Hi! I have a Korg Triton and a Juno Di. I love the Di through headphones, but, live, it sounds really thin and meek compared to the Korg. I don't know much about effects as I've never had to use them much with my other keyboards, but, was wondering if there were recommendations on effects, either pedal or rack, that would make it sound a little better. Any help is much appreciated!
You migt have to drop the high end and boost the low end on your equaliser/tone control - how are you hooking up to the PA? If it's a mixer, you can do that without affecting the Korg. The Y-man
As Y_man said, play with EQ by boosting low/mid ranges and cutting a bit of highs. And with DSP effects, if you have those...maybe a compressor.
What kind of sound is it that you are trying to thicken? Anything in particular or just everything the Juno outputs? If it's everything then Y-Man and Vctor are correct, eq and compression is the way forward for you, possibly even valve compression but that could be "fragile" for going on the road. If it's an individual, specific sound let me know.
To the OP: Posting here because I do the EQ opposite of what's been posted if I'm gigging with a live band. I roll off the bass and set the mid and highs flat - or check the engineer will do it. I appreciate you're complaining about a thin sounding keyboard - in my experience anything I've tried recently puts out enough bass that you need to ease it off to stop that awful "two bass players on stage" thing. (1) What is your Roland combo amp (2) What else is putting out audio on stage when you're gigging (3) Do you go through the PA too or are you relying on your combo amp for the lot I remember gigging with a DX7 in the rig in the late 80s early 90s. Always seemed to cut through the live mix well - better than the sample based things with the built in effects that came next (Roland D50, Korg M1). I say that because whne you were just playing them (D50 M1) by themselves they souded HUGE compared to the DX7. Live with guitars and drums and bass going (and Marshall stacks at silly volumes) - they disappeared. That DX7 and my older analogue synth seemed to cut through much better.
@ ootini: What do you mean by "valve" compression - are you talking about a particular hardware channel strip with a valve in it? Or plugging the keyboards into a valve based guitar combo and running it loud? Just about all the guitar players I gig with have a compressor on their pedal board. That Boss CS3 (CS2?) seemes very common - and the boutique boys with the crazy set-ups have Keeleys and ... you can imagine. I've never gigged a keyboard rig with a separate compressor. I've recorded through one and these days I notice the engineers running plug in compressors. I still own an old (hardware) Joe Meek thing for home demos - but have you a separate rack mount compressor you use out on the road?
I've got a friend (quite famous) who uses a Roland A90, a Fantom of some description and a couple of other synths, he submixes them using a Mackie 1202, and has an RNC compressor strapped over the main LR outputs to even out the dynamics and just give it a bit more punch when it goes to FOH. If you wanted to "thicken" the sound artificially you could use a valve compressor, TL Audio / Joe Meek for example.
I wondered if that was what you meant. Do you bother with a separate compressor live? Live - I've only function band stuff and folk gigs (piano) on - and that's been it for a while now. Both gigs die or succeed on the quality of the vocal - and whether the audience likes the vocalist. I just make the singer sound as good as I can and keep the wrong notes to a minimum. That A90 weighs a ton in a flight case - but feels lovely to play. I wouldn't gig with one if there was any possibility that I'd have to carry it myself. If you won't tell us the name of your friend are you still able to tell us which genre she or he is famous for working in?
Not yet, but to be honest I've noticed the A90 doesn't cut through as well as my old XP80 did. On stage, I have trouble hearing anything above C4 in my monitors. It could be over ten years of destroying my ears playing with a loud rock band but hey ho. I'm gonna try in ear monitoring first, if it still doesnt help I'll try sticking a compressor over the main outputs
Ah - are you using the internal board in the A90 for piano? http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_articles/sep96/rolanda90.html That's a link to the Sound On Sound review so anyone reading this knows what we're on about.
Yes, it's the A90EX with the VE-RD1 installed. On it's own it sounds fantastic, but the minute the rest of the band fire up it just gets lost a little. I'll try rolling some more bass off as you say, see if it allows a slightly higher volume without mashing up the bottom end of the mix.
BINGO! You're a genius my good man. Seems I was suffering the same fate our rhythm guitarist can't get his head around. On it's own the A90 sounded full and rich and lovely, but in the mix it got mushy and lost in all the noise. I cut a fair bit of bass off it using the main PA rig and now it sits in the mix far better!!!! Well chuffed. Obviously at a live gig it would be down to the FOH sound engineer to tweak the EQ etc to suit the venue but on stage I'll definitely be rolling the bass off my monitor. Just trying to convince the guitarist to do the same now, as his acoustic is muddying up the mix something horrible and as such he keeps turning it up so he can hear it, making me deaf in the process. Thanks for the advice, very much appreciated.
