PianoMan51

This is perfectly okay for me. Perfect would be that the balanced outputs on the keyboard were indifferent to phantom power, but at least the keyboard won’t be damaged. Since many of us on the forum are of an ‘engineering mindset’, I’d like to point out why FOH guys probably demand DIs. It’s that the DI is a guaranteed buffer between the stage gear and the mixer. Sure, directly connecting could work in most cases, but the DI protects both the stage gear and the mixer (with any weird designs) from harm, and allows interoperability and ground lifts.

Great subject. One question for everyone is “have you listened to headphones with SLAM?” I have two nice, but not ‘ultra-level’ headphones. The AKG K701 sounds great with classical and acoustic tracks, but misses the physical impact of great speakers with bass and drums. You hear the lows clearly but you don’t feel them. The Hifiman HE6se v2 sounds almost as good as the K701s for classical, but brings a whole lot more of the ‘slam’ of the bass and drums to your ears. By slam I mean that physical kick you get by being near a bass drum or bass amp on stage. You feel the kick drum as well as hear it. This brought listening pleasure to tracks that I had lost interest in when listening with the K701s. I spent weeks re-listening to recordings that had become fun again.

Incoming GAS… Duck and Cover!

You can use open backed earbuds to hear your self (through the earbuds) and the band (through the open backs). I’ve brought a pair with me to gigs for the past 12 years, and put them on whenever I want to hear myself better and in stereo. The separate volume control for the headphone jack makes this practical. I currently use FiiO FF5 earbuds, but others that sit in your ear rather than going into your ear will do. A warning though, let a trusted fellow band mate know what your setup is. Because you may hear yourself beautifully while to everyone else you are apparently turned off. (How do I know that? Lol.) Also, you get no volume reduction with this system so it only works with acoustic level groups. And there is a slight reduction in high frequency level from the band, but I find this a benefit. Even though you will hear yourself in stereo, The mono/stereo issue remains for everyone else. My standard solution is to feed the mono PA with my right channel. Works really well for stereo acoustic piano patches (better than mono patches in my experience).

My jaw is hanging down! In a former life I designed hardware for a telecom test company. The incompetence of designing an XLR output, meant to connect with a mixer, and NOT protecting against 48V phantom power from the mixer is… I don’t have words that I would choose to use among friends.

Used unnecessarily complex Mainstage setups ten years ago (so take my experience with a grain of salt). Mainstage is a complicated piece of software that binds together parts from many different vendors, and is probably theoretically impossible to completely test all the configurations. At one point I ended up starting fresh and rebuilding from scratch because my main concert had a bug in it and after a week of futzing with this and that I gave up. This is not unheard of . For your problem I suggest starting with common housekeeping tasks. Here’s a few… 1). When you have a mission critical session, reboot before you start. This is from experience. 2). Turn off WiFi when not setting up your mixer.

The shocking thing about this track is how absolutely stiff it is rhythmically. There is none of the swing that the rest of the song has. More John Philip Sousa than bar band. WTF? But returning to this the next day I’m reminded of listening to a recording of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. (Andrews Sisters) The singers and the band are deep in swing time, but a close listening to the boogie Woogie piano reveals that the piano is playing with zero swing, in strict 8 to the bar. Ah… Perhaps there is a subtle rhythmic disconsonance that creates an edge?

In a rock band in the early 70s we distinguished between solos (pre-determined melodic passage which is part of the song) and rides (as in: take an improvisational ride while the rest of the band supports you). I’ve never come across that again. Charts will label ‘solo’ for both written out parts and improvised sections. But maybe onto your real question… What are the signature licks that must be played versus what is okay to make up as we go? There ain’t no answers. ‘Your’ answer as a player defines your musical aesthetic. Compare Yes playing the same note for note song for 50 years running, vs Herbie Hancock playing Both Sides Now in the Joni Letters.

Yeah, mine is a YC73. The CP and YC series have different output hardware? Hunh?

In the Menu list there is an I/O setting for output level. Normally set to 0dB, you can adjust from -24dB to +24dB. I assume this would eliminate the need for a mixer between the keyboard (to boost the volume) and the powered speaker, but I haven’t actually tried it yet.

But an IKEA Shell…

Sometimes the problem can be me, and the rest of the band doesn’t want to ‘confront’ me. Christmas Dance. Combo group plays twice a year. We finish the first song, which just sounded bad. I ask the bassist to play an E. He does and it’s nearly a half step out. But he doesn’t retune. The rest of the band turns to me and basically says the piano was out of tune, for the entire first song. Hunh? Well, it turns out that I had accidentally nudged the pitch bend wheel while setting up and it hadn’t set back to normal. Eventually rebooted the CP4 and all was good. But I was floored that none of the band members didn’t stop the first song after two bars. I’m interpreting that they were embarrassed to point out the very obvious problem. THIS is a problem in music groups of ‘equals’. How can things get better if we’re afraid to acknowledge and fix problems?

I think of this as an upscale Fishman Soloamp. Even wider horizontal spread, better bass response. Heavier, more expensive.

Klaatu?

You’re welcome. Like to know how they do on digital pianos.

L. R. Baggs Synapse.

As someone who played that song in a cover band when it first came out, I’m stunned that it’s still on anyone’s playlist. I mean seriously stunned. Jungle Boogie (for example) was out three years earlier, and was part of the destruction of the rock-based set list for bands playing clubs on the East Coast. PTFM was (in my ears) way late to the party, and way un-hip. Lol. I feel the same way today playing Artie Shaw charts! But I have a certain pride in my fellow keyboard players on this forum, because of the “respect” that we give to playing even the most puerile songs. IMHO we as players can only perform well when we love what we do. This often means finding something to love in the ugliest dog. (Actually this is a characteristic that transcends, and approaches the spiritual nature of being a musician).

Translated into what?

Well now everything’s clear. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?

Day one: remove the license plate holder advertising the car dealer. The rest is more difficult. I do remember parking behind a car, then noticing that the metal letters spelled out the name of the manufacturer… DORF

Yes Al, it works. In my case it’s just a single speaker but the idea is the same. You raise the speaker behind you and above your head, then adjust the distance between the speaker and the keyboard to ‘scoot’ under the main speaker volume. Been doing this for 15 years. It looks unconventional, but I don’t care! BTW, I’m often singing with this configuration too, without a FOH PA and without feedback issues. I do have a secret weapon: Yorkville SKS-ADAPT15. This is a $9 adapter (FullCompass) that fits between the top of the speaker stand and the hole in the bottom of the speaker. It tilts the speaker down by 15 degrees. This allows me to raise the speaker to the maximum height. Way above my head, slightly above my bandmates heads, and pointed directly at the audience. Better volume balance for everyone. And because the speaker is facing slightly downward this cuts down reflections from the ceiling and back wall and in most cases makes keys in the FOH unnecessary. I seem to remember some QSC speakers having built in tilt features.

The piano needs to sound ‘funky’, in the original meaning of body odor. It needs to be a real piano, with a sound that breaks glass in a quiet room, but cuts through a small band and barroom noise, especially for the bass licks. The piano action should have been broken in decades ago. Loosey - Goosey. Because just playing a simple harmony sounds like crap so you compensate with more notes. Lots more notes. The piano should be played late in the evening, when both the musicians and audience are tired of thinking about the music and have graduated to ‘music by feel’. And the musicians and audience are amenable to grooving on music that was out of date by 1964. And yes, I do play some of this music. (In all keys, and with loads of dynamics). The piano left hand becomes the time keeper. It helps to have a ‘conversation’ with new bassists before launching one of these tunes. “Listen, just for this one tune, I’m going to drive the bass line. Don’t double me. Just support the changes. And when it’s all over, the bass lines belong back with you, and my left hand will get back to the reservation.”

“A poor carpenter blames his tools” And rightly so. I’m so glad I’m not the only one! Bad keyboards screwing up my time, forgetting the form, playing over everybody else’s lines. No sense of dynamics. It goes on and on. Bad Keyboards. These problems never happen when I’m playing my own piano at home! (With the recorder turned off.) Just kidding. I take full responsibility for buying bad keyboards.