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I have gone back and forth on how to accomplish this for a while, and I am now at a point where I think I have a plan, but it involves buying more gear, so I want to just throw it out there to the experts and see if maybe I'm missing something.

Here is what I want to do.
I play a couple times a month in the worship band at my church. We do contemporary worship music, with a lot of instruments. Typically we have 2 electric guitars, 1 acoustic guitar, bass guitar, drumkit, keyboard and 2 to 3 singers.

My job as the keyboardist is fill the silence often. I have several good soft analog pad sounds, that swell and evolve a bit, and I will play these as the foundation for our songs, and also to help transition from one song to the next. In a worship band the music never stops until the set is finished.

And then in addition to that, I will play some piano on songs that are piano-driven.
And then occasionally play some saw-synthy kind of lead stuff.
Also I play a lot of B3 on various songs.


So here is how a typical set will go for me.

The service starts with me ramping up the volume on a sustained pad chord. Then I may noodle around a bit while someone is making announcements. Then the metronome starts in my IEMS's, and I count us in. When the band comes in I need to ramp up the volume on my B3 patch. Then maybe back down at the verse, and back up at the chorus, etc, playing the pad the entire time. Then at the end of the song, I will back the B3 out, and just hold the pad sound, change keys if necessary and then the next song will start, with the pad never stopping.

This happens 5 or 6 times depending on how many songs we have, and then it's over.

From time to time I want to be able to evolve my pad into more of an out-front sound, maybe by opening up the Low-Pass cut-off frequency. Or adding some reverb.


So my question to you is, if you needed to play in this fashion how would you go about it. I don't care if you would have an entirely different set of equipment, or whatever. Seriously I will sell my M3 and get a Kronos if I have to. Or whatever I need.
I am looking for suggestions that I have not thought of.


Thanks!


My latest idea is to just quit trying to do this with one keyboard.
Buy something small that can produce really nice warm analog pad sounds. (I'm thinking Korg Micro-X) and just control it via midi from my M3, and then use the M3 for all other sounds. But then sometimes I'm not sure about this either, because when I go from program mode to combi mode on my M3 it kills the midi out. So if I'm sustaining a pad using the M3's keys into the Micro-x and my next sound is a combi sound, it will drop the pad out.

Hi, sounds like my setup and sound is pretty similar to yours. For B3 duty, I use a Numa Organ 2 on top of the m3, and control the organ volume (swell) with a foot pedal.

You could do what you are looking for just with the various controls on the m3, for example use a foot pedal to control organ volume, ribbon or XY control to open up the pad filter etc, however I suspect polyphony will suffer, and you will get note stealing from the pad, which is often really obvious on the m3.

If you want true smooth sound transition, then get a Kronos. You can achieve a limited smooth sound transition on the m3 within the same combi using the karma scenes. See here for how: http://www.karma-lab.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14430. I quite often use this in worship to swap between acoustic and electric piano while keeping the pad going.

swell ideas you have to see this
Vangelis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVW7yB- ... EFyA_rRUqN

so you could use midi channel 1 off any key bed
and use separate sound modules.
the volume, expression, swell can come from an inline stereo volume peddle.

a radias rack also has the multi outputs as well as the m3m so you could route the b3 and the synth pads separate on the audio outputs to the 3 separated audio out sets.

kinda cool as you can have swell on a piano too...
or any sound!!

dynamics is the key in any service,
wake up the dead!! GRIN!!
you know the guy's who have worked all week and are dead on the feet..
lol..
there are so many things you can do with audio...
the m3m and the radias are key tools for any production.
most of the church services in the early 2000's to now are as good as any of the rock concerts back in the 60's!!
big time production....

mikelees wrote:Hi, sounds like my setup and sound is pretty similar to yours. For B3 duty, I use a Numa Organ 2 on top of the m3, and control the organ volume (swell) with a foot pedal.

You could do what you are looking for just with the various controls on the m3, for example use a foot pedal to control organ volume, ribbon or XY control to open up the pad filter etc, however I suspect polyphony will suffer, and you will get note stealing from the pad, which is often really obvious on the m3.

If you want true smooth sound transition, then get a Kronos. You can achieve a limited smooth sound transition on the m3 within the same combi using the karma scenes. See here for how: http://www.karma-lab.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14430. I quite often use this in worship to swap between acoustic and electric piano while keeping the pad going.

Thanks for the reply!

I didn't want to use my M3 for pads, because it has so many other good bread and butter sounds, and I'd rather use it for that. My budget is tight, so if I have to buy another keyboard, I'd like to just find one that can do pads well, and preferably a small one, because I'm essentially using it as a sound module.

I have tried the Karma switching thing, and it works ok for small stuff, but here is my problem with it. You have an amazing sounding B3 program, right. It has great FX and rotary speaker sim, and all that stuff. Then you add it to an existing combi with pad and piano, and it looses all it's cool FX. now it sounds lame. You can add some of those FX back, if you have room for it, but it will not sound the same in a combi unless it's the only thing in the combi. That's what has lead me to the idea of just using the M3 in program mode, and have another keyboard or sound module doing full-time pad duty.

And if I'm not mistaken, the Kronos has this same limitation when using Combis. You only get one set of IFX, MFX and TFX (however many that is) on a given combi, and all Timbres have to share those.
Thats why I don't think a Kronos is the answer for me. That, and the lack of an extra $3500 in my checking account.

iowagold wrote:swell ideas you have to see this
Vangelis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVW7yB- ... EFyA_rRUqN

so you could use midi channel 1 off any key bed
and use separate sound modules.
the volume, expression, swell can come from an inline stereo volume peddle.

a radias rack also has the multi outputs as well as the m3m so you could route the b3 and the synth pads separate on the audio outputs to the 3 separated audio out sets.

kinda cool as you can have swell on a piano too...
or any sound!!

dynamics is the key in any service,
wake up the dead!! GRIN!!
you know the guy's who have worked all week and are dead on the feet..
lol..
there are so many things you can do with audio...
the m3m and the radias are key tools for any production.
most of the church services in the early 2000's to now are as good as any of the rock concerts back in the 60's!!
big time production....

Yes! That video is exactly what I need for Sunday mornings. Seriously I would so have that setup if I could. That was insane. And I thought it took me a long time to setup my rig. lol


Seriously, I hadn't thought of using a volume pedal instead of an expression pedal. Makes sense.

I don't own a radias, and the most I could probably afford is the EXB version.

But I get the concept of what you are saying. And you are definitely right about waking the dead. I am one of the dead usually on Sunday morning.
Nothing a good B3 can't fix, or a good lead synth.

Right now I am still only sending 1 stereo pair to the FOH mixer.
But this Sunday I am going to send 2. One for pads, and one for everything else. We will start with that. We use a Behringer X32 mixer, so we have plenty of spare inputs. But I'm not sure the sound man is gonna want to have to mix 3 or 4 different things just for keys.

My setup as of now. Too many wires, and too much gear to haul every week.
If I got lets say a Radias, I could leave the Mac, and 896Mk3, and table at home.

Anyone have an opinion on this?

I want a dedicated synth for pads, as described above.

Blofeld Desktop versus Radias-R
Or other options in the same price range?
MiniNova?

Pros?
Cons?

I know they are probably very different animals with lots of different capabilities, and I know any synth is capable of making pad sounds. But which one is gonna make the dreamiest pad sounds? The fullest sound drenched in reverb? A pad that can sound nice and soft, and then with the twist of the cut-off knob, open up into a bright airy full sound?

The question is, if you were gonna buy a desktop synth or small keyboard synth for pad-duty only, which one would you pick.

I will try to find a youtube video of the kind of sound I'm going for.

In case anyone wanted to know. I went with a Korg Micro-X for my pad sounds. Lots of people rave about Triton pads, and aside from a Triton-Rack, the Micro-X is the smallest package that has Triton sounds, also the cheapest.

I am pretty happy with the pad sounds from the Micro-X, and I am more happy by the fact that I can now sustain a pad on that one, while patch-swapping on my M3, and also I can use the M3 in program mode, and make full use of those FX for individual programs.