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Two Keyboard Rig - Same or different brands


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all Korg (SV1 + Kronos, Kronos & King Korg).

Those 3 boards have such little overlap they might as well be from three different manufacturers anyway. ;-)

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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Cory Henry has used a Kronos 88 plus a KingKorg I know.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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Wakeman used multiple Minimoogs purely because there was no patch memory, so he needed several for practical reasons. But the "room full of keyboards" is more for how Wakeman puts on a show as a master keyboardist- his setup does include matrix switchers, etc. but somehow he still ends up doing these awful stretching crossover poses to reach things. Downes massive rig (including the famous Asia riser that spanned the entire stage) was purely showing off.
I was more talking about the mid 80s, after he'd switched to digital boards and synths with patch memory. Obviously Vintage Analogs without presets are a whole different animal. I gig with a PolyD, so I'm accutely aware of why he would need multiple Moogs. I've gotten pretty quick patching it on the fly, but if I had 2 it would definitely make things easier. But surprisingly, it was in the 80s that Wakeman's rig was the biggest. The ABWH setup was INSANE. And 80s Geoff Downs holds the world record for the most amount of keyboards in one gig. Maybe there was a Moog or three in there still, but preset-less mono-synths weren't the main culprit.

Puck Funk! :)

 

Equipment: Laptop running lots of nerdy software, some keyboards, noise makersâ¦yada yada yadaâ¦maybe a cat?

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I do recall someone here gigging with two Nord Stages...maybe Chuck. Several years ago I was much more obsessed with getting sounds for covers as close as possible to the original recording...I'm relaxing a bit as I get older. Yes...99% of a crowd won't know or care as long as it's in the same zip code...but when I go to hear another band with a keyboard player...don't know about all of you, but I can't help but focus on that...and on the rare occasion I play out, I can't be sure one of you might somehow be out there too... :)

I use two Stage 3s. The reason for my getting an NS3C two years after I got my HA88 was primarily because I wanted a backup in case my main board failed at a gig. I use a different program for every song and there was no practical way for me to re-create those programs with all the splits, layers, and morphs on a different brand/model of keyboard.

 

Secondary benefits include having two different keybeds and four panels to work with, the reduced amount of switching programs needed per song (many songs use more than one program), and having a lighter board to take to rehearsals. A quick backup from one board and restoring to the other keeps them in-sync, takes less than two minutes total as long as no new samples or pianos are being added, which would take a bit longer depending upon the size of the samples being added.

Nord Stage 3 HA88, Nord Stage 3 Compact, Casio CT-S1, Radial Key Largo, Westone AM Pro 30, Rolls PM55P, K&M 18880 + 18881, Bose S1 Pro, JBL 305p MKII, Zoom Q2n-4K

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I prefer the same brand, because of the learning curve and possible backup. As I use many own sampled sample sets, converting this for one brand makes it available for both synths.

 

My setups were:

- PC3K6 on top of PC3/Forte7

- DMC-122 + Mainstage (same brand for both keyboards)

- Nord Stage 3C + Nord Wave 2 (now)

 

The Nord Wave is not really a good backup for my stage 3, but I'll get through the gig with some piano sounds.

Nord Piano 5-73, Nord Stage 3
Author of QSheets: The fastest lead sheet viewer in the world that also plays Audio Files and send Program Changes!
https://qsheets.eriknie.synology.me/

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I do recall someone here gigging with two Nord Stages...maybe Chuck. Several years ago I was much more obsessed with getting sounds for covers as close as possible to the original recording...I'm relaxing a bit as I get older. Yes...99% of a crowd won't know or care as long as it's in the same zip code...but when I go to hear another band with a keyboard player...don't know about all of you, but I can't help but focus on that...and on the rare occasion I play out, I can't be sure one of you might somehow be out there too... :)

 

I hoped ajstan would come along and explain his dual Stage 3 rig :)

 

I usually gig the NS3C on top and a NP4 acting as a controller below. Notice that any decent weighted controller would be fine, I just happen to have the NP4 left over from the lounge act.

 

Back when I was actively buying keyboards, I did like the visual appeal of two red boards. Nord makes great products. They work well together, etc. -- and it's somewhat simpler to learn and program.

 

Now if I could just get them to cut me an endorsement check ...

Want to make your band better?  Check out "A Guide To Starting (Or Improving!) Your Own Local Band"

 

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I'd agree that relying a lot on custom sounds/setups--assuming one board is capable of providing all you need--is a good argument for two of the same board (likely with different actions), for the various reasons people have mentioned, i.e. one set of operational skills to learn, the possibility of taking just the lighter board to rehearsals or "unpacking" only the lighter one to work on your parts and sounds, the full emergency backup, all while still giving you the general benefits of two boards at the gig (preferred actions and total of available keys which means not having to deal so much with mid-song patch changes, working around split points, having your left hand sound glitch when you just want to change your right hand sound, etc.). And as some have also alluded to, there can be an aesthetic argument as well. So yeah, the two Fantoms, the two Juno DS, the two Nord Stages, make sense from this perspective. Though you may lose some of that benefit if the two boards are close-but-not-quite-the-same in their sonic and operational characteristics.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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With so many different considerations that go into building a rig, I don't see brand-matching as rising to anywhere near the top. However, from the perspective of keeping yourself interested and engaged in the home studio, there's something to be said for being able to switch keyboards for fresh sounds. My ears get bored hearing the same digital sounds all the time while practicing or messing around at home. On a gig, I'm not focused on that.

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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I use two Stage 3s. The reason for my getting an NS3C two years after I got my HA88 was primarily because I wanted a backup in case my main board failed at a gig. I use a different program for every song and there was no practical way for me to re-create those programs with all the splits, layers, and morphs on a different brand/model of keyboard.

 

Secondary benefits include having two different keybeds and four panels to work with, the reduced amount of switching programs needed per song (many songs use more than one program), and having a lighter board to take to rehearsals. A quick backup from one board and restoring to the other keeps them in-sync, takes less than two minutes total as long as no new samples or pianos are being added, which would take a bit longer depending upon the size of the samples being added.

 

I'm similar to ajstan, though different. I have been doing a one keyboard rig ever since I stopped playing in a wedding/general biz band over ten years ago. I used the NS2 88 for a long time and eventually acquired a couple of different NS2 variants (NS2 EX76 and EX Compact), which I used for redundancy/backup and sometimes I just felt like playing a different action on stage. I have since switched over to the NS3 Compact and have two of them, for the redundancy/backup factor. Plus, I've often kept one at our band's rehearsal space when we're not gigging much (like the past 14 months). It's cool having the same keyboard with the same sounds and UI available in a heartbeat.

 

But this thread is about two keyboard rigs, so let me get back on topic. When I was playing with two keyboards, I always used different brands (e.g. Roland or Yamaha stage piano + clonewheels from Hammond, Korg, Nord) as I liked the variety. Just before the lockdown, I was getting a little bored with my single keyboard on stage and was in the process of integrating a second board (Prophet 6). I cooled my jets on that a bit with the pandemic, but once gigs are looking more regular, I may revisit my plans. I've been also noodling on getting back to a more rootsy rig, with a stage piano + clonewheel, which I would source in different brands. We'll see where things land as the gigs start happening.

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This topic is quite apropos as I just got a new MODX7 to sit above my MODX8

 

vC0zEW.jpg

 

Nda1Ne.jpg

(pay no attention to the Komplete Kontrol S61MK2 being lonely in the background)

David

Gig Rig:Casio Privia PX-5S | Yamaha MODX+ 6 | MacBook Pro 14" M1| Mainstage

 

 

 

 

 

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I've always had a mix of Roland, Yamaha & Korg for different flavors. (and some samplers.)

 

These days, with a versatile do-it-all modern synth with some sampling capabilities, one could easily use two identical boards and have any sound option available...or even just one along with a controller keyboard added.

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Come to think of it, Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish seems to always have an all-Korg rig, and it sounds great. I think the most recent one was a Kronos, N364, and a Karma.

 

20282689120_ff1aff2aab_b.jpg

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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This topic is quite apropos as I just got a new MODX7 to sit above my MODX8

 

vC0zEW.jpg

 

Nda1Ne.jpg

(pay no attention to the Komplete Kontrol S61MK2 being lonely in the background)

 

David! Nice keys! What about the YC-61? How do you plan to harness the powers of two MODX keyboards?

 

Thanks,

Eric

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If the sky is the limit, there's no way I would pair a YC-61 with a CP73. Figure out whatever you're lacking from the YC and get a keyboard that specializes in it. At the very least make yourself a list of CP alternatives so you have to justify why you wouldn't want a completely new and different sound library for similar money.

Keyboards: Nord Electro 6D 73, Korg SV-1 88, Minilogue XD, Yamaha YPG-625

Bonus: Boss RC-3 Loopstation

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This topic is quite apropos as I just got a new MODX7 to sit above my MODX8

 

 

David! Nice keys! What about the YC-61? How do you plan to harness the powers of two MODX keyboards?

 

Thanks,

Eric

 

 

Thanks Eric. I still have the YC61. The using of two MODX's warrants it's own thread which I will post later today. I don't want to derail Counterpoint's thread by going into specific detail about using two MODX together.

David

Gig Rig:Casio Privia PX-5S | Yamaha MODX+ 6 | MacBook Pro 14" M1| Mainstage

 

 

 

 

 

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Sample based technologies have made boards little more homogeneous but back in the day you would never use two boards from one builder. I always wanted to pair a Roland piece with a Yamaha piece they completed each other"s weaknesses and strengths perfectly. The layers were awesome.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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I always mix brands to help me put my best foot forward. People will come once in a great while and comment about different brands. It's usually musicians.

"Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello"

 

 

noblevibes.com

 

 

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Brands I think match well together sound-wise in general (not including dedicated synths):

 

Korg + Kurzweil

Yamaha + Kurzweil

Yamaha + Roland

Roland + Kurzweil

 

I've not particularly cared for combining Korg and Roland, interestingly enough. Never owned a Nord so IDK.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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In the "good ol days" those massive keyboard rigs by Wakeman and Downs had a lot of identical boards, but that was more due to physical problems of massive rigs.

or in the case of Minimoogs, because they had no presets, so the only way to have quick access to two sounds was to have two of the synths!

 

I once possessed a maximum stack of five keyboards and five modules, with all of the attendant routing madness. Amplify that where I used a big Korg multitimbrally. I got sucked into Logic as if I was in "Tron", so I'm not in the same game anymore.

 

If it was me, I'd save myself 95% of the grief and take a pair of, say, the aforementioned two Nords, with Mainstage on top. There are big-stack types who still prefer the center of a Rick Ringâ¢, but live, stability is king and simple is queen. If you do your prep work and set your splits properly, you're generally good to go.

I don't think there's been much advocacy here for more than two boards (though 2 boards plus Mainstage is different from 2 boards by themselves). But every now and then, yeah, I'll do the Rick thing (actually more Keith, since it's usually parallel stacks)... like when I'm doing a prog gig with, well, a bunch of ELP. Could it be done with fewer, if I did more prep? I assume so. But I don't like prep. ;-) More than that, I don't like to be hitting patch change buttons constantly in the middle of a song, or worrying about inadvertently crossing a split point, or worrying about glitching my LH sound while changing my RH sound, or not having drawbar controls that are indeed always drawbar controls, etc. Though with a little effort, I could probably reduce the number without too much pain.

 

OTOH, for the more typical gig, I've usually gone with two boards, and lived with the compromises. ... now I've got the option of replacing the MODX7 with the PC4-7. Progress!

 

You are a bigger synth wienee than I am, which is saying a lot. I don't learn much that's totally new from you all that often, but I DO get the benefit of your varying angles of approach. As a version of Jabba the Composer, live rigs are not on my list of worries anymore. That doesn't change the PROCESS of synthesis in our heads. Sometimes, your thinking unclutters mine a bit. Its often like a huge shelf encumbered with a ton of hand percussion, waiting to fall in the floor, so thanks! :cool:

 "I want to be an intellectual, but I don't have the brainpower.
  The absent-mindedness, I've got that licked."
        ~ John Cleese

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I've almost always had a mix of manufacturers. Over the past 15 years or so, it's typically been a Roland (XP-80 > Fantom FA76 > Fantom X7 > Jupiter-80) over a Yamaha (S90 > S90ES > S70XS). For a short while, I had a Yamaha Motif ES7 over the S90ES in a 9-piece horn band. The combination worked well in that setting tone-palette-wise, and there was some comfort in the commonality of the operating systems, but the ES7's narrower keybed bugged me so I sold it and went back to Roland gear. My rig is usually just the two keyboards, but on larger stages I'll bring out a clonewheel (a Nord Electro 6D for now), just for my own wankery.

Live: Yamaha S70XS (#1); Roland Jupiter-80; Mackie 1202VLZ4: IEMs or Traynor K4

Home: Hammond SK Pro 73; Moog Minimoog Voyager Electric Blue; Yamaha S70XS (#2); Wurlitzer 200A

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I use two Stage 3s...Secondary benefits include having...four panels to work with

I missed that before. Yup, that's another benefit to two identical boards... i.e. if the one board really DOES have all the sounds/functions you most want, but you just can't get them all at the same time. So to put that back in the context of the OP, while a CP under a YC doesn't give you many sounds you didn't have, it does allow you play them in more different combinations (e.g. since the YC can't play more than two non-organ sounds at once).

 

Something that's only been mentioned sideways so far... it's not merely same or different brands...

 

...if you want fully redundant backup, you'd want, not just the same brand, but the same--or at least a substantially similar--model

 

...if you want differentiation, brand isn't always the biggest factor... e.g. there's a bigger difference between a Korg Grandstage and a Korg Prologue than there is between the Grandstage and a Yamaha CP73.

 

Also, Sam Mullins had a good point, about maybe wanting one board with a very hands-on direct manipulation interface for when that's how you want to work the sounds, and another deeper, more menu-driven board, to accomplish the trickier things you can't do on the knobby board.

 

Adan may have summed it up well with this, at least depending on your goal...

With so many different considerations that go into building a rig, I don't see brand-matching as rising to anywhere near the top.

 

This conversation has made me aware of my own bias in considering board-pairs. I'd been inclined to simply dismiss the value of, say, combining a MODX with a CP/YC model, on the basis of their giving me many "same" sounds when I could instead have more different ones. But I think that doesn't give sufficient due to consideration of how you want to work with the boards. In my case, I rarely bother with MIDI, and simply play my bottom's board's sounds from my bottom board and my top board's sounds from my top board... and here's the important part... there are not a whole lot of sounds that I regularly play from both boards! Which means that, for example, if I had a MODX7 over a CP88, the sonic duplication between them would be basically irrlevant, because the majority of the sounds I would play on the CP88 are ones I would not play on the MODX7 above and vice versa. If you're not going to select them anyway, what difference does it make whether or not those sounds are the same as what's in your other board? If each board gives you the sounds you want at the location you want them (and an action feel and operational interface you enjoy in that context), then your goal is arguably addressed equally well regardless of brand and how little or how much sonic overlap there is. (Though in this particular theoretical combination, I might be tempted to do some of my "top board" stuff on the bottom board, just because the CP interface is fun to work with in real-time, which gets back to Sam's point above. But I digress.)

 

An exception might be where you say, for example, "I'd normally play this harmonica part on my top board, but my bottom board has the better harmonica sound, so I'll play it there." In theory, that can sound appealing. In practice, I'm not sure how much it matters, i.e. how often it would happen, how big a sonic difference there is, and whether you'd actually bother. This again may come down to how different people work. If you try to get the best sounds for each situation, then having a wider pallette of sounds to choose from between your two boards is a perk. If you're basically always playing your piano-type sounds on one board and your other sounds on the other, then it's not so much of a factor. For me personally, while I mentally aspire to the first approach of using the best sound for the task at hand, in reality, I tend to fall into the second approach, of using each board for its own purposes. I'd be highly unlikely, for example, to use the upper board for a piano/EP/clav sound, even if it had a piano/EP/clav sound that was closer to what I wanted for a particular song than anything that was in my bottom board. But I'm sure there are others who would approach it differently.

 

I always think of things I could do to make things better. Like doing more with an iPad, and maybe integrating the Surface Pro I tinker with now and then. Or using MIDI to get some sounds from different boards over to the boards I'd prefer to play them from, which I rarely do, despite having done all kinds of fancy MIDI things in the 80s (including writing my own MIDI patchbay software to interconnect all my gear before were standalone MIDI patchbays you could buy). Or similarly, thinking about bringing a 3rd board to a gig (or a heavier 1st/2nd board) , but when it comes time to pack the car... "Nah, I'll just stick with the two light boards again." Between this and my programing/prep time comments, I think this thread has unfortunately served to illustrate how lazy I am! It's true, as many have said before, all these tweaks to make things marginally better are pretty much just for ourselves, the audience won't know/care. OTOH, making it as satisfying as reasonably possible for ourselves is a big reason to do any of this in the first place. So maybe this will be the year I do more with that iPad and Surface Pro...

 

Anyway, I'm still sticking with going with very different boards. As it turns out, my favorite bottom boards (more for action, weight, and ergonomics than sounds/features) happen to just end up being of different types and brands than what I look for in a top board (where those things matter but not always in the same way, and where more other things come into play, like split/layer flexibility and wider range of sounds). But also, I'm not sure I can overcome my bias for maximum variety/flexibility, even though, in reality, I don't need it. ;-)

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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Brands I think match well together sound-wise in general (not including dedicated synths):

 

Korg + Kurzweil

Yamaha + Kurzweil

Yamaha + Roland

Roland + Kurzweil

 

I've not particularly cared for combining Korg and Roland, interestingly enough. Never owned a Nord so IDK.

 

Agreed. I think of Kurzweil as warm and organic; Korg is sharp and shiny. Nicely complementary.

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Brands I think match well together sound-wise in general (not including dedicated synths):

 

Korg + Kurzweil

Yamaha + Kurzweil

Yamaha + Roland

Roland + Kurzweil

 

I've not particularly cared for combining Korg and Roland, interestingly enough. Never owned a Nord so IDK.

 

So just counting the numbers:

 

Kurz ...3

Yam....2

Rol......2

Korg...1

 

Interesting, to me anyways.

FunMachine.

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Korg + Kurzweil

Yamaha + Kurzweil

Yamaha + Roland

Roland + Kurzweil

 

 

And then you're going to need a clonewheel for organ, too, right?

Yamaha U1 Upright, Roland Fantom 8, Nord Stage 4 HA73, Nord Wave 2, Korg Nautilus 73, Viscount Legend Live, Lots of Mainstage/VST Libraries

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Korg + Kurzweil

Yamaha + Kurzweil

Yamaha + Roland

Roland + Kurzweil

 

And then you're going to need a clonewheel for organ, too, right?

All those brands make models that include clonewheel engines (albeit of varying quality). But in my own 2-board gigs, yeah, clonewheel was usually one of the things I gave up. I have occasionally used a Nord Stage 3 Compact as part of my pair, but pretty rarely. The relatively recent prospect of easily adding B-3X or VB3m to beef up the organ in an otherwise organ-shy 2-board rig is an appealing alternative to adding that third board!

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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