I am interested in how other L1 users and forum members overcome this problem. I was playing last night in a very busy bar in town which must have had around 150 people at it’s busiest. I was playing in an acoustic duo which includes 2 x acoustic guitars, 2 x vox, harmonica and flute.
The problem was this; we set the L1 up as usual and could hear ourselves quite clearly on the stage as could the 5 tables immediately in front. Behind them was a crowd of very loud folks out for a good time who had little interest in the music. The people sitting at the back of the room complained that the music could not be heard because it was not loud enough. So I turned up the T1 and it was too loud for us on the stage so I had to turn it down again which didn’t help the poor people at the back.
Other than the obvious (telling the noisy ones to behave) what would you do to get round this? In the past I would have just turned up the PA which would have deafened the people sitting in front which is not ideal.
Cheers
NIB
Hi NIB,
Not sure what other equipment you have at your disposal, but…
If you have a powered speaker (or two) or another amp/mixer besides the Bose, and additional speakers, you could use the Line Out from the Bose to feed either set-up.
Place the additional speakers as far from the Bose as possible, (and/or in any dead spots accordingly) then do an early sound check with one of you playing a full song or two, and the other making adjustments. (It’s good exercise, trust me…lol.)
Balance the sound from the additional speakers so that they merely augment the sound from the Bose where needed. Ideally, you’d still want to hear the Bose from anywhere in the house, no matter how faint.
Once that balance is set, you can then raise everything proportionally should the joint get jumping…yet maintain a pleasing balance and level for everyone.
Hi NIB,
Sometimes people suggest elevating the L1®s to get a little more sound over the heads of people close to the stage.
There is a wonderful discussion of the merits of doing this here:
Does elevating the L1® change the line array performance?
Here is a post from the middle of that discussion that gives you a sense of some of the issues.
quote:Originally posted by Chris-at-Bose
It’s hard to untangle this question, because we are talking about four factors that affect throw: having a big flat floor under an L1 (as opposed to no floor at all), the obstruction caused by a lot of people, raising the L1 above the floor, and “lowering the floor only out where the audience is” to make an elevated stage. What is confusing is that the answer about throw distance depends on which combinations of these effects we mean to include. I think there is a way to step through this in a sequence that will give a useful answer for all the combinations encountered in practice.
Start with an L1 suspended in mid-air. Call its throw distance the “bare L1 throw”. (I know, we don’t encounter this, but it’s a reference condition.)
Now put the L1 on a big, flat, hard, empty floor. As Ken said, the new throw distance will be four times the bare L1 throw.
Now add a dense mass of people on the floor. (Popular, aren’t you! They must love you and your Bose sound.) They block virtually all the sound reflected from the floor (taking the floor effect out of the picture) AND they block some of the direct radiation from the L1. So the real throw distance now becomes less than the bare L1 throw, possibly far less. Call this the “obstructed throw”. Most of us have experienced this at one time or another, unless you’re never popular.
Now raise the L1 above the floor. The actual throw distance improves as the L1 gets above the obstruction of all those people. If you hypothetically raised the L1 'way up in the air, you would get back to the bare L1 throw, but you won’t actually raise it that high because the “sound layer” would go over everyone’s heads and they would all hear muffled sound. So the throw you get by raising the L1 is farther than the obstructed throw, but not as far as the bare L1 throw. Notice that the floor effect is not a factor in your decision, because all those people are obstructing the floor anyway.
Now, with the L1 elevated, take away the people. What throw do you get? Who cares–put that L1 down, you no longer have a reason to elevate it. (Gotcha!) This trick allows me to avoid having to admit, “I don’t exactly know”. (Oh, I just did, didn’t I. Never mind.)
Let’s go back to the case where the L1 is elevated and you are so popular that the place is packed with people. Remember that the throw distance was between the obstructed throw (short) and the bare L1 throw (medium). Now quick, imagine a stage that elevates you up to where the L1 is. People see you better, but do they hear any difference? Basically, no. (I’ll explain why in the next paragraph.) So you get the same throw as when only the L1 was elevated, some distance between the obstructed throw and the bare L1 throw. For the audience’s ears, the elevated stage is the same as the elevated L1. But they do see you better.
So, why doesn’t the stage sound different from just elevating the L1s? Well, as Ken said, you have to imagine the floor as a mirror. If the stage floor were a mirror, how much of the L1 image could the audience see in the floor of the stage? Typically very little. Most of the image is cut off by the edge of the stage. Since they can’t see most of the L1 image, that image has little effect on the sound they hear. So, if the stage could be magically removed, leaving the L1s and performers floating, those in the audience would hear very little difference in the sound of the L1. (The bass would change, but we’re not talking about that.)
I think that covers the bases. In summary, the only time you really get the 4x longer throw from the floor reflection is when the floor within 50 feet or so of the L1 is hard, flat, and sparsely populated, as it is in some extensive outdoor events. And you need the extra throw for sprawling events like that. When the floor is densely packed, elevating the L1s improves the throw, whether the means of elevation also raises the performers (i.e., a stage) or not.
If I don’t mention it, someone will ask about the intermediate case where the density of people is moderate. As always, let your ears be your guide. If it sounds muffled in back, you have an obstruction problem and elevation will usually help. But I must remind you that safety has to come before sound quality. When you say you “killed the audience”, we don’t want that to be literally true. Be careful.
Hope this is useful.
Chris
Check out the whole discussion.
Does elevating the L1® change the line array performance?
I think you answered your own question.
You were in a situation that had no easy answer. Turn up and kill the people up front or just do what you do.quote:In the past I would have just turned up the PA which would have deafened the people sitting in front which is not ideal.
Hi NIB,
I got preoccupied with the technical aspect of elevating the L1®s versus elevating the volume.
Roy got me back on track here. Thanks.
I’ve been battling this particular demon for years at a recurring house concert venue. In the old days we just ran the PA LOUD. Those who liked the volume or could tolerate it would sit up front. Those who preferred things quieter (or showed up too late to have a choice) ended up farther away. Later I ran Bose 802s around the room. This sounded nice, but somewhat vague as you lost all sense of where the sound was coming from.
Four years ago I started doing the sound for these house concerts with L1®s. Philosophically I turned a corner and wanted to stop hurting people with excessive volume. The problem has been a tug-of-war: a battle between these views:
- If the sound is good then people will pay attention and be quietly respectful.
- If the sound is loud then it doesn’t matter if the people pay attention or are quiet.
These are ridiculously simplistic views but I have had countless conversations about this.
Part of the issue in this venue was whether or not these events were house concerts or something else. If they were concerts then sure, we the organizers and entertainers could ask for people’s quiet attention. But this is an unusual venue with 150 people getting together for what has historically been a party-hearty situation.
So we had to confront the situation: How to serve the multitude of agendas in the room?
One approach would have us enforce a single agenda. That is, make it known in advance that this was a “concert” and the general rules of such events would apply. I struggle with this idea as I try to imagine how you would do that walking in as the entertainment in a noisy pub.
Because we were producing the show AND could make changes to the environment, we set up a separate room where we had remote sound pumped in. We told people that this was the place to socialize and party while the concert was happening.
Now the question remains - what do you do if you are transient, fee for service entertainment in a fixed environment with an atmosphere at odds with your performance goals?
There are a lot of assumptions in this question.
- “transient” in this sense also conveys the idea that you have very little power in the relationship with the venue.
- "… with an atmosphere at odds with your performance goals" assumes that you do not want to be toxically loud.
Back to Roy’s observation.
"Turn up and kill the people up front or just do what you do."
Somewhere in all of this, let’s suppose that you got hired for doing what you do, and presume that the volume at which you do it is part of that package. Then I guess you do what you do.
If you were hired to fill the place with sound and you agree to do that, then you crank up the volume. If you put the L1®s beside you instead of behind, you can get wicked loud.
It might be a tough sell in a noisy pub environment, but personally I’d rather try to sell the “this is what we do, so hire us and let us do it”. I am not saying that you have to change what you do NIB. I am pondering the idea that the atmosphere you create in a room and the volume required to do it are a big part of the show. I don’t think the issue is new with the L1®, but it may be more apparent.
The stark contrast between serving the audience and subjugating it is elevated in our consciousness. Depending on the venue and the contract, we may actually have a choice in the matter.
OK…Let’s say that raising the L1 is a person’s solution to this problem.
Where is the happy compromise? A foot up? 2 feet? This gets the top of the tower a couple of feet over their heads.
Do you elevate the B1’s as well? Will anything be gained by lifting the B1’s 3 feet since the obstruction (people) is still in play?
Anybody have any success at this approach?
JD
This is all very interesting and I’m very glad I asked. Thanks for all the great input.
My thoughts on some of the suggestions:
- raising the L1 is something I hadn’t considered although I don’t know if this will help in this particular scenario. Anyhoo, how do you raise it safely when there is nothing physical to hand to put it on and is this really the answer?
- I don’t really want to add more kit if it can be helped as that defeats one of the main reason for forking out on the L1 in the first place. I have a 2K Bose rig (4 x 802 III 4 MB4s) which could be utilised (and is on larger gigs) although as I said I want to just use the L1 if possible.
- I have now got used to the L1 being behind us so wouldn’t want to shift it off to the side if this can be avoided. We did however turn it up a bit and move about 3 feet forward which helped a bit.
- I think Roy and ST have it nailed. The pub hire us to entertain the clientele who want to be entertained. Those who wish to hear the music can come on down to the front and listen while the noisy folks will hopefully get pushed further back. The only time this becomes difficult is when the noisy ones pitch up right in front of you, then it’s on to plan B - blast them with volume!
Thanks again for all the great input!
nib
Just some additional .02…
I assume you’re probably playing lively music?
I’ve noticed at some of my gigs, that because of general noise levels, I had to not only set my L1 at the maximum allowable pleasant volume, but I had to change my songlist to keep the music towards the upper end of that volume window - introspective fingerpicking just didn’t cut it. I had to do all my lively stuff…much more tiring, but it helped.
And perhaps check your instrument and vocal EQ, and make sure you’re cutting through…sometimes rich warm tones, which are pretty, just get buried in the noise mix. And perhaps check your 'verb and chorus, etc. I would think whatever buries you in a band situation would bury you in a noise situation.
Again, just my .02.
Hi nib43,
I’m really glad you posted this because I posted the exact same problem a few months ago with the solution of using different speakers with the T1 and it works INCREDIBLY WELL! My heart goes out to you due to the fact that you bought the L1 so you could stop lugging so much gear around. That was my motivation as well to spend $3K. And then when you get in those situations as you described, you ask yourself… why did I spend $3K if the people in the back can’t hear me in a noisy bar? My frustration as well my friend. Especially, if you’re the audio junkie I am and want to hear perfection in the room.
Yes, elevating the L1 off the ground can help but if you’re willing to shell out some more cash (as I did), I highly recommend you buy some “powered” drivers. JBL, Behringer, Mackie… take your pick. Take your T1 with you to your local music store and plug into some of these powered speakers. The results will blow your mind. The T1 has the incredible ability to take ANY speaker and make it sound 5 times better then it would with a traditional mixer. Along with my L1/T1 set up, I’ve invested in some JBL EON’s and bring those with me to certain gigs where I know the crowd is going to be really loud. Sometimes the L1 comes with me and sometimes it doesn’t if I go this route. I simply set up the JBL’s a few feet behind me and use them as my monitor as well as my mains without the L1. This set up allows me to put these speakers on stands, cutting across everyones head and reaching the back of the room with no difficulty at all.
I realize it’s not in everyone’s budget to do this because the JBL EON’s set me back another $1500 but it was worth every penny and now there isn’t ANY gig I can’t do. The reason I went with the JBL’s out of all my choices definitely wasn’t the price. 
They sounded the best and were also the lightest powered speaker I ever picked up. They weigh next to nothing.
If you do go this route, you’ll have to buy a separate power supply for the T1 when it’s not being used with the L1.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Kova
I would have to think about your solution Kova. Before the L1’s I used FBT pwoered speakers in the same set up as you described. Behind me so they became the monitors also. This worked great until the really loud jobs. There is just no way to fill a large loud room all the way to the back wall without feedback. Maybe with the T1 and some heavy EQ adjustments but then I still think there would be problems. I think people in any room need a place to go to talk and do what they do. To fill up every inch of space with sound has never been an issue with me. I am sure we have all had the reverse problem to this question. Poeple sit right in front and complain they can’t talk because it is to loud. I see it as a problem with the crowd and not the equipment. Roy
I think we’re onto two separate issues here.
There’s the one where the person with the whitest hair picks the seat closest to the sound source. Turning down to please him sacrifices those in the rear.
Then there’s the one where bodies up front absorb or block the sound to those in the back. This is a very real phenomenon which is a problem for me only since using the L1’s. The old stand mounted speakers fired off over the crowd’s head to the back. I don’t think elevating the L1 and B1’s is gonna do much from what I’ve seen here.
I’ve said it before: During a break, I cranked the ipod as loud as the band was and then walked around the venue. At a mere fifty feet in front of the band area, I could no longer see the setup (I’m 6’-3”) and couldn’t make out what song was playing. The crowd absorbed all the sound. I had no problem to the sides for as far as 200 feet out (unobstructed).
Woulda went further but I’da fallen into Long Island Sound if I did.
JD
All very good points from Roy & JD1. As the old saying goes… “it’s impossible to please everyone” but I’m proud to say that my L1 comes darn close. Funny thing is… when I bring the JBL’s instead of the L1, I feel guilty because I’m bringing even LESS gear than the L1 set up. Think about it… 1 speaker, 1 stand and my T1. I can almost carry all that stuff in 1 hand! haha…
The few times I felt my original L1 fell short were in noisy club environments. Where my old system would just blast through, the Bose does not.
I thought there was no Line Out on the original base that would include all the inputs?
We played a club again where it’s a very busy and noisy environment. This time my wife actually came out so I had someone in the audience I could ask about volume. We set up in a corner of a large bar with VERY high ceilings. The floors are a hard surface and the place is packed. Many people are talking and watching sports on the 20 or so tv’s. It seems like hardly anybody is paying attention until we play Sweet Caroline and/or Friends in Low Places in our last set and then the entire bar is singing along. I think it might have happened earlier on Country Roads as well.
On prior gigs in this place, my singer went out in the audience while I was doing a solo tune and he said the L1 could be heard all over the place. This time I asked my wife who was sitting at a table close to the front and she said we were not very loud. The Bose was as loud as it would go without my singer’s mic feeding back (usually about 1/2 way on the master and a bit past 1/2 way on his channel volume).
If the L1 had a master line out, I would run that to a powered speaker on a pole, but it doesn’t. I could bring a mixer and a powered speaker and run everything into the mixer and then one side to the bose and one side to a powered speaker. But I’m thinking that next time I may just bring a traditional p.a. and see if that works better in this place.
If you want the L1’s loud for a packed club you need a stage, preferable a foot or more higher than the club floor. If you dont’ have a stage, but you have ceiling height bring something to prop up the L1.
You also, need mics that are very feedback resistant. Also, if you are pumping your whole band into 1 L1 with a lot of mics don’t expect a lot of feedback resistance or head room.
I can get my L1’s up too 3:00 on the masters. And that is often too loud for many rock clubs we play.
L1’s can be very loud if needed they throw good. But, if you block the sound with people or put to many inputs into one system, you may not get the results you want as far as volume.
Also, someone might say, “it doesn’t seem loud enough,” because they are used to being blasted by the house PA. The same person would probably find if they went to the back of the room, it was just as loud and audible.
I just played a St.Patty’s day gig that I played last year as well. Both with an L1 Model II. There were at least 200 people. It was partially in a tent and all around the outside of the tent. Obviously its going to be a problem with just one sound source.
Last year the Bose system just couldn’t get loud enough. I had the master all the way up and the channels at 10’oclock! Too many people absorbing the sound.
This year I had it elevated, and used one sperate powered speaker. WAYYYY better, esp with an extra sound source. For some big gigs, esp. outside, it makes sense to have a powered speaker with the bose.
Be flexable.
But how do you add the powered speaker? There’s no master line out on my L1.
quote:Originally posted by Ric:
If you want the L1's loud for a packed club you need a stage, preferable a foot or more higher than the club floor. If you dont' have a stage, but you have ceiling height bring something to prop up the L1.
You also, need mics that are very feedback resistant. Also, if you are pumping your whole band into 1 L1 with a lot of mics don't expect a lot of feedback resistance or head room.
I can get my L1's up too 3:00 on the masters. And that is often too loud for many rock clubs we play.
L1's can be very loud if needed they throw good. But, if you block the sound with people or put to many inputs into one system, you may not get the results you want as far as volume.
Also, someone might say, "it doesn't seem loud enough," because they are used to being blasted by the house PA. The same person would probably find if they went to the back of the room, it was just as loud and audible.
This one club where we're having the issue has a stage that's about a foot off the ground. We have the L1 set as loud as it will go before my singer's mic feeds back.
Based on my wife's statement, I'm guessing the Bose just isn't heard very well in this environment. She wasn't very far from the stage and she said it was quiet.
I would love to add a powered speaker to the setup, but I'd rather not add a mixer to the mix because then I lose my Bose presets. And I'm not buying a T1 for one club. If I have to use a mixer, I'll bring my small Mackie.
I may just go with a conventional system next time (Yamaha powered board with speakers on sticks) to see if that's any better. I know it will be louder at least.
Hi David,
If you are using only Channels 1 and 2 then you can use a mixer to mix-down the Power Stand Line Outs.
If you an using all Channels can you tell us about your inputs and mixer? (Make and Model) Then we can get into some details.
Notes Line Outs
quote:I know it will be louder at least.
At what distance?
I use inputs one and 2 for vocal mics and input 3 for guitar.
Honestly, if I have to bring a mixer and run the mics and guitar through the mixer’s preamps and eq and then run one side to the bose and the other to a powered speaker, I’ll just bring my conventional p.a.
The mixer I’d use is a Mackie DFX12 (http://www.mackie.com/products/dfx12/index.html).
Louder at what distance? In that atmosphere, the mains would be in front of the stage. The sound would be louder both close to the speakers and towards the back of the bar where the Bose isn’t reaching with all this background chatter. While the Bose carries and spreads great other places, it does not cut through this kind of chatter. I’ve had that experience with it in at least 3 clubs under similar circumstances.