Has anyone here used the Bose P.A.S at a gig? If so how many musicians were in your band and what kind of mic setup do you use? We have 5 musicians and 3 Bose systems and we are trying to get away from the 6 mics and all the pickups we are using while staying with the Bose system.
Garry G
Concord, NH
We recently played a gig with one. Was a very small room and a quiet listening audience. We used our AT 2020 by itself. Sounded pretty good but the room didnt really require much to make it work. Wonder how it would work in a larger/noisier space.
We have 3 systems between 5 musicians. It is a great sound inside or out. We all have multiple instruments and all do lead and harmony vocals during the course of a set. We're trying to eliminate the some of the mics and all of the pickups except for the bass. Bose shows a setup with 2 mics and four instruments/musicians.
Garry G
Concord, NH
Would this system work with AT4033 and NOT feedback??? IF so, I want it.
Our son bought one to use for sax and keyboard and his band has used it for a crowded stage by using a small mixing board to add more mics, since it only has two XLR inputs. My wife and I played a dance in a large hall with over 200 people and used a couple of mics and it worked fine. We also have a small Mackie mixing board and used more mics with it that way. Also used a one inch diaphram MXL mic (cheap substitute for the mics mentioned above?) and it worked fine, but I was uncomfortable because I have always been so used to staying very close to the mic and haven't practiced this way enough to feel good about it. We have been able to get it to feedback, but I think the real issue is one of just not understanding how it throws sound. It really doesn't sound as loud to the player on the stage as the player is used to hearing to be loud enough for the audience to hear. I have tested this letting other musicians and a dance caller use it and most people just don't think they are loud enough, when you can walk a good distance from it and hear fine. That's just my 2 cents!
Woody
Woody McKenzie
http://mckenziemusic.com
Are you talking about those crazy towers? #I expect it would take some real effort to keep those from feeding back with a one mic setup as they are designed to be nearly omnidirectional, exactly what you don't want in that situation. #Of course you might not be talking about that...
Chip
Yup, that's what we're talking about. Our band tried out a couple of 'em and when we used dynamic mics (SM58's), they worked great, but when we tried using the AT4033, we couldn't get enough volume without feeding back.Originally Posted by (chipbooth @ May 26 2005, 21:22)
'Course we were playing in a club where the audience just talked louder whenever we'd turn it up. I think the audience won that skirmish.
We decided that even though they were pretty good, we already had a decent PA, and $4,000+ for a sound system was too much. Sent 'em back.
Thanks fredfrank...that is the info I was needing. The whole system intrigues me, but we are desperately trying to find a way not to give up the 4033.
I've been watching the Bose too, but it being so expensive it was just idle curiosity. I didn't understand how the Bose worked and just thought it had to be a gimmick. Well an old friend who was in the sound business and I were shooting the breeze about the new technology and he mentioned "line array" being the new hip thing in pro sound. One of the amazing things about it is what was mentioned earlier, it's ability to "throw" the sound. It carry's further than conventional speakers because of the coupling that physically happens when you put the speakers at a set distance to each other. It has the ability to make a vertical wave that remains cohesive further than conventional speakers that make a conical wave. At 100' a regular speaker is down 6db, where a line array is down 3db. This isn't just half as loud, db's are a logarithmic thing. What it boils down to is it doesn't have to blast the front row to be heard at the back because the wave stays together. With the right setup the back hears almost like the front of the room, in not just loudness, in frequency response too! The tricky part is the coupling and there is a lot online about it. Of course being the cheapskate I am I'm always trying to find how to do it myself and build a sys for less and get more. In this case I believe Bose did one of their usual things in that they built a total compromise physically and tried to compensate electronically. I used some of the old Bose speakers and they sounded good with the special eq, but like #### without. The same with this sys. They also did what would be a usual no-no in that the "tower" is aluminum. Usually you wouldn't want to do that because of the resonance, making the thing omni directional. I believe they used this to somewhat of an advantage. They were shooting at vocal range, that's why the little bunch of speakers used in the tube/tower. That's why it doesn't have that great of frequency response by itself too. There is a very intriguing design that is a DIY with some planar tweeters and some I think 6" speakers. The cab is huge(6" tall!), gotta weigh a ton and would be totally unreal for PA. But the intriguing thing is the tweets. That's the thing that is usually hard to "couple" in a line array because you usually can't get them close enough together. These are planar's, long and narrow and don't have the usual big mounting plate around them that would make it hard to get the diaphragms close enough to couple. They are also rated down to 700hz up to 20K ! 6 of these mounted in aluminum square tubing sprayed with something like that stuff they spray on PU beds to damp the"ringing" mounted on a flat stand....then a mid horn array with a sub to take care of below 700hz. I'll bet you could make a set of 2 for less than what Bose wants for one and it wouldn't be omi so you could still use the 4033. I'll put away my mad scientist suit now...
I have a hard enough time just changing strings, without trying to build a PA!
I used to think that too until, back in the 70's I decided to build my own stereo speakers. Not being into woodworking I did this with some trepidation. I took a night woodshop class at the high school. They came out great and my roomate decided I should build him a PA, so why not? It was a huge rock style PA all out of plywood. That stuff is still being used in the midwest somewhere. Needed to rent a truck to haul the whole thing. I'm not bragging, I'm making the point, if I can, anybody can. And you get way better stuff for way less.
My experience is that it is an awesome sounding system if you use it for what it is good for and that is small to medium size venue. Also one tower is good for a duo maybe trio but if there is 3 or 4 then you need another tower or two.
The acoustical sound is amazing. You don't need monitors because you hear what the audience hears. And the sound for a lack of better way to describe it, it just FILLS a room.
Haven't tried a condensor mic on it but have no reason to believe you couldn't get it to work right. SM-58's and 57's work great and you really have to crank to get them to feedback in my experiences.
I would love to hear the Bose system through Fishmans new Aura system which mimics high end condensor mics.
It seems like the Bose system was made for acoustic guitars and mandolins.
It is not the be all end all in PA systems but which on is? It is just another tool in the toolbox and you take it out for the right job, which is like I said, indoors medium size audience with acoustical instrument.
And $1600.00 is not outrageous for plug and play PA. I have a small 400 wattpowered mixer with 2 JBL mains and 2 JBL monitors that I use for medium venues which cost me way more than the cost of the Bose System.
And the best thing I like about the Bose System it you can carry it in a literally have it set up and ready to go in 15-20 minutes.
And NO I don't own one but I have two buddies that do and I WANT ONE BAD!
Interesting discussion. I have not had an opportunity to use or hear a Bose system, but what I am hearing described sounds like an elaborite version of the setup I have been using for small to medium sized rooms, with considerable success, IMHO. I have been using a single AT 2020 or AKG C1000 condenser mic running through a small Behringer unpowered mixer (for phantom power and preamping)into a Roland Cube Monitor mounted on a mic stand. Good natural acoustic sound. I've also used it with both mics to amplify the trio I play with. The Cube Monitor is a real neat little unit....30 watts with a built in 3 channel mixer in a package about 9.5 inches on a side, weighs maybe 20# and mounts on any mic stand. We sell it at the store I work in for about $175. Its well worth checking out if there's a Roland dealer near you.
Sandy Morse
If you want to use a 4033 mic alone,why can't you just put the Bose out front? #I guess you couldn't hear it but generally you don't hear much (monitor) anyway if you are using a one mic system. (i know you can use monitors but that's a different discussion) # I would also wonder about upright bass sound reproduction. #They do look amazing.
The problem, for us who want to use LDC's, is the Bose is made to be omni directional so I don't see it as the same as the little monitor amp which I would think would be directional. At 30w I don't think you are trying to push anywhere near the spl's(which opens the huge can of feedback worms) that most seems to want to push here. I think that contributes to a lot of people's problems with LDC's and PA's. A lot of cabinets have "backwash" in that the cabinet is not strong enough to not "radiate" the sound instead of damping the sound from the sides and back and just directing it out the front. This causes feedback if not dealt with properly like getting them out in front and away from the stage along with feedback eliminators/eq's.I worry about this with all the lightweight plastic cabs I've seen. I've not been behind them trying to play through them, just out front listening and they sound great(JBL and Mackie's). We who are trying to use LDC"s for live are in a very, very small minority and as such you are not going to walk into some music store and get good advice. Everything I've learned has been on my own and asking pro's, getting ideas and trying them.FredFrank didn't mention if he set the Bose out in front, but I would bet he did. The Bose was meant to be used with dynamics and plugged in stuff, not LDC's, from their own literature. Also it is unable to reproduce bass, so it needs a sub, another expense and complication.
We did try putting them out front, but it kinda defeated the purpose of being able to hear what the audience hears. We figured if we were going to operate it like a conventional PA, we might as well use the one we already owned. (Mackie board with three JBL Eon 15's. One for a monitor.) We returned the Bose for a complete refund and have never looked back.
We use two towers and two bass cabinets with a 4 piece band. Typically, there is one 4033 and the bass pickup gets routed directly to one of the inputs. Sounds great and no feedback!
Brian
I've used a buddy's system. We used a large diaphram condenser, with a small diaphram mounted below it for instruments. It worked great for us. We used one tower, just a little in front of us. We plugged the mics into my board (and compressor and EQ), and we had almost no feedback. But, we didnt use the sub, so the bass was real thin. You pretty much have to use the sub. Other than that, it was awesome. fast setup and tear-down.
I agree with Fred, you are using it like a powered speaker, so for a lot less you could buy a set of JBL EON's and be way ahead and have a better sounding, just as simple setup, IMHO.
I have looked at these systems and messed with them in-store several times and think its a very interesting concept. It's different than what everyone is use to so one needs to approach it in a new light, that's hard for most people to do. I believe that using an omni directional mic will certainly create feedback issues at higher SPL. You are attempting to spread sound equally in all directions with the Bose system so using a mic which does the reverse is just asking for problems. Cost wise it's in line with other quality amplification systems, especially if you are starting at the beginning. I also agree that it tends to be geared towards the acoustic oriented groups for the most part.
Nobody is disputing it's interesting, they are just trying to see if it's functional. #1, nobody is using an omni mic, we are talking a Large Diaphram Condenser (LDC) like the AT 4033, which is cardiod. So only the speaker is omni. Bose touts it to not feedback. That has been proven with condenser mic's to be not true. One of the last successful users had a reg frontend(mixer, feedback destroyer, etc) and set to the front of them. I for one can supply for our band, at way less, a full range sys(which check the specs, the Bose isn't) with conventional technology, geared toward an acoustic band. I'd rather use a sensitive fullrange mic, with a small rack to be able to deal with all the different acoustics we will run into than to deal with Bose's "blackbox" approach that I don't see as any more "simple" if your going to have to have multiple towers and subs to cover a band. And at $2K ea. it ain't no bargain either. just my 2c
I play in a trio and we use a Bose PAS for each musician and the banjo player uses one too so that’s a total of three.<joke> We each use a SM 58 for vocals and AKG 1000c for the instruments. The guitar player also uses a K&K pick up system plugged into the 3rd channel on his Bose PAS. The mandolin player also plugs in a Schurtler pickup into his 3rd channel. #The Bose system is really for musicians that have really good day jobs because in total we have about 6 thousand dollars invested into a sound system. I think it has been worth it. The system is very easy to transport and set up is very quick. We hardly ever feedback and the sound is very transparent. It’s very acoustic sounding. What we hear the audience hears. #What I found interesting was the sound pressure levels seem the same whether you are near or far from the speakers. It has something to do with the line array design. It seems that if it sounds loud enough to you on stage it sounds great at the back of the room. I use a wireless transmitter and have walked to the back of the room to test this. The stage keeps an uncluttered look too, just these tall skinny black things in the back. Go here for an interesting read. http://bose.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks