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Keyboards in the days before great PA?


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What did players do, say back in the 70s for Keys?

 

I would think a Hammond would have a 122 on stage and you'd just turn it up like a guitar player would crank their amp. John Lord ran his through Marshalls, yes?

 

Nowadays we tend to want a synth go through a Full Range PA system so we get the full frequency range.

 

But what did, say, The Animals do in the Studio and On Stage?

 

Or some of the Surf bands even from the 60s - what were all those Vox and Farfisas going into - something like Pipeline?

 

One thing I'm curious about is I think it seems like a lot of players ran their Rhodes, or Wurlies, or Clavs through "guitar effects pedals" like Delays, Phasers, Flangers, Wah Pedals, and even Chorus.

 

Were they also just plugging into a Guitar/Bass Amp?

 

Did all these things have 1/4" outputs that you could just run through a Wah or Fuzz or Phase 90, etc. and then into an Amp?

 

Did they have dedicated Amps made to "go with" them - I assume some of them had built in speakers, which I'm sure wouldn't compete in a live setting (especially in the arena rock days) and of course I can see Continentals probably being designed to go with Vox amps - or were at least marketed that way.

 

I mean, "Keyboard amps" as we know them were really a product of the 80s, no? That is, dedicated line level that had more full range speakers and weren't great for guitar.

 

And they certainly didn't have the kind of full range monitors we use today to use either as a personal monitor that pipes on to the PA, or the PA and its monitors themselves.

 

Obviously if they had internal speakers, you'd need an effects loop to use a wah or something.

 

If they had internal speakers, I suppose they could be defeated when 1/4" is plugged in the back if they had it. I do know a Hammond didn't have (or at least initially didn't have) 1/4" connectors and/or neither did the Leslie - I know guitar players had to modify the wiring somehow to get guitar into a Leslie.

 

But how did you put a Rhodes through a Phaser into a .... speaker?

 

How about a Clav into a Wah - and on to ultimately a speaker...

 

Or a Wurli with some drive on it? DIstorting at the console input, or is it mic'd amp in the studio?

 

If you bought a Rhodes in '73 and wanted to play with your friends in the garage, what did you plug it into?

 

What if you bought a Farfisa or Continental in the late '60s/early '70s - what did you plug it into?

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A friend of mine went to see Elvis in an indoor arena that had a maximum capacity including standing room of about 9,000 people.

 

They used two pairs of Altec Lansing Voice of the Theater speakers for the frontline. That is four 15" speakers and horns. I don't know how many watts they were running but it couldn't have been much.

 

Back then the big guns would have been Fender Dual Showman with JBL speakers in the 2-15 cabinet, Marshall stacks and Ampeg SVT with dual 8-10 cabs.

 

I knew keyboard players who used a Fender Twin with JBL speakers.

 

I'm guessing there were lots more blown speakers, amps going up in yellow smoke and hearing damage back then!!!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Were they also just plugging into a Guitar/Bass Amp?

 

Yes.

 

Did all these things have 1/4" outputs that you could just run through a Wah or Fuzz or Phase 90, etc. and then into an Amp?

 

If by "these things" you mean the keyboards... then, yes.

 

Did they have dedicated Amps made to "go with" them

 

Not typically. Rhodes Suitcase would be an obvious exception.

 

Obviously if they had internal speakers, you'd need an effects loop to use a wah or something.

No effects loops that I can remember. Even if something had internal speakers, there would be an output you could use for recording or headphones or external processing or to the guitar/bass amp... but loop back to the internal speakers.

 

But how did you put a Rhodes through a Phaser into a .... speaker?

 

How about a Clav into a Wah - and on to ultimately a speaker...

The same way you'd put a Les Paul into a phaser or a wah.

 

Or a Wurli with some drive on it? DIstorting at the console input, or is it mic'd amp in the studio?

Run it into a (tube) guitar amp, it gets you distortion just like you do when you run a guitar into a guitar amp. And of course, guitar amps can then be mic'd up.

 

 

If you bought a Rhodes in '73 and wanted to play with your friends in the garage, what did you plug it into?

 

What if you bought a Farfisa or Continental in the late '60s/early '70s - what did you plug it into?

Depended what you could afford. ;-) But I remember seeing Fenders, Ampegs, Univoxes as popular choices, off the top of my head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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Because I was doubling on bass back in the day I had a Tapco 6000 mixer into the power section of a tuck and roll Kustom 250 bass amp with a pair of 15's in the cabinet. Keys were a Wurli 140B, and then a Univox Organizer with the funky draw bars. Around 1979 I discovered the RVS II , which was made by Yorkville and was one of the first dedicated keyboard amps- it even had a rotary simulator usable on any of the 5 channels. Great amp, bulletproof, and heavy as hell.

Loved the sound, dont miss the schlep.

 

Jake

1967 B-3 w/(2) 122's, Nord C1w/Leslie 2101 top, Nord PedalKeys 27, Nord Electro 4D, IK B3X, QSC K12.2, Yamaha reface YC+CS+CP

 

"It needs a Hammond"

 

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I was there for it all...

 

In the 60s:

 

What you usually did is have big loud amps on stage. Nothing in the PA but vocals. Your amps would get into the PA anyway via the vocal mics because you were playing so damn loud. PAs were usually along the lines of Shure Vocal Masters. At a concert you would probably see EV Voice of the Theatres.

 

No such thing as a keyboard amp, compact mixers, or powered speakers. For instance, my first amp was a Jordan guitar amp. Later I upgraded to a Sunn Sentura II, which was a 60 watt tube amp with 2 JBL D130 speakers. No multi instruments - you were usually either a piano or an organ player. I was playing combo organ only at that point.

 

In the 70s:

 

Hammonds replaced combo organs generally, which led to the problem of amplifying a leslie. By now everybody was trying to carry an organ, an electric piano, and a mono synth like a Mini or Odyssey. I used a primitive Shure mixer.

 

shure-m67-front.jpg

 

By now I needed FRFR amplification and guitar amps weren't going to cut it any more. I built a large 3 way biamped cabinet out of JBL PA components - 15", 6" cone mid, compression driver highs. By the early 70's JBL was starting to supplant Voice of the Theatres for PA, and if you weren't carrying EVs, you were carrying JBL 4560 cabinets and horns. The FOH mixers got bigger with more channels, and I was getting mic'ed. Amplification choices for PA were Crown, and Phase Linear amps.

 

The Shure mixer got replaced with my first "keyboard mixer", a Malatchi Performer which was long on features and short on headroom and clean gain. It had rack ears but was too wide for a standard rack, so you had to build a box and mount it.

 

Effects in those days were fairly limited. Guitar players had fuzz pedals, wah pedals, and tape echo such as Echoplex. I carried a Roland Space Echo and an early A/DA Flanger.

 

Here's what my rig looked like by the late 70s:

 

http://www.hotrodmotm.com/images/gallery/back_line.jpg

 

http://www.hotrodmotm.com/images/gallery/pile_of_keys.jpg

Moe

---

 

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Because I was doubling on bass back in the day I had a Tapco 6000 mixer into the power section of a tuck and roll Kustom 250 bass amp

Ah, yes, Kustom, I forgot, lots of those around too.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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Since Pete Traynor was a good friend of my father I always had a Bass Mate, columns and other Traynor gear. Mate, that Shure Mixer brought back memories. Anyone else also use a Bogen preamp? I remember mixing and matching various Fender heads and cabs with Traynor amps and cabs. One one tour we were given Sunn amps to use, we weren"t used to that much power and our guitar player nearly blew our ears out. While my head may miss the sound my back is grateful for today"s smaller, lighter gear.
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I started playing the 80s but in amateur bands that didn't have good PAs :) I used a Peavey KB300, I could kill farm animals at 50 paces with that thing. Not sure how well it could reproduce piano (which is always the worst using amps) as I didn't really have a good piano sound until I got my Emu Proteus (and "good" piano sound is a relative thing of course :))

 

I DO NOT miss those days. I just played a gig where I was 5 feet from a drummer and actually had to turn him up in my mix since my in-ears block so much! :D

 

I think practices hurt my hearing far more than gigs though over the years. Jammed into a small space with everyone enthusiastically playing at full volume for hours at a time....a few years back we had a guitarist that had a 50 watt tube head/cab and he was getting drowned out in our practice space by our stupid caveman drummer. I'd like those practices back please, it's just sheer idiocy to play that loud.

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I was there for it all...

 

In the 60s:

 

What you usually did is have big loud amps on stage. Nothing in the PA but vocals.

Yes!

 

Now I wasn"t there, but when the Beatles hit Adelaide in 1964 only vox went through the PA. Everything else was amps and drums were not mic"d.

 

Consequently the band could not be heard over the audience!

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My bands invested in equipment early. A small band I joined back in the late sixties were using Fender Band Master Guitar amps, a Fender Bassman amp for the bass player and a Fender Bassman for me too. I was was playing a Compact organ for a few years, went the Hammond route with dual Leslies for awhile, but the guys didn't want to move that rig around for one night stands so,,,,,,

we all upgraded. I bought a VOX dual Continental organ, a Leslie 147 RV and a Sunn 200 S bass amp that could run direct and/or plug a mic into the Sunn from the Leslie horn. Our Lead Guitar player bought a VOX Super Beatle Amp, and our bass player bought a SUNN 200S bass amp, We invested in a SUNN PA system, got stands for the speakers, and we were good to go.

 

All our gig money went to equipment and loan payments.

 

 

Mike T.

Yamaha Motif ES8, Alesis Ion, Prophet 5 Rev 3.2, 1979 Rhodes Mark 1 Suitcase 73 Piano, Arp Odyssey Md III, Roland R-70 Drum Machine, Digitech Vocalist Live Pro. Roland Boss Chorus Ensemble CE-1.

 

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Now I wasn"t there, but when the Beatles hit Adelaide in 1964 only vox went through the PA.

Only vox went through the PA, and all instruments went through a Vox!

 

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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In the 60s I used a Farfisa Combo Compact Deluxe Organ and a Wurlitzer electric piano. The organ connected via 1/4" cable to a Leslie preamp box, then the multi pin out of that into a Leslie. The

piano was plugged into a Fender Bassman amp that had four 12" speakers. In addition, I mic'd the upper rotor of the Leslie using a Shure microphone plugged into the same Fender amp. In 1969 I

switched over to a Hammond Model A (not A 100) with twin 31H "phonebooth" Leslies. On top of that was an Arp Soloist synth, which I ran through a number of various amps. I recall set up time to be

a lot quicker with the Hammond and Leslies, but I also recall needing to befriend guys with a pickup truck or van to assist when changing locations for gigs. Fortunately, back then, you'd be booked 4-6

nights a week at the same place for several weeks.

 

Kurzweil PC4-7

Kurzweil Artis 7

Alto TS312 Powered Speakers (2)

Samson 6 channel mixer

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Ah, the 1970s... Most keyboard players used guitar amps like Fender Twin Reverb or Super Reverb or Dual Showman. I quickly learned tube amps went into distortion too soon. Bass amps were cleaner but not full frequency range. That left solid state amps. Beside "tuck-n-roll" Kustoms there wasn't much else, but I happened upon a used late 60s Standel solid state 100w amp with 4x12s that worked pretty well. My first Hammond/Leslie rig used a 760 which had plenty of volume.

 

Not until the Moog Synamp did anything like a "keyboard amp" exist; that had a four channel mono mixer each with three band semi-parametric EQ with a pair of 200w amplifiers that could compete with a Marshall full stack (I still use one) and when it was introduced in 1977 that thing was EXPENSIVE. With its companion Synamp three-way speaker cabinets you had the equivalent of a PA.

 

There was also the ARP Minus Noise mixer, not many of those out there. You would also see Bose 802 speakers in 70s rigs.

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My first live concert was Strawberry Alarm Clock. They had all Vox gear - Super Beatles, Continental, guitars, everything. The PA was 2 Super Beatles on each side. :facepalm:

 

I saw ELP at Kiel Opera House on their first American tour. PA was 4 EV Voice of the Theatre cabs on each side.

Moe

---

 

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Since Pete Traynor was a good friend of my father I always had a Bass Mate, columns and other Traynor gear. Mate, that Shure Mixer brought back memories. Anyone else also use a Bogen preamp? I remember mixing and matching various Fender heads and cabs with Traynor amps and cabs. One one tour we were given Sunn amps to use, we weren"t used to that much power and our guitar player nearly blew our ears out. While my head may miss the sound my back is grateful for today"s smaller, lighter gear.

 

I originally had a Garnet :laugh: and soon after, a GBX modular master/slave type of setup â pretty sure it was another Canadian brand.

 

Then a Kustom 200 watt head with a pair of Altec speakers when I was using a Wurlitzer 140B and a Howard Combo Organ. When I got different Hammonds (CV3, L100, M3) they went through a Les Bateman Wire Amp to an Atlas driver and JBL on a 122. Pretty sure I kept the Kustom head for the Wurlitzer & MiniMoog. In the 80's I got into a variety of things (DX7/D50/M1) through a Gallien-Krueger head to JBL15. I never got into "keyboard" amps other than a brief flirt with Motion-Sound KP200 â the last actual amplifier I used was an AER Domino.

____________________________________
Rod

Here for the gear.

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I remember the first time I saw my friends band with a keyboard player practice. The keyboard player had an one of the first Wurlitzer electric and a rare Sears Silvertone 6 x 10" amp. At the time was the biggest amp I had ever seen. As time went on he got a Vox Continental organ and a Vox Super Beatle eventually getting a B3 and 147.

 

In general most KB players back in 60's-70's used guitar or bass amp's. sometime a bass cabinet with a guitar head which is what a lot of "keyboard" amp actually were. Twin Reverbs with JBL speakers was a nice setup, but expensive for the time and with JBL's a very heavy amp to lug around. Now when I worked on that Yes tour in '75 they had two Twin Reverbs with JBL's that were their backup amp for anything that would die. I wasn't into keyboards back then guitar and drums were my forte, but I remember Yes's keyboard tech was the first time I saw someone with a mixing desk onstage. He had one of those early TASCAM "home studio" I think 16 channel consoles all the keys ran into. Yes had bass pedals for Chris Squire and I think Steve Howe might of had bass pedals too and they were run to the TASCAM console. So the tech mixed all those levels during the show and fed the FOH with his keys mix. Yes used a special PA setup with four HUGE folded horn subwoofers because of all the lows in their sound and a lot of horns and JBL ring tweeters for a full range sound.

 

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I"ve never owned a keyboard amp. I do see the appeal of a all in one package. I"ve always used PA gear. First good rig was two large 3 way cabs and a giant rack of PA gear. That"s pretty much what we all did around here.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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Late 70s-early 80s. Tapco 6200 into a Phase Linear 400 Series II and pair of Bose 800s on poles. Ditched the Bose pretty quickly and got two Cervin Vega 2x12 cabinets, one for each side of the stage. Mid to late 80s I went with a Yamaha MV 802 line mixer, Carver PM-175, and EV 1502.

9 Moog things, 3 Roland things, 2 Hammond things and a computer with stuff on it

 

 

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When I used a combo organ,- I had a tube "Sound City 120" bass amp w/ a18" Goodmans and a 2x10" Fender cab.

Later I bought 2 Ampeg V4 4x12 cabs ...

When I bought a Fender Rhodes mk I 73 Stage, I used a Fender Dual Showman Reverb Amp,- 1st w/ the Ampeg cabs, later w/ 2 of the Fender 2x10" cabs.

I think the Dual Showman Reverb w/ these was the best sounding combo for the Rhodes.

There were Jensen alnico speakers in these cream tolex cabs and when they died I replaced ´em w/ Celestion 75W speakers which sounded good too.

 

When I bought a Clavinet D6, the Solina String Ensemble and a Minimoog D in addition, I expanded w/ a small Roland/Boss 4-channel mono mixer running into the "normal" channel of the Fender Dual Showman reverb Amp.

I used a Binson Echorec P.E. 603 T in between the "mixer" and amp, all kind of stomp boxes connected to the different instruments incl. BOSS GE-10 EQ, Mutron III, Phasor II, Compact Phasing A, MXR Flanger, EH Deluxe Electric Mistress Flanger, Big Muff Pi distortion ...

When I bought 2 EV 15/3 cabs I used EV/ Tapco Entertainer powered 8-ch. stereo mixer and for the 1st time a preamp/ parametric EQ for the Rhodes ... the TC Electronics 1140.

The Clavinet got it´s own new pre-amp upgrade w/ line level output.

 

That was the last time I used my own amplification.

From there, I used endorsed amplification and gear the PA company provided for touring,- mostly 12/2 cabs w/ power amp and only the Roland M160 rackmount mixers, rackmount FX and keys were my own.

 

A.C.

 

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These occasional detours down memory lane are fun. I'm old, as this post will attest to. As a teenager I liked to build electronics projects. This was my first amp:

 

TA38.jpg

 

Later on I built this kit amp:

 

tigersaurus.jpg

 

For a while I used this as a preamp â for my Rhodes! This was another kit I built. I just found this pic on an Ebay listing. It has a BIN price of... $587! WTF? I think I paid $75 for it, new.

 

Dynaco-PAT4.jpg

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The original (1970;s) Fender Bassman 100 (with 4 6L6GB tubes for output, in an ultra-linear configuration) into a 2X15 Fender cabinet with JBL speakers. Great sounding anywhere from a whisper to way too loud. One of the items I wish I'd never sold. But, I couldn't pick up the speaker cabinet and put it in the vehicle like I could then.

Used it mostly with a Prophet 600 at the time, but also with a Gibson RD Artist Bass Guitar.

 

Howard Grand|Hamm SK1-73|Kurz PC2|PC2X|PC3|PC3X|PC361; QSC K10's

HP DAW|Epi Les Paul & LP 5-str bass|iPad mini2

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Jim

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Before everything was run into the PA bands used bigger amps than we usually see today. It was common to see a Fender Showman or Bandmaster and in the Northwest where I was large Sunn amps were popular. In the early 70's I had a Hammond M-3 which I initially played through a large Heathkit guitar amp. I soon bought two Leslie 147's and Combo Preamp which I got for under $1000 new. When I added a Hohner Combo Pianet and later an ARP Odyssey I used a huge Gibson Magnum 800 amp with 8x12 speakers. It wasn't until the 80's that I got a powered mixer and full-range speaker.
C3/122, M102A, Vox V301H, Farfisa Compact, Gibson G101, GEM P, RMI 300A, Piano Bass, Pianet , Prophet 5 rev. 2, Pro-One, Matrix 12, OB8, Korg MS20, Jupiter 6, Juno 60, PX-5S, Nord Stage 3 Compact
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I didn"t start as far back as some here, I was early 80s. i had a big power amp with an 8-band EQ that I plugged into a PA Cabinet which had a 12' + horn (maybe it was a 15' - i don"t remember anymore). Don"t recall either model now. As noted, we almost never ran anything except VOX thru PA, everybody"s stage sound was their live 'FOH' sound.
The baiting I do is purely for entertainment value. Please feel free to ignore it.
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For a while I used this as a preamp â for my Rhodes! This was another kit I built. I just found this pic on an Ebay listing. It has a BIN price of... $587! WTF? I think I paid $75 for it, new.

 

Dynaco-PAT4.jpg

 

Aside: I have a friend who bought one of those new. He still uses it in his home system. I bought a Kenwood KA2002 at the same time IIRC and parted with it only last year :laugh: Good, versatile little amps.

 

http://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/8/a/vintage-kenwood-solid-state-stereo-amplifier-model-ka-2002-3feed0b437dcf23edb508030de83c4f0.jpg

 

____________________________________
Rod

Here for the gear.

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