Stereo rig?

[JeffLearman]

I'm not sure it's quite that simple. Forgetting about the perspective of the player (who does hear strings to his left and right), you're correct that, from the audience's perspective, the entire piano sound is coming "mono" from the area in front, with nothing "different" about left vs. right apart from room reflections.

I totally disagree.

 

To me, a real piano in a real room sounds far more stereo than mono or than a mono speaker in a real room. In either case I can locate the source, but the real piano has an image. The mono speaker in the real room is pretty flat.

 

In any case, I like an image, even when it isn't natural. That's a big difference between Kanker and me, and it's just a preference, not a matter of philosophy or integrity or superiority. Just hey, chocolate or vanilla? What do you want? They're both great in the right circumstances. I'll admit that one is easier to get right, as well. But damn I do loves me my chocolate!

[AnotherScott]

I'm not sure it's quite that simple. Forgetting about the perspective of the player (who does hear strings to his left and right), you're correct that, from the audience's perspective, the entire piano sound is coming "mono" from the area in front, with nothing "different" about left vs. right apart from room reflections.

I totally disagree.

 

To me, a real piano in a real room sounds far more stereo than mono or than a mono speaker in a real room. In either case I can locate the source, but the real piano has an image. The mono speaker in the real room is pretty flat.

Actually, I think we do pretty much agree. If only you had left in one more sentence before truncating my quote! :-)

[Bill H.]

I run in stereo doing my P&W gig. The room is set up like a movie theater with an install . You can definitely hear the stereo spread in the room (just like you can in a theater) and I take advantage of that.

 

I play a lot of exposed soft pads during quiet parts of the service, and running them through Roland's hexachorus or modulated delays in stereo really opens them up. You can hear the difference out in the seats when I collapse to mono - I've checked.

 

Visiting pastors always compliment me on my sound. I can't ever recall being called "selfish" - it's just a weird thought.

[JeffLearman]

I'm not sure it's quite that simple. Forgetting about the perspective of the player (who does hear strings to his left and right), you're correct that, from the audience's perspective, the entire piano sound is coming "mono" from the area in front, with nothing "different" about left vs. right apart from room reflections.

I totally disagree.

 

To me, a real piano in a real room sounds far more stereo than mono or than a mono speaker in a real room. In either case I can locate the source, but the real piano has an image. The mono speaker in the real room is pretty flat.

Actually, I think we do pretty much agree. If only you had left in one more sentence before truncating my quote! :-)

Good point:

But the soundboard is so large compared to a speaker (or the distance between your ears), I'm not sure that doesn't have a spatial effect (at least before you get too far back).

Actually, I suspect the size of the soundboard is just one of many factors. I suspect that soundboard projects differently in different directions (and from different places). This causes it to interact with the room far differently than a speaker, which has a relatively simple radial frequency response curve.

[AnotherScott]

I couldn't help myself either, Tom: I 'Svengled' "Nand Piano". NADA; no history there. Tried searching here, even in quotes; guess I was a bit late for that party.

 

Next search: "NORAD Piano". I'm guessing that one might be beneath a mountain near Colorado Springs....

 

Typos are fun; especially on Fridays.

 

Maybe the reference was to the Nano piano?

[AnotherScott]

I run in stereo doing my P&W gig. The room is set up like a movie theater with an install . You can definitely hear the stereo spread in the room (just like you can in a theater) and I take advantage of that.

 

I play a lot of exposed soft pads during quiet parts of the service, and running them through Roland's hexachorus or modulated delays in stereo really opens them up. You can hear the difference out in the seats when I collapse to mono - I've checked.

 

Visiting pastors always compliment me on my sound. I can't ever recall being called "selfish" - it's just a weird thought.

I think you and Mcgoo are making a good point. It's not that there's so much a disagreement between mono advocates and stereo advocates; the disagreement appears to be more between people who say always go mono and people who say it depends. Sure, if you're playing a different venue every night, with a different PA and a different sound man, then sending a mono feed to the house is the simplest, fastest, most predictable, most reliable thing to do, and in most venues, it will probably create the best result. But I think it's reasonable to consider the circumstance before saying that's the only thing one should ever do.

 

Are you playing solo or in a band? Are you playing the same venue all the time, or different venues? Does the audience hear the keyboards out of your stage rig or out of a FOH system? If it's a FOH system, is it always the same FOH system and your own sound man, or do the places have their own different systems and house soundman? What is the layout of the venue, where is the audience relative to the performer and speakers? Yes, mono will always work! But that doesn't mean that stereo will never work, or that, in some cases, stereo might not be better, as you discovered. If someone is really concerned with making the best possible presentation, there's an argument for considering this on a situation-by-situation basis, instead of taking the easy way out, which would be just to run mono all the time and be done with it.

 

The secondary discussion is about whether it's okay to monitor in stereo if the house is running mono. If that makes the gig more enjoyable for the performer, I think that's fine as long as you take the time and effort to make sure that your sound collapses to mono okay. And really, if you've got, for example, stereo piano sounds, and you're running mono into a PA, you need to take the time and effort to make sure they collapse to mono properly *regardless* of whether or not you run your stage monitor in stereo, so it's no extra effort.

 

Similarly, B3-er just posted about how, at his gig, the FOH got the Ventilator, but on stage, he also had a Leslie (un-mic'd). He's created the most satisfying experience for himself, while also assuring that the audience still got a good (albeit slightly different) sound. In fact, anyone who has ever done a gig with a Leslie with a single mic on top has, essentially, been listening to a stereo sound on stage while sending a mono version to the house.

[Throbert]

don't most mixers have both mono and stereo outputs? mine does.

[clpete]

It depends on the room, band or the venue. I use both stereo and mono. I may be stereo on stage and in the FOH; stereo on stage and mono the FOH or may be mono for both.

 

I am using two monitors on stage when possible. If Im playing in a room where stereo will work through the FOH I do it. I have set my rig up so that I can easily run stereo or mono by panning the mixer channels, so each board uses two channels. I have also set it up as to always have both R/L channels run to my mixer where I can sum it there or at the FOH.

 

The other bonus about having two speakers on stage is I can point one towards the band as to not have to be in the vocal monitor to be heard.

 

Stereo doesnt always work and should be avoided when it doesnt. Mono is a safer and easier theory for a consistent set up, but I think most players would prefer to hear and be heard in stereo.

 

 

[BlackandWhite]

I've gone to the trouble on a couple of occasions to run stereo. But, with a 6-piece band, the differential is, IME, minimal, and hardly worth the extra time and space required. If having stellar sound for myself was the primary goal, I'd go IEM.

[VanB]

Re the stereo + in-ears issue:

 

I run stereo because I like to hear it, and because most of the sound engineers say they like it. Especially for my Leslie sim, or patches with stereo chorus. I use small active floor wedges, so there's no "extra weight" problem.

 

One band uses in-ears, and they're mono. :-( My solution is to keep the in-ear volume really low, so I can still sorta hear my stereo monitors (which are right next to me on each side, pointed at my ears).

 

But depending on the room, if the bass player sets up right next to me, sometimes the bass bleeds through much more than my own rig (these are stock IE30's, not custom earbuds). In that situation, I usually just pull both in-ears - which wouldn't be an option if I had to sing in that band.

 

If we're outside or in a big room and I can't hear the lead vox in the FOH, I might have to pull one in-ear. I don't like that because a) no stereo, b) hearing issues noted by a previous poster.