Key Largo plus iPad

[MrVegas]

I'm thinking of buying a Key Largo  for my Sunday morning setup.  I have a Kronos, a Korg CX-3 and an iPad.  It's obvious to me how I would use the stereo outs from the Kronos on channel 1 of the Key Largo and the mono out from the CX-3 into channel 2 of the Key Largo.  If I want to trigger sounds from the iPad, how do I connect the iPad sound to the Key Largo?

[Littidy]

Powered USB hub will work. 👍🏻

[Canoehead]

I use a 1/8” to 1/4” adapter and plug the Ipad into channel three of the Key Largo.  I’m pretty sure the Key Largo USB connection is not iOS compatible.  From the Radial site:

“Does the Key Largo support iOS devices?

The Key-Largo is not supported by iOS devices. The USB connection on the Key-Largo was designed to be connected to laptop or a computer with a USB port. We do have other products, however, that will work with iOS devices such as the BT-Pro and the SB-5.”

 

cheers,

Gord 

[Docbop]

Time to call up Jordan Rudess or Radial themselves.  

 

 

[CowboyNQ]

I use an iPad with a Key Largo.

 

It’s a very old iPad and I use a 3.5mm TRS stereo plug out of the iPad to dual 6.5mm TS plugs into the mixer.  Works like a charm.

[Littidy]

I use a powered usb hub and it passes audio through the usb just like on the Mac. The key is getting the powered usb. 👍🏻

[DovJ]

I was considering the Key Largo and reached out to Radial to ask if the iPad with powered hub config would work. 
 

They confirmed that it should. 
 

I own a Radial USB Pro direct box and this configuration works fine with that device. 

[TomKittel]

I still wonder why they don't just make the key largo class compliant? I can't imagine it being that difficult. You can easily connect an iPad to the Numa X piano without using an extra power adapter, but not to the USB interface of a really expensive high tech keyboard mixer?

[MrVegas]

OK, this is a really embarrassing question.  I brought my Key Largo (KL) and a Boss Leslie pedal and a Boss Volume pedal to church this morning to replace my Motion Sound which had developed a nasty hum.  My sound board guy said that he could not hear the Kronos in stereo and that the CX-3 sounded flat.  First question.  Does it make a difference if I run TRS cables from the Left and Right output of the Kronos into the Key Largo?  Or should I use TS cables only?  For the CX-3, same question.  The CX-3 has left and right output but I have always thought it was mono.  Should I run a TS cable out of both the left and right output?  If I use a TRS instead, will that make a difference?

[Phil Aiken]

On 2/20/2022 at 1:56 PM, TomKittel said:

I still wonder why they don't just make the key largo class compliant? I can't imagine it being that difficult. You can easily connect an iPad to the Numa X piano without using an extra power adapter, but not to the USB interface of a really expensive high tech keyboard mixer?

If I'm not mistaken the Numa does not receive audio at all over USB.  I don't think Midi is the issue here, although I have not tried it with my iPad.   EDIT: I was indeed mistaken. The Numa X DOES do audio over USB.

[Jinkings]

Key Largo should  have a class compliant interface and a headphone output

 

[Synthaholic]

A lot of people seem to like the Key Largo, but I'm not entirely sure why. Is it the generic volume pedal capability? The fact that you can put it on the floor instead of your rack? What's the main selling point?

 

I use a Yamaha MG10XU 10-channel Mixer with USB and FX which also has 2-way USB plus EQ and costs half as much. It works great with my iPad, recording into it or playing out of it. What am I missing? 🤔

[mate stubb]

2 hours ago, Synthaholic said:

A lot of people seem to like the Key Largo, but I'm not entirely sure why. Is it the generic volume pedal capability? The fact that you can put it on the floor instead of your rack? What's the main selling point?

 

It's popular because it is compact, handles a small keyboard/computer rig well, and sounds really great, on stage and FOH. The transformer balanced outs have that same magic Radial fairy dust that they sprinkle on their JDI direct boxes.

[Phil Aiken]

Just now, mate stubb said:

 

It's popular because it is compact, handles a small keyboard/computer rig well, and sounds really great, on stage and FOH. The transformer balanced outs have that same magic Radial fairy dust that they sprinkle on their JDI direct boxes.

What he said. And - what the original poster said too. The form factor is spot on for a small rig, the USB coming back as any other input, the monitor and main outs, and FX loop. It is simply very well conceived and executed and in a lot of situations covers all the bases.

[DovJ]

I totally want to buy a Key Largo, because in so many ways it is nearly ideal for a small keyboard rig and because it seems to enhance the sound of keyboards.
 

That said, the lack of midi control over the effect sends and the single effects loop is a non-starter for me.
 

After looking at (and really wanting something like) Key Largo, I turned my attention to KMI’s KMIX Blue. The form factor is right, and it is 100% midi controlled. But will it manage impedance issues and play well with effects pedals like Key Largo does? 
 

I currently use Aux outs on my XR18 mixer through Little Imp impedance matchers to send my 2 keyboards and 1 module through a couple of effects. XR18 is midi controlled, so no problem there. Still, I hate the tangle of wires and using so many of the precious 18 (16 mic pres and a stereo line aux in) inputs with my keys. 
 

Is there a better way? Amy thoughts?

[Franz Schiller]

Hey there gang!

 

I'm also considering picking up a Key Largo to use with my iPad. Ideally, I'd like to use the KL as the interface for my iPad. I've read here in the threads that in works with a powered USB hub because it supplies the power –whereas the KL does not supply power.

 

So I'm wondering, what if it's used with the Apple Camera Connection kit, which would provide one port for USB, and the other lightning port for power? 

 

Have any of you ever tried or had success with that?

 

Thanks!

 

 

[Sergievsky]

I didn‘t have success connecting an older iPad w/lightning to the KeyLargo, from what I remember. I tried a couple different lightning-to-usb/power adapters, apple & non-apple. What worked was a new M1 usb-c iPad hooked up direct using usc-c-to-usb-B cable, & then also with a hub. For the old iPad I ended up going back to the little Korg iPad lightning interface (those things are great! Why the heck didn‘t more companies come up with that type & make it multi-out?)

[MPN21]

On 2/21/2022 at 5:36 PM, Synthaholic said:

A lot of people seem to like the Key Largo, but I'm not entirely sure why. Is it the generic volume pedal capability? The fact that you can put it on the floor instead of your rack? What's the main selling point?

 

I use a Yamaha MG10XU 10-channel Mixer with USB and FX which also has 2-way USB plus EQ and costs half as much. It works great with my iPad, recording into it or playing out of it. What am I missing? 🤔

Another contender would be the Behringer Flow 8 digital mixer.  

https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=P0DNM

[stoken6]

Plenty of small mixers will do fine for submixing keys - but only the Key Largo has those magical Radial DIs built-in. 

 

They missed out big-time by excluding a way of incorporating a monitor mix from the desk into the "local" outputs, but excluding it from the DIs. The KL8 fixed that, but it's a different product in a very different form factor.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[timwat]

OSHA safety tip from a guy who owns a boatload of mixers I don't use anymore stacked in the garage:

 

Most affordable cheap mixers color the sound of our keyboards. But nobody A/B tests for that prior to purchase - we buy mixers for our rig based on feature set on some web page. We hook them up and are never the wiser for how much coloration is really introduced. Because we seldom compare apples to apples within our own rig, especially when it comes to mixers.

 

But if you finally end up with a glut of mixers (of all different form factors, features, and price points) in your garage, and finally set up A/B "blind" testing, a lot of mixers are going to end up in the garage heap, and the Radial stuff will end up as your daily driver. Another thing about Radial: buy quality, buy once. The stuff doesn't break.

 

Yes, I still bring out a POS mixer I loathe occasionally when I need reverb for the singer (and I have to bring out a PA). 

 

But Radial DIs substantially, audibly, and noticeably makes keyboards sound better...or, more like they actually sound. 

 

For the OP, the Key Largo isn't all things for all uses (and your iPad may not work natively with the USB port in the KL). I think it was designed to easily hook up a MainStage laptop.

[stoken6]

@timwat How would the Key Largo compare to a

13 hours ago, timwat said:

affordable cheap mixer

run into a Radial DI such as a JDI stereo?

 

In other words, how much of the Key Largo magic is the Jensen transformers/DI, and how much is the rest of the mixing circuitry?

 

Cheers, Mike.

 

 

[analogman1]

I have the Radial KL-8 which I use for bigger shows - but for a quick "grab and go" setup I recently got a tiny little Yamaha MG06X mixer. 

I use the headphone out of my Mac (same as using a headphone out of an iPad) and mix my Nord in there.

Quick, simple, and painless. And really inexpensive! 

Since I'm still using headphones out (It's an iPad 5th generation Mini) I'm good to go.

 

[timwat]

11 hours ago, stoken6 said:

@timwat How would the Key Largo compare to a

run into a Radial DI such as a JDI stereo?

 

In other words, how much of the Key Largo magic is the Jensen transformers/DI, and how much is the rest of the mixing circuitry?

 

Cheers, Mike.

 

 

Hey, Mike,

 

That's a good question, and I probably don't have a definitive answer. 

 

But logic suggests if you feed a colored, lifeless, bandwidth-constrained output into a great DI (Radial, Countryman, or that really expensive studio-quality beast Dave Ferris has), you're going to get a true fidelity, accurate signal of...a colored, lifeless, bandwidth-constrained output. The DI can't create what it wasn't fed in the first place.

 

And that's what cheap DIs and highly-colored cheap mixers do to wide-bandwidth inputs - the signal comes out lifeless, anemic, lacking girth, gravity, bottom end, sparkle. I don't know why, or in what ways the mixer is detracting from my signal...but I have a list of mixers that commit various crimes against nature in these ways, as well as a list of DIs I'll never buy because I found they do similar things.

 

I have a JDI stereo which is still going strong - those Radial units just don't break. And when I need to send just one keyboard to FOH  I'll still haul it out (although that's rare, because my jazz piano-only gigs tend not to have a FOH). 

 

In my uninformed, anecdotal, without-technical-specs experience, there a few good mixers that don't color the sound - Ashly is an example - and the trick is then to find a DI that is similarly "colorless" - and Radial is my choice. The KL is a unique swiss army knife that combines a useful (but limited) feature set that many (most?) but not all KB players find essential...and does them in such a way that the inputs are generally uncolored, full-range, true fidelity. All in one unit that Velcro's to my pedal board.

 

The main trust of my comment was more that we painstakingly obsess over keyboard features and GAS over the latest release...but some of us don't worry about what the downstream is doing to our overall sound as much as we perhaps should.

 

 

[Al Quinn]

Although many people seem to like the Ross mixing products, I bought one and hated it. The sound was altered — and in a negative way. I sold it on Reverb. My Key Largo sounds wonderful. The folks at Radial know what they’re doing!

[UnderGroundGr]

I tried to connect my iPad 9th gen to key largo via Apple camera connection kit = not working...

I use key largo as a sound card for my synths. I have 3 synths plug in it. So my Apogee Element is free to connect vocals guitars etc.

And of course for live use, sometimes with synths, sometimes with my macbook and sometimes both...🙂

[Gunter]

Hi Raul,

you wrote "What worked was a new M1 usb-c iPad hooked up direct using usc-c-to-usb-B cable, & then also with a hub." I just bought an iPad Pro with the M2 chip. Can you tell me the exact cable and hub that you use. Thanks a lot.

best regard

Gunter

[Sergievsky]

12 hours ago, Gunter said:

Hi Raul,

you wrote "What worked was a new M1 usb-c iPad hooked up direct using usc-c-to-usb-B cable, & then also with a hub." I just bought an iPad Pro with the M2 chip. Can you tell me the exact cable and hub that you use. Thanks a lot.

best regard

Gunter

It was this one

https://ventiontech.com/products/usb-c-to-usb-printer-cable-for-macbook-pro-scanner-fax-machine-hp-canon-dell-samsung-printer-type-c-2-0-printing-cord

 

IMG_1219.avif

As for the hub…I have so many I forgot which ones I tried! 🤣 Lemme get back to you on that.

 

EDIT update:

@Gunter I think any hub will do, I just tried again 3 different ones, the Caldigit MiniDock TB3 hub, a Sonnettech Echo dual-nvme tb dock, and a small no-name usb hub. It even charged the iPad (except the CalDigit which doesn‘t have a usb-PD connector).
So yeah, they all worked on a new M2 iPadPro running Logic thru the KeyLargo. 😎