Roland BK9 tinny piano sound

[trebleclef]

Hello.

I have a Roland BK9 which sounds great when listening through headphones. When I plug the keyboard into my mixer amp to play live, the styles sound ok, but the piano tones sound tinny and lack definition. Other tones are ok, it's just the pianos that sound horrible.

When researching on good old Google, main response is that if I'm only using one speaker (which I am), phase cancellation can occur, which can result in a weak and dull sound. I take a stereo output from my BK9 to my Behringer Europower mixer amp, which only has one speaker connected as the main output. But the thing is, the styles and tones sound ok, it's just the pianos that are bad, and the piano sound is the main one for me.

I have used this same speaker/amp combination for many years and have not had this problem with my last keyboard (Roland G1000). The piano on that was clear even with the same pa setup.

Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[quattj]

It does sound like it could be phase cancellation. What kind of cable are you using to connect it? TRS? TS?
One way to test for phase cancellation is to use a TRS Y cable so you can send your left and right channels to seperate inputs on the Behringer, and then test with only left turned up, only right, and then both.

 

[Biggles]

I’d put Amazon’s free 30 day return to good use.

Buy a matched pair of powered Speakers, Adam Audio, PreSonus 5, Yamaha HS5 etc and put them to use, wired direct from the keyboard via individual cables.

I bet that the sound quality is then vastly superior.

 

[trebleclef]

It does sound like it could be phase cancellation. What kind of cable are you using to connect it? TRS? TS?
One way to test for phase cancellation is to use a TRS Y cable so you can send your left and right channels to seperate inputs on the Behringer, and then test with only left turned up, only right, and then both.

I use a dual mono cable (TS) and sounded fine with my G1000. I connect one end to both L and R outputs on the BK9 and the other end into a stereo input on my Behringer. But I only use one speaker from the Behringer. Which output do I connect a TRS jack to on the BK9 to test for phase cancellation?

 

[quattj]

Ahh, in that case, try just removing one of the outputs from the keyboard and see what happens. If this clears it up, then the summing of the channels in the Behringer is the issue, in which case you may be able to run in to only the left input of two different channels on the Behringer (rather than in to a single left/right).

You can also try running a single TRS from one of your outputs to the input on the Behringer. Some devices are picky about balanced(TRS) vs unbalanced(TS) signals.

 

[trebleclef]

Ok. Many thanks for your suggestions. Last night I tried running the left and right channel from the BK9 into two seperate mono channels on the Behringer. I also ran just the left/mono from the BK9 to a single channel on the Behringer. Both ways showed no improvement. Only thing I can try now is TRS cables instead of TS.

I know my gear is old, but I used my previous keyboard with the exact same connections and the sound was clear. Not sure if the problem lies with the BK9's piano tones but through the headphones they're clear.

Anyway, thanks for your help.