Straightline played saturday night in an approximate 24 x 100' room. It used to be a 24 x 30' building, then they added on to both ends. At the one end is the band set up area and seating tables for about 60 ppl. The middle is the "U" shaped bar with bar stool seating, the other end is a pool table/game machine area. Very LONG room...decent acoustics.

My 3pc classic rock band used it's 3-tier system (Mackie/Peavey w/15"subs) as usual, but I took my Bose double sub sytem along for "just me". The band was bewildered about how I was going to use it, but they got an education.

I put my drums stage left with my kick drum about 1' from the side of the PS1 and about 4' out front. From this position I could hear great. Sorry I don't have any pics...they didn't turn out.

Ran my Audix OM5 vocal into channel 2 w/preset 5, sounded really, really great. A friend in the audience said he couldn't hear my vocal that well during the first set, but after I turned it up he said he couldn't tell that my vocal wasn't coming from the big system.

When the volume of the vocal was right for me on stage, it wasn't enough to compete with the PA, but I had plenty of gain left on it and got it plenty loud without any feedback once I was aware of the problem.

I ran my 20" kick thru an Audix D6 into channel 1 w/preset 71, sounded great. Our bassist was running the big PA and checked out my sound out front. He said he wished the kick could be a bit louder. I had it up as loud as it would go without peaking in the RED. We experimented around with mic placement, but could never get any more volume from it.

He later shrugged and said that "it's working, I can hear it okay". He wished he had more volume, but we decided not to reinforce it thru the big PA since we had no db pad for the Bose output, and just got used to it from the Bose. I think he was satisfied, but had to make that adjustment from the old sound to the new, more acoustic sound of the kick.

For the other drums, I tried using the Differential SM57 mic technique with a cable wired out-of-phase but couldn't get it to work. Too much feedback at low levels (run into Bose channel 2 with the Bose preset).

I couldn't figure out where to put the two mics to pick up snare, two rack toms and a floor tom. I tried one overhead 1 foot above the high rack tom aimed a bit toward the snare and the other off to the side and a foot above the floor tom aimed toward the snare. No luck...I couldn't hear the drums at all before feedback overtook me.

So I switched over and mic'd each drum using a set of Audix "Fusion" series mics. Ran each mic into the Mackie 1402VLZ and into channel 4 on the Bose. That sounded pretty good although I would need to deaden down my toms if I were going to continue doing it this way. However, I could hear them all thru the Bose VERY well with NO feedback, and had plenty of headroom left.

In my opinion, this was an easier way to mic, less experimentation and not much more trouble to set up...only two mics more.

IN SUMMARY, I don't think I will continue to use my PAS in tandem with our PA on a regular basis...it's more work for me. The other guys do all the PA work themselves with no help from me, so it's easier to just go thru their system.

This was a fun experiment though, and I LOVE the way I sounded on stage. My bandmates said my vocals were louder and clearer than their own voices thru the floor monitors. I could hear great, was happy with the drum sound and the audience comments were very positive.

I am hoping the wheels are turning in the heads of the others and that we will be an ALL BOSE band before too long.

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

your posts are an interesting read drumr.....can you please post some pics of your setups when possible !! i am very close to buying a full PAS set up for the band to replace our 3-tier.

one thing I have done in relation to snare drums is run with one 57 underneath, and eq it so there isnt a huge crack, ie, take some highs away. gives a pretty natural sound without exposing another open mic above the snare, which is also the mic i found to be contributing to phase ugliness.
so in short, natural snare for me = one 57 under the snare with high freq cut.

Thanks for the compliment Matt, I try to provide good info, though sometimes I do post prematurely. I like putting up pics...they speak loudly.

I like your snare mic'ing idea...mine simetimes can be a bit bright. I found years ago that mic'ing below the snare gave me some nasty kick drum residue in the signal, but I never tried it live with the Bose yet.

The two times I have actually mic'd my overhead drums with the PAS I used 2 57s overhead. There is a pic of the placement HERE . The positioning was adjusted according to the sound in my in-ear monitors...then sent to the PASs. I would have prefered to use 1 mic for each of the three drums but didn't have enough inputs in my little mackie mixer. Two worked out fine though.

I hope you do go for the Bose systems...they are awesome, even for bands like mine who think they need to be "loud". Since this original post we have dropped our 3-tier and are using two PAS systems (dbl sub), and I am hoping our bassist will get his own system soon, that would be the icing on the cake. We did add a 15" sub powered by a Peavey 1500 amp to our kick/bass PAS. Before that I ran my kick into PAS #1, channel #1, then line out of that into PAS #2 Channel #1, and got quite a bit more kick drum, but the addition of the big sub made a more significant difference for us, being a rock band. We had the sub laying around since the retirement of our old 3-tier anyway...so it was no cost.

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

I used the system on last night's gig - awesome!
I opted not to use the subkick, as I didn't want to complicate my first time setting everything up. As it turns out, I didn't need it.
I ran the Audix D6 in channel 1 with preset 71 - real fat sounding on the bottom with a click on top. The only time my bass drum has sounded as good was through the house system at the House of Blues in Boston.

I ran the snare, toms(Sennheiser e604s) and vocal mike through my 6 channel Behringer mixer into channel 2. Next, I put the 2 outs into our regular PA so that I would be in the house mix. I also ran a line from the PA aux channel into channel 3 and used the PAS as a monitor as well.

A friend of mine sat in on drums and I had the opportunity to hear the band out front. the mix was great, and the drums were loud (but not TOO loud) and clear. What was best though, was that, when I was playing, I didn't have to beat the crap out of my drums in order to hear them!

Setup time was about 20 minutes. My next project will be to put the mike cables together as a snake. That should make it even easier.

I am totally psyched - I don't have to play loud in order to hear myself and, consequently, I'm playing better!

Guys

Thanks for the report, Drumr; sorry the diff setup didn't work for you. It works well for us but we have a big stage. When you get crowded in, some of the stuff we recommend changes.

BJR: Yeah, the snake really helps the plug'n play setup. Once you get it dialed in, it's a no brainer for the in/out.

Thanks guyz, a helpful read for many.

Fast forward to October 2007.

I played a gig with a new incarnation of this same band last night, their JBL system, me on the TrapKAT and Model II. It worked great! Plenty of volume on the drums, I had them really crankin' and the Model II was right behind me, the subs were pressed against my drum throne. I totally enjoyed the kick in the pants I got from that!

As you can see, space was at a premium but we got crammed in, notice the drummer behind the guitar/bass amps.
We had to leave room on the right of the band area for patrons to get to the restrooms. I got to play a lot of conga parts, cowbell, tamborine, and handclaps. On a number of songs I wound up playing traditional trap set sounds along with the acoustic drummer, just reinforcing his sound. My kick drum was really punchy and fattened up the overall sound quite nicely. My snare wasn't as loud as the acoustic, but that was fine. The drummer let me have the band to myself on the last set, it went smooth, lots of creative interplay.

Some interesting things, the Vdrums sounded very realistic when compared to the acoustic kit.
I could adjust my volume to blend in with him very well...the two kits really complimented each other.
During the night, one of their singers was having trouble hearing his monitor, I had trouble hearing him through it as well. At the break, I took a line out of his vocal channel in the Mackie, and ran it into an open input on my T1. Problem solved.

All in all, an interesting evening. I woke up with an SPL headache and ringy ears, but it's the price you pay to rock out! It was really a fun time.

Pictured L to R: Chris, Tim.

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

Hi Pete,

I bet it was loud in the back there.

Sorry to hear about this.

quote:

I woke up with an "SPL" headache and ringy ears,

Edit:
I took another look at the picture.

Is this another cave stage or is that "wall" on the right side of the photo really a pillar?

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

Yes, it's a cave of sorts, men's restroom in there, but the amps are just in front of it, the drums & L1 are just inside of it. It was a pretty loud gig, I tried earplugs but couldn't hear myself when I did, all in all though, not that bad for such a tight space.

It was just fun playing a different type of music for a night, all the while proving that the L1 can mix in with this kind of music. Back when we all played together, there were 4 of us and only two L1s, the drummer now was our bassist then. When I left he took over drums and they added Chris on bass. He was really good, had a great sound, played a Bongo bass, first one I've seen since Andy Douglas's.

They could easily be a Bose band, but I could tell they aren't interested in that. They really prefer the volume to teeter on the edge of the pain threshold, which is fine for their music and audience. A lot of folks like it that way, their following especially, and there's room in the world for all kinds of bands, music, and volumes. The house was packed full, the audience enthusiastic and singing along, we did four encores.

All that gear though...big boxes, the load in, setup, and tear down, man, I don't miss that.
Fortunately, they don't seem to mind at all, they are quite used to it.
I realized how simple my band has it.

You know, I really love coming back in to these old posts when I first had my L1, and updating them with what I've learned over the years. It gives new confidence every time the L1 works for a particular situation, where before, it didn't. I realize that it was my own lack of expertise and experience, not any shortcoming of the Bose system.

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

quote:

You know, I really love coming back in to these old posts when I first had my L1, and updating them with what I've learned over the years.

Thanks for sharing the journey Pete.