House concerts have become widely popular ways of getting some pretty big talent into an intimate setting without the distractions found in clubs or other public venues. I have hosted three of them so far and the L1 was there for the last one.
This performer has been around a bit and has played the world over many times. He got weird on me when I said there would be a P.A., that is to say he didn't want one at all. He said it ruins the intimacy he tries to acheive at house concerts and that he likes to walk around a bit and not be bound by mics and guitar cords and such. I agreed to a point but also had 55 people in my rahter large living room and knew from past experience that the ones in the back wouldn't hear well enough and I just couldn't have that.
So at the risk of angering a rahter tempermental performer I set up the L1 out in front of him and used one good quality large diapraghm condenser centered in front of where he was going to be playing. When he arrived he looked at it funny and then looked at me and said he didn't mind but that he would move around a lot and not be glued to the mic.That was fine with me because I knew it would be effective.
All he has is an acoustic guitar and his great voice, no cables to plug in or anything, just as organic a performance as you're gonna get.
He didn't even know he was being amplified in any way and the crowd didn't even notice the rig - it's as if it wasn't even in the room at all.
He didn't hear it but he did hear it - the audience didn't hear it but they did hear it!
To me that's sound guy nirvana!!
I even lined right out of the Bose into a digital recorder and it sounded great on tape.
One condenser mic in the right spot plugged into a good tube preamp and then into the XLR on the Bose - line out into the recorder. Simple, elegant, and nearly invisible because I put the L1 right in back of the woodstove (not buring)and it sort of blended with the black stack! This was a great experience and the perfect use of the L1.

For you tech-ies it was a Taylor 600 series guitar, a Sure KSM44 mic into an Avalon vt-7737sp preamp into the XLR on the Bose using preset 00. The perfomer was Francis Dunnery (awesome B.T.W.)

~Edpas September 23, 2006~

Full threadhere