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Hi,

I have had my new Yamaha CP50 for a few weeks now after deciding to get it from users on here. I already have gigs planned and regularly practice with the headphones. However, I really want to purchase an amp that I can use at gigs and at home. I am currently using some studio speakers and they work okay but no way near the output for a gig etc. Please, what would be some good options?

You'll want an amp that sounds nice and delivers enough volume to fill a room at least as well as acoustic piano would. You'll also want some control over the the bass, mid, and treble to be able to shape the sound a bit if the room you happen to be playing in has sonic issues. A mic input is useful as well should you decide your also a singer or you are working with one, and a spare input or two is nice for a 2nd keyboard (perhaps for organ or synth sounds).

And of course, if you're going to be carrying the CP50 around, you don't want it to be too large. I've found the Roland KC amps to be well suited for club date and cocktail hour work. The KC-150 is probably all you need, 12" speaker and 65 Watt amp. If you think you need more, they increase in wattage and number of speakers as well as price. Hartke and Peavey have competing amps in this category, you can check them out as well, but I think the Rolands are just fine.

Depends on your budget, any size/weight constraints, whether you need to play in stereo or if a single speaker would do, how much volume you need (the kind of band you're playing with, the size of the venues, whether your keys will also be put in the PA)... lots of variables!

Having tried a bunch of speakers from Behringer, EV, JBL, RCF, Roland, Yamaha, my favorite overall is a JBL PRX625. If it's too big or pricey, and you don't need tons of volume or bass, I like the EV ZXa1.

How do the CP50 acoustic piano patches sound in mono?

James
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That's a good point, James. I'm going to suggest, as anotherscott pointed out, that the type of work Franga is thinking about getting into is going to be the first part of this puzzle. In my own experience, stereo speakers in a compact box don't make much of a difference at all in a hall or large room. I'm just as happy to use a single speaker (no smaller than 12"). But yes, if you're playing in a rock band... or should I say a loud band, you may want to up the wattage and add speakers.

Elmer, I have a fair bit of experience using Roland KC amps when gigging with my Nord Electro. The Nord acoustic piano sounds are very good when heard through speakers (or decent monitors), but sound very nasally and brittle when played through the a single KC amp. I have attributed this to the stereo sound degrading poorly when summed to mono.

Perhaps using two KC amps (one for each channel) would result in a more satisfactory sound? Or perhaps the KC amps just aren't terribly good at reproducing the Nord acoustic piano sounds?

Cheers,
James
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If you're looking in to KC's, you'd might as well give Hartke a good look as well. I have a KM60 (10") and find that it sounds surprisingly warm, yet punchy which is probably due to the aluminum speaker cone. They are (IMO) wonderful amps that I feel are on par with the KC series (I used to have a KC350).

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The CP50 is at its best in stereo .... if you want a all in one solution the Traynor K4 is a stereo keyboard amp that sounds good or Roland has the nice BA-330 stereo amp but neither are as good as a pair of PA speakers such as the EVZXA1 etc that others have recommended. If you on a budget the Yamaha Stagepass 300 speakers are pretty ok.

If you`re doing bar work/ background easy listening then I`d go for stereo set up; it should sound more "live" in that mode. In piano shops, they just stick a keyboard amp in there for demonstration. They invariably sound punchy but bloody awful if you`re playing anything but rock.

I used a Hohner accordian amp which was 25w per channel; sounds good without being perfect and was a lot louder than the internal amp system of 20w per channel.

I think Shure make a decent PA amp set up (compact, easy to carry) which might fit the bill.

That would be my guess. I played through a KC amp long ago, I don't remember which one, but it was not neutral sounding at all, and a piano sound is where you will most notice that.

You should be able to test for whether the problem is a "summing to mono" issue by simply not summing to mono, and sending the amp either the left or right channel output. Typically, a left output will favor the bass strings, a right output will favor the high notes, but either will sound okay by itself when played within its range, only the "balance" of low to high notes should be off. So if that sounds okay, and summing doesn't, it's a summing problem; but if that still sounds bad (with a known-good sound), then I'd say it's the amp.

Is there no Mono Piano patch on the CP50? I know that was touted on the CP33, which has two slightly different flavors of it. Hard to believe they dumped it when going to the current generation...esp. since it's aimed at live band settings.

not to nit-pik, but I will - The Traynor K4 is not a true stereo amp.

I use the Motion Sound 12" 2-way. It's not available anymore. But it's a-lot nicer that their 10" 2-way.

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I have the KP-500, it's alot nicer than the 200, in many ways.

The KP-500 is EXCELLENT ....

Indeed!

Yes it is ....

Dr. Popper,

At least we agree on the KP500.

I remember playing my Nord Stage stereo piano in stereo through the Traynor K4. It seemed that the 12" mono sub's frequency ranged extended so high up into the mid-range that the phase distortion brought about from it's mono summed comb-filtering caused the piano to sound bad.