Yamaha Motif ES sounds dull from the mains/ General PA Help!

B

Brian Kilpatrick

Freshman
Feb 28, 2012
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0
Hey Guys,


I am relatively new in the live sound world but have been playing keys live for awhile now. I play a MOX(yamaha motif), using mostly rhoads, piano, and synth patchs, which sound beautiful at home on my studio monitors but bland going mono through the system. Even for the mono instruments (like the grand piano), most of the effects on them are stereo & it makes a huge difference. The mains are too far apart for the stereo effect. Is there anyway to recreate as close as possible the studio experience live for the audience? I once saw a big band play with Rhoads on the gig that seemed to fill up the room when he turned the tremelo on. Any help is greatly appreciated!
 
Yamaha Motif ES sounds dull from the mains/ General PA Help!

​Hey Guys,​


I am a newbie sound tech, and experienced keyboardist. In a nutshell, the motif sounds great on monitors but pretty dull from the mains of our system at my church. I've tried EQ, but it doesn't do much. Most of the patches for the Motif have effects that sound best in stereo. Is this the problem since its ran in mono? Should a stereo signal be summed rather than just mono out of the keyboard?


Also on a related note, We have a A&H Zed mixer going to Crown XTi -> EV Tour X double 15s. I know nothing about DSP, how to tune, or anything outside of this set up., but would this help our overall sound dramatically (including the keys)? We have a odd rectangular room that is probably 30' deep by 100' wide. Would we be better suited with different mains for more clarity and less power(which is not needed - 250ppl max)? Taking all suggestions! Thanks!
 
Re: Yamaha Motif ES sounds dull from the mains/ General PA Help!

It takes a pretty exceptional PA to reproduce high-fidelity keyboard patches well. Hiring a competent person to come and help you tune your PA will make a big difference, though you're not going to get it to be studio monitor quality.

Stereo is very hard to do well through a PA - you need to cover every seat in the house with both sides at similar levels to have any chance at this.
 
Re: Yamaha Motif ES sounds dull from the mains/ General PA Help!

Also re: stereo - try only using the left output of your keyboard. Most of the time this is the recommended way of plugging into a mono system. This will likely sound better than summing both sides.
 
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