Nord in a jazz setting

[danrv]

I have both the Triton and Stage 2 in stereo inputs on our QU16 which I think are fixed hard L & R. The Nord pianos especially need to be stereo in FOH. The sample characteristics don’t mono sum well and I’ve tried all other output options.
I never get to hear my piano out front on full band gigs but it sounds nice and clear on vid audio.
for stereo FOH.

[Quai34]

I have been playing in stereo through FOH since the start of the eighties, before that on smaller mono amps.
One tip when playing stereo on FOH are to not pan your keyboard fully left/right on the mixer board. Left on 9 o’clock and right on 3 o’clock are working fine if using something that are moving alot between left and right.

Plus 1: fight like hell when you see the sound guy hard panning your keys right and left after you said you want stereo. It gives a big empty effect in the middle, 9 am-3 pm is perfect....
I insist also to have the drums panned a bit, guitars and effects as well. Bass and kick could be the only ones centered, for Snare and Hihat I try to respect the position of the kit like if you are in front of it....
If you use wisely the Pan pot, stereo will be awesome and even people on a side could get a good sense of it...

[maxpiano]

I have been playing in stereo through FOH since the start of the eighties, before that on smaller mono amps.
One tip when playing stereo on FOH are to not pan your keyboard fully left/right on the mixer board. Left on 9 o’clock and right on 3 o’clock are working fine if using something that are moving alot between left and right.

Plus 1: fight like hell when you see the sound guy hard panning your keys right and left after you said you want stereo. It gives a big empty effect in the middle, 9 am-3 pm is perfect....
I insist also to have the drums panned a bit, guitars and effects as well. Bass and kick could be the only ones centered, for Snare and Hihat I try to respect the position of the kit like if you are in front of it....
If you use wisely the Pan pot, stereo will be awesome and even people on a side could get a good sense of it...

+1 from me as well, I also go for soft panning (I use not more than 25-30%) and if you don't trust the sound guy then you'd rather use your own personal mixer and control the amount of panning from it, letting the main mix hard pan its output.

[CountFosco]

+1 from me as well, I also go for soft panning (I use not more than 25-30%) and if you don't trust the sound guy then you'd rather use your own personal mixer and control the amount of panning from it, letting the main mix hard pan its output.

+0.6 I think. This sounds like a good strategy, but I guess it could only be done if you're using mono inputs with pan control on your sub-mixer. If you're using stereo channels on your submixer, I think in most cases you could only route L to L and R to R, with no soft panning control. Happy to be corrected, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works on both my Mackie 402VLZ4 and my Behringer RX1602. I could do what you suggest on the mono channels 1 and 2 on the Mackie, but I couldn't do it on the stereo pair channels 3 and 4.

[CountFosco]

+1 from me as well, I also go for soft panning (I use not more than 25-30%) and if you don't trust the sound guy then you'd rather use your own personal mixer and control the amount of panning from it, letting the main mix hard pan its output.

+0.6 I think. This sounds like a good strategy, but I guess it could only be done if you're using mono inputs with pan control on your sub-mixer. If you're using stereo channels on your submixer, I think in most cases you could only route L to L and R to R, with no soft panning control. Happy to be corrected, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works on both my Mackie 402VLZ4 and my Behringer RX1602. I could do what you suggest on the mono channels 1 and 2 on the Mackie, but I couldn't do it on the stereo pair channels 3 and 4.

Correct, you need to use 2 distinct Mono channels on your submixer when you want to control the pan position "per channel" (L/R)

[Quai34]

All my synth are in a Tascam LM-8T that doesn't have Pan Pot, I give only a 2 main Out to the FOH....
So, he's the only one that could give a sense of Pan/stereo to my synth, then, that's why I insist.... Being able to pan each synth ot each pair of synth like one mono synth 1 pm and one stereo synth a 10am-2pm etc would be the ideal but I don't have this luxury, I wanted a rackmountable 1U line mixer....
But you are correct, it's not the same if you are doing mono synth to be pan more on the left for example and a pair that is joust "widened" on two mono channels...
In fact, my idea is always to leave room for the other mono instruments, which are almost all the other ones unless you have your rig guitar in stereo. I have it in true stereo, two Amos, two Mics, two loops, a DI on one Map that is centered and two Mics taht are panned L/R....
Vocals are also a bit Panned, depending on who is the lead, who sing harmonies and how I settled the pan on the TC Helicon voice live rack...
At the end, if you ar E it sure, you're your hears, you will hear the difference....

[Mr_-G-]

Plus 1: fight like hell when you see the sound guy hard panning your keys right and left after you said you want stereo. It gives a big empty effect in the middle, 9 am-3 pm is perfect....

I do not follow how that could be so. The stereo samples are not extreme (e.g. you can hear all the keys from either the L or R channels). I believe that by not fully panning you are introducing some level of phase cancellation which is higher than the channels fully panned in opposite directions.

[Quai34]

I don't know, Maybe with the rest of the instruments I feel the whole mix glue better than when fully pan L/R. I have the feeling that my keys are Only L or R, rest of Instruments in the middle and nothing close to the synth sounds....

[Mr_-G-]

Well they are not left or right. Otherwise you would not be able to play using only one channel output. Really panning partially does not make sense with the stereo samples ofvthe Nords.

[maxpiano]

Well they are not left or right. Otherwise you would not be able to play using only one channel output. Really panning partially does not make sense with the stereo samples ofvthe Nords.

You are right that the Nord stereo piano samples are "not 100% stereo-wide", nevertheless I think it still makes sense to adopt partial panning, to an extent and depending on how far each other the L/R FOH speakers are positioned; no one wants to get the effect of hearing a piano which seem to be as wide as the stage, I think.

What we all strive to to achieve, in the end, is to reproduce the sonic effect you would get if you had the luck to use a real piano (with or without microphones); with regards to potential frequencies cancellation, well that could happen as well in a full panning condition, depending on where in the room you are listening compared to the position of the speakers.

So probably it's not black and white but... depends on many factors and the final result i what matters.

All the above imho, of course (and on topic = "jazz setting")