Keyboards: Live - Using small mixer to control onstage volum

[Dennis]

I could use some help. I know next to nothing about live keyboard set-ups but here goes.

A good friend of mine is playing a couple of reunion concerts with his old band (one was on Wednesday night, the other is tonight) and I'm acting as his tech for the shows. Wednesday night the monitor guy had the wedges BRUTALLY loud caused my buddy a lot of problems getting his volume onstage and in-turn out in the house.

I've seen keyboard players use a small mixer onstage to control volumes, would that work with our set-up? He's using two keyboards into a direct box that goes to the house and to the monitor guy.

How can I make this work? What would I need to get to pull this off? A separate monitor amp and speaker?

Thanks

[Tommy-boy]

Assuming the keyboard player has a decent sized rig, there are some concerns:

- The FOH will want to control the level of each individual keyboard out
- The Keyboard player will want to control the level of ech individual keyboard out for monitoring purposes
- It's important to for the player to control his monitoring.

My suggestion is to get a mixer with several direct outs. There should be as many direct outs as there are keyboard connections being plugged into the mixer. Have the direct outs feed the house mix system. Use the mixer to "mix" a keyboard monitor mix. This should be piped to a keyboard amp or amp/monitor system.

Way back in the stone age when I used to gig, I used my own keyboard amp for monitoring. I controlled my monitoring but not the house mix, which is the way it should be assuming the house mixer is reasonably competent.

I think some of the small format Allen & Heath mixers might do this type of job well.

-Tom

[Ken Walker]

What the above poster said is what I always found to be the best solution. Send a signal from each keyboard to the snake and let the soundman do what he wants with the signal. If it's too loud, simply tell him to turn it down or all the way off. You can do this because you'll have a mix of your keyboards that you can take from your mixer and run that directly into your personal stage amp. Set your own volume using your amp and be happy.

[dementedchord]

alternatively if theres not enough channels in the snake... use a mixer with 2 sub groups... one set and forget for the house and the second is for him...

[santibanks]

I have a fairly big rig so its not possible for the FOH to control it anyways (as it would require a lot of channels). So I got myself a 24 channel rack mixer. I make a good mix on it and use it for the whole show (which is possible). Some volumes are set within patches and I use volume pedals too.

So a stereo pair going to the FOH and I can set up a monitor mix myself by just pluggin in a headphone and use the second bus.
IMHO sending loads of keyboards to the FOH is problematic in the sense that you don't have any control over your own sound (remember, making music is 60% listening, 40% playing) and the FOH engineers have to know the songs to make a good mix.
There are 2 things I send separate to the FOH and those are backing tracks (drummachine) and basspedals.

[Midiguy]

I always use a small mixer with my rig. I play with one or two keyboards, go into my mixer, send direct outs to the sound guy, and then have the sound guy send me a feed of everything else into my small mixer. That way, I can control the blend between my 2 synths and everything else, which is just usally vocals because I cna hear everything else pretty well already.

[alexp]

I have a fairly large system, and tend to take out a Mackie 1202. Its small, efficient, and even though it doesnt sound amazing, it has incredible flexibility. main outs to the FOH, monitor feeds the wedges. Simple, and fast!

[rugge78]

hello everybody
where do you put your submixer on stage? some stand? on your keyboards?

[santibanks]

I have seen all sort of things in the past. Small mixers on stage piano's, sometimes mixers on the floor next to the keyboard stand, other times on flight cases or on (for example) the drumriser.

Mine is a rack mixer so its built into my rack (Samson PL2404).

[kenonkeys]

I like the Mackie 1202 as well because you can send your blended stereo mix and control your level for an in ear/floorwedge mix against the rest of the band without asking the FOH guy for adjustments. Now if we can just get the FOG guy not to touch the pre-amps once we start playing.... then we can play into a consistent mix.

[Kaoz]

Honestly, as a sound guy myself, i'd much rather just get a stereo feed from a keyboard player if they have a few different keys on stage. Less for me to worry about.

That's assuming the keyboard player knows what he's doing as far as getting consistent levels goes.

Edit - wow, that's an epic necro.

[daithi.2008]

Hi There, not sure if I can just jump in here with a query but If im in the wrong place just let me know and il take my business elsewhere!!!

Our band are considering buying a mixer for onstage to run our vocals through and also a sampler and microkorg. We want to use it because often the sampler is lost in the monitor mix and we want to have the ability to control its level onstage. We also want to be able to effect our vocals with reverb as we are frequently in contact with different sound engineers who don't know our songs and thus don't know when to put on reverb.

Basically, I just want to know the advantages and disadvantages of running vocals, a sampler and a synth through a small mixer on stage. any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Kaoz]

Wouldn't really help you at all because you'd just be sending either groups out of your desk (which would put you in the same situation) or a stereo out (which would put you in a worse situation).

Just tell the sound guy when you need more of something in the monitors, do a soundcheck etc to fix that problem.

As far as the vocals go, again it wouldn't really benefit you in any real way. You'd just end up making it messier and creating more problems both in foldback and FOH.

If you're really that concerned about differing reverb levels etc, go through your setlist with the sound guy before hand. In my experience, good engineers know when to use reverb and know how to use it, Bad engineers always use too much reverb so that shouldn't be a huge problem either lol.

If it's just for a single vocalist, consider getting a reverb pedal or something like that, but be prepared for it to create issues in foldback if you use too much.

[daithi.2008]

If we put our vocals and sampler through an onstage mixer does that mean it goes out to the sound engineer on one channel and thus it is up to us to get the levels correct? or does it depend on the number of direct outputs we have on our onstage mixer?

Thanks very much for the help.

[tacitus]

I often end up playing keys with bands I don't know well, sometimes with no appreciable sound tech input. My rig has all keyboards (2 or 3) going into a small mixer and the main stereo out (or mono if required) going to the PA. I take an aux out to the active speaker I use to be able to hear myself. To hear the vox I position myself behind the singer(s) and listen to their monitors. It's not sophisticated but it works for me.

[Kaoz]

Originally Posted by daithi.2008

If we put our vocals and sampler through an onstage mixer does that mean it goes out to the sound engineer on one channel and thus it is up to us to get the levels correct? or does it depend on the number of direct outputs we have on our onstage mixer?

Thanks very much for the help.

It would depend on the desk - at the very least it would have a stereo output. But again I don't see any real benefit in your situation.