Nord User Forum

Gambold wrote:>Properly EQing the keyboard sound for the room is the job of the sound technician. <

The sound guy?? Gads, never trust anything having to do with keyboard amplification to the sound guy. Our own CPHollis says it much better than I ever could:

"Also: there appears to be no shortage of indifferent and/or incompetent sound guys out there. I have learned to expect the worse, and thus am rarely disappointed. Making matters worse, many of them are from the “keyboards should be seen and not heard” school of sound mixing."

From his most excellent blog: https://chucksblog.typepad.com/late_blo ... right.html

I have had two good sound guys in my band experience. Out of dozens (a lot of time we have to do our own sound). I've learned the hard way to ensure my amplification is right (usually by begging the bass player to walk out into the middle of the room, since he's on wireless). No way I let them touch my Nord.

I'm completely with you and Cphollis on this one:
1) Even if it's not your job and you trust people, even if you know that he's going to do a good sound check, there is no harm to control a bit....Trust doesn't necessary come with no control , expcially if you are the client....When you receive a package, do you control what it's in? Yes, you trust the online dealer but you still control the package even if it's not your job to pack it and deliver it.
Same thing for the delivery of a service, you control it....

And after having controled it so many times and realizing that there is a lot sound guys who are the type of Cpholis ones, then, you are trying to solve the problems that are not yours....No need to buy a great sounding board if it's to be messed up and deliver a crappy sounds because of a guy who is used to mix loud guitar and loud drum...

Yeah that's all fair enough. It's important to work towards getting the best live sound you can. But as far as adding a mono 10 band EQ pedal (or 2?) to a rig, that sounds like more trouble than it's worth. As others pointed out, you already have onboard 3 band EQ.

Also — with all respect — from the way the question is worded, and the suggestion for a solution, I’m somewhat doubtful that using such hardware is going to do a better job than whoever is in charge of the front of house.

Fine-tuning EQ for a venue/PA is a difficult job for someone with experience and know-how. The original poster — again, with all respect — does not sound like he is an experienced sound technician or has lots of experience adapting his sound to lots of different venues or PAs.

The odds are that adding something as complex as a ten-band EQ to his rig at this point is going to make things much more complicated without providing a real improvement.

Gambold wrote:>Properly EQing the keyboard sound for the room is the job of the sound technician. <

The sound guy?? Gads, never trust anything having to do with keyboard amplification to the sound guy.

90% of my gigs these days, we don't even have a sound guy.

CountFosco wrote:As others pointed out, you already have onboard 3 band EQ.

That's not for adjusting for a given amp or given room, because it is not global, it is stored as part of each program. There are some boards that have a separate global EQ, but not Nord. Los of people put their boards through mixers, though, and you can often get EQ there as well.

Just to add my two pence of thoughts:

By "profession" I'm a musician (at least that's how I earned my living before I retired, by teaching and playing), I'm also a "sound guy" (by experience, some training) and a great believer in the philosophy that I should eq for the room and leave the players/singers to establish their "own sound" (mics will typically have minimal eq applied, similarly instruments). Given all this, one of my least favourite sound engineering situations is when a player arrives with one or more FX pedals he/she wishes to use.

Some of these can be of excellent quality and really enhance the sound - I'm especially thinking here of an electro-acoustic guitarist who very carefully selected his set of pedals and custom-built them to fit a "carrying board", with integral power supply, paying particular attention to the "noise" they generated.

But, and here's the point for the OP, almost ALL such pedals, unless they are very carefully built and isolated from their power supply, will generate "noise" (HF and, possibly, MF hiss, LF hum, etc.) In such circumstances the sound engineer will almost inevitably have to eq the sound arriving at the mixing desk to try to at least partially reduce this noise. The OP, if he "hears" his sound is not now as bright as he would like, may thus increase the levels of the higher frequency bands of that EQ unit, = more hiss, = the engineer must seek to reduce the HF even further. A similar situation can occur when the engineer seeks to reduce the "hum", by reducing the LF, the player senses a loss of "bass" so increases the LF bands of that EQ unit.

Who wins this "battle"? Certainly not the audience!

(Just my opinion!!)

Noise gate?

Mr_-G- wrote:Noise gate?

So, add another "item" in the chain, designed to correct the problems created by an earlier one??

Well, yes, they were designed for that.
Otherwise what were you expecting? Psychoacoustic cloaking? Divine intervention?

Mr_-G- wrote:Well, yes, they were designed for that.
Otherwise what were you expecting? Psychoacoustic cloaking? Divine intervention?

No, but a "minimal" signal path is always preferable, is it not??

emmrecs wrote:

Mr_-G- wrote:Well, yes, they were designed for that.
Otherwise what were you expecting? Psychoacoustic cloaking? Divine intervention?

No, but a "minimal" signal path is always preferable, is it not??

Obviously. Unless it doesn’t comply with the needs of a particular situation. Which is kind of why this thread exists.