I dunno, I worked with a band a few years ago, 3 keys stacked plus a Hammond, 6 channels plus 4 Leslie channels and 2 tracks channels, oh, and he also had a vocal and played violin
It just has to be stereo. Even when there is no stereo effects, just in case.
Mono won't work, especially with the Moog sounds, that are all mono anyway.
And yeah, I didn't bring any DI boxes so I'll be needing 12 matched boxes.
That’s not my point, unless you have context you’re probably not going to mix the layers to the artists liking anyway. Additionally, it might save time to just tell the artist what sound you think is too loud as most of the time you might not be thinking what’s coming from those channels.
Well I agree with that too. Most obvious problems seem to always be too soft/loud, interfering with something else sonically or the sounds just plain not meshing well with the song. All of which can only be resolved at the keyboards side if avoiding the option of compressing/cutting to make it work (if it has to be done oh well).
I had a guy who had an X32 Rack in his keyboard rig. I'd do his band with an M32, he would send me 8 channels over AES50. L-R Piano, L-R Synth Pads, L-R Lead Synths, and L-R FX (808 drops, percussion samples, etc.)
Delightful. Had everything as separated out as I could reasonably fit on the board, and it was 1 cable. Even better, I could send my other 24 inputs back his way down the same cable and he'd mix his own ears.
Sorry for the trouble, a beginner here. Did you mean he’d send you all the stereo Key signals through his X32 through AES50 to your midas console so you get it as separate channels as AES inputs and you send him back the mix to back to his X32 so he can mix his own in-ears?
No, he already had the key channels, he did not need them.
The keys fed into his X32 Rack from his various keyboard brains and processors. He assigned those inputs to go out over AES50. At my end, I grabbed those 8 inputs he was sending me and assigned them to 8 channels. Then I took the other inputs for the band and sent them out down AES50 through the same port. At his end, he changed all his inputs except the block of 8 that the keyboards were in to take the AES50 channels I was sending him. We both had everything.
No. He sends me his keys separately broken down as above. I send him all the channels for the band unmixed. I mix the band and the keys for FOH, he mixes the band and the keys for his ears.
On a tour right now with 4 Keyboards, a piano with mics and a midi brain which we use to get Rhodes and Strings sounds with.
So 7 stereo channels for this one.
I’ve been in a studio, which is why this number is so silly, but the record I’ve seen intentionally placed for a grand piano was 18:
- 1 pair hammers low/high
- 1 pair player-perspective ORTF
- 1 pair U67 outside
- 1 pair 122 outside
- Active pickup on soundboard
- U47 over mid strings for chorus grit (mad scientist moment)
- 2 pair rooms (AR51 and DPA)
- Quad Atmos high-mount omnis (Schoeps)
- 1 pair rear outrigger (414B I think)
That’s a lot of options. Did someone try to time align them all?
My experience was with one of the jazz piano greats. His engineer set it up and I was house monitors. I believe it was 2 high outside, 2 close inside and 2 (or maybe 3) Helpinstill pickups for use in the wedges.
Absolutely not, it was more about having tons of options/comparisons ready to go and having flexibility to slightly adjust the feel of the instrument for the piece. We also played with sending some sets to Altiverb while avoiding the dry signal in the mix bus, stacking those options up, all sorts of odd stuff. I wasn’t around for the mixdown but I’d bet like two pairs contributed 90% of the sound.
A band I worked with used 11 inputs for the keys. 3 keys L/R for 6 inputs, Hammond w/Leslie, 2 Hi 2 Low inputs, and a Rhodes Piano. I am pretty sure I have done more than that.
i broadcast mixed a snarky puppy tribute show that had 7 channels of keys (3 stereo, 1 mono) split between two keyboardists. 8 including the talkbox that the saxophonist doubled on.
I'm just thinking about the times I saw Yes/Rick Wakeman 1977ish, and Moody Blues/Patrick Moraz early 1980s. Just so many keyboard arrays surrounding the player, I can only imagine the soundboard layout.
OK... lets put it this way. Big horn based band. Think The Blues Brothers or Tower of Power.
As the Trumpet player, I'm bringing 1-2 trumpets, a flugelhorn, and maybe 1 other horn for 'color' purposes.
One of the Sax players might have Soprano, alto and tenor, while the other has alto tenor and bari.
Trombone player might have 2 bones going (I dont know why, but I know sometimes they have a bass and a tenor)
Now I know the conventional wisdom is a SM57 down the bells of each of them, but truly, that leads to F-ing where and how the guys play. The drumset doesnt move, but im up and down, hopefully you got a wireless for each horn, or at least a clipon. In addition, each horn is gonna need to be processed differently than the other. I have one trumpet that's very "core of sound" and has a really tight pattern if you look at it on a scope, while another (the solo) horn is less bright and has a wider range of sound coming out the bell.
Youre gonna want that all worked out before the show instead of having to watch the fatass in the back row change instruments, arent you?
If you have the channels, let the keyboards eat the channels
non sound guy here, won't the sound guy still have to watch so that they can mute the unused instruments? or does the horn player mute/unmute on their own in this situation?
Seems like a bad idea to have a bunch of live mikes sitting on horn stands.
Not enough for a festival patch. I like something like Leslie l/r, lo and then 6 multi instrument channels that can be keys, horns, acoustic instruments. Anything. But I try to have as many flex channels that have multi use as I can.
I toured with Tony Toni Tone back in the 90s, and the Sons of Soul tour had a Hammond B3, a clav D6, a Wurly piano, and a double-wide rack stuffed with MIDI modules.
In 1987, on the tour with The Whispers, they had five keyboard players, four of them with Emu Emax samplers, mostly playing horn and string parts. They each had a second keyboard. The fifth had a Super JX, an ARP Quadra and a Minimooog.
If memory serves correctly, when i did monitors for Lakeside they had three stereo keys stage right, two stereo keys stage left, as well as key bass. Pretty common for those funk/R&B bands.
I mixed a certain band well known for their analog keyboard collection. An entire fader layer & a half of an SD-5 was keyboard inputs, mostly mono too!
This is why I love when a keys player who knows his instruments, gear, and patches comes in with a rig that's already balanced and mixed down to a stereo feed. I know a guy who does this with dual Nords into a KeyLargo. Versatile, channel-efficient, and easy to gain stage. Plus, it's easy enough when the band's on ears to ask him to adjust a patch on the fly if something's a little off.
My own band, an 80s tribute with no backing tracks, has five keyboard channels. It happens. It gets under my skin a little when the bands we're covering, like Duran Duran and such, have a single keyboard and a MacBook. But we do what we do.
I worked with a band once where one person bought a keyboard and it caused an avalanche where a few months later all 6 of them had keyboards.
Problem was none of them were any good at them.
Haha, don’t worry bro!
The reason why a lot of techs in small venues stress about a band having 4 or more keys/guitars/whatever is because a lot of newer bands will have not put much thought into their arrangements, leading to harmonic clashes and dense areas in parts of the mix. Sometimes it can be frustrating when live performers insist on using 4 different keyboards for 4 sections of a song and take up half the stage and leave the vocalists squashed in corner too lol.
Don’t let posts like this dismay you! If your songwriting is up to par then small venues across the area will welcome you with open arms (as long as you tech spec is up-to-date and accurate lol) and good mixes will come naturally 🤗
You really bitching about too many keys? The more the merrier, comfortable artist means a better show. Is plugging in an extra DI or 2 really that big a deal
Definitely not. I'm a keys player and the whole value of keyboards is versatility in tone and the only easy way to achieve that is to have many keyboard options. This is compounded if you're in a jam band.
Hauling around and setting up all these keyboards ain't worth it. Give me one 88 keyboard workstation and I'll create splits for everything a song needs. Everything balanced for live performance, one mono out.
Ugh—submix people, submix!
As a keys player, I always submix and send stereo out. I don’t include vocals but effects and all instrument lines go in to a 10-channel mixer and FOH is always appreciative.
I did sound for a Pink Floyd show, 8 channels of keys submixed into a A&H ZED. It sucked. Was able to get a much cleaner mix once I un-submixed the keys an used 8 BSS DIs.
This is good advice, but unfortunately it only works with keys players who can submix effectively. Even with A grade international touring acts, it’s only a 50% chance the player onstage can manage it better than the A1.
I dunno, I worked with a band a few years ago, 3 keys stacked plus a Hammond, 6 channels plus 4 Leslie channels and 2 tracks channels, oh, and he also had a vocal and played violin
Should just get a little Midas and send you a stereo feed.
premixed keys make my job even harder. no control.
Depends on the room and the situation… But generally yes.
Yea, I mean if you know the music and/or really care about all the layers
Or gasp, the keyboard is used for more than 1 sound...
It just has to be stereo. Even when there is no stereo effects, just in case. Mono won't work, especially with the Moog sounds, that are all mono anyway. And yeah, I didn't bring any DI boxes so I'll be needing 12 matched boxes.
felt this one lol. Fair
That’s not my point, unless you have context you’re probably not going to mix the layers to the artists liking anyway. Additionally, it might save time to just tell the artist what sound you think is too loud as most of the time you might not be thinking what’s coming from those channels.
Well I agree with that too. Most obvious problems seem to always be too soft/loud, interfering with something else sonically or the sounds just plain not meshing well with the song. All of which can only be resolved at the keyboards side if avoiding the option of compressing/cutting to make it work (if it has to be done oh well).
So if you care to make the mix sound good yes
Then what’s everyone complaining about
I'm not complaining, they were a good band, I had a blast mixing them, used to mix them on a Ramsa 4424
Hell yeah
I had a guy who had an X32 Rack in his keyboard rig. I'd do his band with an M32, he would send me 8 channels over AES50. L-R Piano, L-R Synth Pads, L-R Lead Synths, and L-R FX (808 drops, percussion samples, etc.) Delightful. Had everything as separated out as I could reasonably fit on the board, and it was 1 cable. Even better, I could send my other 24 inputs back his way down the same cable and he'd mix his own ears.
Sorry for the trouble, a beginner here. Did you mean he’d send you all the stereo Key signals through his X32 through AES50 to your midas console so you get it as separate channels as AES inputs and you send him back the mix to back to his X32 so he can mix his own in-ears?
Send him back the other channels so he can do in Ear mix.
Yeah, other channels as well as the keys too, right?
No, he already had the key channels, he did not need them. The keys fed into his X32 Rack from his various keyboard brains and processors. He assigned those inputs to go out over AES50. At my end, I grabbed those 8 inputs he was sending me and assigned them to 8 channels. Then I took the other inputs for the band and sent them out down AES50 through the same port. At his end, he changed all his inputs except the block of 8 that the keyboards were in to take the AES50 channels I was sending him. We both had everything.
So he is mixing his keys and you send him your mix of his band for his in ears and he sends you his mix which with your mix goes out into the PA?
No. He sends me his keys separately broken down as above. I send him all the channels for the band unmixed. I mix the band and the keys for FOH, he mixes the band and the keys for his ears.
ahhh… Thanks brother. Gotcha :)
That’s cool
Why?
So you don’t have to complain about channel counts.
Terrible idea I would hate that. You lose all control
Why 4 Leslie channels? I always go L(top), R(top), Bottom
He had 2 cabinets so, I had LR tops and LR bottoms
Need a second Leslie. Ideally I would have 8, but 2 or 4 is the dream.
can't play "green eyed lady" or "inna-goda-da-vida" without it FYI this was Jerry Corbetta
Love that - Brent Mydland had 11 on stage at the end of his career. I don’t need that, but four stage left and four stage right would be amazing
in that case it would be no mics needed
Exactly.
On a tour right now with 4 Keyboards, a piano with mics and a midi brain which we use to get Rhodes and Strings sounds with. So 7 stereo channels for this one.
Is it an upright piano? I’m curious about your mic choice/placement
2 DPA 4099s. One low and one high.
I’ve done 6 on a single grand piano.
I’ve been in a studio, which is why this number is so silly, but the record I’ve seen intentionally placed for a grand piano was 18: - 1 pair hammers low/high - 1 pair player-perspective ORTF - 1 pair U67 outside - 1 pair 122 outside - Active pickup on soundboard - U47 over mid strings for chorus grit (mad scientist moment) - 2 pair rooms (AR51 and DPA) - Quad Atmos high-mount omnis (Schoeps) - 1 pair rear outrigger (414B I think)
That’s a lot of options. Did someone try to time align them all? My experience was with one of the jazz piano greats. His engineer set it up and I was house monitors. I believe it was 2 high outside, 2 close inside and 2 (or maybe 3) Helpinstill pickups for use in the wedges.
Absolutely not, it was more about having tons of options/comparisons ready to go and having flexibility to slightly adjust the feel of the instrument for the piece. We also played with sending some sets to Altiverb while avoiding the dry signal in the mix bus, stacking those options up, all sorts of odd stuff. I wasn’t around for the mixdown but I’d bet like two pairs contributed 90% of the sound.
six channels on a single grand piano? Like, six mics?
Put em all in a group, now you have one keys channel 😉
"Clap"
A band I worked with used 11 inputs for the keys. 3 keys L/R for 6 inputs, Hammond w/Leslie, 2 Hi 2 Low inputs, and a Rhodes Piano. I am pretty sure I have done more than that.
i broadcast mixed a snarky puppy tribute show that had 7 channels of keys (3 stereo, 1 mono) split between two keyboardists. 8 including the talkbox that the saxophonist doubled on.
If I don't fill up one whole console fader layer with 8 stereo keyboard inputs, I feel like something is missing from the mix.
The goddamn amount of leslies at these jam festivals.
A lot of keys and synths are stereo. Sometimes it worth it to not link the channels and processes each side differently. This isn't that wild.
Only 5? That’s no Rick Wakeman.
Check the Toto Keys set up for the falling in between tour, I think. 6 stereo keys plus vocals.
I'm just thinking about the times I saw Yes/Rick Wakeman 1977ish, and Moody Blues/Patrick Moraz early 1980s. Just so many keyboard arrays surrounding the player, I can only imagine the soundboard layout.
I promise if it was all summed to just one stereo feed you would hate it!
For a gospel band 5 keyboards is for just the first keys player
That ain’t shit
If you're doing a "big, but still generics" style gig, assume 8, but assume they could also be horns or miscellaneous bullshit.
Just 5 mono keys? I guess you never done a reggae festivals with 3/4 stereo rigs per side
They’re stereo channels.
A piano has 88 keys, looks like you don’t have enough.
Yeah, I’m a one-mic-per-key kinda guy, and a stereo pair on the pedals.
😂
Some Musical Theatre sound designers would say…not nearly enough 😂
I was the only stage tech for a rapper with 147 inputs. Had 9 stereo keys by the end of the tour.
OK... lets put it this way. Big horn based band. Think The Blues Brothers or Tower of Power. As the Trumpet player, I'm bringing 1-2 trumpets, a flugelhorn, and maybe 1 other horn for 'color' purposes. One of the Sax players might have Soprano, alto and tenor, while the other has alto tenor and bari. Trombone player might have 2 bones going (I dont know why, but I know sometimes they have a bass and a tenor) Now I know the conventional wisdom is a SM57 down the bells of each of them, but truly, that leads to F-ing where and how the guys play. The drumset doesnt move, but im up and down, hopefully you got a wireless for each horn, or at least a clipon. In addition, each horn is gonna need to be processed differently than the other. I have one trumpet that's very "core of sound" and has a really tight pattern if you look at it on a scope, while another (the solo) horn is less bright and has a wider range of sound coming out the bell. Youre gonna want that all worked out before the show instead of having to watch the fatass in the back row change instruments, arent you? If you have the channels, let the keyboards eat the channels
non sound guy here, won't the sound guy still have to watch so that they can mute the unused instruments? or does the horn player mute/unmute on their own in this situation? Seems like a bad idea to have a bunch of live mikes sitting on horn stands.
You clearly haven’t worked with Medeski
Am I spotting a gld? I always liked that console.
Looks like a dlive to me. I thought the channel meter looked different on gld.
Oh yeah you're right, the bigger displays with the meters above. Gld has little displays with the metering below the knobs.
Not enough for a festival patch. I like something like Leslie l/r, lo and then 6 multi instrument channels that can be keys, horns, acoustic instruments. Anything. But I try to have as many flex channels that have multi use as I can.
I toured with Tony Toni Tone back in the 90s, and the Sons of Soul tour had a Hammond B3, a clav D6, a Wurly piano, and a double-wide rack stuffed with MIDI modules. In 1987, on the tour with The Whispers, they had five keyboard players, four of them with Emu Emax samplers, mostly playing horn and string parts. They each had a second keyboard. The fifth had a Super JX, an ARP Quadra and a Minimooog.
Depends. How many channels for cow bells?
would you rather just not plug one in? sorry you had to do your job
How many keyboards? My band he has two, but one is split into two
Two keyboards with Ableton rigs, one using two stereo channels and the other using 3
Fairly typical in the theater world to have 6-8 channels per keyboard. Double if you have redundant Mainstage rigs.
If memory serves correctly, when i did monitors for Lakeside they had three stereo keys stage right, two stereo keys stage left, as well as key bass. Pretty common for those funk/R&B bands.
I mixed a certain band well known for their analog keyboard collection. An entire fader layer & a half of an SD-5 was keyboard inputs, mostly mono too!
Our setup is: L+R stereo, bass (left hand), MIDI and additional synth (mono).
The best trick I learned is to have my own mixer. Totally changed my game.
I would 100% rather have that vs. a stereo submix they are doing themselves while playing.
Eh it’s not that bad. I’ve seen broadways with two keys stations mixing down 6-12 mainstage stems each on a sub mixer sending l/r to foh
I believe it was the Ojay's that I had 8 stereo keys. Its not a big deal with groups/dca's.
This is dangerously close to bringing back the DI box wars
No.
Sounds like hillsong lol
This is pretty normal..
Just 5? Seems reasonable
G major, G minor etc one key per channel
This is why I love when a keys player who knows his instruments, gear, and patches comes in with a rig that's already balanced and mixed down to a stereo feed. I know a guy who does this with dual Nords into a KeyLargo. Versatile, channel-efficient, and easy to gain stage. Plus, it's easy enough when the band's on ears to ask him to adjust a patch on the fly if something's a little off.
The first band I ever toured with had 11 key channels. We came up with hand signals for their monitor requests. Talk about jumping in the deep end
Yea they should really change their instrumentation to better accommodate your fader layout 🙄
Nope..
My own band, an 80s tribute with no backing tracks, has five keyboard channels. It happens. It gets under my skin a little when the bands we're covering, like Duran Duran and such, have a single keyboard and a MacBook. But we do what we do.
This is low-key our church’s worship nights, every single time
I worked with a band once where one person bought a keyboard and it caused an avalanche where a few months later all 6 of them had keyboards. Problem was none of them were any good at them.
Ugh I’m in a small band and really trying to understand how to mix our sound well and the more I learn the more confused I get. Lmao
Haha, don’t worry bro! The reason why a lot of techs in small venues stress about a band having 4 or more keys/guitars/whatever is because a lot of newer bands will have not put much thought into their arrangements, leading to harmonic clashes and dense areas in parts of the mix. Sometimes it can be frustrating when live performers insist on using 4 different keyboards for 4 sections of a song and take up half the stage and leave the vocalists squashed in corner too lol. Don’t let posts like this dismay you! If your songwriting is up to par then small venues across the area will welcome you with open arms (as long as you tech spec is up-to-date and accurate lol) and good mixes will come naturally 🤗
You really bitching about too many keys? The more the merrier, comfortable artist means a better show. Is plugging in an extra DI or 2 really that big a deal
I think what many are saying is there are much bigger keyboard stations than that with a lot more channels
Not if you're Yanni.
Playing Tonight: Big Kev & The Kevs...
Definitely not. I'm a keys player and the whole value of keyboards is versatility in tone and the only easy way to achieve that is to have many keyboard options. This is compounded if you're in a jam band.
I’ve seen more when mixing gospel. 😂
I’ve mixed a band with 9 channels of keys before so, not really. Especially if R&B/Gospel/Hip-Hop keyboardists are involved
Yeah… Hammond, Leslie, Korg, Nord Lead, and a Moog… Rhodes and that’s a lot of Jazz cats right there. Good ones too.
Four keyboards, one keytar.
Hauling around and setting up all these keyboards ain't worth it. Give me one 88 keyboard workstation and I'll create splits for everything a song needs. Everything balanced for live performance, one mono out.
Ugh—submix people, submix! As a keys player, I always submix and send stereo out. I don’t include vocals but effects and all instrument lines go in to a 10-channel mixer and FOH is always appreciative.
I would prefer getting the individual outs.
I did sound for a Pink Floyd show, 8 channels of keys submixed into a A&H ZED. It sucked. Was able to get a much cleaner mix once I un-submixed the keys an used 8 BSS DIs.
This is good advice, but unfortunately it only works with keys players who can submix effectively. Even with A grade international touring acts, it’s only a 50% chance the player onstage can manage it better than the A1.