Greetings!

Today was my first opportunity to take the new L3T as my right for a live outdoor performance.  In my community a lot of local artists are hired to do street level performances throughout the summer.  It's usually up to the performers to provide their own sound system for these events.   Up until today I would bring down a partial PA system which included a pair of 500w speakers, 2 channel 2500w amplifier, 16 channel mixing board, etc.  It's not a big complex system by any means, but it does take some time to setup and run the wires everywhere.  To try and keep it simple we usually set the speakers so they are behind is pointing in an X across the performance area, allowing us to get a bit of the same sound that the audience would hear.  Usually the speakers are at ground level so we don't get much in the way of feedback into the mics but we also don't get as much of the sound from the speakers as we might like.

Getting set up today was a treat for sure.  We went for the same X pattern except today I was using the L3T for my side of the stage, while Chris was using a single speaker version of my PA system on his side.  On my side, all I had to do was plug in my mic and my acoustic guitar, adjust the gains until the lights turned orange, then from my guitar I could adjust the mix by removing some volume until I was happy with what I was hearing.  On Chris's side he had to connect the mixing board to the amp, the amp to the speaker, then plug into the appropriate channels and get things balanced out.  It doesn't sound like much but it took at least twice as long to get set up.  As a side note, Chris has already ordered his own L3T but due to high demand he won't be getting his until sometime next week.  The guys at the music shop say they've been selling fast.

With the L3T pointing right at me I opted to turn on the feedback suppression just in case.  I had the acoustic guitar modelling on about half way, and since my acoustic has a 9v battery, I had the acoustic input channel set to -20db.  Hands down the sound that I was hearing as I performed was by far the best sound I've had in this specific outdoor environment.  I was only running the speaker at half volume and had plenty of sound to give me an excellent "monitor" while letting people across the street easily hear my vocals and my guitar.  Chris was running a Pod XT Live, his Strat, and a vocal mic through his side.  In the past we sometimes found it hard to get a good volume for us and for the audience, but to be honest, today it came out pretty good.  I am going to guess that having less running through a cheap board, amp and speakers contributed to a cleaner more precise sound.

We had passers-by coming up to tell us that our sound was excellent.  Throughout 2.5hrs of performance the only time I felt I was struggling to hear what was going on was when we swapped guitars and I was trying to hear my lead coming through the old style PA speaker.  Again, in all fairness the PA speaker is not as tall as the L3T nor was it as powerful.  I have to say, when I consider how easy it was to set up the L3T on my side, I cannot wait until Chris has his.  I am confident he will be as thrilled with his as I am with mine.

I think it's time to haul my big rig into the music shop and see if they'll let me trade in for a second L3T. I can't imagine needing more than 2 of these and a small mixing board for the odd time I need more inputs.  Anyway, here's a video from our live performance today.