Tips for the Performing Keyboardist

A keyboardist playing any form of modern music is often in a position to make a contribution to the energy and the presence of a musical event in creative ways that other instrumentalists do not have access to. While this may seem to be all about the art of performing, veterans of the road on the keyboard notice that there are a few in-the-field rules to keep in mind, to touring or performing live, that if ignored could damage one's expensive equipment or worse damage one's reputation for reliability as a stage musician. A simple direction to start out on should be to understand the central role that power conditioning can play in the health of digital or electronic musical equipment and in the success of a show.

When traveling or going to public stages one can never be quite sure of the quality or the type of power the stage supply receives. It could be a line that heavy equipment draws power from that is subject to power sags and voltage spikes. It is best to not trust in luck and to invest in an adequately-built power conditioner. Sensitive electronic equipment should always work off conditioned and smoothed power supplied by a reliable power conditioner, at home even, and certainly at a public venue that one is not familiar with. A show can be disrupted by a flaky synthesizer or other equipment that is upset by a power surge. It is best to pack such a good quality power conditioner of adequate capacity on one's way to a show.

The first thing to think about packing to go out on a show is to make up your mind what equipment is tangibly essential to the show's success. Transporting heavy musical equipment is a hassle and the indispensable hardshell protective cases for your equipment are not cheap. There is also the matter of the way in which analogue synthesizers are often erratic. It is in the nature of some kind of analogue controls to drift from their setting. Analogue equipment is also heavy, delicate and difficult to set up quickly or to change one set up. If these are not essential to the sound you are aiming for, it might be an idea to pick the more easily-managed digital synthesizer for a trip.

Once there, it isn't just power that can be unpredictable at a public venue; when equipment is set up it needs to be done with an eye towards orderly cable management and to reliable and sturdy setup. In a chaotic public venue it could be easy for anyone to trip over a cable or to shove over a precariously-placed piece of equipment. In the matter of cable management for one's keyboard setup a smart investment that goes a long way is often a good quality sub-mixer. Cables from all kinds of synthesizers can be mixed and routed right in the keyboardists' area; if it weren't for this the keyboardist will need to think about having long cable lengths traveling from every keyboard up to the main house mixer. This increases costs and makes tripping accidents more likely. A sub-mixer in the keyboard area gives you personal control and makes cable travel more manageable. Synthesizers and assorted equipment are best trusted to substantially built synthesizer stands. The ones that are designed to hold more than one keyboard and are built in the shape of an X are usually made heavier and more reliable. Audio cables, as tough as they make them, can often trip you up in the figurative sense -- they can fail and get the way of a smooth performance. It is always essential to carry a set of spare cables of all the right kinds and to carry a set of adapters to convert cables to the right kind of connector should the need arise.

The more easily you can hear exactly what you are playing the more in touch with your music you will be; while this might seem to be a given, the clamor of the onstage environment, and often insensitive monitoring arrangements provided at the venues make it very difficult to hear everything properly and in balance. One can always for such a situation, carry one's own monitoring -- headphones are adequate and in-ear monitoring such as provided by Shure's EC line are tailor-made for such purposes.

There is nothing like being onstage and fumbling through one's sounds and presets because they're not organized in exactly the order in which they are needed or because they're somehow misplaced or lost. Carrying backups on loadable external storage of all your patches for such situations is an important practice to be mindful of. These commonsense practices are the right foot forward in making a success of one's performances.