keyboard problem

[roachie]

Mixed a band out at the mile with typical setup - Acoustic, Electric, Bass, Drums, and Keys... The keys sounded fine, loud, and clear when playing by itself, but when the band kicked in, they disappeared. I realize there are frequencies battling, so I eq'd around for a while, but I just couldn't get the keys to blend... what's the deal with that?

[Jef]

- Maybe when the band started the keyboard player turned down to adjust his/her stage volume (PFL it into a meter and see if the level dropped).

- If you had a compressor on the mix, that may account for the keys getting lost when the band kicked in. The keys would be louder when no other signal is present.

- Were the keys buried in all the songs or just in some of them? It could be that different patches may be lower level than others (assuming that patch changes are made for some of the songs).

[Malcolm Boyce]

My experience with a lot of keys live is that the patches are set up with so much bottom end tweaked in that they don't blend very well with guitar/bass/drum mixes. This goes especially for "piano" sounds. Reducing the amount of bottom, and sometimes even high passing as high as 3-400Hz will help get things to sit in the mix better.

That would be my best guess as to the root of the trouble. A lot of these types of patches simply "don't play well with others"...

[Scott DeVarenne]

I really find keys are sometimes quite mysterious in the live setting. From monitor land I sometimes mistake them
for feedback because other than the low end mud, all I hear is the really high stuff jumping out sometimes.
I find myself soloing channels to hear what's ringing only to realize it's an organ or string patch.

[Christian LeBlanc]

It's reassuring to read this thread; I've been writing a lot of songs with several synth parts and distorted guitar lately, and it's a lot harder to make everything blend than if it was just all synth, like I'm used to doing. Glad to hear it's not just me :)

As for a live setting: does anyone here think it's a good idea for a keyboard player to just run their synth through an eq pedal (I have a Yamaha bass eq foot pedal), and just eq differently for each song (assuming they've found settings that work with the rest of the band in a practice setting, first)?

[Malcolm Boyce]

As for a live setting: does anyone here think it's a good idea for a keyboard player to just run their synth through an eq pedal (I have a Yamaha bass eq foot pedal), and just eq differently for each song (assuming they've found settings that work with the rest of the band in a practice setting, first)?

The more prepared your "sound" is to what you want, the better it is from the perspective of the people trying to mix your stuff. This is assuming running through a pedal doesn't make a mess of the source just for the sake of changing one aspect of your sound, that being frequency response. The only way to know, is to try it out. Not just in one set up either but with many different rigs.

[macrae11]

One of the biggest things to think about with making keys sounds fit into a mix is the arrangement. If the guitars are playing chugging power chords, don't expect a piano to cut through a mix that is primarily played in the 2nd and 3rd octave. Having other players in the band who are open to discussing arrangements will certainly help. Even with good arrangements some patches will not be easily heard. Synth and pad patches will usually be very difficult to poke through. Often though pads are meant to be felt more than heard anyways, so doesn't always have to poke through.

Of course this all needs to be in conjunction with what's already been said about choosing, and manipulating your patches.

[Malcolm Boyce]

One of the biggest things to think about with making keys sounds fit into a mix is the arrangement.

That certainly goes for everything, not just "keys".

[Christian LeBlanc]

When I was younger, I always thought it was weird how guitar tones for some bands (say, Meat Loaf, Guns N' Roses) sounded so good, while guitar tones for bands that went for a wider range of instruments and sounds had guitars that sounded so thin and weak in comparison. I'm guessing now it was partly just that the guitars were being mixed to sit alongside all those other elements.

There are two Canadian bands that, for me, make it all look so easy: Girls Are Short, and The Birthday Massacre.
Birthday Massacre example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E3MlpKqVOk (studio version of the song, not live, but still an example of the types of blending I aspire to).

Bands like these, as well as Deadsy, MGMT, etc all give electronic instruments more importance than most pop/rock bands; sometimes it's easy to tell that it's the arrangement that makes it work. At other times, there's so much going on in the song that it shouldn't work at all, but everything finds a place. Those tracks are harder (for me) to learn from.

[macrae11]

One of the biggest things to think about with making keys sounds fit into a mix is the arrangement.

That certainly goes for everything, not just "keys".

Sure, but I find that keys tend to me more susceptible to this issue than other instruments. Drums can cut through anything, bass has a frequency range that it's mostly by itself in in a rock band, and guitars are just loud. Keys often have a wide frequency range, and few sharp transients.