Keyboards live

[chamelious]

Apologies i know this isn't a recording question but i hoped someone might be able to help anyway.

My band uses a microkorg for synth sounds, our fans are telling us they can never hear it live.

I'm no stranger to live sound, i know what a problem vocals are in terms of getting them loud enough.

But with keys i dont get why its hard for the engineer to just turn them up?

Can anyone shed any light?

 

[gecko zzed]

It's hard to say.

Is the keyboard going through an amp? How is it getting into the mix? Is it all jobs, or just the one that you know about? Is it because the listeners are fans of the keyboard player, and just want him louder because of that? Has the lack of volume been communicated to the engineer? Does he or she not understand the nature of your music? Or maybe they do, and the mix is in fact just right.

 

[chamelious]

Keys are always direct into PA.

The criticism comes from friends/fellow muso's, and fans of our music. Not people who want to hear keys dominating, but notice their absence from the mix.

We've not said anything to engineers, i'd have thought it was obvious that if we soundcheck an instrument, we want it to be heard.

 

[TeyshaBlue]

Apologies i know this isn't a recording question but i hoped someone might be able to help anyway.

My band uses a microkorg for synth sounds, our fans are telling us they can never hear it live.

I'm no stranger to live sound, i know what a problem vocals are in terms of getting them loud enough.

But with keys i dont get why its hard for the engineer to just turn them up?

Can anyone shed any light?

You need to visit with the engineer. It ain't a hardware issue.

 

[dintymoore]

Keys probably have the most demand on a playback system of any instrument.

I really like to have a 3-way speaker system, with a woofer (12" or preferably 15") a tweeter and a midrange. Whenever I play through systems that only have a woofer and horn I can't hear myself - I'm in the hole where the two speakers overlap, and especially with a 15", that can be a big hole.

I can't stand crap speakers for keyboards. I need pretty good JBL's at least. I can use so-so speakers for gtr or vocals but not keys.

I play Rhodes sounds a lot and that's a bitch to amplify. It's like a French horn. How can you play a French horn really, really loud? The tone doesn't work loud.

Another biggie is that musicians (especially ones that don't play enough) seem to play way, way too busy as a general rule and the air is all used up. It's hard to find a place for a keyboard sound if it's real busy. You can always add a screaming guitar solo on top of everyone because you can outscream everyone on guitar, but keys have that French horn thing going on where if you turn them up loud they suck.

So my advice is to get a small amp that you like so you can get your sound on stage, and give a line out to the pa guy and just make it sound good on stage for you and let him worry about what's out front. Plugging the keys into a pa with the vocals sucks the raw one without your own amp.

And always run stereo, mono is terrible for most keys.

 

[witzendoz]

We toured with a microkorg and it worked fine. We used it mono as a lot of smaller gigs have mono PA's anyway and we already had 8 Di's running (dance music played live, 2 keys, sequencer, drum loops, sound modules).

The one thing I would say about keys and live sound, and I am a sound engineer and a muso, is that you must program the key sounds so that the volume is consistent. So many keyboards have a soft volume for one sound and a loud volume for another, this is for most keyboards not just the microkorg, as a sound engineer you can spend the whole night chasing the keyboard volume up and down so that the audience does not get their ears melted when a loud key stab suddenly appears.

By the way we loved our microkorg and the vocoder was good fun and great live.

Cheers
Alan.

 

[moresound]

So my advice is to get a small amp that you like so you can get your sound on stage, and give a line out to the pa guy and just make it sound good on stage for you and let him worry about what's out front. Plugging the keys into a pa with the vocals sucks the raw one without your own amp.

And always run stereo, mono is terrible for most keys.

I'm always amazed that keyboard players don't carry an amp for their rig. It's like going to the bathroom and not bring toilet paper.

 

[chamelious]

So my advice is to get a small amp that you like so you can get your sound on stage, and give a line out to the pa guy and just make it sound good on stage for you and let him worry about what's out front. Plugging the keys into a pa with the vocals sucks the raw one without your own amp.

And always run stereo, mono is terrible for most keys.

Thanks for your advice, but we're not really concerned with the sound on stage, as long as our singer can hear the keys its fine. Theres only one bit in the entire set where keys are played at the same time as vocals anyway.

 

[dintymoore]

I'm always amazed that keyboard players don't carry an amp for their rig. It's like going to the bathroom and not bring toilet paper.

We are currently experiencing an epidemic of musicians too lazy to carry an amp unless they get paid extra money.

... we're not really concerned with the sound on stage...

To me the sound on stage is more important than the sound out front. If it doesn't sound great on stage, how are the musicians supposed to get into it?

 

[chamelious]

We are currently experiencing an epidemic of musicians too lazy to carry an amp unless they get paid extra money.



To me the sound on stage is more important than the sound out front. If it doesn't sound great on stage, how are the musicians supposed to get into it?

Nothing ever sounds great on stage, presumably unless you're in a band that the venue/engineer gives a flying arse about. A lot of the gigs ive done have been without a "soundcheck" as such because of other bands taking so long getting their "sound" right. If we do get a soundcheck, we make sure we can hear what we need to hear in order to perform, and get the fuck out of the way.

A keyboard amp is one more thing to carry, one more thing to buy, one more thing to go wrong.

 

[dintymoore]

Nothing ever sounds great on stage, presumably unless you're in a band that the venue/engineer gives a flying arse about...

That's too bad. Every gig I do it sounds not just good, but off the scale phenomenal on stage. I'm not into religion but it comes pretty close. I wouldn't dream of not aiming to sound great on stage.

... A keyboard amp is one more thing to carry, one more thing to buy, one more thing to go wrong.

Yes, but by bringing my own amp, it sounds great on stage. I have a small GK amp that's 100w and about as big as two shoeboxes - it's tiny. It's a small thing to bring to make sure that I'm in sonic heaven. You can't count on a sound man, you've got to cover your own ass.

I would encourage you to aim for the top... I'll bet all your musical heroes are great, not just pretty good. You only get one life, why not always sound great?

 

[chamelious]

I would encourage you to aim for the top... I'll bet all your musical heroes are great, not just pretty good. You only get one life, why not always sound great?

As you already said, the sound on stage matters not a jot as to what the audience hears, which is what actually matters. We aim to sound great FOH.

Added to this, most venues we've played have specifically instructed us not to bring keyboard amplification, owing to stage space.

 

[dintymoore]

As you already said, the sound on stage matters not a jot as to what the audience hears, which is what actually matters...

Actually I said that it's more important that it sounds great to the musicians on stage than out front for the audience. Ideally it sounds great both places, but it's actually more important for the musicians to hear it great than the audience. I know a lot of people don't understand that.

 

[chamelious]

Actually I said that it's more important that it sounds great to the musicians on stage than out front for the audience. Ideally it sounds great both places, but it's actually more important for the musicians to hear it great than the audience. I know a lot of people don't understand that.

Count me among one of them? As long as a musician can hear well enough to perform the music to their full potential, i don't understand what you're saying at all, unless you're confusing me for one of the people who turn up with year old strings and a horrible solid state amp and expect it to be "fixed in the mix".

 

[Yonce N Mild]

Actually I said that it's more important that it sounds great to the musicians on stage than out front for the audience. Ideally it sounds great both places, but it's actually more important for the musicians to hear it great than the audience. I know a lot of people don't understand that.

I disagree. You gotta be able to hear yourself that's true, but if you sound great to yourself and sound like shit to the audience what's the point? If I'm just playing to hear myself why lug all my shit out to the club. We sound great in the rehearsal room, we could just stay there.

 

[chamelious]

I disagree. You gotta be able to hear yourself that's true, but if you sound great to yourself and sound like shit to the audience what's the point? If I'm just playing to hear myself why lug all my shit out to the club. We sound great in the rehearsal room, we could just stay there.

+1 on this?...

 

[DD83]

Haven't played a lot live but I think what Dintymoore means is: your music sounding the best you can get it to sound in that or any environment is more important because you made it, you know what it's supposed to sound like. The audience dosen't know what it's supposed to sound like but if you can hear yourself really well, then maybe you'll try to play it like it's supposed to be heard, therefore translating the best possible mix to your audience. Or maybe he meant something else. Also cannot the stage mix be bounced to FOH, then FOH can make adjustments from there?

 

[himesster]

I personally am of the opinion that a keyboard amp is a must not an option, but to be fair I have been playing Keys for 20 years. I am also a guitar player and yeah we've all done the just jump up and play but people gotta hear everything. I also play guitar but I am both a Guitar Player and A keyboard player not a guitar player that plays keys or vise versa.

 

[witzendoz]

As a musician that also works as a sound engineer I think its time to point out the obvious:

Sh#t sound on stage = Sh#t sound out front, good sound on stage = good sound is easier to get out front.

All the PA does is amplifier the stage sound, if you keyboard, bass, guitar, vocal ability is rubbish than the PA will make that rubbish louder.

My band prides itself on that stage sound, we know how to get a good sound with our own gear or back line when at a festival, we have all worked at getting a good sound until we are at the point that when we plug into any brand of amp we can get it to sound as good as it can. Sound guys come up to us regularly and say how much they enjoyed mixing us coz we have our sound together.

Don't rely on the sound guy to fix you rubbish sound, give them a head start and even an average sound guy can make it work.

Cheers
Alan.

 

[dintymoore]

... Sh#t sound on stage = Sh#t sound out front, good sound on stage = good sound is easier to get out front...

Exactly.

It's got to sound great on stage and out front of course. But the focus should start with on stage. I've been in many situations where it sounded like crap on stage and someone says "Don't worry, it's fine out front".

When Speilberg oversees producing his films, he sees it in more detail than we'll ever see it. That's what I'm talking about. If it has to sound a hair less quality either out front or on stage, make it sound better on stage. People do not understand that and think that my view is "screw the fans".

I'm saying that the better the sound is on stage the more you are giving to your crowd because you get into it more.

If it sounds great on stage, getting a great sound out front is usually a snap.

It's all about carving air.