Hi gang,
We are the MidLife Crisis band. We thought we were so clever but it turns out we are just a part of the MLC wheel. As you can see from the link below we are part of a brotherhood (and sisterhood) that spans the globe. Check out the MLC Global Finder at the bottom of the page to find the Midlife Crisis band nearest you.
The MLC epicenter
You can find our site at www.mlc-band.net. We are a typical good time rock and roll band. We play some blues and do a few originals, but most of the songs we do are ones that you know all the words to and can sing along with. On our website you can play “where’s Waldo” as you try and find the L1’s. There are a LOT of pictures on the site with L1’s in them but sometimes you have to look pretty hard to see them.
We’ve been monitor free (100% L1 systems) since 2004 and won’t ever go back.
Our typical setup is this:
Scott: Roland VDrums and no vocal mic no matter how much he pleads: 4 B1 L1 system with a T1
Alan: Bass guitar and vocals: 4B1 system with a T1
Alan uses one of three tone shapping tools, 1) direct into his T1 and using a preset, 2) a Boss stop pedal EQ and 3) a Line 6 Bass PODXT Live. Alan uses an SM58 for a vocal mic (old habits die hard) so thank goodness for the preset … his vocals sound so much better with the preset in my opinion.
Steve: Guitars and vocals: 1B1 system with a T1
I use either a Line 6 PODXTLive or a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp with a pedal board (or the XTLive in pedal board mode – no amp modeling). I prefer having the amp over the XTLive but for small stages going with the XTLive only makes way more sense. It’s easy, it sounds great and I can get a lot of tones out of it, which I need given the variety of material we cover.
I use the T1 with a dash of reverb & delay on my vocals to thicken things up and to hide my lack of pitch accuracy. ? I have a scene called “POD” for when I’m using the pod and one called “AMP” for when I’m using the amp setup. The “AMP” scene has the e609 preset for the guitar amp mic and a big, lush chorus and analog delay on the channel. I hit the effects mute to turn the chorus/delay on and off. Because the effects are behind the amp, they are clear, detailed and yummy. It’s that big “Andy Summers” sound … think “Walking on the Moon” by the Police.
John: Guitars, keys, vocals, percussion, harmonica, kazoo … you name it. 2B1 system with T1.
John does it all, and does it pretty well. I hate him for that … I’m totally jealous. John’s typical setup is OM5 mic into channel 1 (splash of reverb), electric guitar for channel 2, acoustic guitar for channel 3, keys into channel 4/5. Sometimes he’ll set up a “guest mic” or two and when he does that he takes the electric guitar and runs it into an Alesis MultiMix mixer, plugs the mics into the Alesis and then runs the output of the Alesis into channel two.
If something can be broken, John will find out how. He was GREAT when we were beta testing Model IIs and T1’s. I’d bring them to a rehearsal or a show and if there was a problem, John was the one to fine it. He called it “bad luck” I called it “good fortune”. He was a big help in going beyond a reasonable scenario and to the extreme, or in some cases, to a completely illogical (to me) scenario and finding an out of bounds condition. And thanks to Bill and MikeZ we were able to fix all his findings … and we survived our gigs.
Setup wise, we typically go drums & bass in the middle, guitars and keys on the outside to get a wide sound field. When we are on a small, small stage we’ll put the guitars and keys together and let the drums and bass sit together. Not sure why we do this, but I think it’s because there’s soooo much bass coming from Alan that if you don’t have room to get away from it, you drown in it. The boy likes his lows.
If I can speak for the band, I’d speak for Alan. He’s in his 50’s and has been playing live since he was 12. When we crossed over to a full L1 band he was VERY skeptical at first, and the most pleased at last. He would hug me gig after gig after gig saying “thank you so much for getting us into these”. I think he was saying “finally I can hear everyone”. He just wouldn’t stop thanking me … he was really grateful for the “push into the pool” I think.
I’m done with monitors and mains. I had the good fortune to do a jam with MikeZ, Chuck and one other guy who’s band is an L1 band through a conventional system (big mains, big monitors, loud amps, loud drums) and it reminded me of how it used to be. This was run by a pro sound company who did a GREAT job with the tools they had. I am not knocking them, but here’s what I experienced.
Hard to hear the music, clarity was gone, move on stage and the sound changes MASSIVELY, my background vocals were smokin’ loud in the monitor so I have no clue how hard to push when singing, my guitar tone changed depending on where I stood, etc., etc. The band was great but candidly, the rehearsals (with L1’s) were more fun for me musically than the gig. At the gig we got a great audience reaction, so that was cool, but sonically we all knew we were missing out. And afterwards we all had this look … this smirk on our faces that said, “oh yeah, that could have been soooo much better if we could have used L1’s”.
I play for my enjoyment not income and going with the old triple system approach isn’t something I enjoy at all … not even for nostalgic purposes. I know that some people still like the monitors and mains method … they can keep ‘em, I am soooooo done with that sonic nightmare. A great night with monitors (see above) can’t even come close to a great night with L1’s. It’s more like this, a horrible night with L1’s is about like a very good night with monitors. That’s my point of view, you’re welcome to your own point of view of course, I’m just writing to you to give you my experiences, your mileage may vary – just like your tastes in music are different than mine.
I work for Bose but I assure you that this is my unbiased opinion … Is that really possible, an unbiased opinion? I digress … I have been a musician A LOT longer than I have been a Bose employee and I will be a musician a lot longer than a Bose employee (I think). So, I offer this summary as a fellow musician who happens to work at Bose, not a Bose employee who happens to be a musician.
I hope this summary helps anyone and everyone who reads it.
Steve