hooking up multiple keyboards live

[ross22]

ok here is my dilemma
we are typical band with two guitars and drums but we have no bass so in its place is a synth and then on top of this we have another synth for lead lines, pads and then a wieghted stage piano for nice piano tones

so three boards plus an acoustic guitar equals annoyed sound guys at most gigs due to lack of DI boxes etc

some sound guys we have talked to suggested getting a small unpowered mixer to run the boards into as well as running the wieghted keyboard into it in stereo (we normally connect it via mono output)

we already own a small yamaha unpowered mixer so this is def a possiblity

does anyone do a simliar thing live casue these sound guys have mixed other bands and said this is what they do
but i just find fault in the fact that the FOH guy has to mix the three boards as one channel
and if the submixer is being run in stereo would we need two di boxes anyway (one for the right output of the submixer and one for the left?)
or could we have an adapter that converts two mono 6mm jacks to one stereo 6mm jack and feed it into one DI?

any advice would be much appreicated because we are at quite the crossroads right now and not sure what to do

 

[mikeh]

There are various ways you could go - much depends on the level of control you want on stage vs. how much control you want to give the FOH guys.

I'll simply offer what I do. I use a small sub-mixer to run 3 keyboards, an acoustic/electric guitar and an electric guitar (though a POD). I pan all input channels directly center (with equal signal going to both the left and right output). The left output goes to a stage combo (Peavey KB60) which I use for stage volume - and the right output goes to a DI -> FOH. Note: I'm not a believer in stereo signals for live application - so I figure a mono signal to FOH is acceptable.

In this scenario I control everything and the FOH gets one signal. I prefer to have control, since I never know how capable the FOH people may be. While it's a little more for me to keep track of on stage - it is worth it, to maintain control. Some FOH guys get bent out of shape because they would like control over each instrument - but after the first few songs, when they realize that I have good control from stage - they accept that I'm actually making their job easier.

Now, as an option, (if I wanted to send stero or multiple signals to FOH) I could send a stereo signal to FOH and use one of the mixer returns to send a signal to my stage amp -or use the various returns to send multiple signals to FOH (which would require mulitple DIs).

It all depends on how much control you want to turn over to sound guys. By the way, I always carry a few DIs just in case a situation comes up when I need them (and as you've no doubt learned - you can't depend on most sound companies to have enough DIs)

 

[Whale Bone]

I would think you might easily mix the paino and pad synth before sending to FOH, but the bass synth might do well to have its own for the sake of eq'ing and real-time mixing.

If everything handles being sent as mono, then you'd be down to two, which for a keyboard and bass player would be two anyway, so no great imposition on the sound folks. I'd be tempted to split the left and right of your mixer between the two DIs, and use an aux send for a monitor amp if stage monitors are not sufficient.

Stereo vs. mono
Having the stereo signal live is probably not beneficial fo the sake of the image in most cases, but depending on your sounds, you might have some cancelation when mixing them to mono. I think most patches are good enough to not have this problem, but I have worked with keyboardists who have certain gear where this is a problem. And in those cases, there is sometimes a separate patch for use with mono. So, in the end, probably not a big deal. Listening to the patches in stereo and mono beforehand would probably be a good idea.