First gig as keyboardist, help troubleshoot the problems I had.

[mound]

Ok, I'll begin with a bit of background, then describing exactly how I was setup (I could have been doing something terribly wrong!), the problems I had, the "workarounds" and then ask for help figuring out what the heck went wrong.

 

I'm a bass player for the last 10 years, lots of gigs, been studying classical piano on my Roland RD-700 for the last year, and started practicing with a rock/groove band about a month ago. Last night I played keys onstage for the first time, so naturally some of the gear I have is tended towards me being a bass player, but bass cabs are OK for keys, especially with the synths/organs.

 

The setup:

1. Roland RD-700 stage piano.

 

2. I used a long monster insert cable to connect the keyboard to a small behringer mixer. (1/4" TRS in the Headphone output that splits into two 1/4" TS, plugged into L/R on a stereo channel)

 

3. Mackie m1400i power amp connected to an SWR Goliath III 4x10 cabinet (700watts, 8ohm)

The manual for the mackie describes connecting in bridge mode to a single cabinet by setting the switch to BRIDGE, and then connecting the cabinet via. a banana plug plugged into the positve side of each output section. So this is what I did.

 

4. Since the small behringer mixer I was using didn't have a "mono" output, I used the AUX send, which summed the stereo in puts. AUX Send went into channel 1 input on the power amp. I turned the AUX send level about halfway up on the channel the keyboard was plugged into. Master Level was about halfway up on the mixer as well.

 

5. The soundguy plugged an XLR into the "THRU" output on the back of channel 1 of the m1400i power amp to feed FOH.

 

6. oh, and I had a sustain pedal plugged into the sustain jack on the roland, and a volume pedal plugged into the FC1 jack on the roland.

 

Now, I started playing for sound check, everything seemed good. I was getting good sound from my SWR cabinet, level meters looked good on my mixer. At one point the sound guy asked me to turn down my mixer a bit, I guess his level was too hot. I did so.

 

Show starts. First song goes well, everything sounding good. 2nd song I changed to a setup I saved in the piano which was a tone wheel program, still everything sounds fine.

 

Next song starts, all of the sudden I hear absolutely nothing. Nothing from my amp, nothing in monitors, nothing in FOH. I look back at my little mixer, and there are no levels showing. Frantically, I try unplugging the 1/4" TRS from the phone jack and plugging it back in, nothing (no snap/pop either) I unplug/re-plug the sustain and volume, thinking maybe something was out of wack. nothing. Finally I power down my keyboard (!@#?$) and turn it back on and return to the standard grand piano patch and finally I get levels again. Then shortly after that I notice the sound coming from my 4x10 is sounding like crap. I'm looking back at it, looking for red levels on the mixer, or red levels on the power amp (which was turned up to about 4) and nothing is peaking, but it sounds like the 4x10 is just dying, going in and out, sounding harsh, and finally, there was no sound coming from it. So at this point I'm hearing almost nothing, I have to get the soundguy to turn me up in my monitor considerably so I could hear myself. Gig goes on without any further hitches. House sounds great according to friends, with my monitor cranked I could get through the show.

 

So here I am the next day, hoping my 4x10 isn't fried, wondering what in the hell I could have done to it and wondering why my Roland needed a reboot to get any levels..

 

Here are my initial thoughts.

1. Was using the headphone jack a bad idea? Should I have used the L/R outputs?

 

2. Was using the AUX send to feed the power amp a bad idea? (I wouldn't think so but..)

 

3. I was "bridged" plugged into a 700watt 4x10 cabinet. Was I sending 1400 watts into it? How should I have most appropritely connected a single 8ohm, 700watt cabinet to the m1400i while feeding the amp with a mono signal?

 

4. Did I need to feed the power amp with a mono signal? could I have taken the L/R main outs into channels 1/2 and set the power amp to BRIDGE/MONO?

 

5. Am I thinking too much like a bass player? ;-) Do keyboardists tend to bring a poweramp and cabinet on stage or do they mostly plug into the FOH and get a monitor feed? ('cause that worked quite well all said and done.. but this band won't always have a full sound reinforcement rig like we did at this fairgrounds gig last night)

 

what else? Any thoughts? I feel I have a few somewhat related problems here. If I simply overloaded my cabinet and it shutdown I can understand that (I'll know in about an hour once I unpack if it's blown or if it just shut itself down) but that first problem where absolutely no level was going out of the keyboard, that bothers me. I play this thing everyday in a home studio setting, generally classical music, and it's never lost a signal.

 

thanks! sorry for the long post

-Paul

[Bill H.]

It's hard to say what really went wrong without checking your stuff in person, but here's some things to consider:

 

Don't use your headphone out for anything but headphones. The impedence is quite a bit lower than your mixer likes.

 

Don't use TRS for a stereo signal...in fact I don't even like them for balanced mono signals. They can be very fussy if there's a lot of weight on the jack from the cord...actually they can act up just about any time.

 

It's usually best not to sum L+R when playing live...stereo pianos can get phasey in parts of their range and Leslie sims get real smeary. You can check this out for yourself when you hook things up as follows:

 

Plug your piano's main left and right outs into channels one and two of your mixer with two 1/4" patch cords. Go ahead and use the aux out for your monitor. Now, send your monitor channel one, then channel two (using each channel's aux sends), then both. Which sounds the best? Use that for yourself and send the same thing to FOH with main out on the mixer. I've been playing in all kinds of live situations for over 35 years and that's how I'd do it with your equipment.

[mound]

Cool thanks for the tips, I'll check that out.

 

It's usually best not to sum L+R when playing live...stereo pianos can get phasey in parts of their range and Leslie sims get real smeary.

but won't it get summed anyway? most PAs are mono, I told the sound-guy he could take my Main Outs, and he didn't like that idea, he said it would make things to complicated (??) and so he plugged his XLR out of the THRU on the power amp. I wasn't sure how that would work, but I didn't question him.

 

Do you recommend I use two channels on the mixer, both sides of the power amp and 2 cabinets? I had actually been doing that in practice with two Yamaha 10" + horn PA speakers, things were working OK, but they are rated at 200 watts, and this amp would be 700 on each side. Not driven it's OK but this band gets loud. But back to your comment, you recommend not summing a stereo piano, should a sound-guy be taking two lines from me? I can't help but think that somehow my power amp itself was involved in this, but I don't know.

 

Anyway - I'll let ya know my feedback on trying your tips.

 

thanks!

Paul

[Bill H.]

I don't know why your soundman would want to take the signal from tne power amp...I mean, I guess it'd work, but they usually want to get as close to the source as possible...in your case, your mixer. I'm assuming your Behringer has balanced XLR main outs...that's why I suggested giving him the mains and you the unbalanced aux. Any soundman I've worked with would be pretty happy with that.

 

If left is in one channel and right another, they're separated and you are free to mix them any way you choose simply by turning their channels up and down. I'm assuming that the PA is set up in mono...the usual case. If it's in stereo, by all means send him a stereo signal. Use the two XLR outs on your mixer. Monitoring yourself in stereo is totally up to you...I do, lots of guys don't.

 

Also, anything could have gone wrong in your signal chain. Neither Mackie power amps nor Behringer mixers are known for being super reliable.

 

I have a rather large outdoor job coming up in a few hours, so I won't be around for much longer today. They're predicting thunderstorms too...ugh. Good luck, and let us know how it works out.

[Reverend Rhythm]

I play a RD-700 live and this is what I do. One output (left/mono I think) to a direct box. Balenced out of the direct box goes to sound board, thru on direct box goes to my amp (its a roland keyboard amp. The keyboard amp is on a tilting stand, pointed at me. I can hear my piano no matter what happens to the monitors, and the sound guy doesn't touch my amp.

 

Also, my volume slider is set one line under max.

 

I hope you can adapt this to your set-up. My thinking is that I don't tell the sound guy how to mix the show, but I do need control over what I hear. I respect most sound people, but I can't put my performance into their hands.

[mound]

I'm assuming your Behringer has balanced XLR main outs...that's why I suggested giving him the mains and you the unbalanced aux. Any soundman I've worked with would be pretty happy with that.

actually it does not. 1/4" balanced or unbalanced outputs everywhere. Perhaps I should upgrade.

 

Monitoring yourself in stereo is totally up to you

I actually would prefer to, that is what I'm used to in all practice situations. but I thought one big cabinet (my bass 4x10) would be better on a medium sized stage than two 10" pa speakers. Maybe that was a wrong assumption. I worry about pushing 700watts into a 200watt 10" cabinet though.

 

Neither Mackie power amps nor Behringer mixers are known for being super reliable.

yeah.. again, gear I had. Maybe I should buy one of those 15" Roland keyboard amps.

 

I have a rather large outdoor job coming up in a few hours

enjoy!

 

-Paul

[burningbusch]

I am betting your orginal loss of volume had to do with your volume pedal. It's sending either CC#7 or CC#11 to the RD700. I use a Yamaha S90 and sometimes when using the volume pedal it will get into a mode where I can't hear anything when I change to different patches. I think it has to do with having the pedal off (sending value of zero) when switching to certain patches. Similarlly, this happens to me when using organ patches (actually controlling the B4)as it's common to end an organ song with the pedal off (value=0). Turning off/on the RD700 would reset this, so that makes sense as to why this fixed the problem.

 

My guess is that your other problems are related to your frantic actions trying to get volume back.

 

Work with your RD and try to reproduce the problem and you might find an easy workaround so that if this happens in the future you'll know what to do.

 

BTW, if you have the choice, using CC#11 is preferable to #7.

 

Busch.

[Anomaly]

The headphone jack is a no-no.

I honestly don't now how you can play the piano without being in stereo. I've tried everything and have landed on using a pair of small EV nearfields, a 75 watt per channel Carvin amp and a mackie mixer. I send the FOH a balanced line from my aux, and if they are stereo I send them 2 balanced lines from aux 1 and 2.

 

Having those EV's in my face give me that close-range sound I need to emulate a true piano sound. On smaller gigs, I can just have the sound guy send me a monitor feed to a channel on the mackie which I can control to my own liking.

 

On larger gigs, I use a 450 mackie so I can hear bass and kick drum w/o overdriving the little EV's. But I still use the EV's for my piano and organ, although I sometimes run the organ through my 122 and mic it into my mixer. I also play Acoustic and electric guitars, Dobro, pedal steel and mandolin. I route tham through a Pod and into a channel on my mackie as well. I really love the setup. I have complete control over how I hear everything. Sound guys will vary, but the important thing is hearing yourself the way yuou need to for proper inspiration. The audience is never as discriminating as we are as musicians. I

[mound]

The headphone jack is a no-no.

Yeah, again, thinking back I wasn't thinking. Should have known that one. I wonder though if that actually had anything to do with the problems I did encounter. Probably would have helped the soundguy if that wasn't the source signal.

 

honestly don't now how you can play the piano without being in stereo.

See now that's exactly my thought. My practice space at home I'm using a sweet pair of Alesis Mk2 powered nearfield monitors. When I brought the two 10" pa speakers to the practice space so I could run stereo, some of the guys thought I was nuts!

 

I can just have the sound guy send me a monitor feed to a channel on the mackie which I can control to my own liking.

Yeah, these are some of the good tricks I need to know about! As a bass player, I just gave him a DI and was done with it.

 

I also play Acoustic and electric guitars, Dobro, pedal steel and mandolin. I route tham through a Pod and into a channel on my mackie as well. I really love the setup. I have complete control over how I hear everything

nice. see it's exactly along those lines that I've been thinking about as I learn to take my keyboard skills live, and learn not to be a bass player :-) I also play congas. At first I was carrying around my power amp, an effects rack and a 16 channel Macie 1604VLZ. All in a Gator box. The rack was big and heavy but I could get it into the back seat of my little Cavalier on my own and ore importantly, I had a good mixer that I was comfortable with, could plug anything into it, and route to effects etc. as needed. (I could also plug other people into it) I got so much slack "why do you need all that?!" that I've been trying to scale it all down, to just the sounds in my Roland- for the live gig anyway. I imagine though without the weight of the power amp, I could bring my powered nearfields with me. In fact when I bought the monitors, they were for home-studio use, but the sales guy did mention that some keyboardists actually use them as live monitors on stage. I didn't really consider any importance of that at the time, not playing in a band and all.

 

I haven't heard any of you comment at all on the combination of the m1400i power amp and the SWR 4x10 cabinet. bridged = 1400 watts (right?) and so is that amp too big for that cabinet? I wouldn't think so.. I hesitate to carry two 15" cabinets. Anomaly: you mentioned small EV nearfields. How big are they? Do you put them on the floor in front of your piano or on stands?

 

the important thing is hearing yourself the way yuou need to for proper inspiration.

definitely!

 

-Paul

[Jazz+]

How do you mount those EV near fields? it sounds like a good setup. I can't stande for stereo digital pianos summed in mono either. I also can't imagine playing with four 10" speakers without any HF drivers; I do not recommend Roland keyboard amps FOR PIANO, especialy the KC500

[mound]

Anomoly also said:

I have complete control over how I hear everything.

oh, so you also have control over what you are hearing of the other band in your monitors? You couldn't "add guitar" to your monitor mix could you? Just raise or lower the whole band?

 

If that's the case, perhaps I could forgoe speakers/amp totally with some in-ear monitors driven off whatever mixer I had on stage?

 

-Paul

[Anomaly]

Those powered monitors should work fine. In fact, they'll probably take quite a bit more than my EV's will, so you should be able to put everything through them. With a background as a bass player though, I would be a bit concerned about making sure I could hear the kick drum. I depend on it too and that's why I use the 450 mackie on larger gigs for my feed from the other instruments, vocals, etc.

 

I had this problem last night at a state fair concert. I was too far away from the drum kit and I had to get the 450 out so I could hear the kick drum. The EV's just wouldn't quite handle it with that loud a stage volume.

 

Mounting the speakers is a bit of a problem. I can't believe Quik-loc hasn't come up with a solution yet. Mic stands are obiously too small and those big monitor stands are too big. We need something that gets a nearfield right in front of us.

 

I have temporarily solved the prob with 2 wooden barstools painted flat black. It really doesn't look bad at all. It's just that they sometimes make me a bit nervous that the speakers will get knocked off of them. But they are the right hight. I put one on either side of my organ which sits on top of the piano. Since the organ is not as wide, they tuck in there nicely and are all but inconspicuous.

 

As far as the return monitor mix goes, I can ask the sound man for what I need and then I adjust my own volume and EQ. He said he could send me 4 separate mixes--I have 4 aux's on the 1604vlz, but this works well enough to not have to bother with it.

[mound]

I also can't imagine playing with four 10" speakers without any HF drivers>

the SWR 4x10 has an adjustable horn.

[Steve123]

You've gotten some good advice here so far. In reading your original post you may have had more than one problem. I think that first you experienced a period of low voltage or a spike that caused your RD-700 to go haywire. Particularly, when you lost the volume, and restored it by cycling power.

 

When you started to get crap from your 4 x 10 but not the FOH or monitor speaker you probably damaged the power amp or the 4 x 10 speaker because the thru connection was still funtional.

 

What I would suggest is that you run unbalanced cable(s) to your mixer from the RD's standard line out(s). Plug that mixer and keyboard into a power strip that offers filtering and surge protection at a minimum. If you're dealing with a really substantial house system take the line out(s) from the mixer (whose level you won't change) and go through a direct box to the main PA. Take another output from the mixer to your power amp (or thru on the direct box) and control the volume at the amp.

 

Hope nothing got fried, dude.

 

Steve

[mound]

Thanks for the tips guys.

 

I don't think anything got fried, I've been playing around with it all day, I can still make it rumble the house if I want to! I wasn't able to duplicate the signal being lost from the keyboard. I did notice a phasing problem though on some of my synthy patches.

 

so all said and done, if I have a mixer on stage with it and my own monitors, would it be well accepted practice to get a band monitor mix into that as well? I can almost see wearing good headphones if the whole band was in the mix and not dealing with speakers at all.

 

-paul

[Stephen Fortner]

I do that with my compact mixer. I take a line from the FOH mixer (when there's a monitor mixer, then there's also separate floor wedges and an engineer to boot... I'm talking for smaller venues here). Separate mix if I can get it, otherwise I'll take what someone else is hearing over nothing. This goes into a channel that is muted or has its fader at zero. Since I'm feeding my monitor (usually a Mackie 450) off one of the little mixer's pre-fader aux sends, I can then dial in as much band as I want, using the rest of the channels for my keyboards.

 

I'll thrown in a "me too" on the headphone jack. All sorts of potential trouble there. Then, when your sound f's up and you're onstage under the gun, it is SO easy to miss something obvious or even make matters worse. I've done it more than I care to admit.

 

Headphones on stage, for me at least, would be physically distracting, and I'm not sure they would cut it in a loud live situation. If you're going to go that route, consider an actual in-ear monitor system.

[mound]

Ok, so I'm comfortable now attributing the problems I had to both my own error in setup, a potential conflict with the volume pedal and midi and a bit of frustrated flailing when I lost sound on the 2nd song of my first gig as a keyboardist (and I thought I was so used to the stage after 10 years of bass!)

 

That said, a few of you have mentioned the Mackie 450 - that's a powered speaker right? So you guys bring your own monitors to gigs and ignore any

monitor(s) that may already be onstage as part of a fixed installation? Or are you in bigger bands that carry your own FOH reinforcement? I guess I'm just trying to figure out the most appropriate way for me to do things as a keyboardist, with the following (non-musical) "goals" in mind, noting that this band in particular will tend to play stages with fixed installations for FOH and monitors (bigger clubs and festivals).

 

1.Be able to fit everything I need in my 2-door car (which with it's folding trunk holds a surprising amount)

 

2. Be able to setup and integrate with most any fixed installation sound system (FOH and Monitor rigs) without having make the sound-guy uncomfortable in any way.

 

3. Be able to hear myself, ideally in stereo, so that I don't experience the weird phasing problems I did with my synth patches and the 4x10 cabinet.

 

4. Be able to clearly hear the rest of the band. Having direct control over how I'm hearing individual pieces would be nice, but certainly isn't necessary.

 

5. The rest of the band of course needs to hear me.

 

6. Still be able to load into some corner bar that has no sound rig and play (what would be appropriate for that?)

 

7. Eventaully being able to use in-ears and not carry any speakers with me at all. (do in-ears attenuate external sound much?)

 

The gear I have is as follows. Some I had never considered bringing out of the home studio, some I assumed should be on stage, but perhaps that was a mis-judgement. Some combination of the following is probably ideal for any given gig.

 

1. Roland RD-700 stage piano w/ Z-Stand

2. (2) Yamaha S10E 10" 200watt PA speakers.

3. (2) Alesis M1 Powered Monitors

4. Behringer 602A Mixer (very small, limited input and routing)

5. Mackie 1604VLZ Mixer (bigger and racked)

6. Mackie m1400i 2 channel 1400 watt power amp.

7. (access to) (2) 15" + Horn Peavy PA speakers.

 

8. Lexicon MPX G2 Effects Processor

9. Lexicon Jamman Looper

10. MOTU 828mkII Firewire interface

(8-10 are totally unnecessary for this band. but they are racked with the 1604VLZ as part of my home studio setup for recording/composition/experimentation purposes.)

 

of course if I were to "put my home studio on stage" I would accomplish almost everything I'm looking for, as well as have the ability to multi-track the band's performances.. but I don't need to think about that just yet!

 

thoughts?

 

thanks all!

-Paul

[Anomaly]

Personally, I tried in-ears and did not like them. But, I have some serious hearing issues, so I'm sure that attributed to it. Make sure you can return them if you aren't satisfied.

 

As far as the 450 Mackie goes, I just love it. I carry one with me because the sound company we use doesn't. If you are satisfied with their monitors, then I wouldn't bother investing in one. The point I was making about using one is that it gives me total separation from my keyboard mix, yet is large enough to handle all the low end you throw at it. Near-fields will not handle everything if the stage volume/ audience noise, etc gets too loud. But, they still work 99% of the time.

 

I would try asking for a monitor feed back to your mixer which you can control the volume on your own.

 

If that doesn't work, then I would ask for a wedge with whatever mix you want in it.

 

I bought 2 450 mackies for my system, but personally I have found that the near-fields actually work better for me for hearing my keys. The further away you speakers are from you in a live setting, the more they will compete with other sounds.

 

Another project I work with has gone to the L1 Bose system and I can tell you that it is the most satifying experience I've ever had on stage. The piano still needs to have a signal in 2 of them for the stereo effect, but those things bring live playing into a whole new paradigm in my opinion.

 

The downside is that if the house gets more than about 4 or 500 people, they will max out. But for smaller venues they are simply magical.

 

Our guitarist did a solo gig at an outdoor festival on Friday where they had a huge PA. He talks a lot between songs and he said he had a hard time understanding voices with the earlier acts, so he set up his L1, which he had along with him in the trunk of his Jetta.

 

Everyone was blown away. No one could believe he was only using the L1. The sound man said he was so much clearer and understandable than anyone else that there was no comparison. And there were around a thousand people at the festival!

[mound]

yeah, those Bose L1 systems are amazing. I demo'd one once, I was totally skeptical but they are astonishing. perfect clarity regardless where you are listening from. standing directly to the side of it sounded the same as it did 40' away from it.

[Jeff Irok]

This probably wasn't your problem, as I don't think the small Behringer mixers have this feature....I have a 12-channel Mackie board, and it has a small, mis-labeled mute button for the first four channels only. One day, this button got pushed (it's one of those 2-position buttons that either is sort of flat, but not really, or sort of out, but not really) and it took me forever to find the problem. My sound was coming out, but it was REAL LOW. I had to crank the board, and amp, AND the mixer board that I was connected to to hear me. Of course, I know now that I was simply amplifying the signal bleed.

 

And like a dummy, how I found the problem resulted in a rather loud buzz...! (Duh...maybe if push this button it will fix....>BBBUUZZZZ!!!!< It's a quick way to make everybody's ears ring!