Heads-up: SpaceStation keyboard amp is apparently back

[HAMEGZ]

I have a kc6o I couldn't even use as a personal keyboard monitor right under my butt,turning it up to try to hear anything and it distorted like crazy, sounded like ass, nobody else in the band could hear it.

The SS on the other hand fills the stage with sound and fidelity

[Raymb1]

Jazzoo, that's the reason I use the Gator amp stand and place the SS on it's side. Ray

[Doug Robinson]

I might try that Wed night, Ray--thanks.

 

"Yes. The crap KC60 was more loud than the SS. And gave much more bass, easily and glady. Has anyone else even compared the SS to a KC60 to find out?"

 

I had my amp sitting next to a KB500 the other night. It was running through the house. Not my SS3, loud and clear on its own. There must be something amiss with your SS3 if it sounds too soft.

[Raymb1]

JoeToGo, I have an old KC 300 that is still in good shape. No comparison to the SS. No volume problems with the SS. Stereo sound of the SS wins going away. Unless your SS is defective, there is something wrong with your set-up. Ray

[hardware]

You don't need to check the Barometer or see which way the wind is blowing with the highly scientific mathematically made SSv3.

Just plug in and play.

First time I used this everyone assumed it was the PA and side fills, but last weekend had a guy sit in during the sound check and the SSv3 carried across the entire room, probably 200 seats.

Then when the PA kicked in my keys had only one sweet spot.

Everywhere.

 

After all of the scientific studies and seminars I can conclude this amp is a winner.

No need for extra Sub, baffles or reflectors, no need for any tweaks either.

Everything set at noon, amp sits on an empty 8U Anvil case (hollow).

The band is full of players with chops and ears, so sure we are loud, but loud in the FOH.

On Stage loud enough to keep a mix with the drums.

[Bosco Adama]

Does anyone have some tips for improving the Casio PX5S Acoustic Piano sounds through the SSv3? thanks

[TomKittel]

Does anyone have some tips for improving the Casio PX5S Acoustic Piano sounds through the SSv3? thanks

 

Simple answer: get Dave Weisers PX5-S Gig Piano Pack. http://www.weisersound.com/#!sound-sets/cfwa

 

[Analogaddict]

I just took the plunge and bought a floor model Behringer B1200D. This takes the SS to a whole new level. I've been using it without a sub since I bought it in October ant I've been very happy with it, but I have a Hammond gig on Sunday and my B3 is away on another gig, and I wanted more bass. This setup delivers the goods..! They ought to be sold as a pair!!! :-)

[Bosco Adama]

Does anyone have some tips for improving the Casio PX5S Acoustic Piano sounds through the SSv3? thanks

 

Simple answer: get Dave Weisers PX5-S Gig Piano Pack. http://www.weisersound.com/#!sound-sets/cfwa

 

I just ordered them. Thanks!

 

[Bossbandbob]

I just started getting interested in this amp...have not read through all 70 pages here though! Has any one ever answered this question that I believe Another Scott posted on one of the earlier pages of this tread?

"the problem of possibly needing to alter knobs on the SpaceStation itself whenever you switch from, say, your piano sound to your clonewheel, which is not practical (to say nothing of the quandry it puts you in if you're playing piano and organ simultaneously)."

Is there a setting that is a happy medium?

[JoeToGo]

Bossbandbob:

Since there are few controls on the SS, I expect the answer would be to adjust the keyboard parameters -- stereo width [which Aspen recommends be at maximum separation], output level & EQ -- before they go into the SS. Also of course you can use a mixer. What specifically are you expecting to alter from one keyboard to the other?

 

edit: boldprint added to avoid confusion

[timwat]

Whoa. Wait a minute. I'm not sure Aspen ever recommended the Width setting be set to maximum.

 

Basic initial setup of the SS benefits most from Aspen's CD test. Then adjust separation to taste - less for live, reverberant rooms, more for more dead contexts (e.g., outdoors).

 

To respond to Bossbandbob's question:

 

I'm not sure, even if practical, that trying to tailor the SS's settings to individual patches is anything but diminishing returns. Generally, once you've got it sounding nice for the room, both piano and clone wheel will sound great...with the repeated caveat that AP is going to take some patch and EQ tweaking to get it sounding its best through the SS.

 

The SS handles reverb and other issues differently than other more conventional amps. I really love the way the CP4 piano sounds through it, but let your ears be your guide on how to get the very best from the amp.

 

Also, realize the MF and HF adjustments are just that - if you aren't feeding the SS with program content with a lot of HF content, that knob won't do much of anything. That's why Aspen's CD test (for initial setup) should be done with excellently-recorded material with full range ensemble production (like Steely Dan, or Fagen's Nightly, or similar).

 

Now, I remember a note from someone using the Behringer sub, that they felt like changing the low pass filter freq from 100z to 80z helped moving from clone wheel to piano (or vice versa...I don't remember now).

 

But that too seems to be pretty impractical from a gigging perspective to me.

 

So, I don't have a definitive answer to Bossbandbob - but because I have been gigging the SS in settings that require quick patch changes from AP to EP to B3 to synth to lead, and everything else - yes, once you have the SS set up well, and tweaked for the room, you DON'T have to tweak settings on the amp for every different patch you're going to use.

[JoeToGo]

 

"Yes. The crap KC60 was more loud than the SS. And gave much more bass, easily and glady. Has anyone else even compared the SS to a KC60 to find out?"

 

I had my amp sitting next to a KB500 the other night. It was running through the house. Not my SS3, loud and clear on its own. There must be something amiss with your SS3 if it sounds too soft.

Not to be too picky, but that's the PA vs the SS isn't it?

 

Anyway: I don't dispute the quality of the SS, that's why I bought one & use it. The one aspect I found wanting was low notes via clonewheel, which issue has not been specifically replied to by anybody here in the rush to defend what we all agree is a class-A fine monitor. For the higher keys, the SS has never raised a doubt.

 

It's all moot now, as the MB115 came in today -- which does indeed match the Spacestation, cosmetically ... I'll post a photo here if I can figure out how ...

 

 

[JoeToGo]

"Whoa. Wait a minute. I'm not sure Aspen ever recommended the Width setting be set to maximum."

 

Quite right, he did not. He recommended setting the keyboard's parameters to maximum separation for best results about a thousand comments back. I've amended my post above for clarification, sorry if it was misleading.

[Raymb1]

Or pan the piano channels on the mixer hard right and hard left. Ray

[JoeToGo]

Worth, your review confirms my feelings--I don't think I'll need a sub with my SS3. I play mostly funky soul/jazz right now, and while it is very dynamic the loudest parts don't reach rock concert levels. But even with this last event, the blues festival, I proved to myself that it could hold its own onstage with a rocking group going through a good P.A. system. The key to that will always be sensitive players who leave space for other musicians, of course. But if every gig I played was that loud, I might not enjoy making music as much as I do.

 

Amen to that -- this rock band I'm playing in has two Marshall-y guitarists, so there isn't much space for sensitive anything; it's all about power. In the acoustic trio, the SS alone is more than fine -- even with the drumbox going through the PA.

 

One thing I haven't gotten to do yet is experience the SS in a performing venue; will debut it this Friday (w/ the trio, so no sub) & report

[timwat]

JoeToGo -

 

I see you went with the GK bass combo route (rather than the Behringer Sub route others are going with).

 

I'm attracted to the GM MB series as well - but don't know whether the 110, 112 or 115 is the wisest route. Trying to maximize my potential LF, while minimizing my schlep.

 

What's been your experience so far pairing the SS with the GK? Like you, I'm finding the SS alone is great for jazz and more sensitive gigs - but I'm also playing in a loud funk band and need the LF support.

 

Thanks for any insight you can provide...

 

Tim

[Bossbandbob]

Thanks for your responses. Adjusting the kb parameters for the amp and the amp for the room certainly makes sense. Wasn't there a thread her recently about where to hear this amp from other members? A Google search could not find it but I would love to hear this thing locally in a club setting.

[HAMEGZ]

JoeToGo -

 

I see you went with the GK bass combo route (rather than the Behringer Sub route others are going with).

 

I'm attracted to the GM MB series as well - but don't know whether the 110, 112 or 115 is the wisest route. Trying to maximize my potential LF, while minimizing my schlep.

 

What's been your experience so far pairing the SS with the GK? Like you, I'm finding the SS alone is great for jazz and more sensitive gigs - but I'm also playing in a loud funk band and need the LF support.

 

Thanks for any insight you can provide...

 

Tim

 

Although not a GK, I use a TC Electronics 1-12 Digital Bass combo with great results coming out of the ss sub out.

I can also throw a small Rolls 2 way crossover into the signal path and direct the HF to the SS and LF to the bass amp

[rickp]

JoeToGo -

 

I see you went with the GK bass combo route (rather than the Behringer Sub route others are going with).

 

I'm attracted to the GM MB series as well - but don't know whether the 110, 112 or 115 is the wisest route. Trying to maximize my potential LF, while minimizing my schlep.

 

What's been your experience so far pairing the SS with the GK? Like you, I'm finding the SS alone is great for jazz and more sensitive gigs - but I'm also playing in a loud funk band and need the LF support.

 

Thanks for any insight you can provide...

 

Tim

Although not a GK, I use a TC Electronics 1-12 Digital Bass combo with great results coming out of the ss sub out.

I can also throw a small Rolls 2 way crossover into the signal path and direct the HF to the SS and LF to the bass amp

I just replied to timwat's PM to me regarding my GK use with an SS3, but in regard to the crossover discussion above, I think pairing the SS with a quality small bass amp works great without a crossover. For one thing, I think overall sound benefits from the SS's 8" and a small bass amp's 10" or 12" overlapping and having excursions into each other's freq ranges - and the result is a smooth gradual and blended transition from one to the other as you move up and down the keyboard, without abrupt changes due to a crossover's fixed point of directing signal feed.

 

And, the "rolloff" Aspen built into the SS as freqs lower totally leaves the SS's higher region unmolested to my ears if/when a small bass amp is attached via the SS3's sub-out, even when the left hand is split to acoustic bass at aggressive volumes. If/when a small bass amp is attached, the SS seems to me to ignore the low stuff more than it does with nothing attached, and with the lows seemingly grabbed by the bass amp, the SS3 pumps out the higher stuff just as nicely as playing the right hand alone (I've experimented with this extensively since I play LH bass most of the time and wanted to be able to do it when necessary with a split CP4 running directly into the SS3 with no separate bass amp feed).

 

Don't ask me why it seems to work that way, I just drive the car and leave the set-up and tech to the guys who know the hows and whys.

 

 

[TimA]

I have a Phil Jones Bass suitcase w/ extension cab that I set the Spacestation on top of ( it almost looks like they were designed for each other) that sounds pretty amazing together...... Just as you were saying

[hardware]

The scientific explanations and other great advice offered here doesn't do anything for my needs.

I just set the SSv3 at Noon everywhere turn it on and play.

No additional settings, stands, Sub cabinets, wings of Plexiglass.

 

The amps works like a champ w/o all of the engineering feats.

 

Only thing that is different is it sounds better than a pair of K12s no matter where I stand or when I listen to others play my rig.

 

Maybe if I ever get forced by gunpoint to play Smooth Jazz I'll need a sub, but the KW 181s of our PA add so much sub freqs. my B1200D isn't getting any use.

 

This amp sounds great out of the box just the way it is.

Perhaps the XITE-1 makes it so easy and hands free to operate.

Then again just plugging my Solaris directly into it again beats the K12s hands down, w/o no need to audition more than a single preset.

 

Aspen did an excellent job. At 1,050 USD less than the QSC's cost.

[Theo Verelst]

It's fun to see the iteration of a number of intelligent minds go over the stereo image and implied bass response ideas in the course of the development of this thread!

 

To suggest a nice dialectic, suppose on the one hard you take a "space station", one of those Bose L1 or L2 vertical staves staves on top, or ahead of it, and add a single bass amp under or in front or behind it (or the Bose double bass boxes), anywhere you like. Alternatively, picture a good PA, at least 3 way, of the traditional kind, with a decent mixer with effects, sub woofers at least waist high, set up to a comfortable power, possible with more than just stereo setup.

 

The main difference of course is that the PA will control the sound more with all kinds of possible stereo effects so that, in my experience, most of the audience will never think of stereo problems whereas the SS+additional options will allow you to sound like a small stereo guitarist+bass player, and some transparency through the performance space.

 

Then there's the monitoring problem, where I think the solution could be to distinguish between the throw of a speaker system, it's directionalness and pure sound reproduction.

 

I think the attraction of the SS to some (which I'm fine with) may have to do more with other problems, like complete lack of actual studio grade effects in most keyboards and sampling issues wrongfully identified as features and unjustifiably having been mixed up with all kinds of binoral and speaker effects by a number of workstation programmers, and a complete lack of understanding of making properly pre-formed acoustic "shear" waves, like was part of for instance guitar amps from long ago, with some group of keyboard players.

 

It's fun to play with a stereo-wide circuit, I did that too in the 80s, isn't it. I wonder if it's just an analog circuit, or a digital one ?

 

T.

[Jazzmammal]

The scientific explanations and other great advice offered here doesn't do anything for my needs.

I just set the SSv3 at Noon everywhere turn it on and play.

No additional settings, stands, Sub cabinets, wings of Plexiglass.

 

The amps works like a champ w/o all of the engineering feats.

 

Exactly. It's fun though to read all these ideas people have. I can geek out with the best of them on occasion but no need with this amp. I just plugged it in, kept the knobs where Aspen said and it sounds great.

 

To those who are asking all these technical questions, my response is don't worry about it just plug and play and then see if you need anything else. And remember, playing this amp at home doesn't do it justice. It needs a stage in a commercial sized space to bloom and really sound good.

 

Bob

[Aspen]

"If I understand correctly there are THREE mixes coming from the SS:

Front: L+R

Left: L-R"

Right: R-L"

"There's no R-L

Originally Posted by OddManOut on the Fractal forum

"I'm intrigued by this whole Spacestation thing because as an AxeFx owning guitar player and keyboardist in the band it seems like I can't lose! Considering that the Side channel of the SS is L-R that almost guarantees that a hard-panned ping pong is going to be one-sided i.e. only coming through one channel of the SS.

 

Think it may be my "time to chime"...

 

The Center Point Stereo encoding electronics inhales Left and Right and exhales Front and Side. The Front signal contains whatever is common (sum/same) in the Left and Right channels, and the Side signal contains what ever is uncommon (different/unique) in the L&R signals. Another common "technical speak" way of saying that would be that the CPS Front is L+R, and the Side is L-R.

 

So some folks assume there is no "R-L", and so this is obviously causing some confusion. We just as easily (and correctly) could have used the term "R-L". I think we just put the "L" before the "R" because of the way we all learned the alphabet (A, B, C, D, etc...).

 

The important thing to understand is that ALL of the Left and Right signal content (L+R, L-R, and R-L) is present in CPS. Nothing is "Left" behind (sorry, couldn't resist... )

 

So how do we reproduce BOTH L-R and R-L? You may have noticed that SS v.3 has a single side speaker, in an open baffle "Dipole" design. Dipole is a technical term for a speaker system that simply makes sound "both ways" (180 degrees our of phase) ...and in so doing reproduces BOTH the -L and the -R signal phases".

 

Our Side speaker moves equally in BOTH directions; reproducing "-L" when moving Left, and "-R" when moving Right. Just as our Front speaker is reproducing BOTH the +L and +R signal content. That is why you hear the ping pong as if there were a 3rd speaker in the room (in fact, the dipole IS acting like two speakers!).

 

Now to take the confusion to the next level, the Front and Side speakers are positioned tightly "out of phase" with each other, or at "right angles" so the sound waves are perpendicular, and "physically out of phase", not "parallel and in phase" as with traditional stereo speakers. So our CPS Front and Side dipole speakers don't "mix" with each other like traditional stereo speakers, but rather kinda "repel" off each other as they radiate from one CENTER point. The more surfaces they hit, the more they manipulate each other. The worse the room acoustics, meaning more reflective (non absorptive) surfaces...the BETTER CPS will work!

 

That is why I suggest evaluating CPS from a distance, and off axis. That's counter intuitive to conventional stereo speaker evaluation. In fact, our box kinda "blooms" the farther you stand. The CPS "3D" effect even increases at a distance. Perhaps more importantly, it will be uniform as you walk around the club...our dispersion about 300 degrees! I believe our Ping Pong can be just as impressive as traditional stereo, especially if you are NOT standing directly on axis right in front of it.

 

I'd be the first to admit our totally new and different approach to reproducing stereo does not create that hard L&R stereo result we are accustomed to hearing, that is, only IF we are in that small "sweet spot" located roughly 30 degrees at the vortex of the triangle (L, R, and You). But on the other hand, that small sweet is EXACTLY why stereo guitar FX or KB patches DON'T work in live performance...and while stereo guitar systems (wet-dry-wet, etc) came and went years ago....the whole audience doesn't fit in that 6' circle of sweet spot!

 

But CPS is different, it WORKS. It provides more of a "Front to Back" as well a "Left to Right". And while I'd admit maybe not as hard Left and Right an image as a traditional L&R system...it has more of a gentle "3D" image and a giant sweet spot for both you the player, and everyone else...who will hear what you are hearing no matter where they are positioned. CPS is the first and only stereo transmission that WORKS for a growing world of stereo engines, such as the amazing stereo based Fractal and Kemper guitar profiling systems.

 

Obviously with conventional L&R stereo, that small sweet spot also means there is a much larger "sour" spot. No matter where you stand, the mix changes, the stereo image fades. Even worse, the L&R waves "combine" (remember, these waves are "in phase") to create a mushy mix of weird distortions, cancellations and resonances. This is why most FOH PAs, while stereo capable, are usually mixed to "mono", for two reasons; 1) to get uniform audio coverage through out the hall, and 2) avoid weird phase cancellations which degrade the clarity of the performance.

 

CPS admittedly takes some adjustment time to realize it's (many) benefits and advantages over the "old way". For example; 1) set the SS v.3 on the floor, preferably against a wall or better in a corner...don't worry, you'll still hear it (even more so), and "dial in" you tone from there, 2) start with the Width, MF and HF levels at 12 o'clock, I have tuned those as the best starting point. Use more Width for those dead rooms, and less for those "school gyms", 3) don't be afraid to dial in the widest possible stereo FX from your instrument...CPS LOVES stereo content (no stereo, means no side speaker activation!). While you (or the factory preset guys) may have narrowed these patches in past because you were maximizing them for a mono amp and/or because you wanted a more consistent tone from a conventional spaced L&R dual speaker system, now you can really lay on the "wide" for those stereo delay, Flange, Chorus and Leslie sim patches and blow minds from the bar stools to the back tables, 4) have a pal play your rig as you walk around the room, or use a wireless and do that yourself, and/or put on a CD of some well recorded stereo music you are familiar with and walk around the venue...that's the best way to dial in the SS v.3 controls and hear what the audience hears.

 

[Raymb1]

Great post, Aspen. It should posted as a sticky. Ray

[HammondDave]

So, why haven't large concert sound reinforment companies adopted this type of CPS approach? Seems like it would make the whole band sound better to everyone in the stadium...

[Raymb1]

Don't know the answer to that. All I know is that my SS sounds way better than my QSCs. Ray

[Al Coda]

So, why haven't large concert sound reinforment companies adopted this type of CPS approach? Seems like it would make the whole band sound better to everyone in the stadium...

 

I understood the technology of CPS SSv3 only works w/ a single cabinet (except you add a subwoofer to it).

 

If that´s correct and because stadiums are big,- you´d probably need a Spacestation in the size of the Kaaba acting as the PA.

But what to do when you need delay towers because of sound traveling over long distances ?

 

 

A.C.

[Raymb1]

I'd like to see that; a speaker cabinet over 40' tall!