Four piece played in a fairly cramped corner of an upscale Country Club here in Dayton, last night.

First row of tables was about 15 feet away and we were as far back as we could go. Set up with myself in the middle front, bass player to my left (behind the pillar), sax on my right, drums right behind me.

The L1 was positioned in line with the drummer to his left.

First set was a cocktail set - no vocals. As was the case during the sound check, instrumentally speaking, it sounded very nice. PLENTY of volume reached all parts of the hall. The crowd was estimated by the client at 175.

We used vocals for sets 2/3...Weren't quite as happy with them, but only me and the bass player noticed the lack of sizzle/clarity we like.

As was the case with my solo set up, I found better results if I lowered the output on my box amp and drew my real power from the Bose. I run my mixer's channels around 6-7...run the mixer's master gain at 3 O'clock...I then bumped the bose remote master up to 11:00 from 8:00 and voila! Power, clarity, sizzle...

The bartenders at the back of the room commented they'd not heard us sound so clean before, which was cool. Several dancers also commented how nice everything sounded.

The guys were pretty open to it. Sax player said no issues for him at all, bass player was more or less fine. The drummer commented how musically he could hear very well, but his vocal was lacking. He's a fairly weak singer to begin with so next time we'll bring him up slightly in front of the L1 and see how that does for him.

Two additional big positives for us...

1) Volume on stage was 15% or so less than it usually is, maybe more-which is always nice.

2) Setup/tear down of the PA was a breeze...

So, I've now used in this in all my configurations and I have absolutely zero regrets on this purchase. Over time, I will learn to optimize the unit even more than it currently is, which is already very satisfying to me.

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Bill in Dayton

[This message has been edited by Bill in Dayton (edited 12-21-2008).]

You've done all the hard work--Now it's time to have fun.

Good Luck,

Gary

Bill...congrats on your new system.....maybe some intense EQ could give you that "Sizzle" your looking for on the Mixer & from the source.

Good Luck

I recently had a chance to hear a trio with the keyboard player paying a Clavinova through an L1 system. First time I've heard one in the wild. I know they have their detractors on here, but you can only speak as you find. Colour me impressed. Money no object, I'd be trading up to an L1. What a terrific system.

Envious Seamaster

I think it was more of a gain issue...Leaving the box amps at their normal levels and then running them into the bose
seems to somehow overdrive the box mixer. I see limiters kicking in and that never happens, ever...

Like I said, lowering the box mixer output and letting the bose do the majority of the heavy lifting fixed it right away...

I've done 19 sets of music in the last 7 days...with 12 set ups/tear downs. I feel so refreshed right now that I'm honestly thinking of hitting my waiting list for 2009 and adding a couple dozens gigs...

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Bill in Dayton