José
Testing at home at low volume is helpful, but expect some differences when you crank up the volume in a larger room. Depending how your EQs are set in your Tyros, the PAS settings of 55 and 57 will likely give you much more bass than you experienced at home. That is where the remote comes in real handy.

If possible, set up prior to the job and crank it up. Unlike conventional systems you do not have to have the speakers at ear-splitting levels on stage to accommodate the audience. Set the master level so that it feels comfortable to you. When the room is filled with people, you may have to tweak up a bit, but not much.

Best bet for avoiding feedback, if you are using a boom and a good directional mic, is to position it in a slightly upwards position rather than straight on to your mouth…and maybe a little off center pointing slightly away from the L1s. And work very close to the mic for best fidelity. Once you do some experimenting, I think you will find your vocals never sounded better.

One last hint: If you are like me you will be putting as much energy into analyzing and criticizing every nuance of the PAS as you do your actual performance. Relax. Once you find your PERSONAL preferences, you are going to love the PAS and devote all your energy to your performances.

Eddie

Gary,

I won't forget your good advice! I'll fire a couple of midis/mp3s to accurately adjust volume.

Eddie,

I know what you're talking about. There's always some time to get the best sound from a new PA. I expect to spend some time again, getting used to the PAS and finding the right way to use it. I took note of all your good advice; some of the strategies to fight against feedback are familiar to me, but I have to experiment a lot to know the whole story!

One last word to the price: it's pornographic down here in Europe! I don't know how Bose expects to sell this stuff around here, but they sure have to convince people to pay THE DOUBLE than they would pay for a conventional PA concept with similar fidelity (just talking about the component/assemble quality). I sure can understand all the hesitations in changing for this new thing.

Once again, I can't thank you enough, Eddie and Gary. Nobody at Bose (even those that went to the mother house, to learn with the product engineers) gave me such a "mature" advice! I'll be back soon.

-- José.

Here are some observations about my two first gigs with the PAS (one was a crowded bar, another was a wedding - large room):

- no doubt: the fidelity is high, but pretty comparable to other good quality conventional PA systems at half of the price.

- first impression is that it seems best suited for gigs at low/medium volume and especially intimate gigs.

- at high/very high volume it seems to lack some punch (or I'm too spoiled with my previous 15'' sub). i'm runnig the PAS with one sub only. it's possible that I still didn't find the proper eq settings, after all I'm still a newbie with this new thing.

- the great great advantage is the way it disperses the sound in the room. seems to considerably reduce my problems in "very rectangular" rooms, where the difference in volume tends to vary a lot through the room. no problems at all with excessive reverberation that I had in the past.

- more portable and easier to transport than my previous PA (the 15'' is heavy - 35 Kg - and big) and it fits better in my car. more powerful, too.

- my problems with feedback are desappearing. it's just a matter of properly choosing the relative positions of the mic and PAS. however, it's important to respect to distances indicated in the manual.

- people came to me very surprised that a "small" sound system could sound so good and loud. i took some time in my breaks to explain them what the concept was about.

Let me just insist in my problem finding the right sound at high volumes: it's as if in this situation, the well balanced punchy sound at low/mid volumes is replaced by a sound lacking a little bit low freq. (and sometimes high freqs too) - mids become excessively predominant.

In conclusion, I feel that I still have to do more experimentation and tunnig with the PAS to achieve better sound in dance situations, but by now, I don't imagine returning to my conventional HK Lucas PA. If someone (Gary, Eddie?) wants to comment... Thanks!

-- José.

[This message has been edited by Route 66 (edited 07-04-2005).]

Jose'

It took a while for me to get the settings on both the PSR-3000 and the PAS the way I wanted. However, once it was achieved, the sounds really improved quite a bit.

On the Bose base unit, I'm using the #57 preset and inputs #1 and #2 are hooked up to the keyboard's standard outputs--not the psuedo-mono. The volume control on the base unit is set at "6" and the Phantom power it set to off.

On the remote, the channel volume controls are set at the halfway point (straight up), the bass volue is also set at the halfway point and the bid and high range controls are set at the first mark to the right of the "0" which would be +4.

I position the tower about 3 feet off to my right or left, depending on the area I have to set up, and about 2 feet back from the back end of the keyboard. I've found the best sound I get with the sub's position is the place it directly between the front legs of the keyboard stand and facing sidways. Essentially, this too would depend on the venue's configuration, but thus far it has worked out well for long, narrow rooms with high ceilings and "L" shaped rooms where I'm not even seeing half the audience.

For the PSR-3000's settings, the master EQ I'm have the best success with is 4, 3, 2, 5, 8. The mic settings are as follows:

Low EQ= 80-hz @ 0-db
Mid EQ= 2.2-khz @ +4-db
High EQ= 10-khz @ +9-db

Noise gate ON, TH -60db
Compressor: On, -20, 5.0, 110
Vocal Harmony: Play, Off, Lower, L35>H, Auto, XF, Off, 85

Usually I set the PSR 3000's main volume at about mid range or a bit higher, then adjust the main volume of the PAS on the remote control, which is Velcro'd to the right side of the keyboard where's it's easily accessible.

ALmost forgot--A few days ago I custom built a 10-foot subwoofer cable following the specifications outlined by Bose technical support. I used a bit heavier wire (14-gauge) than the 16-gauge wire they called for--just to be safe. This allows a bit more versitility in positioning the sub in relation to the tower. Additionally, I'm replacing the short power cord with a 10-footer of the same wire guage and both cables will be wrapped with flexible cable wrap, which is available from Radio Shack for under $4 for a 10-fot length. I have already constructed a main harness for both audio cables, the remote cable and my connection that rums from the laptop to the PAS inputs. All of these cables are housed with cable wrap and makes a much neater package. I tested the system at various volumes and there was no interference because of the cables being close together. I'll post some photos of the setup at a later date.

Hope this is of some help,

Gary

[This message has been edited by travlin'easy (edited 07-04-2005).]

Hi Gary,

Again many many thanks for your help with details about your settings. It will certainly be very useful. Curiously my own seetings do not differ too much from yours. I'm also using preset #57, and both L and L/R Tyros' outputs go straight to channels 1 and 2. The global equalizer has almost the same "shape" that you use, and mic settings are not that different (I boost low freqs a little bit more, but it's difficult to compare as we utilize different mics). Interesting how you position the subwoofer relative to the tower. I just put it beside the tower, the main reason being the standard cable (that comes with the sub package) length. If the position influences the sound that much, I should then think about getting a longer cable and perform some tests...

I suspect that I have to retry the gain setting process. Although I have done it in a way that the red light never blinks - only the green (thus assuring that the gain is not too high), I notice the following curious thing happening: starting with a high volume and slightly less well balanced sound, and slowly fading out, I get better and better balanced sound (bass is better defined and overall sound improves). You use "6" as trim gain in the base unit; I'm setting it at "9" and the other gains (Tyros volume and remote control volume) are typically like yours'. Although the output signals from the PSR3000 and Tyros can be different, an hypothesis to test would be that the signal that enters the base unit is too hot... Humm...

Gary, I just printed your great message and will go through it in the next test opportunity I have. It's so great to count on your help and advice! I'll post some pics soon, too.

-- José.

Jose'

I now position my bass unit directly in front of the keyboard, right between the stand's feet and it's faced to the side instead of forward. In order to do this I had to make a custom cable measuring 10 feet in length, however, I used 14 guage wire instead of the lighter 16 guage that is used with the supplied subwoofer cable. I figured heavier wire would maintain high levels of conduction over the greater distance and help prevent distortion. Then, just this morning, I recieved an Email from Eddie pertaining to custom cables measuring greater than 10 feet that caused a reset problem with the older operating system. The new operating system seems to address that problem as well. I've used my new cable on a half dozen jobs with no problems at all.

The sideways positioning of the sub, at least for some venues, seems to provide better dispersion of the sub throughout the room. When the sub is facing forward, especially in long, narrow rooms, the levevl tends to be somewhat overpowering and not equally dispersed. I've read where some players have faced their sub toward the wall behind them, but when I tried it, the sound was a bit muffled coming from the sub.

Good Luck,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

That's an interesting observation, Gary. I will proceed with my experimentations, but your help and your conquered experience is
an unvaluable input! Thanks,

-- José.

Kind of a funny typo in that last sentence!

Tommy

Yep--I saw it, but figured that because the two keys are right next to each other it was a typo.

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

He, he! It wasn't exactly a typo but of course I meant INvaluable . Luckily you understand my english language glitches!

-- José.