Multi-keyboard setup on stage

[AlanV]

So I'm doing a Dark Side of the Moon tribute again next month and am toying around with the way I have my keyboards set up on stage.

 

I sit stage right. Last time we did this show, I had my PC3LE7 on the bottom facing the audience, Nord Stage 2 (for organ) on top of that, and then my Alesis Ion off to my left.

 

Biggest issue I had was placement of my music stand and being able to see it properly.

 

What I'm thinking is that if I have just the Kurzweil in front and the music stand in front of that, and then reposition the Nord and Alesis to my right so it's easier to switch off to the organ with my right hand.

 

Thing is that I'm also singing a fair amount and not swinging the mic stand around when I'm playing organ would be a pain.

 

That or get a headset mic.

 

Any suggestions/ideas/criticisms are welcome.

[J. Dan]

Ditch the music stand.

[CEB]

Ditto. Do you need it for the charts or for lyrics?

 

If I need charts I get spriral 5"x8" notecard note book and tape it to the top of my main controller..... The S90 has a nice big deck. Or if it is just one off tune we are going to try to oull out our butt then just a single note card. Most the time I end up not even looking at it. Somehow I feel the changes without knowing them.....it is weird.

[AlanV]

Little bit of both. Especially for Great Gig in the Sky.

 

Could also be that I don't have enough faith in myself to remember everything.

[DanL]

Ditch the music stand.

 

+1. I'm doing a full PF tribute and nary a cheat sheet in sight. And I'm old, so I'd have an excuse to need one.

[JeffLearman]

My suggestion: Play Echoes for the encore!

 

I don't understand your alternative. That would place the Stage and Ion facing the stage wall, with your back to the rest of the band. Am I missing something?

 

In any case, I always want organ on top of piano, so I can use either hand to play either instrument, which really helps when playing both at once.

 

Since I hate to cross feet (left foot going with right hand) I even have parallel sustain pedals, one to each side of the expression pedal. With more practice I think I could now let go of that, though. Last time I had to play cross-footed (due to a pedal failure on one side) it didn't slow me down as much as usual.

 

For DSOM, I doubt he needs the music; more likely it's a guide to what patches to use for which sections. Maybe it's just me, but I've heard that album so many times I'd have a hard time forgetting any of it. But I'd be hard pressed to handle all the keyboard parts at the same time!

 

BTW, this is one of the things I'd love to do (DSOM tribute).

 

(I don't know, I was already drunk at the time.)

[AlanV]

Fair enough. Thanks for the kick in the pants to practice more and commit more to memory. I've gotten lazy in relying on charts for lyrics and chords.

 

Back to basics and rote.

[opdigits]

Whenever I use a music stand, irregardless of how my stage setup is, I always place it facing where I can see it when singing into my mic. In my "L" days, that meant placing it in the "V" of the "L". That meant I sometimes used a dual mic setup for ease of use and with no mic stand swinging necessary.

 

I no longer go "L", and prefer a single facing stand setup, but again with the music stand facing where I am singing to (into the mic). That means if I'm stage left I sing angled in towards the center of the audience so the mic boom stand goes just behind my left key board endcap, with the mic angled back in and up towards me (so my face is looking rightish), and the music stand goes just behind the right endcap of my 88 key board set low so I can still see the audience at stage front.

 

Opposite setup if I'm stage right.

 

Hope that all makes sense.

[J. Dan]

Little bit of both. Especially for Great Gig in the Sky.

 

Could also be that I don't have enough faith in myself to remember everything.

 

A lot of people hang onto them as a safety blanket. I'll bet you don't need it as much as you think. In fact, in a live performance, I find them to be detrimental to my ability to really concentrate on the performance. They're a distraction. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but start practicing without it. You'll figure out in a hurry what parts you REALLY need it for, then you can focus on those parts. By show time, if you still need some of it, at least you'll have it reduced down to a couple cheat sheets you can tape to your boards where needed.

[AlanV]

Makes perfect sense, opdigits. That's similar to the way I usually set up. Stage is a bit cramped, to the point where we "build" an extension of the stage using 3 folding tables for me to set up on.

[Michael Wright]

Ditch the music stand.

[Tonysounds]

Ditch the music stand. All you need to know for Great Gig is "woah, oh, woah, woaaaah, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAH, WOAH."

 

Over Gmin C7.

[Michael Wright]

we "build" an extension of the stage using 3 folding tables for me to set up on.

Scary.

[AlanV]

Tell me about it. But it's worked the last dozen times I've played at this bar. It's been solid.

[CEB]

Fair enough. Thanks for the kick in the pants to practice more and commit more to memory. I've gotten lazy in relying on charts for lyrics and chords.

 

Back to basics and rote.

 

You got to do what you got to do. When I say ditch the stand. I mean do not use a big ass stand that is going to be in the way. If you could do something similar to a marching band liar pad or flippable note cards. Electronic tablet are the envogue thing now.

 

If you go with no charts odds are if you screw the pooch really bad on one tune that will be the tune you do not forget again. Next show it will be a different tune.

[AlanV]

CEB, a flip-folder would work. I do have several lying around in a bag with my trombone mutes (yes, multi-instrumentalist).

[AnotherScott]

If you find there are some charts/lyrics you must have, consider a tablet (i.e. iPad, though for this limited use, others should do just fine too). There are lots of ways to place it on keyboards or attach it to a mic stand, to keep it visible but more unobtrusive than a music stand would be.

[Bill W]

Ditch the music stand. All you need to know for Great Gig is "woah, oh, woah, woaaaah, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAH, WOAH."

 

Over Gmin C7.

 

lmao!

[J. Dan]

I use the text field on the Kronos Set List mode to cheat a bit on a few songs - type the chords in there with extra spaces to separate the sections...verse, chorus, bridge. I'll also stick little notes in there like "vol ped off" so I don't forget. Sometimes that's all you need. I've stuck little notes on the set list prior to having the Kronos, including just the first word of each verse when singing lead.

[AlanV]

It's more the intro and changes coming out of the Gmin/C7 part that worries me

 

Ditch the music stand. All you need to know for Great Gig is "woah, oh, woah, woaaaah, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAH, WOAH."

 

Over Gmin C7.

[Dr88s]

My now-defunct for-fun band consisted of people from different walks of life with different musical interests, but interestingly, the one song that united us all musically was the Great Gig In The Sky. Most fun song I've ever played.

[JeffLearman]

I use my Color Nook, a smallish pad-like thing, for set list with my notes. I put Velcro on the back. I always have Velcro stripes on the top ends of my keyboards for stuff like that or my guitar amp/cab modeler or whatever.

 

Usually all I need is the key, and for some tunes, a reminder what instruments/patches to start with. But, except for a couple tunes, I don't do the complicated patch changing that would be needed for stuff like 80's and prog rock. The most complicated tune I do is Forget You, which is musically simple but I have to concentrate to get the patch changes at the right times!

 

That's a nifty idea to use the Kronos display for that, Dan.

 

I want my next rig to be covered in nanotube paper technology.

[Seannn]

Since you sit stage right, I'd put the Ion to your right if possible (to free up space on your left where the rest of the band is at), and place your music stand slightly to the left of your main stand so that it's diagonally facing you. You should then be able to read it (when necessary) while you play or sing, and it won't hide your face either. I would avoid placing the music stand directly in front of your keyboards; that will be too distracting, and you'll be hidden.

[richforman]

A software developer by day, I have written my own cool little Windows app to print set lists with patch #'s for all the songs, I'm pretty proud of it! I created an XML-based database that stores all the axes I have, and the patch-selection-related "categories" associated with each one (e.g. Korg Tinity has "Combi" and "Pgm," Yamaha S80 has "Program" or "Voice," etc). Then I have another database into which I enter all the song titles, and the values for each of those categories, associated with each song. Then when I create a set, I create a name for it (like "Joe's Bar 12/16/13 Set 1"), I pick the song titles by dragging and dropping them from the master list of all available songs into the list of songs chosen for the set. I can reorder them by dragging them within the "set songs" list, or remove one by double-clicking it, or add it to the bottom of the set by double-clicking on the title in the master list. Then when I tell it to print out the set list, I specify which keyboards I want to include (for some gigs I use my S80 and my Fantom X7; for others my X7 and my Trinity, etc). It creates a sort of virtual spreadsheet with columns across for all the categories associated with the selected instruments, and prints the song titles down the left and the setting #'s for each instrument/category, that are associated with those songs, in the appropriate columns going across. It's all in big bold color-coded fonts that I can easily see if I put the set list on the floor (I play standing). The collection of instruments and their associated "patch categories" isn't hard-coded into the program, I can add to or change them whenever I need and then save the set lists to reuse or reprint and if I change the patch #'s for a particular song since the last time I played that set, the new values will appear. The physical properties of the printed list, like how many titles per page, the spacing of rows and columns and what font sizes and colors to use, are also all easily configurable. Don't know any more if this has anything to do with what we were talking about or if this is of any interest to anyone but me, just thought I'd share. I have all the info for all the songs I play in various bands in the song database. Actually this thread makes me think I should add another category for miscellaneous notes that I might also want to see printed out per song.

[erik_nie]

I once used a A5 (half letter) sized binder. I need both chords and patch names for most songs.

 

Also as software engineer, i developed an app for my 7 inch android tablet (old one: galaxy tab 7, or p1000) after looking for an app that behaved the way i wanted.

 

My app is simple but effective:

 

IT looks for pictures in a folder and displays them aphabetically in a matrix of 4 to 7 columns, dependentie in the selected fontsize you can put 40 to 70 songs on one screen.

When you click on a name it displays the image.

When you click on the display again it returns to the matrix again.

 

Very quick solution.

 

I can image that more people want to use it, so if you Message me i can sent the apk.

 

In the image you can put scans, or other texts. I use Photoshop to make inverted (white on black) images with the chords. This way my face is not lit by the tablet.

I use a small tablet stand that is permanently fixed to my top board.

 

Not sure if and how it works on a 10 inch tablet. Now it works also on KitKat.

[DulceLabs.com]

Fair enough. Thanks for the kick in the pants to practice more and commit more to memory. I've gotten lazy in relying on charts for lyrics and chords.

 

Back to basics and rote.

 

Waaaay back (pre-Internet days).... I never used to use charts or sheet music.. all by ear and memory. Never had an issue.

 

Lately I have been using Chordie and similar sites to learn some new songs and find myself relying more and more on charts.

It's a vicious cycle.. the more I rely on charts the more I rely on charts.

 

So now I keep the laptop closed until I get stuck. Then I just use the chart to get through that one part, close up the laptop and start again. Rinse and repeat and repeat and repeat until it moves from my brain memory to my muscle memory.

[J. Dan]

A software developer by day, I have written my own cool little Windows app to print set lists with patch #'s for all the songs, I'm pretty proud of it...

 

Getting even more off topic, but back in the early 2000's when I was really getting into programming and databases, I wrote some VBA stuff in Access to create set lists. It had our songlist loaded in with certain ratings in terms of how well the songs went over in different positions throughout the night, what frequency they should be played (some songs were always in the list, some most of the time, some occasionally), and rules to prevent songs being back to back that required an instrument change, or preferences of sticking certain songs together. It would semi-randomly generate the set list, then I could make manual adjustments, and it would track it.

 

A bit overkill - more of an exercise in what was possible. Was kind of fun and actually spit out some pretty good set lists that only needed minor tweaks.

[richforman]

That's pretty cool...almost like a little AI!

[J. Dan]

That's pretty cool...almost like a little AI!

 

Cool, but a little silly. It takes a lot less work to just make up a set list than it did to put that whole thing together. It was kind of an experiment to see if, over time, as I modified ratings after crowd response, it would start cranking out some magical ideal set lists or something. But there's no magic formula. Still, it WAS kinda cool.

[Losendoskeys]

I use the text field on the Kronos Set List mode to cheat a bit on a few songs - type the chords in there with extra spaces to separate the sections...verse, chorus, bridge. I'll also stick little notes in there like "vol ped off" so I don't forget. Sometimes that's all you need. I've stuck little notes on the set list prior to having the Kronos, including just the first word of each verse when singing lead.

 

Ditto - though I wish they would make the bloody point size of the display a tad bigger!!