My first post on that board and i hop i’m not asking something too stupid (i fear it is), but i do prefer sounding like a dumbass rather than damaging my amp and cabs.
To introduce briefly myself, i’m a bass player currently playing in loud and slow “metal” band (you can think about the drone/domm scene famous names to get an idea but we tend to move away from that trend). Our music is really more a sonic experience rathern than songs or tunes. It’s all instrumental music with lot of fuzz stompbox, lot of tube amps and cabs and huge air pressure. Our setup is drum, bass, guitar, brass, and analog synths. And we absolutely dig the moog gear we own !!!
I tend to use analog synth using bi amplification system. One ampeg bass rig and one marshall guitar rig, splitting the signal with cross freq filters. Ok enough said.
So, i’m trying to figure how to avoid to damage my speakers using analog synth as it can go very low and deep (especially with self oscillation filters), i don’t even know if i should care or not. I’m not experience using synth with speakers.
So my idiot questions are :
What’s the lP/SP output frequency range ?
Does it have to match the ones of the speakers ?
How do you amplify your synth on stage ? Using guitar bass amp or straight in the PA or both ?
Should i be carefull when using synths with fuzz pedals for bass or guitar as it’s line level and not instrument level ?
Regards from the other side of the atlantic.
Cheers.
The best advice I can think of, would be to watch the volume levels. Synths are active instruments, as opposed to guitars which are passive, meaning that the sound level of a synth can be many hundreds of time more powerful than a guitar pick-up. Although this doesn’t generally cause concerns for effects pedal inputs, many amps will have a separate line level input to connect synths (or any other line level output from an MP3 player and such). Although using the mic input will still work, keep the volume on the synth quite low. Otherwise the sound will be heavily distorted.
As for speakers, usually a keyboard amp, or better yet a PA system, will deliver a much better sound than a Bass amp. Because a synth can generate a very wide range of frequencies (10 to 20 000 Hz). If you intend just to play bass type sounds (à la Taurus) then a bass amp will do fine. But if you want to play a screaming synth lead, then a guitar amp will be better. In both cases a PA will cover the entire frequency range nicely. Although there are keyboard amps that can also do that since they have a woofer, a tweeter, and sometimes even a midrange speakers and internal cross overs to distributes the right frequencies to each one.
In all cases, to prevent blowing speakers, just don’t drive the amps too hard. You can still blow a speaker even with a guitar if you drive it too hard. Some kind of automatic audio level limiter or visual audio metering would help. Some amps and most PAs incorporate those features.
On stage, amps can be powerful enough for keyboards, but for large halls or outside shows a powerful PA is better suited.
A rule of thumb is to never turn the final volume knob to the maximum on a synth going into an amp or PA, but only about half way to leave room to manually adjust as needed for softer sounds or patches if needed temporarily.
My two cents on it…
Oh, and as for stupid questions, in my opinion there’s no such thing. Unless you already know the answers to them. After all, asking questions is the key to knowledge. It’s always better ask what you think might be a stupid question rather than stay in the dark about something.
Hey thanks a lot for your complete answer alien666.
I do totally agree with what you said ! I always set volume half way on the synth i was using.
In fact i was kinda replicating what a PA system do.
A bass amp for low freq and guitar amp for high freq range with a crossover filter between both.
So maybe i just keep those amp for instruments and afford a PA system fr our synthesizers setup.
The only question i got now is. We used amps because we want to crank them up so that we got that growly tube distortion. I just fear using a PA wouldn’t give me that waves of distortion sound. Maybe i just need some more fuzz pedals then. Any opinion on that point ?
And hell yeah your right about not staying in the dark !
As I’ve mentionned, using an amp can provide some heavy distortion if you overdrive its input. You could always put a mic in front of it to feed to the PA. (that’s usually what sound guys will do for guitars to get that genuine “amp sound”)
Get a Phonic MK-50, and mic it. It is way easy to overdrive that particular amp. It gets dirty quick! Plus, it is a keyboard amp specifically meant for keyboards.
Hey, thanks lot for your answers thealien, Sir Nose and Voltor.
Finally, i think i’ll plug the SP straight to an analog mixing desk, and connect that desk to a PA system.
As i need a way to blend the signal from other synth. I’ve tried it on an ampeg cab last week, worked really nicely on bass presets, having that ampeg growl coming in, but lacks of treble due the ampeg cab frequency response limitation. I’ll check those phonic amps, too, is there tube keyboard amps too ? Or that trend is just vualuable for guitars and bass ? Sorry i’m totally new to the keyboard stuff, was used to play bass mostly.
And thealien666, cool de voir un quebecois dans le coin, salut a toi aussi
