Direct Box help

[Rockandroll9999]

HELP for live gigging musician!!

I am currently running my keys through a 1/4 inch mono jack from the back of my keyboard to a Peavey amp. Than the output from the Peavey amp is connected to the main PA board.

With the above set up, I notice a drop in sound quality from the hookup I have at home. At home, I use both the right and left outputs from the keyboard and the are sent to two keyboard monitor speakers I have. I get a much fuller sound this way, because it must be stereo.

How do I get this same quality in a live setting? My keyboard amp does not have a Right and Left inputs, to receive from the keyboard. Would connecting my keys to a direct box with a right and left imputs and than route that to the PA, get the quality I am looking for??

 

[keyplayer]

not enough info....what kind of keyboard? Is the peavy amp a keyboard amp or guitar amp....If you have a Professional keyboard, make sure your coming out of the output that is labeled "mono" (if your only using 1 output)....If the amp your coming out of is not a keyboard amp, then that is probably the problem as guitar amps wont give you a good enough spectrum of the nuances produced by the different sounds in a keyboard.....As far as the DI box is concerned, the signal would be cleaner if you just came out of the keyboard, into the direct box and straight to the sound system....dont even go thru the amp....that should produce a more "real" signal of whats coming from the keyboard

 

[Rockandroll9999]

More info for direct box help

Keyboard player...I use a Yamaha MM6 and a Peavey keyboard amp live.

For example, when I use my keyboard amp at home, using the mono out from the MM6 to the Peavey Keyboard amp, some of notes sound a little hollow.

However, when I use both the left and right outputs from the Yamaha MM6 and connect the left to one my keyboard speaker, and the right output to the other speaker ( they are called RUS Active, I don't think they make them any more) it sounds much richer.

I've used a direct box in a live setting, using the mono out from the Yamaha MM6 to the direct box, than the direct box directly to the board, and had the same slight hollow sound (most notable on grand piano). What I am hoping is that a stereo direct box would fatten up my piano sound from the MM6. One in particular that I am looking at is from
Samson S-Direct Plus Stereo Active Direct Box

 

[keyplayer]

that might work....sounds like the keyboard just needs EQ'd a little....one other thing you could do is if you have enough chanels on the mixer, (and if your mixer is equipped) run both outputs to the mixer...on seperate channels....then pan 1 hard left, and the other one hard right....thats not "true" stereo if your only running 1 amplifier but it might make the piano preset sound better

 

[Rockandroll9999]

Thanks

Thanks for the help. I also recieved a suggestion from someone else. They said to use a "Y" plug that would go into both the left and right output of my MM6 and than run that to my Keyboard amp, that only has an one input. I wonder if that will work.

 

[keyplayer]

yah....the Y plug thing will work....i just dont know if it will cure your "hollow" sounding piano.....