Keyboards and Preamps

[HB1978]

What do you guys think about running a keyboard such as the Triton Music Workstation Sampler through a preamp? Good idea or not?

[Nick The Man]

I guess if you wanted to get the sound from that particular pre then it would be a good idea. Otherwise I wouldn't bother. If you already have a pre you wanna use, test it out. But personally I don't think I would spend any money on it. Although I'm not a keyboard freak, so maybe this is a common thing?

[dementedchord]

although the output of a keyboard is marginaly hot enough to drive a line in i think it can be improved by useing a preamp... i use a dbx 386 tube pre for my kurzweil... both live and recording...

[HB1978]

Thanks for the input guys.

[The Green Hornet]

:cool : Yo HB####

Depending on the keyboard, try using a Grace 101, old or new model. Lots of juice with that one. However, I do not use the Grace via the Grace--a bit too strong. I do have a different two channel pre and use my Motif.


Green Hornet

[Todzilla]

I religiously use my Demeter preamp for all keyboard tracking.

...unless I'm doing some crazy distorted amp thing, in which case I still reamp from a Demeter'ed direct recording.

[noisewreck]

Originally Posted by dementedchord

although the output of a keyboard is marginaly hot enough to drive a line in i think it can be improved by useing a preamp... i use a dbx 386 tube pre for my kurzweil... both live and recording...

Errr what?!?!? Not sure what model you have by my K2600XS' separate outputs run at 21dBu and the Mix outputs are at 27dBu. That's hot enough to distort the inputs on my interface. Is that not hot enough for you so you need a preamp? I'd definitely not call those specs "marginal".

On the other hand some of the older keyboards like a Roland Jupiter 8 or Juno 60/106 would definitely benefit from a preamp as their outputs aren't hot enough and cranking the gain gets very noisy indeed.

Soo... my answer to that question would be it depends on the keyboard.

Your Korg Triton's outputs should be hot enough not to need a pre. Now if you're looking for some coloration, that maybe a different point, but from simply output volume point of view you shouldn't need a pre.

[Dak_Sunset]

My keyboard outputs are not quite as hot as I'd like. I got a relatively cheap Gemeni stereo DJ preamp and it works fabulously.

As an added bonus, the amp has 3 band EQ, and especially useful is a mono switch.