Bub


Edited for clarity of where I'm going with this ...

I'm playing keyboards in our church band ... There are actually 2 of us who play keyboards ... The keyboard belongs to the church ... we have a monitor for all of the band and the monitor that was being used for the keyboard itself was only the built in speakers ... I couldn't hear the keyboard that way because the band monitor has the keys turned way down and those speakers on the casio are crap ... EEEERRRR! Screeching halt here ----> I brought in my keyboard amp and plugged it in.

Dude. You didn't? OMG.

You already lost this one Beagle. You pretty much just bypassed everyone and royally pissed them off.

You're only option is to disconnect it, tell them you are sorry you brought it but you can't play anymore unless they turn up the monitor so you can hear yourself just like they do for everyone else, and let nature take it's course.

Or, switch the old farts heart pills with some Viagra and let nature take it's course that way.

lol - well, I can hear myself better this way even if they DID turn me up in the monitor!  and this is what the guitarists and bass does, too.  they have their own amps as well as a monitor for hearing drums, piano and (low volume) everything else.
 
but switching his heart pills with viagra, that's GENIUS! 

Beagle

switching his heart pills with viagra, that's GENIUS! 

I'm chock full of evil schemes.

Another cool thing to do would be to go downtown and get some LSD and put it in an eye dropper. As you walk away, sprinkle a few drops on the keys.

It'll be hilarious!

Every time you guys switch, put some more on the keys.

By the end of the gig, he'll be all up there freakin' out ... "I just saw God! I just saw God!" and everybody will be like, "Hallelujah!" and will be getting in to it, and he'll be like, "NO! REALLY! I JUST SAW GOD! HE'S PISSED!!!! RUNNN!!!!" and everybody will be like, "We gotta get a new keyboard player." ... and that's when you make your move! Shi-sha!

Do you have a keyboard you could lug to and from the church every Sunday?

lol @ Bub!

Greg - yes, and that's one thing I will suggest to the leader.  I'd rather play my MO6 for these types of sounds anyway. 

the problem is that there's very little space to put it.  I'm skeptical he'll go for that since we have so little space.  I can't stack it on top of the other keyboard because we need music on the stand (both of us) and stacking it will cover up the music.  so it would have to be on a separate keyboard stand.

Reece, can you just use ear buds to hear yourself? Because they aren't closed backs....you should be able to hear the live performance and yourself in the buds. That may be the fix there. Unfortunately, the whole he plays you play thing needs a fix for sure. They need to set up the songs to cater to each guy. Sort of like the bassist in my band. He needs to use a 5 string for some songs and he prefers his 4 for all others. So when we do songs that use the 5 string, we segue them together so he doesn't have to make a change.

Ohh I've got the fix. If the ear buds thing is too loud or not loud enough....how about one of those little Rolls headphone amps? I think they are like $40 bucks. Plug it into your head phone out of your amp, then you'll have a level control using the Rolls amp. This of course will depend on whether or not your keyboard amp has a headphone jack. But that's what I'd try. :) Good luck man...at the end of the day, God is watching you and appreciates what you do even if it's sometimes a bit frustrating.

I had a few issues with my church band too. It really bothered me the way they ran things. Funny story real quick...I always got to church early so I could play my acoustic guitar and hear it resonate all through our huge Catholic church when no one was there. The sound was just amazing. One day I was frustrated and really didn't want to be there because of the band leader.

I said a little prayer and said "God, show me a sign if I'm not supposed to be here...so and so is really annoying me but I'm willing to put up with it for You." On that note, I started playing the intro to Ozzy's Diary of a Madman...which is a beautiful piece of acoustic guitar music.

I woke up about 8 minutes later with people all around me wondering what the heck just happened. Either God didn't like Ozzy, or he gave me my sign. The cello that was next to me, fell over and knocked me out cold. LOL!!!! :)

-Danny

I don't think cellos like Ozzie.  

Reece, the environment you're in typically requires some sort of compromise.  If there is not enough space to add your own keyboard, then it would appear that editing the patches for a consistent level would be a reasonable solution.  Relying on remembering to turn down the amp between songs seems to be doomed to fail.  I would suggest talking to the band/worship leader to see if there might be some way to reconfigure the stage so you'd have room for your own keyboard.  Not only would this solve your monitor problem, but it would smooth transitions between songs.  That would be a win for everyone.  

LOL @ Danny's Cello story!

thanks Danny and Bubba - good info.

Put the one the church owns, that he likes to play and the one you like to play on this.

thanks Michael, but since we have to have music (both of us) that won't work because it will cover up the music stand on the top of the church keyboard and putting a stand behind the keyboard stand is a little high.

woke up about 8 minutes later with people all around me wondering what the heck just happened. Either God didn't like Ozzy, or he gave me my sign. The cello that was next to me, fell over and knocked me out cold. LOL!!!! :) -Danny

 
Danny,
 
That is one of the best stories I have heard from you!  Hope you didn't get hurt too bad! 
 
Rimshot