Do you play live in Mono or Stereo?

[Gigikjarr]

The real problem is that keys sound great in stereo - but WE may be the only ones hearing the "greatness" over the rest of the band...
Some will say stereo is a waste of time coming out of the house PA because the audience on one side of the room will hear only half of the stereo signal and the audience on the other side will only hear that half of the stereo signal...
Only people positioned exactly in the middle of the PA can hear the stereo signal as well as we hear in our headphones...
Paradoxically there is the possibility that the sound of the keyboards is heard less powerful...

[spookyman]

Stereo...but not everywhere. In my home studio, the NS2 uses 2 chanels on my mixer (with hard panning L-R). In a live/gig context, it depends on the available system. About 60% of the gigs are stereo, and sometimes in small clubs, i have to play it mono over a keyboard amp.

[Afghanza]

When playing with 'just' the NE5 I play stereo. But I'm working on a new pedalboard for live use with the NE5. The setup is split output for the layers. They both go via several pedals and at least one reverb at the end of their own signal chain. Both stereo streams go to my small mixer and I give one stereo output to the FOH. So long answer short: stereo.

[envy77]

So I run stereo only if:

• The majority of the audience will be listening from between the speakers (and hence hear the stereo sound) AND
• We have adequate setup time, either because we are engineering ourselves or we have a decent sound engineer

So, odds in most gigs and at clubs/bars on I'm just going to run Mono because it will give a more consistent sound and I won't piss the sound guy off asking for 2 DI boxes just so I can be in stereo. In all honesty 90% of the time the sound guy isn't going to turn me up to be audible against the guitars and drums anyway so I may as well not be plugged in at all for most of the gig!

[afroskully]

Stereo with a caveat (and a question)... I'm still using my trusty Traynor K4 which has the smallest of stereo fields. However, there is a noticeable difference in the fullness of the sound when playing stereo through it vs mono

About 30-40% of my gigs do not allow for stereo so what i've been doing is just running the R out of the NE5 for those. I also hit the "mono" button on the nord. My question is, What is that button actually doing to the sound? I read here that some people use the R out since they tend to play with a bass player and the R output would have more emphasis on the higher register of the piano, but if that's true, is that With or Without the mono function enabled?

[maxpiano]

Stereo with a caveat (and a question)... I'm still using my trusty Traynor K4 which has the smallest of stereo fields. However, there is a noticeable difference in the fullness of the sound when playing stereo through it vs mono

About 30-40% of my gigs do not allow for stereo so what i've been doing is just running the R out of the NE5 for those. I also hit the "mono" button on the nord. My question is, What is that button actually doing to the sound? I read here that some people use the R out since they tend to play with a bass player and the R output would have more emphasis on the higher register of the piano, but if that's true, is that With or Without the mono function enabled?

Withouth

The Mono button "blends" the L/R channels and it also tries to do it in a way to minimize frequency cancellations (when samples are stereo such as the .npno of Acoustic Pianos, for example)

[afroskully]

so maybe this deserves another thread, but what's the better option... enabling or disabling the mono button when playing mono?

[Mort77]

Stereo at home and at church.At worship I use my NE5 with 2 M-Audio Bx8s (bi amped 100 watts) XLR out to XLR in.Sounds awesome when using Pianos and layers.
At home they go thru my Yamaha MG10 to some JBL powered monitors,stereo as well.



Korg Krome 88 Key Workstation/Nord Electro 5D 73/Roland A Pro 800 Midi Controller/Roland Integra 7 Sound Module/Roland VK-8M B3 Module/Yamaha Motif XS Sound Module /Allen & Heath Zed 60 14FX-12 Mixer/JBL LSR 2325P Studio Monitors

[JiminWales]

Acoustic piano and Rotary speaker are the big problems. They both have something in common with the drum kit. Close listening has obvious stereo spread, although not so obvious is the grand piano with it's crossed stringing. You the player may be used to , and want to, hear whatever stereo there is. However, without a stereo PA, no audience ever hears that stereo spread, they are all mono point sources as far as they are concerned. It's the overall sound stage and the positions of those sources in it which is the audiences stereo.
So, can you put 2 mikes around a Rotary speaker that are maybe a meter apart and transmit that through the sides of a stereo PA that may be 5 meters or more apart and have true reproduction? No, not without panning both sides in toward the middle a bit - and you must have 2 mono channels to do this, not a single stereo one. But the rotary is out to one side of the stage, it will seem funny sounding from the middle. Then if you pan it all over to that side, you start to get the unwanted effects of mono merging spoiling the sound.
Would have been easier to have it in mono in the first place? Did players get stereo for recording back in the 4 and 8 track days? I think not, but I bet many have their ideal of that sound formed from listening to music from back then. Trouble is, with Rotary simulators, either merging the 2 sides into mono, or only using one side is nothing like the sound a mono mike on a Rotary, although I think merged sounds the worst. Trouble is, I think many players are used to working with real rotaries would reject this - they want to hear it swirling around next to them. That the result is often just a mush with little attack after the PA has mangled it's stereo image is no doubt the sound engineers problem.

Acoustic piano has slightly different issues. I don't think they are sampled in stereo for fun. I think the reason is it would be difficult to capture a focused sound with one fixed mic'. Too much of instrument would be off axis to the mic'. It would sound funny if you kept moving the mic to stay on axis and less "present" if 1 mic was fixed far enough away that axis doesn't matter. So, a coincident X-Y stereo pair is often used. Again, it's mushed if merged to mono and half is "off-axis" if only one side is used. One mic at a close audience distance (3 meter) would be better, but again the player will reject this - they want to hear it right under their hands as with a real piano.

My thoughts are that the problems will struggle to be solved because the necessary sound would never pass audition in the instrument store. A solution might be for the instrument to have 2 sets of outputs. A true mono representative of mono recording and also a stereo one. The audience gets the mono and the players get the stereo for their monitors.

[iamdave]

I believe in mono live. Why? If a person is on the left side of the audience they won't even hear the right speaker. Only lucky people dead center will enjoy the stereo. Unlike a recording or headphones where you hear it all.

My question is, if I want to send a mono signal to the mixer, do I need to connect both left/right outputs or is there some setting on the keyboard that would send both to one output?