My name is Kenneth and I come from Te Awamutu, which is a small town in New Zealand.
I play in a three piece rock covers band, which is based in the neighboring town (Cambridge).
I drum on a Roland TD9k kit, with the other members on guitar, bass and vocals.
I have just recently become aware of the Bose L1 family when searching through the Rock Shops NZ website. They had a link to the Bose NZ website.
From there I have become extremely interested in this line array system, and I have been scouring the net for any and all information. Also looking into other companies doing line arrays (Fishman, Collins, Phil Jones), and as a result of my searching I have learned a lot about the watts/SPL relationship. Sound propagation and dispertion and the inverse square law.
The internet reviews, especially in the other forums are extreme. The L1 scores 9-10 out of 10 or 1-2 out of 10. People either love them, have sold all of their traditional gear and will never go back, or hate them and returned them. There is no middle ground. There seems to be an underlying theme with those who return the system, and it revolves around very high SPL.
After all of my research, I am keener that ever to get my hands on one, even though I have never seen one let alone listened to one live.
I feel confident that the L1 with 2 bass modules will give my TD9 kit the presence of an acoustic drum kit. An additional 2 b1's with packlite would be ideal, or the ideal set up times two would be ultimate.
I am completely sold on the L1 band setup principles, but my band mates don't share my ideals. The guitarist want to build a traditional big cabinet setup with FOH, monitors and blah blah bla...... Also the price put them off (NZ)$4100 L1 model 2 & B1. But whats the cost of FOH, amp, cabs, monitors and transit van ( to move it all)?
We haven't been together that long and we could be described at best as being average, but the audiences seem to like us. We only manage 2 to 3 gig per month, though we are looking to expand on that now. At that rate a $4100-$6000 L1 system cost will be difficult to recover. But I am not a professional, I am a hobbyist and hobbyists always have special licence to spend stupid amounts of money on there hobby's.
We'll thats my long winded Hi, howz it goin'( if you made it this far you've done well), look forward to meeting you in these forums.

Hi Kenneth,

Thank you for joining the Forum.

Cheers from Vancouver, Canada (bottom left corner of Canada, probably as close to Te Awamutu as anyone in Canada).

How big are the venues where you play?
Do you sing as well as play Drums?

How many vocalists are there in your band in total?

Have you seen the Bose L1® Encyclopedia, FAQ and wiki ?

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

quote:

I play in a three piece rock covers band

As do I...Welcome to the forums Kenneth.
I hope you decide to go Bose, there is nothing better.

Hi Kenneth, I live in Wellington and am a BOSE Professional Products Dealer as well as the local L1 rep here. I own a Series I (Classic) and also have Series II and Compact model demonstration units. Te Awamutu is a little far away to send the series II demo unit but I am happy to answer your questions at any time and if you made the effort to come down then I would be happy to set up a demonstration for you in one of the theatres or nightclubs I work in. Call me on 04-479-4111 if you want to talk BOSE L1. Cheers, Ian.

Hey guys, thanks..
My band at the moment only play a couple of small bars, one with a garden bar....Sing? Not really, backing vocals, the bands trying to get me to sing but I'm not ready...
We played this weekend gone, on Friday my hi-hat controller buggered out....So I raced to the Hamilton Rock Shop to see what I can do.
In the e-drum section they had a L1 compact connected to a Roland TD20....I said "hey that's a compact,...." to which the pointed to the L1 model 2 that they use to demo their acoustic guitars.....I never got a chance to fire it up, but I do need to go back there on Tuesday (about my hi-hat controller), there's a TD4 just near by so I will ask if I can run that through the L1 so I can get a first impression.

Ian, thank you for the offer...If I get a chance to get down that way I'll look you up.
Cheers

quote:

Originally posted by K D Riddell:
the bands trying to get me to sing but I'm not ready...

The L1 will help with your vocals, believe me!
I sing much better now that I can actually hear myself.

quote:

In the e-drum section they had a L1 compact connected to a Roland TD20....I said "hey that's a compact....there's a TD4 just near by so I will ask if I can run that through the L1 so I can get a first impression.

I just recently hooked up my TrapKAT & TD-12 to my Compact and it sounded really good.
It surprised me very much, I had expected the kick drum to be anemic.

I used just the "half stack" speaker extension mode, since that was at my ear level.
In a venue, the half stack probably won't throw far enough, and when I used the full extensions it wasn't as full sounding *to me*.

I had the TD-12 set up for my Model II, and had to turn up the kick fader to get it as loud as the rest of the kit.
But the sound was really good, clean, full.

The Compact would be very useful as a E-drum monitor, but not as the full PA for the kit, except in a very small venue.
Typically, I use a Model II w/4-B1s for my E-drums.