Problem with varying volumes across different patches and keyboards

[WebDev22]

I need to figure out how to maintain a consistent volume across all the various patches and keyboards I use when playing live. Some patches are so much louder than others, so when I switch, I always have to guess at how much to increase or decrease volume. Sometimes I guess wrong and the volumes are either too loud or too quiet. Is there anything that can be done other than manually going into each voice and making individual adjustments?

 

[happyrat1]

First of all it depends on what make and model of keyboard.

Secondly usually you have to do it the hard way, tweaking each voice you need individually.

Thirdly there may be some global settings you can adjust to bring the overall volume up or down or equalization or normalization but chances are each voice was sampled at a particular volume level and the normalization is left to the user to tweak at the individual voice level.

Chances are though, that in a live venue you won't end up using more than a handful of voices anyway so tain't no big thang to just tweak the dozen or two voices that you use and save them as favorites or presets or whatever they happen to be called on your particular board.

Gary

 

[delaware dave]

Usually you have to do it the hard way, tweaking each voice you need individually.Gary

Gary is right, I had the same issue with my Kurzweil. Patch to patch the volumes are fluctuating. What's worse, after spending several hours in the basement getting them equalized I learned that when playing live with guitars, bass, and drums in the mix, some of my volume equalizations weren't equalized! Some sounds (like a piano) don't cut as nicely with the full band playing as say the organ, so although they were volume equalized in the basement without other instruments playing once I got to a live situation they had to be rebalanced again for live use so that as I switch from patch to patch with the full band playing they now sound normalized. Once I got them normalized, I saved (backed up) the patches so that in the event I would ever have to reload the sounds (operating system update as an example), or a hard reset, the sounds can be reloaded and no rework is required to volume balance them again.

 

[CowboyNQ]

Bear in mind that in terms of what your audience hears, you will also be at the mercy of the FOH engineer. Some understand keys better than others, and I've heard some real butchery over the years.

But agree with all the commentary by Gary and Dave above, if you put the work into tweaking each patch, you're giving yourself a fighting chance of sitting nicely in the mix. The less work the "soundy" has to do chasing your levels all over the place, the better for everyone.

 

[Lenster]

My Korgs have that characteristic. I just got used to knowing which frequently used patches come out stronger and just slide the volume down or up a few ticks. Typically I am tweaking levels through songs anyway, so trying to equalize settings would be a waste of time for me. It depends on so many things; the room, the bands dynamics at the moment, are the keys prominent or in the background... It's more than just pressing keys.