Good afternoon everyone,
About 6 months ago I had the choice to purchase either 3 Model 1’s with double bass, or two model 2’s with double bass. I play in a 4 piece pop/rock band and decided to go with 3 Model 1’s.
Our first handful of shows with this setup were at an outside venue in downtown Denver, CO. My Band, One Sun One Moon, had the opportunity to play for the first friday art walks during the summer. See the image below:
We’ve been struggling with vocal / kick drum microphone feedback, and creating convincing electric guitar distortion.
- Our lead vocalist uses a Sure Beta 87A (w/ tonematch setting applied).
- The bassist and I’s vocals use Sure 57’s (w/ tonematch applied).
- For the kick I use an Audix D6 (w/ tone match applied)
- For guitars I use an American made Stratocaster preamped by the greatest known modeling FX processor - Fractal Audio’s - AXE FX II. (w/ a flat setting on the tone match)
My band and I have spent a decent amount of time (80 hours) experimenting and finding new ways to make this system sound its best. While the sound hasn’t been terrible, we are not convinced this IS the system for us. From a ‘loudness’ perspective, the L1’s do just fine. The lead vocalist still has a lot of headroom and can be pushed even futher, but we are stopped short by piercing feedback. Additionally the kick microphone generates a ton of low frequency feedback when attemping to push the lows to a decent audible level. Granted I don’t have a quad bass system for it - so that may be my issue there.
I’ve done a good amount of troubleshooting in an attempt to remedy this issue, without resolve. Here’s a basic overview:
Vocal Feedback: In spite of everything tried here, whenever our lead vocalist moves her head away from the microphone it immediately starts generating high frequency feedback.
- Educated our vocalist about ‘kissing’ the microphone when singing.
- Rolled the High’s back a few notches.
- Ensured the vocalists are staggered between the towers.
- The vocalists are at least 20FT in front of the towers
- Each tower is spaced at least 10FT between eachother.
Kick Feedback: I’ve been able to resolve the feedback for the most part. It just needs waaay more power. My guess is I’ll need two more bass modules, but unfortunately I’m not ready to shell our more $$$$ when my band and I are not convinced with everything else.
- Rolled the lows back. (while this has resolved the feedback issues, the kick presence is weak and holds no power in the overall ‘mix’)
Electric Guitar: I’ve spent many hours in this arena due to the fact it’s my role in the band. This has been an interesting experience because the clean tones sound AMAZING but the distortion sounds ‘compressed’, ‘plastic’, and ‘unconvincing’. Over at the Fractal Audio forums everyone has agreed that distortion sounds weak on the Bose L1 towers. Unfortunately a lot of sterotyping goes on that it’s because I’m using the Bose L1 towers, period. While I’ve always disagreed with this mentality, I’ve recently begun to think it’s true, because when I go over to practice and play through a CHEAP traditional PA system, all of the sudden my distorition sounds RICH and CONVINCING, all through a pair of PA’s that cost no more than a 100 bucks total!! Combined with amount of time I’ve already poured into the Bose, further attempts at making my distorition sound as good as the $100 PA have become seriously demotivated to press any more. For fear that I’ll never achieve what I’m looking for and just lose more time. Furthermore the AXE FX II sounds incredible on my Blu Sky Studio Monitors… there’s just way more definition to the tone when comparing to the Bose L1.
- I use the flat setting on the tone match.
- Tried the stratocaster tone match, but it makes it sound very tinny. I think that setting is made just for someone going direct in with a strat.
I’m way past the trial period unfortunately. I think if the opportunity was still there I’d get my money back and invest into a traditional setup. Don’t get me wrong I’ve always loved the Bose product line and this community… it could be that this system is plainly not a match for my band.
Thank you for any help and advice… and for sticking through this book of a post.
-Brandon
edit: fixed image link