Pre-amp for keyboards.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Originally posted by clusterchord:

I have 2 stereo units of the Manley DI's. ... ...just recording through these things to digital, BUT- you still need a mic pre! It's not a preamp.

Ted, what kind of pre do you usually go into with Manleys? considering they already added the 'colour' you were after, do you tend to use a 'cleaner' pre?

 

I've been looking at Avalons U5 for a while now - they are DI with mic level out, but also have a line pre built in with secondary out w balanced line levels - are they any good? i usually see people drive avalons into GR NV or APIs.

 

Robmix, Ted, or anyone else:

 

NEVE, API, MANLEY seem like a great choice for adding 'thickness' or 'character', but what would you guys use in a case where preservation of original signal is important - like , for example, i'm recording Andromeda with its tremendous low end and i don't want some active DI to add colour to that. What would u use in that scenario? Radials passive into Millenia HV3,or TD1 perhaps?

 

thanks

Usually I go into a Manley 40dB pre or now the SLAM! pre- I don't have a lot of pres, just a couple that do it all.

 

To be really really clean I would see if you can record right off the synth- otherwise I would use whatever was the cleanest simplest possible thing with no more gain than you really need. I wouldn't be afraid to record at -30 dB digital full scale that's what sounds best.

 

I would say the Little Labs stuff is plenty clean and gives you some gain too if you want.

 

Haven't used the Avalon, but from all reports it's quality stuff. I think Summit Audio is for real too, haven't tried it.

 

I've been tempted to use nice mic pres live, but unless you can be sure it gets to the soundboard into a line level input, it's going to be padded down a whole bunch and then amplified again, which is not such a nice thing.

 

For live, you don't want a pre. You want a DI. You want to send the soundboard something that looks like a microphone- DI outputs look that way.

[hermanjoe]

For live, you don't want a pre. You want a DI. You want to send the soundboard something that looks like a microphone- DI outputs look that way.

So should I check into the Manley tube DI, or Just go for a line mixer?

[clusterchord]

So should I check into the Manley tube DI, or Just go for a line mixer?

depends on what you want to do live, and how many keyboards u use. line mixer allows for more inputs and control of your mix. obviously, buying ten ch of high end DI is costly. but, if you're using standard two stereo keyboards on a gig, i'd take the DI route, it is a better 'sound' option. I told you already, in the other "Line Mixer" thread,what is the problem with cheap mixers and their line inputs - they dont actually have line drivers/pre's but their 'line' inputs first get heavily padded down, then run thru mic pres and amplified back again - it kills the sound. One of rare affordable mixers i know of, that has genuine line inputs, is A+H WZ20s , a 20 input line mixer with only 4 mic pres. but, as Ted pointed out before, on 99% of the gigs they want a mic signal from you, so even if you're using a mixer to accomodate many inputs, you might find yourself putting another stereo DI to it's main outputs.

 

Keyboard D.I. Live:

 

Manley is more of a studio device - it has special sound that might not work for 100% of synth sounds that you use on a gig, unless its something that requires it, like some VA or Rhodes piano etc. remember it needs power as well, being an active device. Somebody mentioned reverb being a problem - it is not, unless you drive your tube di to overdrive, but if you use it for subtle thickening and helping synths against guitars it's fine.

 

but not all synths/sounds need this 'warming' up. some only need quality impedance/level matching and preservation of its original tone to the PA - otherwise they get muffled by cheap DIs 'loading' down the input and skewing their sound, introducing phase distortion etc. For this app you want something like Radial Engineering JDI Duplex , 2ch passive DI box - no power, no coloration, high-end ultra-clean Jensen tranformers. i've seen it recommended for keyboards live/studio like million times..

http://www.cabletek.ca/radialeng/images/Duplex_125h.jpg

[hermanjoe]

Cluster,

 

I am using two stereo keyboards on the gig. Thanks for the info. Its very helpful and I'm gonna check out the DI you reccomended.

 

Tom

[hermanjoe]

Yeah the radial stuff looks cool. Should I go for 2 stereo DI with that J-rack or get the 6-channel DI?

[MikeT156]

Kudos Cluster. Great info. I don't think that A&H mixer is all that terribly expensive either.

 

Mike T.

 

Edit: I agree Tom. Its senseless to have 7 or 8k in boards and a $100.00 mixer. Insane. I've been starting to buy new PA gear, and recently bought a Yamaha P7000s, I have an ancient MXR EQ that....sucks. It was cheap to begin with and it colors the sound. But its better than NO EQ, for now. My mixer isn't the biggest offender, the EQ is, but I am making progress. The New amp sounds awesome. Tom, keep me posted on what changes you make to your sound system as you go along. You have a good ear and know what you want.

[hermanjoe]

Mike,

 

I was thinking about what equipment we use and how we spend so much on boards, its definatley worthwhile spending doe for the DI. The six channel one is $750, but considering how much the boards were thats not all that bad.

 

Edit: Thanks Mike, I will. It sounds like your well on your way yourself. Take care. Tom

[clusterchord]

hermanjoe: Should I go for 2 stereo DI with that J-rack or get the 6-channel DI?

it depends i guess if you're ever gonna use more than three stereo keys. i think six DI should be more than enough to cover all situations, especially since you could always have some of the boards go mono.

 

if i may another suggestion, quite affordable - if you need some 'tube' sound coloration on a certain keyboard, you might want to use a line-level stereo tube processor pedal between your synth and the Radial DI. Since it is a pedal it is easy to engage/disengage for specific sounds. One i'm thinking about is by Electro Harmonix called LPB 2ube , and so far it is the only EHX pedal made for keyboard/line level. havent tried it, some people told me it sounds 'big' and 'warm' or whatever your favorite buzzword is..

 

another option is 2ch speakeasy, but costs much more. my rhodes still awaits one..

[Tedly Nightshade]

No doubt but Jensen makes some nice transformers. Sounds like an affordable way to go.

 

Manley DI is rather high THD and heavy color, and is better for some things than others. But there are a number of nice tube DIs out there that may be so clean you'd put anything through them, while still providing the necessary mercies to rhodes and clavi and organ sounds that really, really need tubes.

[hermanjoe]

I just recieved an email form a contact at Jenson. He said i would still need some sort of line mixer before I send my keys to the DI. I would need this because the DI can not sum the signals to a L and R. I also wouldn't be able to send my signals to the board as well as my amp.

 

Basically my biig problem is:

 

1. I want to warm up my sound, so i think tube color or something warm.

 

2. I want to mix 3 stereo keyboards and have two stereo outputs. One for the board and one for my amplification.

 

It seems like this is very hard to do. I have been researching for awhile. My only option seems to be a line mixer into a tube pre, but then there are problems with effects ect. Not to mention output routing issues.

[clusterchord]

Originally posted by hermanjoe:

I also wouldn't be able to send my signals to the board as well as my amp.

not true, most DI including Radials have two outputs - a Mic level balanced that u use for house PA, and a hi-z thru-put that mirrors the input (except it benefits from the lack of 'loading') that you can connect to your amp or whatever.

 

but, if you get a small line mixer, most of them have dual output or busses etc, so connect one pair to your amp, and another to a single stereo DI that goes to house PA.

 

so you have two options how to split the signal for your amp and house PA.

 

btw, any cleaner full bandwith tube device (unlike manley) will work on your master bus as long as you dont drive it to far, then the issue of effects/reverb is non existant. Check on the Brick by groove tubes - it's a DI and a Pre /Line Driver , so you have options to send mic out to PA, preamped bal line level to other equipment or unbal to amp..

[hermanjoe]

yeah,

 

I don't know, that's what they told me. They said only two of its channels are mergable. I'll write him back.

[clusterchord]

no, Hermanjoe, i think you're confusing DI ins and outs;

 

look, i was talking about DI outputs when discussing spliting/routing outputs to more devices (like PA and your amp). But they are talking about INPUTS and they are correct - DI is no mixer, it is a single channel device. What is confusing is that the before mentioned THRU-PUT or direct out can also be switched to be used as another input - then DI can effectively merge two signals into the mic out. but only two. that is not standard DI operation - you loose ability to split into two outputs. and you have no level control etc.

 

anyway, when we discussed usign only DIs without a mixer before, it was if you were to have a six channel device for your three stereo keys - a DI channel PER synth output!! in that case you'd be sending six quality channels to snake. any mixing would be done by the house mixer, not you. when i was on tour with two synths, all i had was four DIs and that's it. no amp - monitoring was provided back from PA system monitors.

 

but, if you prefer using your own amp and controlling the mix of your synths, the option with 3synths into linemixer into a stereo DI that has Thru-put to your amp and Mic XLR out to House PA, seems like the only viable simple solution.

[clusterchord]

oops, dbl post.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Originally posted by clusterchord:

 

anyway, when we discussed usign only DIs without a mixer before, it was if you were to have a six channel device for your three stereo keys - a DI channel PER synth output!! in that case you'd be sending six quality channels to snake. any mixing would be done by the house mixer, not you. when i was on tour with two synths, all i had was four DIs and that's it. no amp - monitoring was provided back from PA system monitors.

This makes sense to me unless you have some kind of phenomenal line mixer that does a far better job than the PA mixer. And you can get the mix better than they can at the soundboard. Otherwise, six DI channels from the six synth outputs. You should be able to send a balanced signal to the soundman for each channel, and if you prefer to use your own monitor rig you should be able to use a different output (unbalanced OK here) from each DI to feed a little mixer of your own. Or, you can just monitor off the stage monitors and hear the mix the soundboard character is creating.

 

Of course you can mix and match the DI's any way you want- if there's one keyboard that really wants serious tube and tranny color, you could use a Manley DI just for it, or a cleaner tube DI, and use different DI's for different strokes for diffrn't keyboard outputs.

[hermanjoe]

but, if you prefer using your own amp and controlling the mix of your synths, the option with 3synths into linemixer into a stereo DI that has Thru-put to your amp and Mic XLR out to House PA, seems like the only viable simple solution.

 

[ 09-28-2004, 08:08 AM: Message edited by: clusterchord ]

By God cluster youv'e done it again my boy!

 

But seriously, yes that sounds good. Thanks for the education. I need a line mixer and then send it to a NICE DI exactly like you said. I am thinking of the ashley 308b line mixer. You guys know anything about the quality of this unit.

[MikeT156]

Tom:

 

Question for you. Didn't you care for the Allen-Heath mixer that there was a link for on this thread? Looked pretty decent.

 

Also, I vaguely remember a comment from someone about getting a different sound out of an instrument through a sound system than what you get through a set of head phones. I recall you saying you have a similar experience with your Progmega 3 and your sound system. I've been working on getting a better sound out of my OLD EQ, because it doesn't sound very good and have been able to get a better sound than what I started with by tinkering with it. EVERYTHING had sounded too bright, so I cut down on the HF bands on the EQ. I've been working with EQ'ing the individual channels on the instruments. Last night I was playing my Motif ES through headphones after the football game and the piano sounds were perfect. So I'm thinking its the way my sound system is EQ'ed and not the Motif generating that "bright" sound. What has been your experience with your sound system and headphones?

 

Mike T.

[hermanjoe]

Here is the email I got from the guy at Radial about the JDI6:

 

Hi Tom, thank you for your interest in our products.

The JD6 has two channels that will sum a stereo

Signal to mono. Unfortunately it will only allow you two send it to the

XLR output and not to the thru output. This means you could only

Send to your mixing console and not to your amp as well. The only

Solution I see is to use a small mixer and use it to sum your signal

And then send them to your DI and amp.

 

Thanks

 

Paul Blake

Radial Custom Sales & Customer Service

It seems he offers the same suggestion as Clusterchord Does.

[hermanjoe]

Mike,

 

I did check out the Allen & Heath mixer. Its a bit more than I want to spend on a mixer. I am looking for something I can put in my rack. If I had the doe, I'd probably get a really high end line mixer, but I can't spend a few grand right now.

 

Basically is seems like a lot of these synths are designed to sound good in stereo but if you play the patchs summed to mono you loose a lot of sound. That's why the heaphones sound so nice. I prefer headphones for listening, unless a really nice pair of monitors are available. My plan is to buy two monitors for a live stereo speaker situation, and have a line mixer and a nice DI to get my sound. I already have a decent power amp. That should do it.

 

Its just finding all the components at the right price thats tough to do.

[keynote]

Originally posted by b3player:

I just saw this October's Keyboard

 

Korg\'s TP-2 and TPB-2 Tube Preamps Offer Optical Compression

 

TP-2(Click for a close-up)

 

http://keybplayer.tripod.com/TP-2-lg.jpeg

[MikeT156]

Tom:

 

I guess expensive is a relative term. I think that Allen Health Mixer worked out to be about 1695.00 USD retail. I don't know how many US distributors there are out there, which could keep the price up. That's not all that terrible for an A&H if your really need it. There may a lot of things on the A&H that you don't really need, especially for what you're looking for. A rack mixer would be cheaper if you can find one. Running mono isn't smart with keyboards.

 

Putting the right amount of money where you really need it to get what you want is always a problem. I considered a number of different routes to go for EQ, and as I mentioned to you previously, I have to bite the bullet and get an RTA. Too many bad experiences playing in small rooms with no sound proofing. That DBX Driverack 260 looks like the ticket. But it lists for over a $1000.00 and that's pretty hefty. I did some cost comparisons and I could easily put out more than that if I bought the individual pieces one at a time. Then you have more cables to run and more things to check if it stops working.

 

I guess we can call all this hunting we do

"Quest for the Golden Sound", followed by, "Quest for the money".

 

I have a credit card, but I have to be careful, its not free money.

 

Mike T.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Originally posted by MikeT156:

Running mono isn't smart with keyboards.

We run it all in mono. Most of these stereo pictures you get off the keyboards seem very dated and contrived to me. High geek factor.

 

There's a lot to be said for having a keyboard that sounds great in mono and running it all mono.

 

If you're keyboard doesn't sound good in mono, you will be screwed live most times.

[hermanjoe]

Ted,

 

Interesting, because most of the piano sounds I have are stereo. How do you compensate for that?

[JeffLearman]

Ted's right that a LOT of houses have to run mono due to speaker and crowd location. Often, too many people only hear one speaker. This is especially true of large venues (much to my disappointment at otherwise great concerts). It's really quite a challenge to set stereo up well in many venues.

 

So I my own sound. I put my speakers where they'll do the most good, and often don't even send a line to the FOH. But for a typical gigging band, this probably isn't a very tenable solution, so you have to ask the FOH guy whether stereo works well in the venue. Frankly, you should be able to tell by looking, but it never hurts to ask.

 

If they're running mono, use a patch that sounds good in mono. Otherwise, you're hosed.

 

About putting a line mixer in front of a tube preamp (if that's what I read above) -- it would sound a lot better to put tube pres before the line mixer. You want to color each instrument, not add color to them all as a bunch. Don't want to color that piano sound, either, do you?

[MikeT156]

I can understand having to run mono in a large venue, or people won't hear everything that's being played. I won't be playing large venues anymore, I like stereo. Example. Vibrato on a Rhodes patch that sweeps from L to R, Cool. Playing a string part one note at a time, first note comes from one side, second note from the other. Very cool. I'll stick with stereo.

 

Mike T.

[clusterchord]

still, the PA setup isnt all reasoning behind mono synth; even if PA is full stereo and all, something called MONO compatibility is important;

 

for example, if a preset sounds like total lifeless crap in mono, that's a good indication it want fare to good even in its original (stereo) form , especially when other instruments like guitars, bass and drums come in. Why would studio mixers check mono compatibility when finishing mix? If its crappy, probably the stereo mix is crappy too.

 

Many times i realized that a good meaty mono pad IS the only pad that can survive within a really energetic guitar song including banging/crashing drums. Stereo creamy phasey/chorusey pad gets lost (if you brighten it tends to take too much space), otoh it can do its thing easily with ballads, scarcer arrangements, ambient stuff etc..

 

nice trick i figured out when preparing studio patches for the tour is sometimes taking a mono pad and doubling it with quite similar sound (yet with different samples) to end up with dual mono pad panned left-right, 0-50ms delay on one side, but NO stereo chorus and phasing stuff, just reverb. if needed this can increase your presence in stereo field without overbearing impact on the rest of the band - retaining some of the 'cut-thru' advantages of mono sound. and it is perfectly mono compatible, of course.

[hermanjoe]

Ok,

 

I'm trying to take all this info in. So is there really no point in even sending a stereo signal from my keys or should I just go mono? Or, can I run my own stereo setup and then sum it to mono when it goes to front of house?

[clusterchord]

well, FOH and PA setup will be mono or stereo. but you could be ready for both - by being stereo AND usign sounds that still sound good in mono.

 

point i was trying to make is to check your patches in mono, make adjustments or replace if need be, or even program some to sound mono as it is(pan of all osc/layers is identical, no stereo chorus or phase inverting effects for 'width' etc). gotta spend some time to figure out what works best, or cuts thru the best in a given song.

[MikeT156]

Fortunately, I don't have to worry about cutting through a band anymore. I've been playing solo for a long time. I hear what you're saying though Clusterchord, Ted said pretty much the same thing.

 

Stereo sounds good in a small club environment, especially when there's no one to compete with.

 

Edit: I checked out that A&G WZ20S mixer. Pretty nice. Lots of $$$$ though. The lesser model only has two stereo inputs and that's not enough. I see that "Rik's" handles A&W so I bet he'd be the one with the lowest price on it.

 

Mike T.

[JeffLearman]

Right, right. I go out of my way to do stereo, but if it isn't in the cards, one should be prepared to play mono. And it's best to find stereo sounds that sound good in mono as well.

 

Sometimes when the house is mono I do stereo on stage, and send full left and half right to the house (i.e., monitor on my left channels are turned up half way, right channels at unison). That way, while the rhodes stereo vibrato won't sound as good, it'll still do something.

 

I suppose I couldn't play that trick with stereo channels (on these new-fangled mixers). Oh well. I guess there are advantages when most of your gear is as old as dirt!