My band Happy Pants played at a friend’s wedding last night. The reception hall was in the basement of the hotel so I used the complimentary dollies and wheeled in my L1 gear.
There was also a DJ who was going to play stuff during dinner and between our sets. As luck would have it he had loaded in some of his stuff when the elevator broke. So rather than having him continue to load in his heavy speakers I told him he could run lines to Channel 4/5 of one of my Bose systems. I had brought 5 B1’s, one for my guitar and vocals and 4 to go with the L1 that was running bass, kick and the other vocals (and now the DJ).
Now it gets better, it was a good hour drive to this gig and I was missing one cable for the B1’s so ultimately I was down to 2 for the bass stuff and one for me. (I didn’t want to risk figuring out how to run 3).
It wasn’t the biggest reception room maybe just a bit bigger than your average bar but the set up even with only 3 b1’s was plenty. The DJ was blown away by the sound of the L1. He was cranking it and it sounded amazing. The DJ finished the night and except for the one L1 system that I had to wait around for the band packed and loaded out our stuff while the DJ provided more music. I have to say the sound blew me away too.
Luckily the hotel got someone to come and fix the elevator prior to us loading out, but I couldn’t believe how good the sound was as I walked all the way down this long hall to the elevator. It was still clear and even sounding.
This experience kind of made me wonder what kind of bass people are looking for when they say the B1’s aren’t enough because this was kicking out the bass something fierce, in fact my bass player told me at one point he went and lowered the bass eq a bit because in his mind it was too much and didn’t sound balanced. I tended to agree but left it originally because I have come to the belief partly from these forums that DJ’s like lots of bass. The point is even with only 2 B1’s the bass was moving my shirt when I got within 10 feet and the music filled the room beautifully.
It’s not that I regret buying the extra B1’s and the A1 I’m sure they will come in handy but I think I underestimated how much you can get out of 2.
It was kind of a neat learning experience, and another great night thanks to Bose.
– Litesnsirens, July 24, 2011 –
full discussion here