Anyone concerned with stereo keyboard amp/sound?

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I don't know about anyone else, but I hate to play my keys in mono(1 speaker). With headphones, its sounds great! Now imagine one ear going out; that sound is a drag. I guess most keyboard players don't really care about stereo sound, but I do. Face it, life is in stereo and most of us have and use both ears to hear. Any thoughts or ideas on the best rig for running stereo keys? Roland KC-880 is nice, but expensive and heavy as hell...
 

happyrat1

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Are we talking about gigging or studio or just home use. 320 watts is a beast for simple studio use.

In my home studio I run a couple of M-Audio BX5A powered speakers and a Mackie MR10Smk3 powered subwoofer. That's pretty much sufficient to blow out the windows in a small studio room.

Gary ;)
 

Fred Coulter

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The first question about live gigging is who should be hearing the keyboard in stereo AND whether the venue has it's own PA.

If you're doing it for the audience, then a stereo combo amp won't do it for you. The two speakers are too close together for the audience to hear it as stereo. You really need to set up separate speakers on opposite sides of the stage. With luck, the venue already has those speakers in place, and sends them a stereo feed. At that point, just send the venue's PA a stereo feed from your keyboard and have them pan them hard left and hard right.

Otherwise you're talking about hauling around two sets of keyboard amps and speakers, etc., or maybe your own PA system. Depending on the style of music, this may or may not be worth it. If you're going for atmospheric music (think Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, etc.) then you want to wash the audience in sound. Stereo is good. Quad is better. (Does anyone still make good quad live mixers?) But if you're playing bar band blues, then it's probably not worth the effort.

If it's just for you, it might be simpler to just get two hot spot monitors. Put them on each side of the keyboard, aimed at your head. The audience gets the keyboard amp, but you get the stereo separation you crave.
 
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(Does anyone still make good quad live mixers?)
Digressing slightly, but we did a show in quad. To be frank it was disappointing. Hours and hours of preparation and sound checking and I'm not sure the results were really there, based on audience feedback. I applaud the soundy for having a crack and for the breadth of his ambition but it's an experiment I wouldn't care to repeat in a hurry.
 
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