ideas about a keyboard rig

[Talon]

i realize this is a guitar site, but this current project im working on has me playing more keyboard than guitar... dontcha hate that?

anyway, here is the plan:

akai ax-80 or korg ms-2000

small stone
dd-3
space echo re-201
line 6 pod (maybe? lots of options in 1 box, incase i wanna go all crazy overdrive/fuzz)
yamaha fx-500
(stereo out into system)


im thinking about chunking a pn-2 in there... and maybe some kinda looper? rc-20 or pds... any ideas/thoughts on this? pretty much all the od/fuzz pedals are out... its not an industrial band... have i overlooked anything? also can anyone give me thoughts on the yamah fx-500 ?

thanks guys... tom.

[i_finlayson37]

What you have listed already is pretty cool, maybe chuck in a Ring Mod too. They can be good on Piano sounds.

[Talon]

who makes decent ring mods? i know ehx has one... ive never play tested any before... im really excited to get the stereo thing up and running....

[i_finlayson37]

Originally posted by Talon
who makes decent ring mods? i know ehx has one... ive never play tested any before... im really excited to get the stereo thing up and running....

The problem with the Ring Mods are that the best ones are also the expensive ones (Moogs, Lovetone etc.), but quite a lot of Multi-Effects include a (slightly limited) ring mod.

What about the EHX Micro Synth? You can get limited Ring Mod sounds from it and a lot more. I've never tried it with Keyboards but I've heard it can give nice results.

[Talon]

a guy sent me a broken ehx bass synth, and the few sounds i got out of that i didnt like.... im flirting with selling all (not all) my pedals and going rack.... but i just like some things to be analog...

[guitardude5489]

that looks like a great keyboard rig, what kind of amp are you using? or are you running directly into the PA?

[Talon]

im planning on running right into the system i guess... i use a roland kc-60 as practice... 2 keyboads, stands, racks, pedals, why take amps too? then iwould hafta deal with mic'n em too... plus the guys im playing with are a kind of a big group (5+) so room on stage would be an issue....

[hot_rats!]

im doin some keyboard stuff too, only i got a beginner standard MIDI type keyboard and some casio toys. don't ditch the idea of fuzz, its the only thing that saves my sound. i got a soundclip ill post whenever volsus gets online(hes hosting my stuff).

can you set up both your keys at once? thats really helpful when you want an effect like vibrato just on one voice.

and maybe some kinda looper? rc-20 or pds...
if its a band then stay away from the pds. its hard to get people to play along with them.

[cursivescript]

sounds good, g. maybe, if you can find a cheap one, you could throw in a Boss/Roland Dimension series unit to give a real spacious sound. and, subtle fuzz is a beautiful thing to add to keyboards.

[Talon]

you guys are right, i shouldnt overlook anything... i will check out the fuzz and od... nobody said it had to be crazy fuzz....

are those dimension c's really good? i havent heard one before... how much are they worth?


the main reason for a looper, was so that i could change my voice on ax-80... i could set up both keys at once, but im not sure what effects i would but on each one.... or i could just set a ls-2 at the begining of my chain and switch between them....

hmm. choices, choices...

[hot_rats!]

i dont know much about synths so i looked up yours(the ax-80 and ms2000). wow, however you set this up its gonna sound great! ive messed with an ms2000 in a store, it was overwhelmingly awesome. i had a laugh at the knob labeled "noise." i want one.

out of curiousity, how is this band setup? 5+ members, guitars? basses?

[doingtheunstuck]

i'm not personally a huge fan of the MS-2000 (synth-wise, i grew up on the MS-50, so i'm just bitter and pretentious), but what you described is a nice setup for a synth...

personally, if i was doing a synth rig, this is how i'd set it up:

RPS-10
zoom ultrafuzz
small stone
electrix mistress flanger (or similar flangers that'll take over the signal nicely)
that fabsmuff trem
some kind of shorter reverb
DE-7
digidelay
RDS 7.6
some kind of longer reverb
RDS 7.6

the RPS gives you pitchshifting, something that is great on synths, IMO... ultrafuzz is godly on synths... small stone is the only option i'd consider for phase, flange is essential to me... that fabsmuff trem seems to be one hell of a deal and offer most trems ounds i'd ever want... ran into the shorter reverb to soften the sound a bit... then you get into the DE-7/digidelay pair up which rocks... first 7.6, which is for basic drone looping, reverb, a second 7.6, used for more complicated looping.

my use of synths would be similar to my use of guitar though, filling up ambient space. it all depends on what you want to do with your synths. so, what kind of sounds and such are you wanting out of this?

[Talon]

the current line up before i came along was...

drummer
bassist
guitarist - midi pickups only, no normal guitar stuff allowed...
sample guy/midi/drum loops etc, basic midi controlled ms-2000


then i come and bring fullfledged keyboards to the group... we also may have a "percussionist" - congas/toms/blah

so in a sense im pretty much doing just that, filling up ambient space... with some leads... but if i have the ms-2000 and the ax-80 i can run probably the ms-2000 as drone and the ax as lead...

its going to be kinda like a live action techno band... ever heard of soundtribe sector 9?


i also want to do a shoegaze type brit-pop kinda thing, so what ever could cross over to guitar would be definitely worth the money...

[skip tracer]

Stick an Alesis Philtre in there...especially if they are still on sale at musician's friend...

[doingtheunstuck]

Originally posted by Talon
the current line up before i came along was...

drummer
bassist
guitarist - midi pickups only, no normal guitar stuff allowed...
sample guy/midi/drum loops etc, basic midi controlled ms-2000


then i come and bring fullfledged keyboards to the group... we also may have a "percussionist" - congas/toms/blah

so in a sense im pretty much doing just that, filling up ambient space... with some leads... but if i have the ms-2000 and the ax-80 i can run probably the ms-2000 as drone and the ax as lead...

its going to be kinda like a live action techno band... ever heard of soundtribe sector 9?


i also want to do a shoegaze type brit-pop kinda thing, so what ever could cross over to guitar would be definitely worth the money...

check out the RDS stuff... hold/delays are essentials for filling up ambient space, IMO... and they are great with keys.

[paulandpaul]

Originally posted by skip tracer
Stick an Alesis Philtre in there...especially if they are still on sale at musician's friend...

get an alesis Philtre and bitrman. The Bitrman has a great ring mod that will work great on keyboard. also lots of other very usable and unique sounds.

[cursivescript]

Originally posted by Talon

guitarist - midi pickups only, no normal guitar stuff allowed...


Boss/Roland Dimensions are great. at first, it's like, "big deal, what's the point. i wasted $$$." but then turn it off, and it's like whoa. it's kind of subtle, but it really sounds good.

can you tell me a little about midi on guitar? i've always been interested but never quite understood it. i've been really interested in guitar-triggered midi sampling ever since i've heard Disco Inferno. that band is the Public Enemy of the UK, except not hip-hop.

[Rock A My Soul]

Instead of a DD-3, you might want to check out a DD-20. It will do pretty much every delay sound you'd want.

[guitardude5489]

ever think about running a wah through there? my cousin runs a budda wah through his keyboard rig...

[fiveways]

I would do it like this:

Korg MS2K w/mic for vocoder
-
Boss PS-3
Alesis Bitrman
volume
EH small stone
Alesis philtre
Yamaha magic stomp
Boss PS-2 for lowfi delay
Akai headrush for tap
Boss DD-20
Digitech PDS 20/20
Boss RC-20
Yamaha magic stomp
-
whatever

I HATE traditional guitar gain on synths. The best I have heard is a metal zone, and it still sucked.

[doingtheunstuck]

Originally posted by fiveways
I would do it like this:

Korg MS2K w/mic for vocoder
-
Boss PS-3
Alesis Bitrman
volume
EH small stone
Alesis philtre
Yamaha magic stomp
Boss PS-2 for lowfi delay
Akai headrush for tap
Boss DD-20
Digitech PDS 20/20
Boss RC-20
Yamaha magic stomp
-
whatever

I HATE traditional guitar gain on synths. The best I have heard is a metal zone, and it still sucked.

the zoom can be great, although i predominately liked it used when completely washed out.

i was always really fond of trem on synth though.

[fiveways]

Originally posted by doingtheunstuck
the zoom can be great, although i predominately liked it used when completely washed out.

i was always really fond of trem on synth though.

Thus 2 magix stomp. One ti handle reverb, one for other effects.

[Talon]

so far the ehx muff sounds ok, but the bd-2/fabtone/daddy-o arent my fave.... so i will have to do something else there...
fiveways the way you are talking it looks like i would be still getting stuff that could cross over to the space rig we were discussing earlier... which would be nice, although im not playing it with anyone currently.....

as far as the midi guitar, im not really sure, i will get more info and post it here, his guitar should be back soon, he sent it off to get pickups put in. before he was just playing off a roland sequencer, cant remember the model, but it was a tap tempo deal.... hold a guitar and playing is more dynamic than pushing little buttons on a box :)

[duluxdog]

Here's what i'd use, based on personal pedal choice. I don't play keyboard, though..

Dano Fabtone. I know this was ruled out, but I reckon it'd sound ace. On the Mogwai track 'Stanley Kubrick' they have this great fuzzy keyboard/synth/whatever it is sound. I reckon it'd get close to that.

Electro Harmonix Pulsar tremolo

BOSS CE-5 Modded to vibrato. I'd only use this for vibrato, I dislike chorus

Line6 DL4 for static looping, long delay times in digital mode, LO-RES (which I think would sound immense on keyboard), and short analogue delay for space-filling

Digitech Digiverb for all reverb purposes.

Possibly an MXR Blue Box for crazy leads. Or another pitchshifter, doingtheunstuck recommended the RPS-10 which is a pretty good choice. Ibanez HD1000 or HD1500 would also do that kind of lo-fi pitchshifting.

[Talon]

Originally posted by fiveways
I would do it like this:

Korg MS2K w/mic for vocoder
-
Boss PS-3
Alesis Bitrman
volume
EH small stone
Alesis philtre
Yamaha magic stomp
Boss PS-2 for lowfi delay
Akai headrush for tap
Boss DD-20
Digitech PDS 20/20
Boss RC-20
Yamaha magic stomp
-
whatever

I HATE traditional guitar gain on synths. The best I have heard is a metal zone, and it still sucked.


gotta love seeing lists like this where i dont own a single thing... although i already think i have alot of pedals, i need to sell a bunch of em i guess... more i think about the fx-500 the more i like it, so im gonna grab one instead of the magic stomps for now, the ps-2, and ps-3 would cross over to the kinda guitar im doing easily, same with the small stone...


as for the the dd-20,rc-20,pds,headrush...... should i just grab these off ebay? i dont have any decent stores around me, i guess i could goto atlanta or something.... and although not the same but similar, its like, damn, do i hafta have all these heh... i think im going to keep my rig a bit more simpler than this...

[apathyisok]

this thread has helped me so much!
I have been wondering what kind of stuff to get for my microkorg.


and just so you know my keyboard doesn't sound too swell through my fabtone so i don't think the ms2000 will either since they are pretty much the same thing

[Talon]

yeah since this thread was started ive found alot of the things i already own sound really bad with the synth... but alas... i keep trying new things... i wish i could certian i could get back what i paid for on some of these pedals....

[hot_rats!]

originally posted by Talon
i wish i could certian i could get back what i paid for on some of these pedals....
have you ever tried circuit bending (http://www.anti-theory.com/)?

I bent a blues driver into a filtery mess gated octave and sold it for what i originally paid. heres an extremely large grainy picture of that thing. (http://volsus.lostdomain.org/hot_rats/ModedBluesDriver.JPG) In the end I lost a little money buying those switches, but im sure if you did something really interesting you could even profit.

[Talon]

its a COOL idea... especially pedals i didnt pay much for, if i messed em up, it would be so bad... and ofcourse i may like the mods!

[Aneuretic]

I see the Alesis Philtre and Bitrman posted alot but what do you guys think about the Ampliton, FAZE, PHLNGR and Smashup? Are they any good?

[fiveways]

Originally posted by Aneuretic
I see the Alesis Philtre and Bitrman posted alot but what do you guys think about the Ampliton, FAZE, PHLNGR and Smashup? Are they any good?

I am not super into my faze, but am keeping it for one step sound i like.

[grungetele]

w/ a synth, besides all the delays and stuff, I'd use also 2 differents phasers w/ different feedback and rate (although both really slow)... maybe used in stereo... it adds SOOO much space even to a banal sound (I was using this with a crappy strings preset on my GEM digital piano and it sounded as if brian eno was playing some discreet music in my bedroom)..

[Talon]

so what phasers are you using? thats what im really looking for... stuff to add space to what im doing. make it sound not so sterile and boring... the re-201 helps alot..

[grungetele]

err.... it's a kind-of-difficult question because I don't use the most cemmon phasers on earth... actually I run the synth through a slow Aria super phaser re-90 (basically a copy of the phase 90 from the late 70s) w/ rate as slow as possible, the through my zoom 505II' s phase w/ rate 1 or 2 and contour (which controls the feedback) at -7 or +7.... not an easy duo of fx:rolleyes:

I think that the 2 phasers should be ALWAYS with different (slow) rates and their *sound* should be or identical or radically different.... anything but not similar..