Crapping Out

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Once again, as I played a gig last night as a the guest keyboard player, I temporarily lost all sound. The group played standard rock cover songs, but were especially loud, so I needed to crank up both my Roland Juno DS 88 and a King Korg. I play through a small Yamaha mixer into the band's PA sound board. I've found my keyboards can't compete with loud guitar, bass and drum volume, especially for classic rock songs, so when I try to put the setting near to max, I must somehow overload something and it takes a few minutes for the sound to come back.

Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone have any suggestions regarding what I may be doing wrong?

Thanks so much in advance

Perry
 
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".. I've found my keyboards can't compete .."
I hope you recognize that your keyboards aren't competing; I'm assuming that you are either trying to hear your keyboards through the main speakers or through a stage monitor, neither which is loud enough. I'd suggest you bring your own amplification, a small powered speaker in order to hear yourself. What is probably happening is that you are turning up your keyboards/mixer to which they are peaking and overloading the Yamaha mixer and causing it to quit outputting because of the overloaded input/output it is either receiving or sending or both. Ask the soundman to turn you up (not you turning yourself up) or bring your own tiny amplification to supplement. If you are trying to hear yourself through the mains only I can understand the soundman's dilemma. He is trying to balance out the FOH sound and if he turns you up so that you can hear yourself then you would probably dominate the FOH sound. His job is to balance out the sound out front. If you are getting your sound through a monitor, then ask him to turn you up in the or just bring your own monitor. If you can bring two keyboards to to the gig then you should also bring your own amplification to the gig as well.
 
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We have a sound guy, but he is new at this and didn't readily have an answer. I think bringing my own amp to supplement the PA is a good idea and not a problem. Thanks guys.

Any other thoughts?
 

Rayblewit

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I have found that generally speaking, the keys are nornally overshadowed by rest of the band. Quite often in bands the keys are barely heard and I wonder why bands even have a keyboard as part of the group.
Unless you are the lead, you may always be drowned out. Unless you can add in some solo riffs like The Doors!
Ray
 
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That's the truth, Ray. Unfortunately, rock music is dominated by guitarists who are happy to play loudly throughout the entire song, making it seem at times like a sound competition.

One of the best groups I play with from time to time has a guitarist that minimizes his playing during verses and other parts. I do the same and the sound dynamics of the group are just awesome. Too bad audiences at most venues here in Long Island don't care that much about such things, and this band only has so-so bookings. Oh well.....P
 
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Perry the key lies in Dave's answer. What you can hear and what the audience hears are two very different things.

Once you have set your levels at sound check, DO NOT turn up otherwise you'll make your soundie's job impossible.

If your Yamaha mixer has an aux send, bring your own powered speaker and use it as a personal monitor. Point it at yourself and you'll have the ability to hear yourself as clearly as you need to.
 
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I have found that generally speaking, the keys are nornally overshadowed by rest of the band. Quite often in bands the keys are barely heard and I wonder why bands even have a keyboard as part of the group.

Ray, this is squarely the fault of the sound engineer. A good mix will mean each instrument can be heard clearly, including the humble keys player!
 
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Thanks for all the great advice. My mixer has an aux output and I’m going to hook up a personal monitor to better hear my keys. I’m also going to leave my setting alone once soundie finishes his sound check. Hopefully that will work. Next gig’s a private party on Tuesday, Nov. 28th. Wish me luck and thanks again....P
 
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My mixer has an aux output and I’m going to hook up a personal monitor to better hear my keys. I’m also going to leave my setting alone once soundie finishes his sound check. Hopefully that will work.
Yep - this is the way to go. That way you can adjust your personal monitor to suit yourself without influencing FOH, where you really have to trust your soundie to do his thing. Good luck with it!
 

happyrat1

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You may still have trouble when you are switching patches though as most keyboards play different instruments at different levels.

You may want to sit down and edit all of your setups in order to normalize the volume levels between patches.

Gary ;)
 
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Gary has very good advice. On another note, I've only ever had problems hearing myself on stage when I didn't bring my own monitor system. It doesn't need to be loud. It only needs to be loud enough to hear yourself unless you're depending on it for the audience to hear you as well.
My best advice is to never go under powered.
I made that mistake and now I'm having to deal with it. I thought the smart thing would be to get small speakers on stands. Big mistake. If I'm playing a gig where I'm not in the P.A, I'm taking my head off and I can't hear the rest of the band properly.
I'm gong to supplement my speakers with small powered monitors so that I can have the speakers on the stands further away from my head and the small floor monitors at the just right volume.
It's only a temporary fix though.
 
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Thanks. i appreciate all the advice I got on better projecting my sound when playing with other very loud instruments, but my real question was did anyone else have their keyboards suddenly go silent for a minute or so (as if they were temporarily overloaded).
 
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Thanks. i appreciate all the advice I got on better projecting my sound when playing with other very loud instruments, but my real question was did anyone else have their keyboards suddenly go silent for a minute or so (as if they were temporarily overloaded).
Hey Perry,

Dave's answer is on the money in that regard.
 
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I've never had that happen personally.However, once when I was sitting in with a band in a boozecan in Zurich Switzerland, I managed to blow up the house keyboard amp! Flames, smoke and everything! It was freaking amazing!
 

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