Routing keyboard bass for FOH

[Devin Navarro]

Hello,

I'm a gigging keyboard player. I play in many bands where I end up playing left hand bass, to the point where it's become a part of my reputation over the past few years, "hire this guy and his hand independence is so good you won't need to hire a bass player", etc. So, I do this often enough I have some questions for how FOH guys generally prefer routing. I just gig with one keyboard, I don't like lugging around a multi-keyboard setup.

For rock/pop gigs, generally a wide variety of patches are needed. So, on the keyboard itself I hard pan all of my bass patches (normally just a bass gtr sample model or a synth) to the left channel, and everything else (pianos, rhodes, synths, etc) to the right channel. That way the basses have their own output that can be run to the subs.

For jazz gigs, if I'm playing bass it means I'm playing Hammond B3. With the clonewheel (digital organ) I have, everything is routed through the same stereo outputs. Since on the organ bass and chords are played on the same patch, you can't split what gets routed where. Plus, with the digital leslie speaker most of the time I want that in stereo. Is this a big deal to not have the bass on its own output?

What makes this easiest for you guys?

 

[Benjamin D. Hill]

For option one I think your doing great just make sure the sound guy knows that you are sending him two instruments not stereo keys.

For option two it sounds like you have no choice but to mix the sound in your keys

if some one with more experience wants to chim in that would be great on this one

 

[Riley Casey]

A great many sound systems are configured with a separate feed from the mixer to the subwoofers in much the same way that each monitor mix is sent separately. This allows the sound mixer to emphasis bass elements of the mix with a single fader when needed. It also allows the engineer to eliminate from the subwoofers any non-bass elements of the mix such as vocal mics thus reducing the muddiness that multiple mics picking up bass on stage would introduce.
As noted your first scenario allows the sound engineer to send the left hand / bass portion of your keyboard to the subwoofers in the way described above. In your "digital B3" with "digital Leslie " set up the engineer doesn't have that option. It is what it is if you can't create a separate output. The phase relationship changes that the Leslie sound depend on don't really apply to bass sounds.