Getting Your Amplification Right

So many keyboard players obsess on getting the right keyboard (or perhaps several keyboards!).  They spend many thousands of dollars — over and over again  — looking for that better sound.

These same people then often don’t give all that much thought to their amplification.  Maybe they think the sound guy is taking care of things.  Maybe they just don’t care, or can’t afford better.

Either way, I think it’s a tragedy when I see a skilled player on good keyboards get their sound mangled by weak amplification.  

So it’s something we’re going to talk about. 

Trust me, you’ll thank me later.

To Begin With

This isn’t about being LOUD for loudness’ sake — we’ll leave that to the guitar players.  

This is about being heard: cleanly and crisply.  You want to hear yourself and sound good; your bandmates want to hear you and have it sound good, and certainly you want the audience liking what they hear!

Not all keyboard types can benefit from an investment in quality amplification. 

For example, if you’re playing a Rhodes, Wurlitzer or clavinet voice — these can sound great through better guitar amps and keyboard amps.  The program material isn’t all that challenging from an amplification perspective.

Move up into heavy synths and B3 organ sounds, and it gets a bit more challenging: more harmonics, more complex program material. 

And the hardest to amplify of all?  Acoustic piano sounds.

Why Acoustic Piano Sounds Are Hard To Amplify

A real grand piano is a complex instrument that produces a wonderfully complex sound. 

It’s not just the fundamental tone; there’s the sharp attack, the complex harmonics, the strings resonating with each other, a unique decay curve, etc.

Many better digital keyboards today produce truly wonderful acoustic piano sounds.  They’ll sound great through headphones and studio monitors, but be prepared to have them sound awful on stage unless you’re prepared to invest in some good amplification.

And, remember, you’ve got to be able to reproduce all that nuance above the noise of drums, bass, guitars, etc.  Get it right, and you’ll sound wonderful. 

Fail to get it right, and you’ll be just sonic mud, lost in the background.

What About The Sound Guy?

If you’re playing in a top-shelf act, there is plenty of money to spend on great sound engineers with great equipment. 

You — the keyboard player — can depend on this skilled individual to make sure that you sound great time after time: great through the FOH (front of house), great through your monitor, and great for the other band members.  Lucky you.

But for the rest of us, our world is quite different.  For example, there is no shortage of venues with seriously crappy PA systems.  Or no PA system whatsoever.

Also: there appears to be no shortage of indifferent and/or incompetent sound guys out there.  I have learned to expect the worse, and thus am rarely disappointed.  Making matters worse, many of them are from the “keyboards should be seen and not heard” school of sound mixing.  

But, hey, that lead guitar could be louder …

No, I realized several years ago that if I wanted to consistently sound good, I’d have to invest in my own stage amplification equipment, and learn how to use it.  I couldn’t be dependent on others.  I had to control my own destiny.

That investment has paid off — at least for me.

What You Need To Know

Anything marketed as a guitar amp will be totally unsuitable for most keyboard amplification work, with the minor exception of electric pianos played through better amps.  

Anything marketed as a "keyboard amp" will suck a bit less, but still suck.  I have burned through several keyboard amps (Roland, Motion Sound, Traynor, etc.), and there’s no way you’d ever get me to play through one again.  Ever.

No, you’re going to want a real PA system for your keyboards.  Instrument PA systems are designed to reproduce complex program material, such as acoustic pianos.  

So let’s get you smart about these, shall we?

OK, Where To Start

First, steer clear of the inexpensive “bundle deals” you’ll see advertised by the internet retailers.  These are offered in the range of $399-$699 and are basically junk.  The amplification portion might be arguably OK, but the speakers are about as cheap as they come. 

You’ll sound like mud, and end up being extremely disappointed having spent all that money to sound like crap. 

Historically, PA systems used passive, unpowered speakers and a central amplifier.  Over the last few years, though, self-powered PA units have become extremely popular, and for good reasons.  You either plug your keyboards in directly to this unit, or use a small mixer.

These self-powered units are reasonably light, very simple to set up, require almost no fiddling, and are self-contained in that there’s enough power onboard the unit to make it perform.  Many of them have DSPs (digital signal processors) that do all sorts of cool, sound-shaping tricks to make them sound exceptional.

Unless your situation is quite unique, this is where you want to head.  Don’t waste time on keyboard amps.  Don’t waste time on the cheap combo PA systems.  Head directly to self-powered PA units, usually mounted on poles. 

Again, you’ll thank me later.

Stereo or Mono?

This is one of those never-ending debates you’ll see on the forums.  Both sides have their points.  I am clearly in the stereo camp.  Many of the sounds I play (high-end acoustic piano samples, electric pianos with chorus and tremolo, B3 with leslie, etc.) have a distinct stereo component, which I miss when I play in mono.   

My ideal setup is one self-powered PA in each back corner of the stage, sitting on a pole set at ear level.  As I usually sit off to one side, one unit is close to me (and my monitor), the other is far away from me. 

As the keyboardist, the sound I hear is a bit lopsided, but for everyone else it’s almost magical.

The band members get this lush stereo soundfield from left and right.  They can hear the chorusing, the leslie spinning, etc.  It’s rich, it’s not harsh, and it’s omni-directional. 

They tell me they really like it.  And, of course, the audience loves it as well.   If you hear me play in a band live, I'm always right there in the background -- right behind the vocals and lead guitar.

If I can’t have that setup, I’ll put a pair behind me with as much spread as I can get room for.  And if the stage is REALLY small, I’ll use only one unit in mono.

One notable exception is the very small coffehouse-style acoustic gig.  People are there to chat and visit, you’re just the background wallpaper.  I had a Bose L1 Model II when I was doing that, and it was stellar.  Pricey, too.  However, it completely crumbled as part of a louder electric band, so I ended up selling it. 

If your thing is singer/songwriter acoustic gigs with one or two musicians, it’s a very strong contender.  Just realize it won’t work too well in other settings.

True Stories

Most of my gigs are smallish: bars, festivals, roadhouses — that sort of thing.  Our band PA is used to run vocals only.  Every musician is responsible for their own stage sound, and we match to the level of the drummer.  It takes a while for everyone to learn how to modulate their volume, but it also sounds pretty good as well.

OK, what happens when horn players join the band?  They need amplification, and you don’t want to run them through the vocal PA. 

So we give them each a microphone, we run them to my keyboard mixer, and I bounce them to the speaker that’s far away from me so they’re not blasting in my ears all night.  Easy, peasy.

We played this slightly larger gig with a sound guy who brought his PA system.  At the first break, my wife came up and told me she couldn’t hear me at all.  I went and spoke to the sound guy, who thought everything sounded just fine, thank you. 

So I cranked up my onstage system until I got the thumbs up from my wife.  Actually, I had more watts onstage than the sound guy brought, so I win :)

Another time we opened for a bigger name in a local venue.  We knew the room had challenging acoustics, we knew the house PA was thrashed, and that the sound guy was high most of the time. 

So we brought our own stuff, and just asked the sound guy for “advice”.  He’d be responsible for the big act, but we were OK on our own, thank you.

Our fans told us we sounded great that evening: crisp, clear, etc.  The bigger name band that used the house system ended up getting totally hosed by the house setup.  They sounded like angry, echo-y mud.   At least they got paid for their suffering.

Last but not least: we were at a gig, and our vocal PA unit decided to die.  A bit of reconfiguration, and my keyboard system became the band PA.  Not as clear a sound as usual, but we got through the gig with a minimum of disruption.  Another time, the bass player’s amp fried mid-song, so he plugged into my system.

Bringing your own PA for keyboards definitely has its advantages.

So, What Would You Recommend? 

There are basically five price levels out there, with clear winners in each to choose from.  Prices shown are list: you can get much better deals by directly contacting certain internet vendors, or buying used.

A common misconception is that bigger is better, speaker-wise.  Not true -- unless you're doing crazy bass synth lines all night long.   A few of the 8" units are more than adequate, lots of good choices in the 10" range, and plenty of 12s shown here.  Avoid 15" units as those big speakers aren't responsive enough with higher-frequency program material.

Of course, these are my opinions.  If you wade into the online forums, you'll find all sorts of vigorous debate on this topic; however, this is a reasonable consensus.

Entry level: EV ZLX-12P — $399 list.  These don’t suck.  I could live with them.  Very popular with keyboardists that play acoustic piano sounds.  You’ll find them in the few remaining retail music stores, like Guitar Center.

Entry+ : Yamaha DXR10 — $599 list.  More power, cleaner sound, reasonable form factor, etc.  Again, very popular with keyboardists.

Midrange: QSC K series — $649 to $799 list.  The K8 is small, powerful and disperses sound well.  The K12 is bigger, louder and projects a beam to the back of the room.  And the K10 is in between.  I own a pair of each, and they’re wonderful workhorses for either my keyboards, stage monitors or occasionally as the FOH system.  Love’em.

Higher-end; RCF HD12A — $1099 list.  Or the TT-08s if you want more.  More money, more power, and a better sound than the QSCs.  I played through a pair once, and loved them.  But not enough better to ditch my QSCs and pay the premium.  Plenty of people love their RCFs though.

Extreme-end: Boutique names rule here: Meyer, L’Acoustic, Fulcrum Acoustic, etc.  Don’t listen to units in this class unless you’re prepared to spend way too much money. 

I splurged on a pair of Fulcrum Acoustic 12ac units a year ago after auditioning a pair.  $3700 each.  

They are simply breathtaking.  You only live once, right?

Right off the bat, you’ll see that you’re probably going to spend more than $1000 for a pair of something decent.  Before you choke, remember that $1000 doesn’t buy much of a keyboard, does it?  

If you're prepared to spend a few grand on keyboards, be prepared to spend about as much on amplification.    And good amplification lasts a very long time vs. keyboards that beg to be upgraded every few years.

Money well spent in my book. 

Other Stuff

You’ll need a poles for your units.  Good poles can be had for less than $100, so don’t go too cheap here.  Get the carrying case as well.  Used is fine.

You’ll also probably want a small mixer to feed your self-powered PA units, especially to boost line levels which can be low directly out of the back of some keyboards.  Also gives you flexibility to hand a monitor send over to the sound guy if you're working with one.

I’ve had good luck with the A&H ZED 10, and the newer Yamaha MG units.  I’ve had bad luck with many other low-end units.  Go cheap, but not too cheap.

Let’s talk about effects for a moment.  The keyboards I play with (Nords) have excellent onboard effects: compression, reverb, delay, chorus, phaser, etc. so I have no need for outboard effects for my instruments.  However, when I’m running others through my system (e.g. horns) having a few simple effects for them (like reverb) is nice, so consider that when you select a mixer.

Cables, cables.  I use four short 1/4” instrument cables from keyboards to mixer, and then a pair of XLR cables from mixer to self-powered PAs.  I always carry plenty of spares, as should you.  Nothing can ruin your day like a fritzing cable.   

Some people spring for conditioned power supplies.  As my keyboards and amps all have healthy, modern internal power supplies, I’ve never seen the need for this.  Maybe I just haven’t been bitten yet.

Putting It All Together

When I’m heading out for my average small gig, I’ll bring a pair of QSCs (usually the compact K8s if I can get away with it), a pair of lightweight poles, my two keyboards, a stand, a seat and a travel suitcase with cables, mixer, pedals, etc.   

For bigger gigs, I might bring along my Fulcrum Acoustic units, or perhaps some extra QSCs for stage monitors, etc.  The band loves it when I bring them stage monitors :)

It might sound like a lot of gear, but it’s all pretty light and only takes a few trips to the car to load it all — less if someone is helping.   Did I forget to mention that weight matters?  Even a ten pound difference in weight will be noticable before long.

Getting Your Amplification Right 

As musicians, we’re only as good as we sound. 

Part of that is our skill, part of that is our instrument, and part of that is the amplification we use.  I spend a lot of time on getting good with the music.  I’ve spend good money on keyboards that I like and sound good.

And I’ve invested serious time and money in getting my amplification right. 

You might want to do the same.

 

 

 

Comments

[Grant McK]

What I did to get decent budget stage sound for a minimal price was to pick up a couple of Behringer B205d powered speakers and a 6 channel Peavey mixer. The B205d's have only a 5" speaker but I was surprised at how good they sounded and how much volume they put out. No problem hearing myself over the band volume. I have two keyboards (Motif XS & Korg Krome) so the Peavey mixer allows me to mix both the keys and send a separate left and right signal to each of the B205ds (using the mixer control room out with volume control) as well as left and right key signals to the FOH using the main out (with volume control). I also use a 1/4" stereo line from the mixer headphone jack to send a stereo signal to my small Rolls in-ear amp in order to add extra keys to my in-ear mix (using the Rolls in-ear mixer volume control). You need a couple of cheap straight mike stands to mount the B205d's on, I place mine in front of the keys. Cost around $600 bucks for everything - the speakers are robust, super light, and you can pack it all away in a small bag.

[PeterPan]

Very helpful, thank you so much. And at last somebody who knows about the problem to get a good acoustic piano sound on the stage.

[Kevin]

Hi Chuck,

I really appreciate all your advice above. I use mainly a NS2 and I'm saving up for a powered speaker or two. Trying to decide which one and your thoughts are very helpful. Two questions: 1. when you resort to mono in a small venue, how di you avoid/minimize phase problems with acoustic piano samples, etc.? Do you use the mono setting on the Nord or sum the left and right signal or use just the left or right? 2. Do you have any optional setup with your powered speaker(s) that involves running your keys direct 1 channel of your K12 and using another channel of the K12 as a monitor from the main board so you can hear the house mix in your monitor? The K12 and the Yam Dxr12 both have 3 channels so I thought there may be some interesting options. Thanks!

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Kevin

1. I don't resort to mono in small venues, really. I either use a pair of self-powered PAs, or the newer CPS SpaceStation v3 (mentioned elsewhere on this blog, or go see the monster thread at Keyboard Corner). All of the Nords have a mono setting, which I would presume mixes the L+R without phase issues.

But I don't like mono sounds :)

2. If I need to hear house sound, I simply add it as an input to my small mixer. A low-cost small mixer gives you all sorts of control and flexibility. A slightly more expensive mixer gives you an AUX send for your keys, so you can send your keyboard signals to FOH without re-sending the house mix.

However, if I didn't have a small mixer, then yes I could use the 2nd channel of the K series -- it'd work fine as both levels are adjustable.

If you play a lot smaller gigs, and like stereo, go check out the SpaceStation v3, either with or without a bass sub like the Behringer B1200-D. It's my new go-to rig for most of my gigs these days -- the self-powered PA units don't get a lot of use.

-- Chuck

[Jason Hill]

Wow, I did not know there was so much to performance sound, Chuck! Are you the guy in the first picture in this post? I'm an amateur singer and songwriter. I am putting on my first gig this summer. It'll be pretty low key; but, if I progress forward in skill and put on bigger shows in the future, I'll need to reference this article again, for sure.

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Jason

No, the guy in the first picture is Keith Emerson of ELP fame. He was the first rock musician to feature stacks of synths and keyboards as part of his act.

[J]

thanks for this great advise. I play keys in a 6 piece party band. We play too loud imo on stage. I always struggle to hear myself over everyone else and prefer to just about hear my keys through the rest of the band. I use the L/MONO OUTPUT from my KRONOS2 direct into our P.A MIXER for FOH. I use the RIGHT LINE OUTPUT of the KRONOS2 into my YAMAHA DSR115 ACTIVE PA SPEAKER for my monitor needs. My DSR115 is usually positioned to my left side or out in front of me. I have a 2nd DSR115 but have never used 2. Why do i struggle to hear my keys? I have no problems at home practice. Any advise greatly appreciated.

[Mark]

Hello Chuck. Have you heard or tried the CPS Stereo amp?

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Mark

I'm very familiar with the SpaceStation amp. See my review on this blog elsewhere. I now have two of them, and my other gear is feeling neglected.

-- Chuck

[Guitar Sound Guru]

Thanks for this blog! So many great ideas. Worth reading it.

[Jason]

I did not know there is so much work involved in sound design. Great tip for bands that are just starting out

[Grant McK]

I don't think it's great idea to send the keyboard left/mono output to the FOH while also using the keyboard right output for your monitor send. If you must go mono then it might be better to "tee off" and use only the keyboard left/mono output signal to both the FOH and monitor...do not use the right output! I believe most keyboards are designed to send a "summed" signal when they sense that only the left/mono output is active (1/4" plugged in). If the keyboard senses the right output is active (1/4" plugged in) as well, it will then send a "split' stereo signal to each output. In the example discussed, the keyboard would only be sending the left stereo signal to the FOH and not the summed mono signal (same goes for the right output to the monitor - it wouldn't be summed mono). That's my understanding of how the left/mono and right keyboard outputs work but maybe I'm just out to lunch on this one?

[Guitar lover]

Awesome post !! I read your article first time its informative.

[Kullu]

This is the nice post regarding the keyboard. I like to play with the keyboard in the days of my holiday. This is one of the best musical instrument to pass the time and enjoy with it.
https://goo.gl/seDihL

[Joe]

I hated my Roland KC 550, only kept using it because it was all I had money for at the time, then I had a QSC K-12 until my moog little phatty tore it apart, causing me to use the roland again. Then I got robbed. Looking into grabbing an RCF HD 32-A 12". Seen a few good deals on the here and there. Thoughts?

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Joe.

I'm a little surprised that you were able to destroy a QSC K12 as I think they are built like tanks. Then again, I don't play a Moog Little Phatty.

I have never heard the RCF HD32A, but it has great-looking specs and RCF makes great products. One bit of concern is that RCF doesn't publish a frequency response curve for the unit, meaning it probably is honky in places.

At $999 MAP per unit, you've got a lot of great choices out there. What kind of music and situations do you play?

-- Chuck

[David Foster]

I have a powered DXR 10 that I use for keyboard monitors (not quite enough, I know, but light). I also have a small Yamaha MG10 mixing console that I often use because in addition to keys, I play acoustic guitar and fiddle on stage. I’ve been struggling to find the perfect set up where I can get adequate stage volume for each instrument and wrestle some of the control from
The sound guys who are all frustrated electric guitar player wannabee’s and therefore make sure my sounds only exist to provide some background fill in between guitar rifts ... but I digress. This system works well when my band sets up our own pa ... but I set it up in a room with an “expensive” house system and a sound guy. Everything sucked for the first set until I unplugged everything and just went through the house monitors. The sound guy kept saying my signal was too hot ... but nobody could hear it in the mains. I can’t imagine that the Preamp in the MG10 would overpower the house amps, but something weird was happening. The guy also said my stuff was somehow interfering with the vocal mics even though none of them were connected to anything I was running. Weird! Any thoughts on what might have been happening to interfere with the main board?