vonnor
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Posts posted by vonnor
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16 hours ago, The Real MC said:
... If the sole guitar player is playing a solo, I'm fill in his rhythm parts so it doesn't sound empty.
Always. Even if the sole player plays a solo on a soul song.
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7 minutes ago, timwat said:
...they want keys to be prominent...
I'd settle for somewhat audible, Tim.
~ vonnor
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3 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:
...unfortunately, you have to quasi-expect that and soundman-proof your rig to every extent possible...
Good advice Josh. I will run thru my patches and add a EQ plugin after my DIVA and JUP-8v racks in Cantabile, and another TFX on my kronos patches. Now that I know he has problems with the low-end of the keys.
~ Bill C. (vonnor)
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That's fair, MOI. I do trust my buddy (another local gigging pro musician - who btw does know the sound tech in question) to be tactful.
And pardon my way of thinking (as well as my snark), but I do believe the sound tech is actually getting paid to produce the best FOH mix possible. The fact that he was unaware of the input EQ and how to use it is apropos my rant.
~ vonnor
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I've about had it.
Last Saturday we played a semi-outdoor show where a keyboard-player friend of mine attended and sat just next to the sound guy. Several times during the 1st set he caught my eye while gently shaking his head and pointing to his ear. On tunes like Jump, Here I Go Again, Feels Like The First Time, and Dreams (VH). On the break he said that he mentioned to the sound guy (who is an "old-school" drummer - more on this in a minute) that he could not hear keys, and the sound guy's response was "well he keeps pushing his volume pedal up and I have to keep turning him down."
Now mind you, the only time I touch either of the FC-7's during the 1st set is to conditionally map a key range from one patch to another via Cantabile for Living On A Prayer. Sound guy sees my foot on the pedal and is flicking clueless on what is actually happening. He assumes a "volume" pedal is controlling volume... smh. I've tried to explain my rig MIDI setup to him but his eyes just glaze over.
Anyway, he tells me on the break that the "patch" I'm using for the low end on Jump is overpowering the subs and breaking up, and since I'm not sending him a separate line for each keyboard he can't control the low end "patch" volume. I just stared at him with my jaw on the floor! Tried telling him it's just one sound - that fat oberheim-esque synth we all know and love, but he insists it's a separate sound on my left hand (the droning "C" under the G,C,F,F,G,G,C etc). So now because the sum-biatch can't figure out how to roll off the low end on the keyboard channel input, he just turns the gain down and you can't hear any synth. Same thing happens on Livin' On a Prayer (those heavy piano hits in the intro on C,D,E) so he kills the Keyboards for the whole frickin' song!
Thank god for my buddy who knows what the problem is or I wouldn't even know there's a mix issue at FOH.
Now this guy is a friend of our drummer (go figure) who is in charge of hiring sound for our shows, and he always spends like 40 min fine-tuning the drum sound, and about 20 sec on Keys. He is always insisting that I plug my lights (yeah I'm the light tech for shows that need them) into a separate circuit to prevent hum. Now keep in mind they're only two banks of 4 LED fixtures that draw like 1.5A total on a good day, but this MF'er is old as God and still living in the 70's - when 2 par64's could blow a fuse.
So on the 2nd break, I finally confront the guy and (try to) explain why he needs to let me know of the patch balance issues per song, and suggest that he roll off the low end more at the channel input. He goes, "one sec," pulls up the input EQ on the Keys and wonder of wonders... it's flat as a pancake.
My buddy left before the last set so I can't say if FOH mix improved, but at the end of the night the sound guy comes up and proudly declares that he "added a low-pass filter" to my channel and it helped....low pass filter...
I fuking give up.
I'ma put the ear-bugs away and go back to on-stage amplification - anybody know a great powered speaker for keys that is real loud?
~ vonnor
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No internal power supply will always be a deal breaker for me.
Always.
~ vonnor
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On 6/16/2023 at 3:33 PM, eric said:
...Sadly, this band has recently decided to "retire" as a few members are citing that they are ready to hang it up for various health and family reasons, difficulty with stamina during gigs, retirement looming, grand kids, etc. I'm in my early 50s and still ready for more, so once our band plays our final show in January 2024, I'll be on the lookout for a new gig like this. I don't want to start a band from scratch and have a few ideas on local bands I will try to join....
No more FE?!? Oh man, that's sad. Now me and Lilly gotta find another excuse to visit RVA.
~ Bill
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In staying "on-topic," I think people can wear whatever the heck they want to wear and should not be judged for it. If you're nice to other people you interact with, you should be judged accordingly, and vice-versa. Don't be a jerk.
On the other side of the coin, I think it is a lost practice in society today that kids be taught how to humbly respect others. Taught that it's not "all about you" and that you get a lot more respect if you make it "about the other person(s)" in your social interactions.
~ vonnor
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1 hour ago, Canoehead said:
Agreed! Nice mic, Mike. 😀
I know, wright?
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Wheels: no problem.
Paddle: no problem.Joystick: no thanks.
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Seems you can't get an internal power supply for less than three grand anymore. 😕
~ vonnor
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1 hour ago, eric said:
Sounds killer. I can't wait to download the XL version into my NS3.
Me three.
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15 hours ago, Dave Bryce said:
...Sadly, it broke a couple of times so I don’t have it any more.
Heh, I usually "don't have it any more" 'cuz I GO broke a couple times...
~ vonnor
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I played an awesome Rhodes board at Gearfest a few years ago... @Dave Bryce help me out, was that the Seven? The touch and velocity response on this were so great I didn't want to stop playing it. Crumar Seven iirc.
~ vonnor
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9 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:
Fair enough, but you're a sound person who's also a musician - not typical. Also you said you were working with the same band for 3 years so knew the material. It seems like the keyboard player couldn't get it together in three years to get consistent levels – well, nobody's perfect, I guess! 🙂
Speaking for myself only: when I have two or more sounds going, whether on separate keyboards, in the box, layered or split, *I* decide the relative levels, not a sound person. I've been doing this long enough to have confidence in my mixing decisions. What happens at FOH is out of my control and I can only hope the sound person has me at a good level and my multiple sounds are being heard correctly. If so, great, if not, c'est la vie.
Totally agree, RK. In a perfect situation, yes. A good sound person can get things sounding great during soundcheck or the 1st couple tunes, then just enjoy the music. This does assume that everyone - guitar(s), bass, keys - have their individual relative levels fine tuned. And that is basically the end goal of this discussion.
BTW, that keyboard player was a concert tuba player, but he just didn't give a F about spending time on his side hustle (keyboards) The gentleman is no longer with that band...
~ vonnor
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26 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:
...I do have a bug up my ass about the sound person "producer" type that's constantly adjusting everyone's levels, especially your keyboards' relative levels. You can always tell a professional sound person because they get things right at sound check or during the first song, and for the rest of the night you'll see them sitting at the console, arms folded...
Not meaning to hijack a thread, but I have to respectfully disagree - for the very reason this topic was brought up in the O.P.
I ran sound for a local cover band for 3 years, while in between keyboard gigs. The band I worked with had keys as well as the guitarist switching off acoustic/electric. I was always riding the keyboard fader and often had to adjust it to make a given song sound like the original recording. Granted, 90% of the work happened during the 1st 8 bars of each tune, but this guy's patch levels were all over the place: Some too loud/bright, some you couldn't hear at all. Also, I made sure the acoustic was at a level consistent with the song as the original artist recorded it.
Also, to say "{adjusting} your keyboards' relative levels" is a bit old-school thinking - and to be honest we've had sound techs that still think that way. They see my hand on the kronos but have no idea that the sound is coming from VB-3 or DIVA in the computer and not from the kronos (which is actually the sound generator for my other hand that is playing keys on the Nord at the time!). During breaks, our regular tech (mentioned in my previous post) coaches me on relative levels referencing the parts of the song (chorus, bridge), or tone ("that bellish sound you use in the verses") rather than the instrument who's keys I happen to be pushing down at the time.
MIDI, biatches!
~ vonnor
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A constant and time-consuming challenge.
I do mix 2 boards plus 3-4 VST instruments on stage (RME Fireface UC) and send either a mono or stereo signal to FOH depending on their preference. A few months ago I got the chance to do an extended Keys sound-check with our regular (and very good) sound tech. He coached me on the real glaring level discrepancies between some patches which helped a lot, but that was still solo - no other instruments were at-volume at the time.
A couple weeks ago I set up a stereo audio (ambient) Zoom recorder just beyond the dance floor and recorded the whole show. I am still tweaking patch levels based on review of that audio. Some songs have a LOT of patches being covered in different key ranges on different boards, and some key ranges being routed to VST's and/or layered with other patches, so it's a lot of work.
"Rebel Yell" and "Feels Like The First Time" still being tweaked, having 4 and 5 patches respectively. The real hard part is balancing overall keys level per song (louder like "Jump" and "Dreams-VH", or more back in the mix like some of our Def Leppard covers), against relative patch levels in a given song.
A constant and time-consuming challenge.
~ vonnor
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We're playing breweries, bars, and festivals in the D.C. regional area still, average about 1 show a month (sporadic "average"... feast-or-famine) but that's down about 25% from last year. Still doing the late-night shows occasionally. I personally don't mind the setup/teardown schlep because the rest of the guys are so good and very fun to play with. Recently tried rocking a 3-tier setup, but am back down to two again. Easier to load-in and load-out.
~ vonnor
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Nada on https://www.inmusicbrands.com/ yet.
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On 6/9/2023 at 6:51 PM, BluMunk said:
WTF??? Those Bastages at FedEx lost 3 whole keys during shipment??? 😲
😉
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Memorymoog plus
~ vonnor
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Assuming the Iridium has no actual keyboard, and also assuming the Iridium does not have a global setting to re-route midi-in events to it's midi-out port, then use THRU.
~ vonnor
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Curious, does it have that little "plink" sound on key-release?
~ vonnor
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Nope.
All my keyboards and stands are structurally integrated, usually with strategically placed rubber feet on the bottom of the boards that lock to the stand in different ways. I measure exact positioning then drill/tap the bottom panels to add the feet. My current setup is a USS Apex Pro, the bottom supports hold a NS3-88 that has custom 3D modelled and printed brackets that are screwed into the bottom of the nord on a 45 deg angle and sit perfectly over the Apex arms and totally lock it into place. The Kronos-61 on top has tiny rubber feet setting into the Apex's arm storage area, and larger feet that straddle the upper Apex arms. Neither board can move front-to-back or side-to-side during a show.
~ vonnor
Keyboard-Clueless Sound Techs (rant)
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
Best advice in this thread so far:
~ vonnor