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How do I make my Yamaha YPG-625 keyboard sound good in live shows?

How do I make my Yamaha YPG-625 keyboard sound good in live shows?

Slats

13 years ago

I have a yamaha ypg-625 and am struggling to get it to sound right with the band I'm in. It only has a single phone/out jack on the back, and I realize it's not truly meant to be a stage piano.
I"m plugging 1/4" cable from the phone/out jack into my Roland KC-150 (60 Watt) keyboard amp. When I do this though, and crank the amp up to top levels to compete with the guitarist and bassist's 100 watt amps, the sounds on my keyboard are tinny sounding and distorted.
Only thing I can think of is running a line out of my amp to our PA system and just using my Roland amp as a monitor for me on stage.
My question is I"m assuming my phone/out jack is stereo, but I believe the Roland amp is just mono inputs. Do I need a stereo-to-mono type of cable? What's the best way to set up my YPG-625 so I get a rich sounding piano in live shows... DI box in the mix somehow? Any adivce would be helpful. THANKS

September 18, 2010 @04:55pm

Big Bottom Willie

13 years ago

Slats,
I did a quick experiment with my Casio CTK-4000 and a bass amp, just to satisfy my own curiosity, hooking them up with a mono 1/4" TRS cable.
When the keyboard volume control was under 50% (12 o'clock) the sound was decent. When I turned the keyboard volume up past 50%, it seemed to overdrive the amp and cause distortion.
That's why I asked in the other thread where you set your keyboard volume. If you're cranking it up to compete with guitar & bass, you might be causing the distortion you're talking about.
Hope this helps,
Willie

October 5, 2010 @07:21pm

Slats

13 years ago

Big Bottom Willie,
Thanks.. that does help. It's possible I"m doing that during my gigs. I"ll make sure to do a good sound check prior to the show and make sure my keyboard volume is below 50%. We're playing Arlene's Grocery in the Lower East Side, NYC this Tuesday, October 12th. Let's hope I can get it right by then... again, this is all until I get a more pro-stage piano, which I hope to do by the end of the year. In the meantime though we have gigs to fill and a new CD to promote.
If you're interested, my band name is Phineas and the Lonely Leaves... http://www.lonelyleaves.com/ Just came out with a CD in June 2010.
If you happen to find yourself in NYC this Tuesday night and ya got nothing better to do pop on over to Arlene's Grocery to check us out and see if I got my volumes correct on my keyboard.. thanks!
Slats

October 10, 2010 @06:33pm

Slats

13 years ago

The sound guy at Arlene's made my Yamaha YPG-625 sound tremendous, so it is possible, with the right equipment. Although I'm not quite sure how he set it up, he definitely used a DI box... also, and just something I never thought of, since my keyboard does not have a direct line out but more a stereo headphone/output jack, he had me turn my keyboard up to maximum volume and then controlled and balanced the sound with his board... sound was great... think that's the way to go. I'll have to read up on DI boxes and which one will work for me.

October 16, 2010 @04:32am

yeahforbes

13 years ago

The purpose of a DI box is to enable long cable runs, such as all the way to a mixer in the FOH. When the signal is only going to an amp or mixer that is <10 meters away, you really don't need one (this is why 1/4" instrument cables are never longer than that). I would bet that what made it sound so good was mostly his parametric EQ.

October 19, 2010 @08:37pm

Big Bottom Willie

13 years ago

Slats,
Glad to hear you had a good show and good sound (sorry but the drive from Indiana to NYC on a weeknight really wasn't in the cards - ha!).
I'm curious if the sound guy used a DI with a merge function (such as the Radial JDI) to capture both channels of your keyboard. I'm always concerned that my keyboard player is losing something from his YPG-535, using only a mono cable. I believe I saw in another post, someone claiming only the left channel would be heard in that case.
If you know please pass the info along, thanks!
Willie

October 30, 2010 @02:26pm

eRoland

13 years ago

buy a low price mixer like soundcrafdt notepad 102. patch phone jack with stereo to two 1/4 inch the board then you can send mono summed to pa from the monitor out and use aux or main to your amp for monitor. or take aux send from the pa with monitor mix to your board and go with head phones to help reduce stage levels which would give you a better sound in room.
A quiet stage makes for a happy audience.

January 22, 2011 @02:27am

mmath56

12 years ago

You must split the signal right out of the gate. 1/4" TRS out of the stereo headphone jack to 1/4" R and L mono plugs on the other end, into your amp or mixer. This cleans up the signal quite nicely and should give you plenty of head room. I also use a passive line leveler between the keyboard and the mixer. Good luck.

September 6, 2011 @04:24am