quote:

Unfortunately we have no margaritaville set to pull out to get folks drinking more and dancing.

If you are not motivating people to the dance floor, then you don't need the extra low end that you can get from a Model II.

quote:

The audience; hopefully listeners and not folks that wish to hear Brown Eyed Girl. No offense to Brown Eyed Girl fans

Guitars;

My partners guitar is a Taylor. It's a maple 14 series (not the grand concert but not the dread either) He uses a Fishman dual system that includes an internal mic and well as a UST. He also uses an OLD DBX compressor that he's had since the dawn of time...wish I had one...compressors as they should be. Light and very non intrusive.

The people at Bose worked with the people at Taylor to create ToneMatch® Presets. You can watch a video with Brian Swerdfeger of Taylor Guitars talking about this.

Thank you for the detail here. More coming.

quote:

I have a Breedlove Revival. A small ooo size guitar. After thousands of UTS attempts and combo attempts I've grown very fond of the LR Baggs M1 especially for finger picking. It goes from there to an instrument level in Art 5 band parametric eq. 450htz and 1K are the only frequencies dropped. Then to a Grace 101 used as a direct box only (no pre-amp). I used to carry a Lexicon MPX 1 for reverb but the time I spent deep paging the parameters was ultimately lost in the rooms..just not worth the effort. At times I'll switch the rig out to an LR Baggs Para DI as I often think the simplicity makes for a more impactful sound.

Thanks again for filling in the details.

These comments regarding the Guitars suggests a great deal of attention to detail balanced with a large dose of practicality. I expect that you will appreciate what you can do with the T1®s. You get compression, parametric EQ, regular (but smarter than usual EQ called zEQ), and ToneMatch® Presets.

quote:

Microphones.

Neuman KSM 105's

I too use a Neumann KMS 105 as my main microphone. My various partners used different microphones.

The T1® has wonderful microphone preamps and ToneMatch® Presets for this and other microphones.

The T1® also has phantom power. The Compact (alone) does not.

More coming.

Hi again Joseph,

This part (below) resonates very strongly for me.

quote:

Originally posted by Joseph Hanna:
I should also add that the way we work guitar parts are always separated.That is we're never playing the same part. We work hard at finding two guitar parts that fit and are not sonically in the same place. There's a capo used by one of us on virtually every tune.

In ALL my duo partnerships we use two L1®s 100% of the time. That is... always, every time.

That allows us to share the detailed and separate Guitar and Vocal parts with the audience sonically as well as visually. As soon as we started doing this we started getting comments from regulars in the audience like, "NOW I understand what you guys are doing. I can really tell who is doing what". See Localization for notes on why this is such a profoundly different experience for the audience.

quote:

Either one of us plays leads and sometimes the leads are assigned (especially if there is melody in the lead part that ties the song together)

Same here. Having a T1® (for each of us) allows us to tailor the sound in precisely the way required to let the lead part shine through. I'm not talking about hitting a distortion stomp box. I am talking about presence and dynamics.

wrapping up for now
So here what I get from your comments.

Your audience size works with the capabilities of the Compact.

What you do in your show (Guitar part arrangements) tells me you want two L1®s (Compact or Model II)

Your need for precise and individual control of your individual sound(s) says two T1®s.

Your need for phantom power (Neumann KMS 105's): T1®s provide phantom power.

Having two complete (and separate) systems will allow each of you to rehearse individually with your instrument, Guitar, microphone, T1® and Compact.

I hope this has been helpful. Questions?

That's the most detailed, thoughtful and informative information I could hope for. That took some time and effort and I thank you. It's clear that "two" of something is the answer.

Working from there will be MUCH easier to navigate the details.

Thanks again!

Joseph,
my occasional music partner ( I usually perform solo) just bought a new L1 compact. The compact is my latest purchase also. In the past we have used my L1 model two with the T1 to great effect.

This past week were able to set up both compacts in a good room that will seat about 125. the sound was incredible! We both play and sing and the clarity was amazing. I've heard bands using the L1s for each musician and have done it myself at some of the conferences and in concert, but this was so nice with someone that I have performed with for 20 years.

Being able to hear each other from our own system was just great. We walked out front and played a guitar duet and it was the best I've ever heard us sound. The clarity and "better than stereo" for the audience is so cool.

The jump from one system to two was very dramatic and I highly recommend it to everyone. Save your money and spring for two. It's really worth it. Either system will have the same basic effect. The decision should be made based on the size crowd and the quietness of the room.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Rick