NS4 sound ”compressing”

[Ecaroh]

Hi all!

Can somebody explain or even guess what happened during my last gig with NS4…?

(Because of MIDI issues I’ve been talking here thousand times) I haven’t used my NS4 on gigs. I use NS3 instead. But few days ago I took my NS4 to more piano oriented gig. I connected it straight to my fellow musician’s QSC touchmix-16 and played just acoustic piano with it. During this gig I realized that piano sound was clearly somehow ”compressing” exactly like you get with heavy compressing: Louder notes were coming down. Of course there was no compressor activated on NS4 itself, Piano sound was same which I’ve used normally home and noticed no compression or anything odd.

I had no time investigate that more on the gig so it remained a mystery what was going on…

[Jon Lukas]

Maybe compression on the TouchMix channel or master?

[Schorsch]

Hi,

the QSC Touchmix has a compressor included as far as I know, had this been activated?

Touchmix.jpg (154.64 KiB) Viewed 1310 times

Edit: Jon was faster

[cphollis]

Hi all!

Can somebody explain or even guess what happened during my last gig with NS4…?

(Because of MIDI issues I’ve been talking here thousand times) I haven’t used my NS4 on gigs. I use NS3 instead. But few days ago I took my NS4 to more piano oriented gig. I connected it straight to my fellow musician’s QSC touchmix-16 and played just acoustic piano with it. During this gig I realized that piano sound was clearly somehow ”compressing” exactly like you get with heavy compressing: Louder notes were coming down. Of course there was no compressor activated on NS4 itself, Piano sound was same which I’ve used normally home and noticed no compression or anything odd.

I had no time investigate that more on the gig so it remained a mystery what was going on…

Many of the consumer-oriented mixers have presets for pianos and perhaps other keyboard instruments. These presets invariably include compression to make keys "sit better in the mix". Can't speak to the TouchMix, but some of these presets really overdo it and you end up with this 80s-style compressed piano sound.

Quick checklist for playing APs through any mixer: ensure full pan L and R, minimal compression, a small EQ scoop around ~400Hz to lessen midrange mud, maybe a bit of high-end boost for presence, easy on the reverb. Also, a pair of headphones in your gig bag is useful for listening directly to a keyboard, a mixer, etc.

In addition to playing keys, I do sound and lights for my bands, and so have taught myself enough sound engineering to be dangerous.

[Ecaroh]

Thanks guys!

Couple of remarks: We have used this QSC mixer for years and also same channels and setup. And I haven’t noticed similar ”compression” with pianos. Difference: I have used NS3 > MOTU audio interface > QSC. So signal is different. Another thing was that we had only one speaker, so (if I am right) my two NS4 channels were sent to that. My own guess is that somehow signal was too hot for QSC and that made it to compress. I don’t know at the moment that was there actual compressor activated or is there some automatic protection for distortion…

[MrLeoMadrid]

Maybe you had the dynamic compresor selected in the piano section?

[cphollis]

Another thing was that we had only one speaker, so (if I am right) my two NS4 channels were sent to that.

If your typical setup is two speakers and reasonable stereo, making this one change will make your APs sound flat and lifeless by comparison.

Also, bringing audio in via USB (your MOTU) you won't get a full channel strip with compression, EQ etc. so that would make a difference.