Stage setup - monitoring keyboard

[jcw]

Hi,
My apologies for a basic question. A little background.. I have been using an arranger keyboard for the last 5 years or so. The arranger keyboards have their own speakers, so when playing live I have not had to be concerned about hearing myself during the performance.

Well, I performed today for the first time live using my Krome. I discovered it is a different experience in terms of hearing my self.

I was hoping you could share what you do. The place where I perform only has foldback speakers - no self monitor, or earphone etc. And it seems like that they cannot have one instrument only in a foldback. Poor piano player had to share with me and so that I could hear myself, it was quite loud for the piano player. We ended up getting another amp and connecting up using the right output. The left output went to front of house. I had to keep adjusting the volume coming out of amp on stage throughout the gig.

I wondered (on stage) about just using my earphone via the headphone socket so that I could hear myself (to notice if I am playing the correct notes and that the patch changes occurred as needed et c).

I also have my own amp which has a line out - so I could plug into it from the left output and then have it connected from the line to front of house. Would that work?? Pity that this loses the stereo...but should I expect that?

I don't won't to be loud on stage, but I would like to hear what I am doing - is that normal, or should I be resigned to only being able to 'just' myself or not at all?

What set up do you use?

Thanks for the advice.
John

[CowboyNQ]

It's definitely advantageous to have your own personal monitoring system, for all the reasons you've discovered.

I run through a personal mixer which has a stereo send to front of house and an aux send to my own PA speaker.