An unexpected pedalboard

Last weekend, I bought a new keyboard (synthesizer, not the typing kind) after not having a working keyboard for six years. I started looking through the manual and found something I totally hadn't expected. There's an analog-to-digital input that can be run through the effects processing part of the synthesizer.

If I'm understanding this right, I should be able to take one of my ukes that has a pickup, run it through the keyboard, and use the processing unit as a pedalboard, and then send the sound through the keyboard's output to its speakers.

I just tried this for the first time. I got the uke's sound out of the speakers. I could notice a change in the sound when I changed the EQ settings. But I also tried running through effects for distortion and phasing, and I only could detect tiny changes in the sound as I moved the controls. Maybe I just don't understand the controls for this yet. Or it may be that I'll have to run the uke through my Crate amp to provide enough input sound to the keyboard (my Kawika seemed to provide a healthy amount of input, but the Kiwaya K-Wave produced little sound even with the gain turned all the way up).

Whatever, I never imagined that the keyboard was going to be useful to my uke playing except as accompaniment. This is an exciting extra benefit that I look forward to messing around with.

My guess would be that the AD input is expecting a line-level signal. That's roughly ten times the amplitude you get out of a typical active instrument pickup. If you use an amp, you would want to use the line out NOT the speaker out to drive the keyboard input.

On many amps with an "effects loop" the FX output is really only at "hot instrument level" - well below line level. It depends on the amp, of course.

JOhn

A Fishman preamp would be a pretty cheap option as well.

OldePhart said:

My guess would be that the AD input is expecting a line-level signal. That's roughly ten times the amplitude you get out of a typical active instrument pickup. If you use an amp, you would want to use the line out NOT the speaker out to drive the keyboard input.

Click to expand...

Thanks, John. This is probably it. There's a place where the A/D input can be set to "Line" or "Mic". For microphones, ukes, or guitars, it should be set to "Mic". I'd forgotten to do that step when I was trying it out today. The factory default was "Line". I think I can store that as a setting so the default will be "Mic" from now on.