I had the rare opportunity to meet with the leader of an 18-piece band today, a person that I would think would be an expert on this subject. He is highly trained, as are all of his musicians. They perform throughout the southeast, primarily in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, parts of Virginia and northern Florida. They primarily perform Glenn Miller type music, and all of their bend members are seated in rows similar to the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

Each musician has his and her own mic, the vocalist has her own mic, and even the drums and piano are fed through mics. Now, we're talking 18 pieces, plus a female vocalist, saxes, trombones, trumpets, an accoustic piano and an upright bass. Everything is fired through a monster mixing board, then into a 4,500-watt PA system that's MONO! We talked about stereo and his first statement was "Who in the hell would hear it? If we fired all those instruments through a stereo system it would not only be a nightmare for the guy running the mixing board, but additionally, can you imagine what we would sound like if only have the instruments came out of half the speakers on one side of a 200-foot stage, and the other half came out of the speakers on the other side?"

He checked out my L1 and asked the price. When I told him he said that was fairly inexpensive, especially considering how crisp and clear everything sounded. Then when I told him it was never turned up more than 25 percent of max volume, he said "I'm calling Bose first thing Monday morning."

BTW: He had an arranger keyboard player for a couple years, but the keyboard guy quit because he was only using the keyboard as a piano and vibes most of the time. He said he was really impressed with the technical strides that keyboards have made in the past few years, and that he envisioned they would play a larger role in big band music in the ensuing years.

Cheers,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

[This message has been edited by travlin'easy (edited 10-26-2007).]