Friday, June 5, 2015

Getting Used To Concert Halls



Here is a photo from last night's the Good Graces rehearsal. We thought we should spend at least one rehearsal from the stage of a large venue and through Tracy's connections, we were able to spend a few minutes at Emory University's Schwartz Center for Performing Arts amazing hall. After spending many rehearsals in relatively small rehearsal spaces, we wanted to feel what a large stage and audience space felt like, how our on-stage setup actually worked, and what playing the songs actually sounded like in this formation.

This shot is of my new keyboard setup. The new part is the keyboard stand itself, the pedal board and cable snake that connect up the iPad, Korg Kronos X, and the StudioLogic SL880 Pro. The keyboard stand is a König & Meyer Spider Pro, which I selected because of the room at the bottom of the stand for pedals and comfort for standing while playing. I've adjusted the arms on the stand so that iPad holder does not interfere with the Korg's touchscreen, and the Korg and StudioLogic keyboards are at a perfect height for playing while standing.

The custom pedal board holds my volume, sustain, and "leslie" control switch along the front of the board, and 2 stereo Radial ProD2 direct boxes, and AC power strip. And all of the cables that connect to the devices on the stand are cabled up into a snake that I can quickly connect. I timed both my setup and tear down, and I can get set up in 9 minutes from cases to what you see above, and can tear down in 9 minutes from what you see back down into cases. And all of my cases are on wheels.

I should mention that I've got duplicates of pedals, cables, adapter for my iPad, and extra direct boxes in case something goes down over the course of the tour.

Back to the Schwartz Center, the acoustics are amazing. We played at normal rehearsal volumes through our normal amps and we could have done a show without a PA. All with glorious 4 second reverb decay. I could get used to this.

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