TomKittel
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Posts posted by TomKittel
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Yesterday I had the third rehearsal with a new funk band project. Last time I used my 750 watt RCF TT08A active speakers for my keys (old Korg SP200 and Kurzweil PC3LE6). For those of you who don't know the RCF TT08A: it's RCF's top-notch premium speaker line. A pair of these RCFs is around 3,500 bucks! I used them as monitors wedged on the floor. While I liked the RCF sound I got complaints from my bandmates. For some I was too loud, some found my sounds too shrill, some others couldn't hear me at all.
These complaints completely stopped yesterday after I brought my Spacestation and a small Mackie 402 mixer. I put the Spacestation 9 feet away from me. It was placed next to the bass amp, tilted against a wall. The bass amp shielded the side speaker a little bit. It sounded just terrific! Full, warm, loud, very nice stereo field everywhere in the room. Really, really magic! Right after the first song everybody asked me where the f... that wonderful sound would come from! No one wanted to believe that my keys just came from this little 8" amp on the floor and that the keys were not at all plugged into the band's amplification system in the room. And you know what? This first song was Real Mother For Ya with the fat Moog synthbass line and a sax brass section, all coming from the PC3LE6. No sub needed for that fat synth sound, not at all!! During the course of the evening I used strings, rhodes, clav, piano, organ, synthbass and synthlead sounds. We had a whole lot of fun playing and all keys sounded pristine, just right there! Really the best playing experience I had in a long time.
After the rehearsal everybody in the band said that this was the most homogeneous sounding rehearsal they ever had with any keyboard player. No need to add anything to this comment... and it makes me proud of course ;-)
BTW: I criticized AP sounds a little bit in my last posts. This criticism is dust! The APs also sounded great yesterday. I think I learned my lesson on how to use the SS V3 best:
1) Don't judge your AP sounds from playing them solo with SS. Play them in a band setting and you will absolutely love them (just don't use Nord piano samples ;-))
2) Don't put the SS too close to you! This would hamper the magic!
3) Put width just a little bit below 12 o'clock
4) Adjust Highs and Mids according to the room's requirements. Don't overdo the tone controls! Keep them close to 12 o'clock - in one or the other direction as necessary.
Finally my message to all skeptics: do yourself a favor and get a Spacestation. Once you own it accept the learning curve which comes with it. The learning provides higher feelings and less higher feelings. In the end the higher feelings will be overwhelming! I went through that. I LOVE this amp!
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I am going to buy this amp or a K10. Without regard to stereo effects, how does quality of sound and volume compare to a K10? Why should I buy this amp instead of a K10?
This answer is simple: it's STEREO and it sounds better. The latter is just my opinion of course. And it's half the price of two K10 if you want stereo.
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Got my SS3 this Monday...I really enjoyed playing Hammond on it, the Vent give some benefits I cant get from my 147.
SS3 Mark II will have protected corners and smaller controllers at back, flushed with the backplate.
THEN: Good point. It's kind of a design flaw that the control knobs stand out. Easy to fix but the Spacestation should have shorter knobs from factory.
It's not the knobs guys, it is the pot shaft that is to long and we have not been able to source these ones we have in the MK2, sorry. Still trying.
Only good news we have yet to damage a pot by a "trip and fall"...guess the longer rubber knob protects the pot shaft.
But if our only complaint is this, then we are way ahead of the game!
Better do not put it on it's back in your trunk (and don't let a friend stow it for you!). I am thinking about cutting off the pot shafts and get shorter knobs.
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I always wondered why a renowned company like Roland would produce such crap like the Roland KC300/350/500/550 series for decades without ever improving them. The worst part of these amps were the cheap blatant plastic tweeters. But I think they sold a ton of these amps even though they are completely overpriced. They are advertised as 'Developed in the USA'? Shame on you Roland!
BTW: I still own a KC300 which I bought used for 75 bucks years ago. After I replaced the silly plastic tweeter with a decent Beyma CP16 ring radiator the amp became usable at least. Currently I am using it as a subwoofer for the Spacestation. Due to it's decent Eminence 12" woofer it's pretty workable for that job. It always depends what you make of it...
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Got my Spacestation this Monday...
Congratulations, one more Spacestation in Europe!
My Nord was not that happy. Here the Grand piano sound to boxy, the Upright piano somewhat OK (think I use the Petrof sample), and I could not solve it with the onboard EQ on the piano itself, but then again, it was a fast setup on the SS, and no tweaking, I think some fine adjustment on the SS for the room, and perhaps some more fine tuning on the EQ at the mixer board could have solved this. The Nord are also out-dated on the Piano samples, but it have to work until they show up with a NS3.
Nord piano samples are difficult to reproduce with any live equipment. They only sound good with studio monitors.
SS3 Mark II will have protected corners and smaller controllers at back, flushed with the backplate
Good point. It's kind of a design flaw that the control knobs stand out. Easy to fix but the Spacestation should have shorter knobs from factory.
Very nice review, bjosko!
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Spacestation not loud enough for a rockband? Not sure what some of you guys are talking about. Recently I covered for the keyboard player of a blues rock band (which turned out to be a heavy metal band noisewise...). Two deaf guitar players with cranked Twin Reverb and Engl 2x12 amps. The Spacestation was able to cope with ANY volume level these deaf guys called up over the course of the evening. Did it sound nice? No. Keyboards are not made for coping with fully turned up rock guitars. Was the SSV3 loud enough to be heard? Yes, I did not even fully crank it. Did it distort? No. Was ist fun to play? No. Aleady told this band that I would not fill in next time. Anyway, the SSV3 can be loud as hell, really.
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So I am one of the first posters to experience the distortion issue. I spent all day yesterday with the sk2 and SS set up. I went through all of my settings on the sk2 first. I lowered all the drawbar vol levels from 127 to about 100-110 depending on the drawbar settings, I would imagine this would lower the signal output from the board, and it did indeed do that. The next thing I did was use Aspens advice for tweaking the sound, start with width at lowest setting, I had the gain at about 11 o'clock, then set the mids and highs. I ended up with a good sounding organ and pianos with mids at about 10 o'clock, and highs at around 12 o'clock. I then increased the width , and found that any more than about 10 o'clock, the pianos began to sound pretty boxy, but the organ sounded better with more width. I compromised and will keep the width around the 10-11 mark, of course this will change per room / venue. Im still getting distortion on the leslie effect on anything above 12 o'clock on the SS gain. Just to be clear, all O/D effects are turned off. The organ volume is set to about 1/3 . The good news is that this amp, when dialed in, does sound great, Ive never doubted that, but the volume level at which it does start distorting, is IMHO not that loud. Trust me, Im 46 , I don't like to play loud but I don't have a db meter to check . If its any indication, when the sound is distorting, you can still easily hear my speaking voice at a normal speaking level.
I also tried it through both a Mackie profx12, and a yamaha mg06 , it didn't make a difference for sound level before the crackle starts. One other option I will try today is to put the output from the organ through a radial stereo DI and pad the level down more. Im doing a gig tonight and will report back.
Im still thinking theirs something going on with the Hammond that's causing this. Im almost out of options to fix this.
Aspen, Im doing my best to sort this out.
The SK1 seems to have a pretty hot output. When I run the SK1 through the Stereo Audio In jack of the PX5S I get a distortion with the SK1 volume knob at about 10 or 11 o'clock. When using a Mackie mixer I can crank the SK1 volume way beyond that.
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It's a tribute to the amp that I stopped thinking of it that way almost immediately after getting it. And I think the idea that those reporting distortion may really be complimenting this stage monitor by trying to over-extend it, may hold water.
My first-post 2 cents, for whatever it's worth.
Proud to use the amp, Aspen. Thanks for making it.
I am glad to see that this thread is going into the right direction again. A few threads back my fear was that a Spacestation bashing would emerge only because one or two users didn't seem to be able to adjust their connections and settings properly. My SS V3 works perfectly well with all kinds of signals, mixer/no mixer, mp3player, PX5S, SK1, PC3LE, VK8m etc. and it always sounds crystal clear, loud and space-filling. No hiss, no hum, just perfect - with one exception: I am still not overly happy with my piano sounds thru the SS V3. But I have to say that no PA amplification system ever delivered me the same pristine piano sound like studio monitors. For example I never liked the QSC-K speakers for pianos. The only speaker which ever came close was the RCF TT08a. But it had other shortcomings like difficult sweet spot etc.
On the whole I am in love with my SS V3. Best keyboard amplification I ever had the pleasure to own.
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To be blunt, I think this whole Spacestation thingy is a combination of imagination (analogy being 256-v-320 MP3's for example), hype and sheep following.
There has been nothing in 139 pages of forum thread to convince me otherwise.
It's a keyboard amp, albeit an expensive one for what you get, but just another amp. Sounds no different (based on internet demos) to anything else really. Bit like all the hype that surrounded Motion Sound.
How can you judge a product you never tried or heard? And please spare me with your plywood bullshitting.
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So quick report from last nights gig. I got positive feedback from all in the band and audience on the sound. It definitely filled out the sound more,as for the distortion issue, its still there, but harder to distinguish in a band setting.Seems like its a problem with the front speaker, ie L+R, the side speaker L-R does not have the same crackle. Overall sound quality was ok, but I think the dxr10 I was using up till now sounds better, but it is mono, Im talking overall sound quality not taking into account the stereo field. I wasn't playing loud, but it did seem like I was "pushing" the amp's limits. Gain was set to about 1 o'clock, width at around 12 o'clock and the vol level on the sk2 was no more than 4 o'clock . I didn't hear any discernible difference when adjusting the HF, so I kept both HF and mid to around 12 o'clock.
As for my earlier post, yes, I had the OD off, and when using the vent, had the drive off. I checked all my settings, tweaked eq etc, distortion still there at anything above a quiet / medium sound level. I will further investigate and hook up the xk3c tomorrow to rule out the sk2. I really want to love the SS so Ill keep investigating. I don't want to sound negative about this product, trust me. Maybe just 1 less than perfect QC, it happens.
I am experiencing pretty much the exact same thing, except the crackling is coming from all around. Basically, the amp is distorting at anything above a medium level. It is definitely not anything in the settings of the Mojo.
I made a Soundcloud example.
It sounds like the input stage of the SSV3 overloads with increasing volume of the Mojo. My SSV3 doesn't show this behavior. But I am always using a Mackie 402 or a Yammie MG10 together with the SSV3 just because I prefer to have volume and tone control within reach.
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Here's a report from a gig this weekend. I played with a blues/rock band. Two guitars, bass, drums, keys (mainly piano, rhodes and organ). I brought my PX5S, a SK1/Vent and a small Mackie 402 mixer. The stage was pretty small. I had to position the SSV3 much too close on the right side next to my keys. In the same distance on the left was one of the two guitar amps, a mid-sized 2x12 Engl tube combo. Both guitarists were way too loud like always. But the SSV3 coped with the sound level of the band VERY WELL. I had the SSV3 volume at 12 o'clock which is only 50 percent and it was loud as hell! It covered the stage very well. With some sounds the SSv3 produced even too much bass. I had to turn down the bass EQ of the PX5S piano sounds. All keys sounded fat, clear and loud. A really amazing piece of gear!
Tom
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Frankly spoken guys, I was losing money at $599
I had been thinking that it would have been nice to have gotten a "heads up" here that the price was about to go up, but seeing that you were losing money on each one, I can understand why you wouldn't want to provide incentive for a surge of orders at the old price!
Here in Europe I paid more than 800 Euros (= 950 USD) including tax and shipping. I think that's the price range where price elasticity of demand for the Spacestation begins.
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Has anyone tried the amp150 amp stand with an SSv3 yet?
http://www.ultimatesupport.com/product/AMP-150
I have one of these and will be trying it out when my SSv3 arrives in a few weeks. It folds up and is definitely easy to transport.
http://www.sweetwater.com/images/items/750/AMP150-large.jpg
I fear that the width between the support arms is too big, it's 11". Also the vertical rod might interfere with the controls and plugs. Make sure to doubleck that. But of course you could put on the Spacestation horizontally.
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The newest video with Michael Boddicker playing a Casio PX5S through Spacestation V3 is up on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqHugtsJn3g&sns=em
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Is it really necessary and worthwhile to ship all kinds of components back and force around the world before a Spacestation can finally be assembled in China and then again is shipped around the world from there? Considering the logistics cost and all the troubles Aspen described I am asking myself if it wouldn't make more sense to craft the whole Spacestation in the US? "Made in Detroit" so to say...
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Happy Spacestation V3 owner here. It sounds weird to me that someone is returning his Spacestation in favor of a SA300. The SA300 was the second worst sounding amp/speaker I ever owned. AP sounds were just awful thru it no matter if "Wide" was on or not. It's EQs were completely useless and the thing always had a loud digital hiss which was really annoying.
No, no, no, I really need to raise an objection here. The soundquality of the Spacestation is much better than the SA300. More precise, more kind of HiFi. And it's LOUDER. To each his own. But I prefer the Spacestation over any Keyboard amp I owned (KC500, KC300, Traynor K4, SA300).
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I live in the UK and I was wondering if anyone from the UK or from Europe has bought one of these amazing keyboard amps and whether or not there has been any difficulty in rewiring the amp to convert to 230 V as the European standard ?
If you order it from Europe the Spacestation will be delivered ready for 230V. Plug and play.
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Last weekend I used my Spacestation at a rehearsal with a cover rock band. Two guitars (much too loud as always!) thru a Mesa Boogie and a Twin Reverb plus bass, drums and a separate singer. I sat next to the drums and used my Spacestation as keyboard monitor. The SS V3 delivered plenty of volume. I left my new Behringer 1200D sub in the trunk of my car. No need for a sub in a normal band setting, not at all! I had to rather down-regulate some bass from my keyboard sounds (mainly organ, piano, rhodes, synth brass, strings and synth leads). All of my keyboard sounds were on the spot, better heard than ever before. Spacestation V3 rocks in any keyboard application! Period.
PS: I am thinking about returning the sub. It's a nice to have. But it really is redundant in a band setup.
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I received my Behringer 1200D subwoofer today. Didn't have much time to dial in the best volume and crossover adjustment. But the Spacestation sounds BIG with this sub. And the combo looks nice. A more detailed report will follow in the next couple of days.
PS: How can I add pictures to a posting if I don't have my own website?
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Also have to think about power management.
1 Nord
2 SK1
3 Gig-FX stereo wah pedal (wall wart)
4 SSv3
5 Behringer Sub
6 Mixer (prob wall wart)
I have countless wall marts (PX5s, SK1, Vent, etc.) I just leave them all plugged to a multiplug and put the whole thing into a little plastic basket. This eases the wall mart chaos. Only one piece to carry and I only need one jack to plug them all in. Very handy.
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Thanks for the info. I'm looking at a Yamaha MG06X - 6 channels, really compact, looks well made, Both 1/4 inch and XLR outputs.
A small good quality mixer velcroed on top converts the Spacestation to a very nice keyboard amp. I am using a Yamaha MG82CX. This gives me five pairs of stereo input channels and pretty good SPX effects. And it fits perfectly on the SS V3. Never had a better keyboard amp!
But most of the time I don't even need a mixer because I am using both sets of audio inputs of the Casio PX5S.
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Acoustic pianos are challenging for most any amplifier, and the SSv3 is no exception. I play heavy APs (Nord Piano 2), and the SSv3 is OK for most smaller gigs, but it's a compromise. Everything else is stellar.
It seems to me that the Nord Pianos are particularly challenging for amplifiers. I always wondered why my Stage 2 pianos sounded terrific in my homestudio but never on the road. I tried all kinds of stage monitors and amps with no success. Also, time and again FOH sound guys asked me what's wrong with my piano sound (Nord Stage 2) because they didn't get it right. No Nord bashing here but this is what I experienced. Other folks might have varying experiences.
I never had such problem with the so-called outdated PC3X pianos and also not with the new Casio PX5S. These two just sound good live, plug & play, not picky about amplification. Same is true for the PC3X or Casio PX5S pianos through Spacestation. It just sounds great, admittedly not excellent like B3 and all other sounds but still great. Only my pair of RCF TT08 adds a touch of silkyness and precision to pianos which the Spacestation doesn't. But for one thing the RCFs are six times more expensive and for another thing I so often didn't HEAR them good enough on many stages. On smaller stages or clubs it is simply impossible to place a pair of speakers in sweet spot. So in theory the RCFs would sound a tiny bit "better" for pianos but in the field they sound worse if no sweet spot. The Spacestation is definitely a game changer for me.
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Good to know guys, thanks. I'm not hearing back from my guy at Sweetwater regarding the amp I want, and I think it's time to move on from Motion Sound. The Traynor K4 looks like it might serve my all-in-one needs. Probably pick the Ventilator as well. In the future, a Space Station is definitely a possibility however.
The Traynor K4 is a stereo "pretender". The stereo effect is hardly noticeable. Besides I didn't like it for digitalpiano because it colored the sound in a very unpleasant way. BTW back then I had bought the Traynor K4 based on internet reviews. Big mistake.
But now the good news: I received my Spacestation V3 this week. I also bought it only based on the reviews here in the KC forum. What a good call! Blissfull auditory sensations! And it reproduces digitalpiano sounds pretty nicely. MUCH better than any keyboard amp I ever used. To my ears the basic sound quailty level is very similar to good active speakers. But the latter lack the CPS sensation. When you open the "Wide" control the stereo cloud just spreads everywhere. Very cool little speaker with big sound.
JMTC,
Tom
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My Hammond XK2 had extra inputs but the SK line is stripped down and lacks them.
Are there any good passive little mixers or do those cut the signal too much?
I have positive experiences with the Mackie 402 VLZ3/4. No audible signal cut. The tape input can also be used for stereo keys so that it offers a total of three stereo input pairs. Very handy footprint. Should fit on top of any keyboard. The only drawback is the unavoidable wall mart.
Heads-up: SpaceStation keyboard amp is apparently back
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
Yesterday I had an unpleasant experience with my Spacestation at a gig. During the sound check all worked well. It sounded great again. But soon after the show started the Spacestation lacked power. It turned out to be a blown fuse. It may sound silly but in 25 years I didn't have a single blown fuse at any instrument or amp. Of course I didn't have a spare fuse! I never ever even thought about carrying spare fuses. It was somewhat disappointing that the fuse box in the SSV3 provides a holder for a spare but it was empty. I really wish a spare fuse would be included out of the box. An electrician who attended the show said that the blown 1.6A fuse seems to be a little weak for a 280 watts amp. After we were able to pull a 4A fuse out of a fog machine I was able to finish the show.
My recommendation to all Spacestation owners: make sure you have spare fuses in your bag! And you might want to use a higher ampereage than the one supplied.