Korg Forums

[RDGBrian]

So, I have a gig coming up in a couple of weeks and my guitarist is trying to convince our band to all run direct an use the stage monitors/mix.
My bassist flat out refuses to play without his rig as he loves his tone.
I'm hesitant not to have my amp beside me, firing side stage. It's nice being able to turn up my amp volume if/when I can't really hear the keys too well.
But, I'm never really satisfied with the results of recordings we have done of previous shows, level-wise.

So, my questions are: would just running direct be something worth trying? Would a sound guy prefer that to having amp volume on stage? Would it create a better sounding FOH sound? Has anyone, or does anyone, run direct without an onstage keyboard amp?

Cheers!
_________________
Korg Triton LE, Roland JV1010, EMU XL-1 Turbo, Carvin KB1015

[RDGBrian]

Note...

I currently run thru a Carvin KB1015 amp onstage and use the amps onboard stereo DI's to the house board.
_________________
Korg Triton LE, Roland JV1010, EMU XL-1 Turbo, Carvin KB1015

[xmlguy]

You probably don't know what you're missing. It sounds like your guitarist is the first one in your band to see the light, and that's rare, because guitarists are usually the last ones to be convinced to shift away from high stage volumes with amps. Based on your description, it's your bass player who needs to learn how to get the same tone (or better) at low stage volumes by making better use of direct sends to the PA. This doesn't mean having to give up the amps entirely by the guitarists, bur rather using them differently - for tone some monitoring and not for loud stage volume. The guitarists may end up getting rid of their current amp setup after learning how to get the tone they want, along with many more useful tones with multiFX instead of stomp boxes, but this will be voluntary based on their own evolution to a different approach to getting their desired sound. It's funny that the bass player will usually see the biggest benefit with gear that's much easier to transport instead of heavy and bulky amps.

Do you like hauling a 100lb amp around? Keyboard amps like that were OK in their day, but they have been completely outclassed in the last 10 years by a number of significant developments that have made them obsolete. Most keyboard amps are crap and poor values, particularly the Roland KB series, but there have been some exceptions. The ones that have OK sound are excessively heavy and give poorly balanced audio for the money. Your Carvin amp seems to fall into this last category - OK sound for excessive weight. Carvin makes some nice gear, but their amps and PA gear have always been mediocre and poor values. I have a Carvin guitar that I bought new, customized to my specs, so I'm not anti-Carvin in general. I've seen and used various Carvin gear for more than 30 years, from back in the pre-internet mail-order days.

The general crappyness of most keyboard amps is due to a number of factors (there are some exceptions). They are typically monoblock amps that use passive crossovers. They have muddy bass, too much midrange, and poor high frequency response for full range keyboards. The passive crossovers waste much of the amp's power (up to 50% or more) and make the bass muddy by having a poor damping factor. Here's an article that helps explain the problems with passive crossovers that muddies the bass.

http://sound.westhost.com/bi-amp.htm
http://sound.westhost.com/bi-amp2.htm

The solution is to not use any passive crossovers by having a matched amp for each speaker through bi-amping (or tri, quad) with active crossovers before the power amps. This is particularly important for bass and subwoofers, so that the speakers are directly connected to the output stage of the amp, allowing a high damping factor to control the resonance of low frequencies specifically intended for the limited bass range of a woofer/subwoofer. A high damping factor produces tight, clean, powerful bass with a lot of impact. A low damping factor produces loose, muddy, weaker bass that is boomy and clouds a wide bass range, but is unavoidable if the amp needs to drive the full frequency range through a passive crossover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damping_factor

Keyboards and synths are also STEREO electronics, with many stereo samples, synth engines, and FX that can add a lot of depth and interest to the music, depending on the capabilities of the house PA and live recording gear to make use of stereo music sources. Not all venues run stereo, but it's nice to be able to take advantage of it when it is available for keyboards and synths. When stereo is available upstream, it's nice to be able to monitor in stereo. Even when the house PA output is mono, running stereo for live recordings can be a big improvement to the music.

There are several kinds of modern setups for keyboardists to get away from keyboard amps entirely. One setup is to use one or two high quality PA speakers for personal monitoring of the keyboards, using the house monitor mix for everything else. Examples of these speakers are the QSC K10 or K12's. They are in a much higher class of quality than the Carvin keyboard amps. Another setup which is becoming the defacto standard in large tours is to use exclusively wireless IEMs for all monitoring. This is significantly more expensive but offers the best sound quality (regardless of what your Bass player wrongly thinks). Using IEMs is a much more radical step from your current setup and thus will require a lot more learning, experimentation, and gear changes to accomplish. It has several additional advantages that can prove to be very useful. You can learn to rehearse at very low volumes, particularly if the drummer can switch to an all digital kit, or do so just for rehearsals, so that you can practice together in more locations. You can also get a very consistent sound for live and studio recordings.

Since I don't know your bassist personally, my comments aren't intended to attack him or be negative about his ability or skill. I'm going only on what you wrote. I can understand that he has achieved a tone that he likes with his amp setup, and I'm not saying that he's "wrong". I'm saying that he may not realize that it's possible to achieve the tone he likes in a very different manner than he currently knows how to produce, which is a legitimate reason for him to be reluctant to commit to making radical changes. If I knew him, I would spend a lot of time with him to hear the tones he prefers, to define those characteristics, and to explore different ways to get his sound to his complete satisfaction. I went through this process about 20 years ago when I had a particular tone that I liked on my guitar amp, but I didn't have a practice space that allowed for loud music. Fortunately, I had an amp with an effects loop after the tube preamp stage and with a speaker that could be disconnected. It allowed me to dial in the same tone I liked to be sent as a line output for me to monitor. Although I couldn't do feedback this way, I used multiFX to simulate feedback with a foot controller.

[billbaker]

At church (1000+ seat auditorium) I run without monitor amp. We have AVIOM personal mixers available, but I prefer to hear the larger (truer) ambience to get a better Idea of balance and overall volume including total front of house, and most of the time that's do-able. Time delay and room refection are the main issues.

The "just ears" works OK except when the guitarists get too heavy, at which point I grab an ear bud so I'm still sure what key I'm playing in. For you that might mean interposing a small headphone capable mixer [w/ XLR outs means no direct box required] to get a "just me" mix.

I use Bose earbud that run about $100US and which are high quality enough to not distort with low frequency (synth/bass) sounds. They let in enough ambient/room sound so that I don't feel like I'm playing underwater as can be the case with some over-the-ear headphones and sound excluding molded earbuds.

The no-amp paradigm takes a while to get used to. I don't know of a guitarist or bassist who's really enthusiastic about it. Ketner (sp?) used to make a well respected bass DB which had a cabinet simulator built in. That might be an option to look into -- there should be more than a couple of amp/cabinet simulators available in rack or stomp-box format.

As far as side benefits, tho', there are so many that it's a wonder to me that more people don't choose it. The stage volume is greatly reduced, and the collateral issues of back-line amps playing into vocal mics located stage-forward of them, as well as the simplicity of working with a direct system would make things go way smoother from a sound and logistics standpoint. The lead singer might even stop asking to be turned up!

Caveat - you need a very competent sound guy and a more than decent system to make this work really well; a system capable of putting together 4 to 8 individual monitor mixes is a plus.


BB
_________________
billbaker

Triton Extreme 88, Triton Classic Pro, Trinity V3 Pro
+E-mu, Alesis, Korg, Kawai, Yamaha, Line-6, TC Elecronics, Behringer, Lexicon...

[michelkeijzers]

I bought two JBL Eon 10's (now very old but still work), because I hated the fact that I was dependable on house mixers. The volume was always too loud or too soft.

The active speakers are fairly light and sound is quite decent.
_________________

Developer of the free PCG file managing application for most Korg workstations: PCG Tools, see https://www.kronoshaven.com/pcgtools/

[billbaker]

I also have an EON 10 as well as a couple of 15's.

The 10" is a bit "honky" in its tone, but it also usually cuts enough to be heard in any kind of room or playing situation.

I recently used mine outdoors and thought the sound dissipated too quickly, so in outdoor venues a 15 might be abetter bet unless theres a ceiling or reflective surface to give you back some of the ambience frequencies.

Mine are the Gen-1 version with no EQ or tone adjustment.

If you go that route as well you might want to use an in line exciter (like a BBE) or a cheap inline EQ stomp-box to even out the tone response a bit.

I'm more after audibility than fidelity in a monitor tho' so for me the naked EON works OK. Just be aware that there can be big differences in the response of your FOH (especially subs) to frequencies that a 10" monitor will overlook because the frequencies are below the 10" speaker's roll-off point. You can't always judge what the FOH loudness factor will be using the 10 as your volume reference -- especially critical if you mix from the stage.


BB
_________________
billbaker

Triton Extreme 88, Triton Classic Pro, Trinity V3 Pro
+E-mu, Alesis, Korg, Kawai, Yamaha, Line-6, TC Elecronics, Behringer, Lexicon...

[xmlguy]

The Behringer B212D are a very good value for the money. I would pick a pair of B212D over any keyboard amp made. They aren't as light as the EON10G2, but they're more powerful. I have a set of B212A's that I've used for years as my "beater" PA speakers. They are rugged enough to withstand a lot of abuse. These are what I loan out. I got them on sale at a huge discount at about $175 each. But, they aren't really powerful enough for main PA purposes for outdoor venues to overcome any significant amount of ambient or competitive noise.

They aren't in the same class as the QSC K-series. The K12's can serve double duty as either main PA speakers or monitors, and you'll never have to worry again about having underpowered monitors. Their bass boost feature is very usable for extending the bass, since they've got the power (500wRMS) to back it up.

I've never liked the EONs, and I know that several models had a serious problem with a very low input sensitivity, requiring a large boost with a mixer to get them to put out full power and adding a lot of noise, producing a very noticeable hiss. Some had a very irritating noise gate that would kick in and out at low volumes, and can't be disabled. Maybe JBL fixed this, but since QSC released the K-series and Behringer the D models, the EONs became obsolete to me. The Behringer B215's sound better to me when I compared the side-by-side with the EON15G2. Behringer earned a pretty bad rep for reliabilty due to a lot of their cheap products in the past (and for blatent copying of designs), but they do make some good gear. I think their quality has improved since they built their own manufacturing plants in China, allowing them better control instead of contracting it out.

[ClaytonE]

I used to have keyboard Amps...but got too tired of carrying them around!!! For personal use I have QSC K-8s mounted on tripods, and have crystal clear sound!!! IMHO If your FOH sound guy is competent, then let him carry the load!!!

[76keyman]

[SanderXpander]

I'm one hundred percent in xmlguy's camp. In ears are the best thing I ever did for my stage sound and transitioning the entire band to them has done wonders for our FOH sound and quality of playing. For keys especially it's great because the sound is so incredibly direct and clean.