The short answer is yes!
This question comes up frequently in various
forms in the discussion here. While Bose recommends one system per
performer, this doesn't mean that the system can't be run as a conventional PA.
I've done it on the road to getting to the ideal, and while having more systems
is better you can
get great sound running several inputs into a mixer into a Bose system.
One System with a mixer
Depending on the size of the venue, type of
music you are playing and the ambient noise level, you can run a
single system with a mixer. It will sound better than most conventional
systems.
General Bose guidelines apply here for venues up to 300-500 people.
Scan through the messages in this forum and you will find many postings from
performers (solo, duos, with and without backing tracks as well as ensembles
for four and more).
You want to run the signal for each input into the system closest to it.
It sounds simple, and it is. The net result is that everyone in the room, regardless
of their position gets great sound, and a reasonable correlation between what
they see and hear.
You will get a much better sense of sight and sound correlation with a system for
every player, but until you get to that point, this will work.
The coloured controls on the mixer are the pan pots. Shown here, the four on the
left are panned hard left, and the four on the right are panned hard right.
This particular setup is deeply ingrained in the amplified music culture as the Way
We All Do Things, i.e., a PA is always set up on either side of the artists{s},
always has been. That's how we do it. Actually, this approach works better with
a typical FOH system as everyone in the audience is much more aware of the
system they are closer to (it's louder), due to the ubiquitous inverse-square
law of sound radiation (loud up close, quiet far away). And, of course, the
problems associated with this approach are discussed in endless detail
throughout this forum (bleeding ears, disconnected sight/sound of the
performance, nobody onstage knows how they sound in the audience, etc).
Our system has such a gradual change in sound pressure with distance that a pair of
systems are clearly and more equally heard way off-axis. This is the quality
that gives a pair of L1's such a wide stereo image "sweet spot". It's also a
quality that leads to bad dual-mono. In a dual-mono setup where, say, the vocal
is center-panned, if you are off-axis, you might hear both systems equally in
level, but they will arrive at your ears at different times, corresponding to
the difference in distances between the straight-line paths of the two L1's. At
a half-wavelength path difference, you will get a complete cancellation where
you are listening and above this frequency, you will get, alternatively,
reinforcement, then cancellation and so on as frequency goes higher. You will
also get a horizontal polar pattern that starts to look like one of those
cartoon-character gloves. These are called "lobes" or "fingering" and the
higher you go in frequency, more lobes (or fingers) will show up. And so, as
you walk in an arc around the pair, you will hear sound get loud, soft, loud,
soft and so on. In contrast, a single L1 has an almost perfect, arc-like polar
pattern throughout most of its range.
As an example, if the path difference between L1's is a foot where you are standing,
you will start the lobey behaviour at the half-wave of a 2 foot wavelength
frequency, or ~500 Hz. Way way above this frequency (like 5000 Hz, or upper
midrange), the lobes and interference cancellations are so dense that it almost
sounds like music. This behaviour sets up two very unpleasant qualities that
are easy to hear. One is that off-axis, sound will get duller and more
indistinct (blurry or vague) the more you move in this direction. Right up the
middle it's fine, where the path differences are negligible. The other thing
this sets up is an unpredictable feedback-producing sound field due to all the
lobes. Depending on where your microphone is, you might have a lot of feedback
at some frequencies and none at others. If you move only a little bit, you'll
get feedback and no-feedback at a totally different frequencies. All in all, a
dual-mono system might give you a little more level, but not everywhere. It
isn't pretty.
This is why one system always sounds better everywhere than two. And so two
independent systems is best for two separate performers. Because they are not
related ("incoherent" or harmonically unrelated), they can't interfere with
each other and you hear the separation and individual localization everywhere.
Interestingly, the idea to use a microphone and pickup, both on the same
instrument (guitar), might be good. They will be harmonically related in some
way. I never heard of this being done but it would be worth a try in wide
stereo. Might be Monster, might be Munster. Go try.
I thought I was being clever by trying to position everyone in the
mix using the pan pots. Notice the indicators on the mixer.
Cliff-at-Bose reminded me:
Dual mono means the same signal
coming out of two sources, so anything panned up the middle is dual mono.
Good for the audience up the middle, "not that great" for those off-axis.
Unfortunately, our system is worse at this than an inverse-square-law
system. Better to pan hard left and right. Make sense?
When I pressed the point about virtual positioning...
Virtual placement will vary all over the audience.
Again, great up the middle, gets worse as you get more off axis. You
should try all this yourself with some simple recordings (like solo voice,
solo guitar, etc) off a multitrack and walk around the room. This will not
show up big in a small room (like in a studio control room). But in a
place you might play it will.
Don't take my word for this. Go do it and then you
can speak with a True Knowledge, only gained by being there, doing
that.
