which amp for classical pianist?

[boglary]

Hi! I am a classical pianist using electric keyboard and am going to play in restaurants, Weddings. What brand and model do you recommend for this purpose? As the one I have (Behringer) is only a 15Kw amp and has very weak, low sound. I need something which produces clean not too low sounds without distortion. And also what is suitable to fill in a bigger hall.
I am also playing in a progressive rock band, but I think for that music too I need clean sounds.

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

I've played with a keyboardist a couple times now in a hard driving blues band who uses this $600 Roland Keyboard amp.
It seemed to fit the bill very well ...and with plenty of reserve too.
Plus, when doing a little Jazz trio, it was used as the single vocal PA with the keyboards!!

Buy Roland KC-550 180W Keyboard Amp | Keyboard Amplifiers & Monitors | Musician's Friend

or this one appears to be pretty good at less money

http://keyboards-midi.musiciansfrien...Amp?sku=480783

[corworld]

Being a keyboardist who loves tube amps, there is a bit of disconnect. For most live situations, I find a powered PA speaker is more useful than the typical Roland Keyboard amp. I can't seem to get a flat response for piano out of one. The advantage of a keyboard amp is the mini mixer it has for when you run multiple boards or two pianists. A JBL EON has enough power and can be used as a monitor as well as placed on a speaker stand.

I tend to use tube amps on keyboards for recording only. For instance, Wurtlizer EP into a champ sounds great. Leslie speakers sound great, but in a gig the wonderful quality of the sound never gets to the audience so if you can live with it, so can they.

[boglary]

thank you, I will check them out, but probably Behringer would be the winner as I don't have that much money...

[tedmich]

a Carvin LM12A is very compact, truthful and loud for ~$430

A DCM150 and a LM10 will set you back ~$400

IME Berhinger works great until it doesn't... you need a powered studio monitor to accurately reproduce piano, honky tonk not so much...

[Enzo]

Hi bog

I think an important question is this - are you playing alone or with others? And also will this tend to be a set it and forget it sort of thing, making any adjustments at the keyboard? Or would you need to twiddle controls during a performance?

For piano, I think you want basically a PA speaker. Something that will faithfully reproduce your sound. You probably don;t have much need for mixing or for adding effects. I imagine they are all already on your keyboard if you need them.

When I saw your thread title, I thought first of a "powered speaker" type unit. That is what the JBL Eon Corworld mentioned is. It is a PA speaker with an amplifier built in - you don;t need separate units. Connect a line out from your keyboard directly to it.

Nowdays almost every speaker company makes a powered speaker. The JBLs are nice but are pricier than some other fine brands. I know Behringer makes them, but so do PV and Yamaha and Mackie and a lot of others.

But another question is how large are the venues at which you play? It is one thing to try to fill the atrium at the Hyatt Regency, and it is totally another thing to fill a small restaurant dining room. COncerts are not the same thing as background music - forgive the phrase. Your needs might be different when people are sitting there to watch you play than if you are playing to make a pleasant experience out of people talking over their dinners. Or you could be playing at a church. My brother in law is a professional classical guitarist, and he plays at his church as well as other gigs. And a restaurant gig is generally played at a lower level than others

COnsider coverage. A keyboard amp or a single powered speaker may well be plenty loud for you, but if you need to spread the sound around, those tend to aim one direction. Powered speakers could be doubled up and aimed to cover a wider area. Most all of the powered speakers currently on the market allow you to daisy chain several together if need be. Better to have a couple speakers playing lower than one speaker playing louder to get the room filled.

Buying from a local dealer should get you the chance to audition the choices. I think that is worth paying a ferw more dollars over online ordering. Most places will set them up for you to compare, and a good dealer will let you take it out and try it.

personally I would suggest not trying to save money by going to smaller speakers. I don;t think you get as full a sound out of a 10" or even 12" speaker compared to a 15" one. Not to say smaller speakers sound bad, they don;t. But a piano is a very full range instrument compared to a guitar. On the other hand, sometimes you need an amp more as a "presence projector" than as sound reinforcement.

[boglary]

Hi all,
thank you for your reply and all the questions which helps to specify my needs.
First of all I thought I need it to play on events, Weddings, restaurants, exhibitions so it probably would be in background. Sometimes I would play alone or accompany a cello player. But as piano is the most important sound at the moment and I have a Yamaha S90 synth which has beautiful sophisticated realistic piano sound I would like to reproduce this sound. I use AKG studio headphones and that is very clear sound without any bass or distortion. I just want to hear the clinging piano not like honky tonk!
But thinking about it if I spend money on the amp it would be nice to use it for my other musical purposes as well, like playing rock on gigs and rehearsals. So I guess clean sound with power! What a good power is? From 150Watt for instance? I will check them all out what you suggested.
Anyway, used amps would work or is it risky? I saw a used Laney Concept Ck160 4-channel 160w amp. Is it good?

[boglary]

I checked JBL EON and what I saw is mostly speakers. That is what oyu meant? To use a pair of speakers? Though looks expensive.

[boglary]

And what about this?

Yamaha Stagepass 250M
STAGEPAS 250M

or I read about Alesis....
or Behringer ULTRATONE K1800FX which is cheaper. What I have is Behringer but it is just 15Watt, maybe that's why it is honky tonk.

[Enzo]

Your 15w is pretty small - we consider that a practice amp. But the speaker in it is also pretty small. You don't usually find a 15" speaker in a 15w amp, or for that matter even a 12".

I myself am not pushing the EOn, it is just an example of a type of gear. it looks like just a speaker, but if you check out a rear view, there is a little panel with input jacks, volume controls, and the amplifier is inside.

The Yamaha unit I am not familiar with, but they have so many models of so many things, that is not surprising. It appears to be a powered mixer (mixer with power amp in it) and a speaker. That would certainly work as well.

You really should get to a music store and start trying everything you and they can think of. Powered speakers, keyboard combo amps, small PA systems.

[reverendbk]

I play in a loud funk band. Our keyboard player uses a Behringer BX600, which is a 60-watt bass amp. His tone is loud and clear, even over a loud drummer, and he almost never uses the P.A. The amp also has a "shape" knob that contours the mids. It has a 12- inch speaker. The main drawback of a Behringer is the construction quality, but it doesn't sound like you're having to throw it in a pickup and do a rushed load-in at a bar. If you play a louder gig, it has a line out so you could run the smaller amp. However, that Laney CK160 is a nice amp. 160 Watts and a 15" is plenty, plus it has a high freq. driver too. Used solid state is not too risky unless it looks very beat up.

[indianajo]

piano electrification

I think for piano, even electrically generated, you need more of a full frequency flat response amp like a hi-fi unit than a guitar type amp. On my EPS keyboard I have used my Dynakit Stereo 70 hooked up mono with a Peavey T300 Projector Speaker. This was in a church with a 40 member choir, 300 seats, and a Hammond organ also playing. I was 15 feet behind the speaker. I also used the sequencer part of the EPS to play additional instruments while I played the piano track. I tried my Dynakit Stereo 120 transistor amp at first, because it is lighter, but it caught fire at a 3 hour dress rehearsal. The kids in the junior choir thought the explosion under the pulpit was very cool. I sat on an Ampeg mono channel mixer, and was able to turn the sound up and down for various parts. Triodeelectronics is still selling clone Stereo 70 kits- tubes are forgiving if somebody pulls a speaker wire or something. My 70 has gotten wimpy at times, but never oscillated or smoked in the 40 years I've had it.(Built 1961). The stereo 70 has screw terminals, you may want to install 1/4 phono jacks at the start to make setup easier. The stereo 70 is about 30 lb, the speaker about 50 lb, having them separate makes transport easier. The more iron in your amp, the more sound.

[tubeswell]

Well this thread is getting on a bit now but FWIW, when I used to play keys in a band (close on 30 years ago) I had a Fender Rhodes for a time (Jeez I wish I had never got rid of that - rare as hen's teeth nowadays, and feckin' awesome sound to boot - was the portable model - so double-rare and triple-stupid of me) that I played through a little SS amp with a 12" RCF speaker - 'twas good enough for the type of piano playing in small combos and in not very loud teeny weeny bars. But for anything else like a Yamaha electric grand (also nice but finikity to keep in tune) or something a lot more modern, you're better off going into a PA system.