Volume levels when playing live

Old Piano Player · Post by **Old Piano Player** » Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:02 am

The dynamic range of the Kronos is excellent and makes for a very expressive instrument. However, when amplified through a PA, even minor fluctuations in volume level become exaggerated and I can range from being lost in the mix to piercing ear drums simply by how hard I play.

Would be interested to hear how others approach this problem when changing sounds live. Any thoughts on how much compression needs to be applied or whether adjusting the volume curve is a better approach?

All practical advice to prevent me from being a sound engineer's nightmare would be appreciated

pete.m · Post by **pete.m** » Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:56 am

The PA shouldn't exaggerate anything in the way you suggest as long as it isn't faulty and is set up correctly, i.e. the bass levels aren't being unduly accentuated, or whatever. Also bear in mind that some rooms just sound crap, so you may need to take that into consideration when setting up.

Once you've resolved that side of things, you can help further with compression, limiter or EQ. Velocity curves might help a little more, but shouldn't be causing the problem you're talking about. Finally - and I mean this with the greatest of respect - is there something in your playing that you need to consider? My own style tends to be naturally softer, and I could never aspire to overwhelm a mix. But I have a mate whose playing is so forceful that he can put our piano out of tune in a fairly short space of time. If you tend towards the latter, it's something that you might want to take a look at.

bmtg · Post by **bmtg** » Wed Jul 12, 2017 9:15 am

Depends on the music, too. Some styles call for a more compressed sound, others can benefit from more dynamic range. Probably the best approach is to work on each performance programs/combis so that they respond within the dynamic range you want for performance. If you use some compression fx, you can keep the loudest playing from jumping out so much in absolute volume, while still retaining the change in timbre you get from playing harder. You could accomplish a similar effect to compression using the program parameters, to control amplitude and so forth.

Changing the velocity curve to something flatter could also work, but that's really just restricting the expression to one part of the sound/timbre. You would get more even volume, but the notes would also have less expressive range for the same playing style. And if you adjust your playing style to the new curve, you'll be back where you started, with huge dynamic range between lightest and hardest playing. Given what you said, it sounds like you want to keep expressiveness but reduce volume differences, so velocity curve changes wouldn't help that directly.

Cheers

SanderXpander · Post by **SanderXpander** » Wed Jul 12, 2017 10:08 am

If the room/setting is small enough that I have some idea what the sound is like I'll just adapt my playing. If the room is bigger, there should be a sound guy so I leave it to him.

Derek Cook · Post by **Derek Cook** » Wed Jul 12, 2017 11:38 am

Hi,

Don't forget that any room will have its own unique set of "modes" (based on how it reflects and absorbs different frequencies) that will cause resonances and/or cancellations of different frequencies, and these will change as the room fills up with squidgy, watery, sound absorbing bodies (i.e. People!). Hollow stages add another level of complication .....

One of the jobs of a good sound man is to neutralise that for you and get you the right tonal balance for the front of house sound (you stage sound may be not as good, but in the sound man you must trust). If on your own, the global EQ settings in SetList mode could be your friend if you need to cut or boost frequencies (note cutting is usually best if you can achieve the balance with that).

You will also find that some patches are noticeably louder than others, and adjustment is needed to get the right overall balance across a set (again doing this in setlist for different sets is worthy of considering rather than tweaking patches - the next set could have a different set of patches and you won't want to keep tweaking patches for each set). The loudest sounds should be brought down as required to the level of the quietest or whatever relative difference is needed. Leave it to the sound man to get the overall volume in the mix. Avoid the onstage sound wars where everybody keeps turning up - get the loud buggers to turn down (we know the usual suspects

).

I find CX-3 to be way louder than other engines and struggle to get EPs to the same level, so CX-3 comes down in comparison.

4GodnWV · Post by **4GodnWV** » Wed Jul 12, 2017 12:21 pm

OPP,

When I first got my Kronos I spent a significant amount of time playing at home thru headphones before adding it to my keystack. When I made the move to the stage I ran into problems with the pianos. The following link is the thread of question, comments, and solutions.

http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... ht=#717763

Bottom line, your live set-up should duplicate (within reason) the sound you are hearing through phones. The right amp and speaker config, and proper eq all play a part.

I am resistant to the idea of tweaking the onboard eq to adjust for flaws in equipment. EQing for different rooms is a different animal, but imo that should be handled with outboard gear.

4God

19naia · Post by **19naia** » Thu Jul 13, 2017 5:19 am

4GodnWV wrote:OPP,

When I first got my Kronos I spent a significant amount of time playing at home thru headphones before adding it to my keystack. When I made the move to the stage I ran into problems with the pianos. The following link is the thread of question, comments, and solutions.

http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... ht=#717763

Bottom line, your live set-up should duplicate (within reason) the sound you are hearing through phones. The right amp and speaker config, and proper eq all play a part.

I am resistant to the idea of tweaking the onboard eq to adjust for flaws in equipment. EQing for different rooms is a different animal, but imo that should be handled with outboard gear.

4God

I had the same issue with kronos after headphones for my first few months and then getting speakers. All my sound settings and ear adaptation was to the headphone sound. So the speakers sounded terrible despite being great when playing professional band albums or music videos from youtube.

I went to set list and each set list page can save a unique setlist EQ setting. That means 125 set list pages with unique EQ to each. And each page holds 127 sounds or song slots.
Literally can have a set list page duplicated for every venue and set a unique EQ setting per each page as per venue EQ requirements.
Of course it only works if your issue is as simple as EQ adjustments. Set list eq is more detailed than the 7 band in IFX or the 3 band in combi/seq mode. Perfect compliment to the various EQ options in the regular modes.