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Bose documentation for the L1 states clearly that you need to be with your back facing the thing more or less at 8 to 10 feet from the system. In a small room I'd never think of the bass module getting plugged in.
The reason that the 'pole' is so large, and this is a guess based on my amateur physics, is that distance kills the treble. And lots of speakers for keyboards were designed to sit on the floor, and even with the treble turned up on my Roland 1000 pound cube amp the people in the back of the 100 foot long hall I usually play in can't hear and treble at all and only a whiff of bass. I used to put the Roland amp on a table, which was better than not.
My current Bose handles the same hall just fine, with almost no complaints from the people at the front of the hall about my being too loud.
At 90 percent of those gigs they room has about 30 tables of 8, circular, and they first have a cocktail hour, then eat. I eat when the talking starts. I've cut way back. I used to play just the piano in the corner but they neglected it too much. I always got the same pay, a cheque to the children's hospital in my name for what they thought it was worth. It used to be good for a big tax deduction at the end of the year.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Adding to jazzmammal and John Conley's points about placement of the system, trying out in small vs. large rooms, etc.
Rewind far up in the thread where I asked where you were auditioning this system. John's description of how to set up in the vicinity of the L1 is right on and how I've seen/heard these systems used successfully for a middle sized room (banquet hall seating a little less than what John described).
Jazzmammal's point about auditioning in the sound in the middle of the room is right on the money. If you don't have signal cables that will reach from the middle of the room (or more appropriately, the middle of the area where the listeners will be), then take a friend along that can at least plunk out Happy Birthday on the keyboard at your performance location, while you roam the room listening.
Put the L1 and bass module in a corner, if you can, roam and listen. Then pull it away from the corner and walls and listen again. You are going to hear a huge difference, most likely. Which one is right? Good question. Many times you are not going to have a choice as to where to set up the thing. If it is really bothersome to you, I would suggest running some in-ear monitors for your sound, and let the room be what it is to within reason.
-Scott
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When I said "Having now played my Yamaha CP33 keyboard with the Bose L1 Compact cranked up" - I should have added "on stage, at the gig location" So everything I have said applies to a live, large room situation. To answer Mac I have tried all three available Bose connections to hook directly with my keyboard ie, 1/8' stereo, left and right phone and 1/4" mono. The piano sounds the same with them all.
Bob your comment "The conclusion to this is no matter what you do, no matter how many different PA's you go through you will never get that killer full grand piano sound you get at home through your headphones or studio monitors" confirms exactly what I said in my last post. I have tried a pair of powered monitors and the pianos sound great but the Bose sounds wrong whatever I do. Recorded music and everything from my computer and synth sounds fine but SOME of the piano patches have much too much bass. Unfortunately this low end Bose doesn't have an EQ to correct the problem - which is why I tried to use the mixer EQ but that created it's own problems as outlined in my original post.
I did a lot of research on the Bose before I bought it and nowhere was there a whisper about piano sounds so I am a little disappointed with my purchase. Luckily SOME of the piano patches are OK and when I asked listeners to comment on the piano sound they said it was fine. Perhaps I am being too picky but I expected more from Bose. Also, would I be right in thinking that most performers are not interested in solo piano sounds - mainly guitars etc.
Tony
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It is interesting that no-one else has commented specifically about how their Bose L1 compact handles solo piano sounds. Perhaps not many on this forum do this?
Tony
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I've played several different of my pianos at live gigs thru both L-1 and L-1
Compacts. Never had to worry about EQ, just ran straight into the Line inputs of either the Bose itself or to it via a mixer.
Until you came along, the overall impression of pianos thru Bose system has been very good indeed.
Which is why I still think that something is wrong there, somewhere.
--Mac
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Quote:
........ Perhaps I am being too picky but I expected more from Bose.....Tony
The bass is started a little hotter in the L1 systems because it attenuates faster than the other frequencies. You'd need a really high stack of bass modules to array the long bass frequencies.
I suggest coming up with a way to roll your bass down before the bose. The problem is that the bass control in your mixer might be effecting to much of the band but it's worth a try. Also, if your keyboard has some internal eq, play around with them a little just to see what they'll do.
Depending on your keyboard, you might be able edit the patch, save it with a new name, and have two or three patches with various degrees of low bass.
The human ear is a funny animal, and it 'hears' bass better at louder volumes. It's the reason for the 'loud' button on some old stereos. It took me forever and a day to learn that the lush warm sound of my Gibson through a Fender Deluxe was just going to turn to mush on stage. Then I switched to keyboards and my problems really started lol.
Just my 02. Good luck and hope you get it sorted.
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OK, now I get it, thanks for the help.
I have done hours of research on many forums, especially the Bose forums where the issue of stereo piano sounds through an L1 has been discussed to death. I have also conducted hours of my own tests with my CP33 Yamaha through my L1 Compact and have just finished my first gig.
The issue is that the sound you get from a stereo piano patch when listening on phones or via two monitors is not really a piano!! It's a "stereo piano" which doesn't exist in the real world. Other acoustic instruments are mono and their synth sounds are mono so when you put them through a Bose they sound great. The keyboard manufacturers have concentrated their efforts on creating stereo piano patches which, when you combine to mono, have all sorts of phase cancellation issues which is why they never sound as good through a single mono PA like the Bose. Running through left and right speakers restores the "stereo piano" sound but then we get into the issue of how many of the audience are positioned to hear the stereo etc. With their "stereo pianos" the manufactures have created unrealistic expectations among first time performers like me!
The only way to avoid degradation of the sound quality is to use a mono piano patch - if your keyboard has one and mine luckily has one. No matter how you try connecting from keyboard to mixer to Bose using a stereo piano sound, the quality always suffers. This is true even if you use the L/mono keyboard out which seems to just do an internal stereo to mono conversion. At first I ignored the mono piano patch because it didn't sound as good as the stereo patches but then the penny dropped - The reason it wasn't as impressive was because I was hearing a real piano, not the artificial sound of a "stereo piano" Most importantly it sounds the same on phones or through the Bose - why wouldn't it, it's a real piano.
The final clincher was getting someone to work some tests with me at the gig location and the gig itself. Everyone thought the mono piano sound was great and better than any of the stereo to mono sounds. Now I have got the sound of a stereo piano out of my head I am at peace with the world.
One final comment. I was lucky when I bought the Bose that my keyboard already had a mono piano. It certainly wasn't on my list of priorities when I bought it. Before I recommend Bose as a keyboard PA I will point out that they may be disapppointed with the piano sound unless their keyboard has a mono piano.
Tony
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The vast majority of PA systems are actually mono, Tony.
One power amp, regardless of whether or not there are "stereo" inputs or two or more speakers.
If you use only the L output on the piano, with nothing at all connected to the R output, then any Patch you pick should be summed to mono. It is that way on every keyboard I know that has audio line outputs, regardless of brand.
--Mac
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Quote:
If you use only the L output on the piano, with nothing at all connected to the R output, then any Patch you pick should be summed to mono. It is that way on every keyboard I know that has audio line outputs, regardless of brand.
Exactly, and because the stereo is summed to mono inside the keyboard the quality suffers due to phase cancellation between the left and right. The only way to preserve quality through a single (mono) amp is to start with a mono piano sample that has never been through a summing process.
Tony
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Quote:
Exactly, and because the stereo is summed to mono inside the keyboard the quality suffers due to phase cancellation between the left and right. The only way to preserve quality through a single (mono) amp is to start with a mono piano sample that has never been through a summing process.
Tony
That may be an aberration or oversight on your particular instrument model as I've owned and do own keyboards of just about all major brands and the use of Mono output doesn't do that here.
Now, the Stereo piano patch is bound to sound *different* when in Mono, but there's no way around that, but I don't get those cancellations here when using the Mono output.
Not sure what's going on at your end.
Find what works and play the gig, I say.
--Mac
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Quote:
Quote:
If you use only the L output on the piano, with nothing at all connected to the R output, then any Patch you pick should be summed to mono. It is that way on every keyboard I know that has audio line outputs, regardless of brand.
Exactly, and because the stereo is summed to mono inside the keyboard the quality suffers due to phase cancellation between the left and right. The only way to preserve quality through a single (mono) amp is to start with a mono piano sample that has never been through a summing process.
Tony
Tony, this doesn't jive with my experience using stereo keyboards patched mono out to PA systems for decades. The summing done inside the keyboard is not going to cause phase cancellation issues.
-Scott
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OK, let me restate my conclusion without any mention of phase cancellation.
When the stereo is summed to mono inside the keyboard the quality suffers far more compared with stereo than when you use a mono piano patch.
I might also think there was an issue with my particular keyboard except that there has been a huge amount of testing done with different keyboards going back to 2004. It is documented on the Bose forum and although some people find the summed sound acceptable, there is no doubt about the loss of quality compared with a mono sample.
Yes Mac, I enjoyed my first gig and have another on Xmas day. I and my audience love my mono piano!
Merry Xmas
Tony
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I don't know your keyboard at all but I can say that in my keyboard life I have had some where the patches themselves had stereo panning built in and a summed output took away from the texture. I also don't knew gear down to model number level like some do but I will guess your mixer is at least 8 channels, right?
Which brings me to the next obvious question... don't you have another cord so you can plug the keyboard into 2 channels of the mixer and run it stereo? If it is truly the case where the keyboard has sounds designed to be played in stereo for optimal sound, roll with it.
I recall a time where I was using 3 boards and 3 modules in my rig and had a 16 channel mixer so I could run those 12 outs in stereo. Our PA mixed out to the house in stereo and some of the digital piano and string sounds that were stereo sounded AWESOME as they panned back and forth from left to right stack. Of course it took 2 direct boxes, 2 mixer channels, etc.... but we had the room.
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I think the Bose system he has is mono, Eddie, and that is actually where the problem lies.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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