ST

Knowing that you can be heard and understood from the stage opens some doors to conversations with the audience. I find that I do that more with the L1® than ever did in the past. But that is not the subject today.

Today I want to consider the conversations we can have with the audience that start before we arrive, and continue long after everyone goes home. I am not sure what the audience is thinking, so I thought I would ask them.

To explore that I recently posted these questions on LinkedIn a business-oriented social networking site with some 24 million registered users*.

Do you attend performances of live music?

• Was the live music performance the main focus of the event or background.
• If you went out specifically to hear live music, why did you choose to do that instead of staying at home and listening to recordings?

I was really encouraged to have received 7 answers almost immediately.

See what people had to say.

The question will remain open for another week.  Let's see what turns up.

Questions for you.

• Do you talk with your audience?
• How?
• What do they tell you?
• What do you do with the information?

Join the conversation

Over the weekend I was playing at one of my regular haunts. It is a small place in a little village like community within the larger city.
This was the first weekend for a new owner of the place and she was excited to be welcoming a whole new crowd. She told me to expect a big turn out because she had invited lots of the people in her social circle.

Strangely it was very quiet when I arrived a little early for my Sunday afternoon gig. But it turns out that she had told her friends that the show started promptly at 2:00 and sure enough the place was nearly-full at 2:00.

This was a completely different crowd for this place. All were speaking a non-English language, chatting and enjoying the food, the ambiance and, each other's company.

The place is normally quiet when it is bright and sunny out, and it was bright and sunny and a Sunday of a long holiday weekend. There was a huge parade going on in the centre of town so I wasn't expecting many people. This crowd was a surprise. There were some but not many of the regulars who took it all in stride. We also had street-traffic, people looking in to see what was going on and some came in and filled the last remaining seats. Others looked in, stepped in the door, turned around and left.
Between songs we (the audience and I) congratulated the new owner, enjoyed the local holiday spirit and we figured out that if we totalled the ages of all the kids in the room, they were still younger than my duo partner's Violin. Sadly, between the two of us, our ages exceed that of the Violin.

Partway through the afternoon, partway through a set, there was an odd shift. About a third of the people in the room moved to the back of the space and the people back there moved forward. This probably occurred over five minutes.

The background noise level dropped significantly although from what I could see, the overall activity level was unchanged.

This was probably the weirdest thing I've seen in some time. A self-organizing organic audience. I mean, I have seen people rearrange furniture. That happens all the time, and it happened as people were arriving that day too. The individual tables for two and four were rearranged in groups of eight or twelve here and there. But this thing of groups of people visibly flowing around was new.

During the next break I wandered among the people at the back of the room, just chatting.
"How are you?"
"Did you come far today?"
"Did you bring other people or plan to meet them here?"
"You all appear to know one another, how is that?"
That kind of thing.

Then I asked one person with whom I had struck up a rapport, "Was it too loud up front for you?"
She apologized on behalf of all of the people who had moved. She said they were sorry if they disrupted things and that they had tried to be quiet. Indeed they had been. If I had not been watching them, I probably would not have noticed because the whole transition was very quiet.

I assured her that it was not a problem, but I was just curious what had happened.
"Oh, they all speak a different language", she said gesturing to the front. "We all moved here so we could talk, and they could talk and not have to talk over each other".

She went on, "We can hear you just fine,... (more nice compliments here), and it was good over there too".
By the end of the afternoon, the new owner was exhausted and happy. Her friends had left en masse immediately after the show was over. On the way out, someone from each table came to me, introduced him or herself, asked for a business card, offered me one in return and as they gave me the card they pressed a tightly folded bill into my hand.

It was a very nice way to break-in a new crowd in an old venue.

Live Discussion

One of the regulars on the Bose Musicians Community Message Board asked for advice regarding the differences in playing in a band vs trio vs duo vs solo. Here are some of my thoughts.

Role Clarity
For one person to jump back and forth between band, trio, duo and solo performances, I think it is essential for that person to be fully present, conscious and aware of his/her role in each of those situations.

I have played in bands and duos for most of my musical life. Most of that time I have been in the role of informal musical director so that someone else could front the band without having to lead the band. I hope that made sense. I say "informal" because most of the groups with whom I have played would not have used that term.

Lately I have been doing more solo work and when playing in duos and groups I have more frequently taken the role of fronting the band.

Speaking from the perspective of one who frequently jumps back and forth between these various roles, understanding the role you are playing at the time is very important.

If I were playing with the same group of people all of the time, the roles might solidify and people would understand what they are supposed to be doing. But I am in and out of different groups and this requires serious, conscious thought about what I am supposed to contribute. It also takes the wherewithal to ask for clarity when it is not there.

Join the discussion in the message board.

Cliff-at-Bose wrote:

Yeah, ok; so we solved some big ones with the L1, including putting the music back in the hands of its righful practitioners (you and me, baby). But time marches on and I'm sure there are other Big Ones to solve, like not making enough money (working on it).

What do YOU think are the big problems to solve for our tribe? Can these problems be solved by technology, like by something incorporated into some future Bose product? And how about all that technology? I see it annoying a lot of people as they try to get stuff done on their computers and don't remember their passwords, etc. Is technology actually getting in the way these days, or is it us getting in the way of technology (revolt of the machines)? How come the track I just recorded is almost a quarter note out of sync with my previously-perfectly-synchronized multitrack production, and "nothing changed" otherwise? What about problems that can't be solved with science and engineering? Like, learning how to play together and make real music. YOu all know that if you don't have a good tune, you can play all you want but you won't have a gig. How about being in touch with your basic humanity. Are text-message relationships soulful and deep? Aieee, it goes on and on, doesn't it?

So anyway, here's an invitation to tell us what you think are the existing, big, profound, unsolved problems in a musician's life, and yours in particular. I'm talking about The Big Ones here. Anyone? (We might be able to do something about it, so don't be shy.)

I replied

regard or the lack thereof
Whether it is expressed in compliments, courtesy, compensation or something else - are we regarded as well as musicians in the past? As well as we should be?
Are we, contemporary performers schooled by life in the last 40 years of amplified music; are we condemned to be held in low regard because our self-esteem is so low that we ask for nothing better?

• Do we play on tiny stages that compete with paying seats?
• Do we play in makeshift circumstances, the afterthought of the main event (selling drinks)?
• Do we compete with recorded versions of our less than live selves?
• Are we relegated to the worst spot in the room because no thought of live music was part of the design?
• Are we expected to be the first to arrive and the last to leave so we have the least impact on other aspects of the show?
• Do we get served last if ever? At one establishment I was told quite bluntly, "Musicians get served last."

1 re·gard
Pronunciation:
\ri-ˈgärd\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from regarder
Date: 14th century
1 archaic : appearance
2 a: attention, consideration <due regard should be given to all facets of the question>
b: a protective interest : care <has no regard for her health>
3: look, gaze
4 a: the worth or estimation in which something or someone is held <a man of small regard>
b: (1): a feeling of respect and affection : esteem <she soon won the regard of her colleagues> (2)plural : friendly greetings implying such feeling <give him my regards>
5: a basis of action or opinion : motive
6: an aspect to be taken into consideration : respect <is a small school, and is fortunate in this regard>
7: obsolete : intention
— in regard to
: with respect to : concerning
— with regard to
: in regard to

• Tiny, makeshift stages.
• House systems that, if they exist at all - are likely the unkind result of technology that is decades old.
• Not knowing how we sound, our perceptions of our performances must be shaped by our audiences, and we know that these audiences, no matter how kind may well be lying. Why? Because they could not hear.
• Having no basis to understand our worth in society, we accept the lowest estimation.

In a world of changing values, is there a future for live music when we compete with recorded selves for the eroding remnants of society's regard?

So what's the problem?
We do not know our value in contemporary society. We do not know how are regarded, but suffer for lack of adequate regard. We do not know how to regard ourselves.

Join the discussion

Okay - I know that this should really be hombre a mono or something like that, but once a something hits a chord it just doesn't ring true if you correct it.

I hoped we could talk about "How many L1®s does one guy need?" or more politically correct - "What is the correct ratio of L1®s to performers?"

We seem to run the gamut from ...

• Can I run my choir through one L1®?
• I have an eight piece band ...
• If we run just our vocals through it, what are the least number of L1®s that we need?
• Can I use one (or two) as a PA?
• Ensemble around a microphone.
• Big Bands
  (Chris Walden)
• One L1® for each performer.
• Vocal plus tracks into two L1®s. 
  (recently, Karen littleswan)
• Stereo-way to heaven for Electric Guitar.
  (bdotson comes to mind)
• Stereo Soundscapes for Keyboards.
  (Alan Steinberger)
• Dual pickup systems in a single Acoustic Guitar to separate L1®s
  (Rick Jordan rwj)
• I don't think anyone has mentioned three L1®s for one performer, but I think I have seen pictures.

I've got a pretty simple view of this. If you have enough that you and the audience can hear everyone clearly, then you probably have enough L1®s. As long as we are serving the Music, then we are probably doing okay. But I think that is easier to do as we narrow the gap between the number of performers and the number of L1®s.

When we get to more L1®s than performers then we can start talking about how many 'voices' that performer has and if that performer is the whole show or part of an ensemble.

Somewhere in there we get to talk about how to make the connections, dual-mono: whys and why-nots, routing through the T1®, and a whole bunch of other details. People most frequently ask "how" but I think the first question is probably "why" or "when".

What do you think?

Last week an old musical pal called me to give him a hand at an open stage event on Sunday. We've hosted lots of open stages doing the warm-up and closing sets and helping folks in between. I like doing these so I didn't give it much thought. "Sure! I'm in". But I blanched when he told me that where it was - well over an hour's drive and not a fun drive at that.

So I arrive at the appointed time, 7:00 pm. It is in a recently renovated entertainment complex, a restaurant, lounge, nightclub and pub all in one building. The open stage event is in the restaurant.

The stage is pretty much setup with conventional gear with an empty spot for my L1® just slightly off-centre at the back of the stage. A couple of minutes later I'm ready to go. There seems to be a lot of interest in my L1® and the T1®. Fellows from the audience come up and ask about it and remark on the quick setup and absence of speaker wires and "Don't you need to do a sound check with the other guys?" and you probably know all the questions I am hearing at this point. What is odd is the number of people  that are interested.

I pause to survey the audience. There are a lot of people that could be "Dads" and a lot of people who could be their kids with their "Moms". Then I remember - It is Fathers' Day.

A couple of minutes later we are into our opening set. I look around and things seem oddly familiar with my old musical pal on one side and ... Oh yeah, I remember the Drummer - we were in a band together years ago. Okay cool. The Bassist and the vocalist are new to me but we're all having fun.

Now we start inviting the open stage guests to come to the stage. To my surprise and delight, most of them are under five feet tall. Then it all falls together as I recall that the Drummer has a studio and a Drum school. The vocalist and one of the other Guitarists also teach in that studio. This is stage night for the students. The rest of us old guys are the backup band for a parade of fledgling Drummers and Guitarists and singers.

I now understand all the interest in the L1®. Those guys were the Dads who were thinking about gear for their kids.

Hey! It was a great night, and in some respects more fun than I've had in a very long time. I'll be back.

Within a few months it was clear that this new system was going to extend my time playing by at least a decade. Four years into that decade I am more optimistic than ever.   Today I did a show and it was as though the clock on the time remaining was reset.

Some milestones.

The L1® Encyclopedia, FAQ and wiki (previously the  Unofficial Bose L1™ Wiki) will be two years live in  August.  Earlier this year the traffic had overcome the bandwidth to my server so I moved it to an external hosting service. Today it  has over 350 articles, 600 illustrations and images, there have been 364,000 page views. and it is seeing 200-400 unique visits per day split nearly 60/40 with new and returning visitors.

Bose announced the L1®  Model II and the T1 ToneMatch® Audio Engine at the end of March 2007. Most of the 150 new articles in the wiki have been related to those products, and there have been hundreds of revisions to the existing pages as our understanding of the L1® (all models) continues to mature.

The Sketcher has been stable, and the revisions from last year have served us well. You can read The Sketcher chronicles for more details.

A year ago I posted some numbers.
Here is the update:

The conversations on the Bose Musicians Message Board continue to be about the L1® system, but while that remains the reason that many visit for the first time, there are those that return to talk about raising the state of the art.

At the L1® conference in North Carolina I asked why people continue to visit the message board after they have asked and had their questions answered.  In answer to "Why do you come back?" these were some of the responses.

• To learn.
• So much good information.
• It may be hard to understand the L1 System at first, but people get answers to those questions on this forum.
• People share their own experience; you hear (read about) others who have similar situations to your own.
• So much information ... related to, but well beyond just the L1 System (such as about music career, how do present yourself in a performance, about microphones, guitars, room acoustics, ...)
• Learn more by accident than I know what to ask.
• Learn by watching how others answers questions.
• Not a high number of 'idiots' posting -- even questions that have been asked before are treated with respect ... the recognition that this is a new question for that person.
• Learn new ideas.
• Negative postings ARE posted, not deleted.
• I come back because I learn.
• I like to help.
• I like to answer questions. It's like teaching.
• I feel like owe something back to the others for the help I've gotten.
• The moderators and key others have established a 'forum of respect'.
• A sense of creating something more than simply an understanding or pushing of a commercial product.
• A means of helping others solve a "little problem" so they can "move on" to something more important -- like making music.
• I'm aware that for ever posting there are ~400 people "watching". So I know the answer I may have to contribute may have ongoing value; so taking time to answer one person's question will potentially have value beyond just that person -- and that answer will persist over time (particularly in the Wiki).
• I'm a teacher at heart; I like to help others learn. By doing my part to help create an atmosphere of openness and sharing of knowledge in this on-line form, I have an opportunity to contribute to many more than I could ever do in person, or in a classroom.
• It is a means, in some small way, to join with other like-minded folks to help co-create a 'different' future ... perhaps related to music ... perhaps in other ways. I can only do that by exposing who I am and the way I think and understand and struggle to communicate that understanding with you and to seek to understand your viewpoint. -- and I can take time to really think about it, much more easily (for me) than in 'live dialog'.

 I am still honoured to be a member of this community.

 

Last weekend I did a solo set in front of about 150 people - most were musicians. Many of them have known me for years, and I have played with lots of them. They were very appreciative and supportive. At least 15 of them made a point of finding me later to say something like ... "I didn't know you could sing". I've been singing harmonies and call and response things with bands and duos all this time, but I guess this doing it alone made a different kind of impression.  Of course it helped that I had brought along my L1®.

I normally would have "done sound" for a gathering like this using several Bose L1®s, but the headline band's lead singer was the son of the hosts. The band had volunteered to provide sound reinforcement for the night and I got to take the night off. Still, I would no more use the house system than use a house Guitar or microphone so of course, I brought my L1® for at least my part of the show. I wish that everyone who performed that night had been heard as well as I was. The fellow at the far end of the 100 foot snake did his best but his sound system suffered by comparison.

It's been a big year for me in that I have really gotten back to my roots playing mainly Acoustic Guitar, singing and having discovered the PorchBoard Floor Bass.

I also played an electric set with a band made up of old friends and new. It was loud, but we were following a band of young twenty-somethings. Now those guys were LOUD and seem almost anticlimactic  to turn down even a little.

When the night was over an old pal, and the Drummer with whom I have played in several bands came up to me as I was packing. Pointing at the PorchBoard Floor Bass he said, "When you get a little more confident with that, it is going to be your new best friend."

Over the weekend I played a solo gig and managed to do it without my Tablet PC. One of the reasons that show did not fall apart was because I had my new partner - my PorchBoard Floor Bass. Whenever I struggled to remember the lyrics, or just wanted to take a little break from singing, I let the PorchBoard hold down the rhythm and I went a free-form with the Guitar or indulged some story-telling or vocal scatting. Even spritzing with the audience can be more fun with some background pickin' and what feels like a moving bass line.

It has taken a long time to get to this place, but adding the PorchBoard to the show has been easier than I expected. I didn't take to it as readily as most people. By all reports, if you naturally tap your foot as you play then you can play a PorchBoard. I'm not one of those natural toe-tappers so it took me a bit longer.  But if I hadn't given it a few days, I would never have figured out that it was possible at all.

More info:

• PorchBoard.com
• PorchBoard Floor Bass in the Bose Encyclopedia FAQ and wiki

How I got here

I have been aware of the PorchBoard for several years but dismissed it as "not for me" because I didn't think it would work for me. Perhaps more to the point - I didn't think I could make it work.

Two Left Feet

One of the reasons that I have always sought the company of others on stage was the challenge I have with rhythm. For whatever the reason I've been with blessed with two left feet, and neither of them can keep a beat. Now let me play against a strong rhythm section and I'll do fine, but ask me to be that rhythm section and I start to wander. Whatever internal sense of meter I might have always ends up syncopated by the time it hits my extremities.

When I first heard about the PorchBoard Floor Bass I dismissed it because I just knew that I would not be able to make it work.

About eighteen months ago I got a chance to hear one at the 2006 Fall East Coast L1® Musicians Conference. I liked the sound but found it distracting when it was being played by someone other than the main performer. When there was even the slightest disconnect between the main performer and the stand-in foot stomper the rhythmic dissonance threw me off.

I didn't really have much time to try it personally. I came away from that experience unconvinced that this was something that I could use. But I wasn't playing solo gigs yet so I didn't really perceive a personal need.

Roll Yer Own

Last year, as I pondered playing solo shows I remembered hearing the PorchBoard. I rigged up a home-brew version using an AKG C411 I had lying around here. I stuck it to a piece of plywood. I had to prop this up at one end in order to get a decent sound, and then had to EQ it so that there was nothing above 100 Hz in order to make it sound sort of passable. This was pretty awkward, required phantom power, wandered around as I tapped on it, and didn't sound all that great. I didn't give this much of a chance because it was just too cumbersome to set up and very distracting. Distracting? Well trying to hit it consistently was tough. It moved around too much just from the action of my foot.

What Changed

I had a nice conversation with Nadene Isakson at PorchBoard a couple of months ago. She told me about a music teacher who had had great success helping a student with rhythm issues by using a PorchBoard. That music teacher said that it had taken about only three days' practice to help that student. Hearing this, I figured it was worth a shot.

The Metronome

While waiting for the PorchBoard to arrive I practiced tapping my foot with a metronome. I had tried this a couple of times over the years but not getting decent results I had just abandoned it. I wasn't doing very well this time around either. I did make the effort to use just metronome and tap my foot (no other instruments). Man that was boring.

Thump

When I got the PorchBoard, I decided to give this at least several days' practice and by the third day I was feeling pretty good about the results. There is definitely something different about hearing and feeling the resounding thump you get from the PorchBoard. This is so much more visceral than just tapping your foot.

I now rehearse with the PorchBoard and actually enjoy it. I have become much more aware of my rhythm and feel much more confident about it. I still have a long way to go as I work it into my arrangements, but that part is going well and it is fun.

I have been playing the PorchBoard at my solo gigs. It has been great to notice people in the audience nodding, clapping and tapping their feet right along with me. I cannot imagine playing alone, without it.

Join the discussion: Going it alone - Observations

del.icio.us Tags: PorchBoard,Bose L1

• Reformatted things to work with the higher resolution (1280 x 800  vs. 1024 x 768).
• Rehearsed using the touch screen interface instead of digital pen.
• Arranged the songs to work in OneNote (my current choice for keeping lyrics and lead sheets).
• Remembered to put the correct power adapter with the unit into my backpack along with a new screen cleaning cloth.

For the finale, I  somehow managed to get to the gig without the computer. I can't remember the last time I went to a gig without a Tablet PC. Even if not using it for lyrics, I use it to check in on the Bose Musicians Community Message Boards during breaks. How very odd it was to be without it and all the song lists, music and lyrics.

• Level -10 dB
• Freq 500 Hz
• Width 2.0 oct

Last week I decided to install a pickup in my C-10BZ Larrivée (pictured to the right).

Today I picked it up at the shop. It had  the new LR Baggs iMix No Cut installed and proceeded to a gig. Actually I was several hours early so I just got set up and got to know the Guitar and the iMix.

I play through a Bose L1® Model IIBose L1® Model II (the new one) with the LR Baggs ToneMatch® Presets into my T1® just before I headed out the door. It was very simple to find a sound with this combination of gear that sounded great.

During the gig a very busy local musician dropped in and enjoyed a great meal and the music (so he told me). He was really impressed with how natural the Guitar sounded. He made a point of telling me so. My main Guitar for acoustic gigs for the past ten years has been a Morgan with a Florentine Cutaway, curly maple back and sides. I do a lot of acoustic lead work and this has always allowed me to cut through the mix with a Fishman Acoustic Matrix Under Saddle Transducer. About a year ago I added David Enke's PUTW Quackbuster. This has been working extremely well for me.

Compared to the Morgan, the Larrivée C 10 BZ is about the same size and shape, the neck is just a little narrower and seems to have a narrower radius. The Morgan radius is almost flat and I have it set for really low action and almost no relief. I am a finger style player and this Morgan has been terrific for giving me the room I need to work. The lovely Larrivée has seen very little play time over the ten years that I've had it because I rehearse with the same instruments and gear as I use when performing. Since there was no pickup in the Larrivée I wasn't playing it out and I wasn't playing it much at all. The net result was I needed a little time to get used to the Larrivée and the new strings they put on at the shop when they installed the iMix. I guess these are Cleartones. I normally play John Pearse strings on my acoustics and really like them. The new strings seemed a little noisy. Squeaky by comparison. On the way to the gig I picked up some Elixer 20/80s to try when I take the Cleartones off.

Anyway, after a couple of hours of playing and listening, a three hour gig, and some comments from players who happened by... The iMix was a good choice. I think that I am going to be very happy with the Guitar and the iMix. I will have to get used to changing between the I-Beam and the Element pickups on the fly. I may switch over to stereo mode and manage the pickups independently in the T1®. The Guitar sounds phenomenal (except for the squeaky strings). I'll have to see how that works out.

Twenty seven years old and still a beauty. I played it at my solo gig last Sunday. It was wonderful!

It has a passive under saddle piezo pickup.

I love the sound with an AKG C451 E (small diaphragm cardioid condenser microphone).  It also sounds great with a Neumann KM184 but the AKG is a little brighter. I am running through the T1 ToneMatch™ audio engine to an L1™ Model II.

Presets:

With a microphone (either 3" from the fingerboard half-way between the 12th fret and the sound hole - or - 6" back from the sound hole).
Category: Acoustic Guitar
Preset: Nylon String w/cond

Using the Pickup 
Category: Acoustic Guitar
Preset: Nylon String w/Piezo

I really liked it with Pickup and
Category: Taylor Guitars
Preset: G. Concert Finger
but it was difficult to control at higher volumes. There was a tendency for some low end howl.

It was a super busy month. It  is nice to take a breath.    

I reconnected with an old duo partner and we have been playing steadily since the new year. My regular duo partner and I were not quite as busy as he was out of town for a couple of weeks.

Ken-at-Bose has started a new series of discussions called  Succeeding in the Performing Arts on the Bose Musicians' Community Message Boards. This has led to lots of great input from the community. Check out the link that goes to a summary of the main ideas in the wiki.

Succeeding in the Performing Arts

Little did I know in January, just how much I would be thinking about this in the days to come.

This was our setup at a recent  home concert / fundraiser.

At the end of the night — about 3:30am, I was pulling away from the gig and headed into 60 minutes of white-knuckle driving, I was grinning from ear to ear. Even though we had had our first snowfall of the season, a scary event for these parts, we still had about a 75% capacity house and raised about 85% of our very best year ever.

A few highlights:

House Concert
This was a house concert – capacity about 150 people not including sound via wireless to a large room in another part of the house.

Backed into a Corner
When I arrived earlier this week to check things out, the stage was set up in the corner and the room was arranged around that. We have done this in other years, but that was for a single performer (Voice and Guitar). I really wanted to get out of that pocket but there was no dissuading the owner. I also had a little of that “Classic” thinking going on and I was imagining trying to get to the back of the L1™ Power Stands to make connections and change Presets. That's tough enough on straight wall, but near impossible in a corner.

Small stage
The stage was 4 x 8 feet, hollow and raised about a foot. There as a thick carpet on top of it. This straddled the corner facing the room diagonally. I managed to pull it out about two feet and put three L1™s behind it. There was a Model II in the middle and a Classic on either side. I was running T1™s on all three. More on this a little later in “The Headliner Arrived Early.”

The Line Up
We had one headliner and four warm-up acts. We were expecting five, but we lost one in the snow. Throughout the evening we flipped the stage six or seven times. No Drums (sorry), this was a Folk, Light Jazz, Acoustic Blues kind of night. Easy changes. The location is a fair hike off the beaten track so there were no on-site rehearsals or sound checks in advance.

The longest turnovers were on either side of a duo where one Guitarist brought his own amp and insisted on using it instead of the “house” system. They arrived late and there was no way to set them up in advance. Besides it was a small stage and I didn't want any back line amps cluttering up the view.

T1™ Scenes
The T1™ Scenes made it easy to switch between settings for the different acts.

The headliner had arrived early, found the T1™, figured it out, and tweaked all the settings before I got there. All I did was suggest some different Presets to try for the microphone on his acoustic Guitar. Then I got as far as telling him about the Scenes, and he created one on his own. More on this a little later in “The Headliner Arrived Early”

T1™s on stage for the first time
This was the first show for me where I had T1™s on the stage for other performers to use. Although it would have been easy to run the T1™s from offstage, I really wanted to see how the performers would fare with it. It all went very well.

The Stage
When I went down to do the initial set-up, I asked if we could do without the stage altogether. Because it was so small     (4 x 8'), low (only 12”) and hollow, I didn't think that it was going to do any more than create an artificial constraint on our working space. The owner was insistent because although the headliner puts on an extremely energetic show waltzing with his Guitar all night, some of the other acts were more sedately seated. He wanted the stage so that the quieter, seated acts would be more visible.

I wasn't particularly happy that the L1™s were a foot lower and behind the stage, so the owner offered to build a platform behind the stage to elevate them. At the time, I declined the offer and set up all the gear. After sleeping on it I called back and asked him to make the platform. He agreed. He was to make the platform and I would get there early on Saturday to tear down and set things up again.

The Headliner Arrived Early
Normally he rolls into town a few hours before the show, we do a quick sound check, and then he relaxes, visits with folks, and then the show begins. This was the first time we were going to have several warm-ups.

Unbeknownst to me, he flew in the night before and stayed at the house. I wish I had known because it would have been nice to head down there and visit. After all, how often can you hang out with someone who has been on the road for nearly forty years? He figures that he's up to around 12,000 shows.

Anyway, I was headed out the door around noon. I wanted a lot of lead time to get there and I was anticipating an hour or two of work at the other end. The snow was already falling and the weather forecast was dire. I phoned ahead to see if there were any last-minute pickups to be made on the way. I found out that our headliner had helped build the platform for the L1™s, torn-down all the gear, put the platform in place, and then set up all the gear again. He has a lot of energy.

By the time I arrived, he had acquainted himself with the T1™, found the Presets, explored the effects. He had basically done everything but save his settings as a Scene. He had also discovered my microphone case and suggested that we try something different for mic'ing the Acoustic Guitar. So we did that, and tweaked a few settings. Then he saved it all as a Scene. Just an aside, he runs his Guitar with a pickup and then likes a microphone on stage with all the low end cut out, and the gain relatively low so that he can lean into it when he wants some more “air” in the sound. We ended up using an AKG C1000s with the hypercardioid insert for this.

Okay – so let's review. Here is a fellow who: with no help from me, tore down my set up, and set it up again, discovered the T1™, figured out how to use it including Presets, Effects, zEQ all within a couple of hours. His prior experience with the L1™ was having played through one a year ago, and once, the year before that. Oh, and somewhere in there he managed to rearrange all the chairs in the room and clear the snow from the patio deck. So any concerns that I might have had about the complexity of the user interface have been allayed.

For the rest of the night as we moved different acts on and off the stage, he was right in there helping people with their settings on the T1™. He wanted to make sure he understood it, and this was his way of doing that.

Later, during his part of the show, he frequently mentioned the great gear -- “It's marvelous, don't you think?”-- and the wonderful job I was doing with the sound. I felt guilty taking credit for any of it.

Except for the snow, it was a great night. One of the acts got stranded on the way, so we had to stretch my set. That was nice because it was an unrehearsed reunion with an old musical collaborator. Good times. We've now got a few more gigs booked in December and January.

After the show was over, I could not dissuade our road-warrior headliner from helping me to tear it all down, pack it up and load it into the car. While we were doing this, other volunteers were cleaning up the debris and putting the house back in order. Somewhere in there we took half hour to just sit back and enjoy our experience with the L1™s, explore the differences between the models, ponder the history of ToneMatch™ Presets, and share raves about the design of the overall System and specifically the T1™.

If you are still with me, thanks for reading. A few things to take from this:

    * T1™ - very, very, very good.
      You don't have to invest hours with the manual to use it at a gig, although I would recommend reading the manual at some point.

      There is a little more to explain (compared to the R1 Remote) now that we have separate EQ for each channel, but people seemed to understand it very quickly. You can explain volume, mute, channel switching for the Tuner and EQ – all in a couple of minutes.

      The Tuner was a big hit.

    * T1™ plus Classic is a wonderful working duo.
      Most of the night we used the two Classics with T1™s. We used the Model II for our headliner. It just works.

    * Avoid the corners. It was very bass-heavy in there; although, it sounded great out front. I find it can be really tough to control feedback on the open strings of my Acoustic Guitar in these situations.

    * House concerts are great!

That's it for me for now. Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, join the discussion.

• Digital Les Paul (HD 6XPro)
  Gibson makes a point of telling us that this is a great traditional analog Guitar with new digital features. The digital features include a new hex pickup that connects to a breakout box providing summed output, stereo output, and individual outputs for the six strings. I'm still trying to figure out how you might use these. I can see running the analog output, or summed output to the T1™. Stereo into two L1™s, or individual outputs to six?
  
  
• Robot Guitar
  
  Robot?
  It has servos that drive the tuning pegs so it physically turns the tuners on the headstock to string-up and tune the Guitar. There is also digital assist for setting the intonation. Those features seemed novel, but not particularly compelling to me. I didn't buy into the argument that intonating a Guitar was a task that required you to surrender your instrument to a guitar technician and wait until your name came up on the waiting list.
  
  Alternate Physical Tunings
  What is interesting is the preprogrammed alternate tunings. (open E, DADGAD, Drop D, Open G, E flat, Double drop D). The strings actually change pitch. This differs from the virtual approach of using a hex pickup and doing the pitch conversion electronically. With this, you don't have the dissonance between hearing the strings on the instrument in one tuning, and hearing the amplified version in another that you get with the Line6, Roland VG, and guitar-synthesizer or midi approaches to alternate tunings.
  
  

And yes, they do look a lot alike.

Digital Les Paul and the L1™
Craig Anderton has a nice blog about his experiences as he is discovering ways to use the Digital Les Paul.


The nice win for the L1™ is that Craig Anderton tells us that his amp of choice, the L1™ serves both expressions of instrument, analog and digital.

Discussion: Gibson and the Digital Les Paul and the L1™

• Rehearsing at performance volume.
  

Rehearsing in an environment that simulates every possible detail of the performance environment.
- standing or seated as you would in performance
- same microphone, stand,
- same instrument, controls, and accessories
- space (stage area)
- position of other objects typically found on stage
- lighting

It was a great conversation.

A few more thoughts that came to mind later...
When I think of practise, I hear it in as a verb as in, "I practise my scales." It feels like doing "drills". I see repetitive activity that leads to proficiency (I hope).

When I think of rehearsal, I imagine the very specific preparations we make for an imminent live performance. This is usually more physically involving, often done with the people with whom you will be performing.

Up until a couple of days ago, I would have used the term visualization to describe what I do when rehearsing. Today, it seems that the term is not broad enough in its scope.

A simulator is a totally immersive environment and over time, I guess that is what I have been building. A place and a state where everything is as it will be when performing. At least as much as is possible.

I think that it is important to be mindful of your practice, to be aware, to be deliberate and purposeful in your preparations.

You can be as committed to the note that you strike while improvising as to a note on a chart. You can be as committed to a note that you know is coming, whether it is written or known only to you.

For me, the practising, rehearsal and simulation are all parts of the preparation that frees me to commit to that next note, word or action.

• Give a price incentive to loyal customers of the first version of the L1™ (now known as the "Classic")
• It is too expensive
• It makes the existing models obsolete
• It is unfair to bundle the B1 with the Model II