I am in the same boat as you. I purchased my RD 300GX in early 2009 for the same reasons you did (i.e. lightweight, supposedly excellent piano and EP sounds, passable B3, great feel for piano or organ patches, outstanding controller capabilities, etc.). In the store the RD300GX piano and EP’s sounded great through mono amps and headphones when I spent several hours trying them all out. Unfortunately, just as you experienced, the piano patches all become hollow and thin or completely disappear into the mix when I have used my RD300GX live with bands I have played with. Several sound guys and musicians I have worked with have made the same observations so it’s not just my (or your) imagination. I have basically tried the things you mentioned with marginal improvement, including running in stereo, EQ’ing, changing the touch as you did, the gain, and the compression, as well as changing the other multitude of sound parameters using the Sound Design feature. The bottom line is that no matter what I do, the piano patches, both the stereo ones and the couple in mono you mentioned, don’t work well with a live band, even though many of them sound wonderful in solo. I pretty much gave up and now use my RD300GX as a controller for my 7 year-old old Kurzweil ME-1 module, whose piano sounds integrate with band mixes far better. In a pinch I have even been guilty on quite few occasions of resurrecting my decades’ old Kurz SP76 for band gigs for piano when I don’t feel like doing the Midi thing.

This is very frustrating given that I spent serious $$ on what I though would be an excellent all-in-one lightweight stage piano with great state-of-the-art piano sounds. I am now seriously considering trading or selling the board for possibly a lightweight Privia PX-330 / PX-3 which should theoretically be a serious downgrade in sound quality but they seem to sound a lot better when I’ve played them a couple of times at jams in live band mixes. IMHO the Privias, however, don’t sound nearly as good in solo as the RD300GX. Also the Privas don’t have have the controller capabilities of the RD300GX and their non-piano sounds don’t compare.

If possible, I would like to hang onto the RD300GX if there is a work-around to the poor piano sound quality in a live band mix, it is a near lightweight perfect gigging board.

I apologize for this long-winded rant… To Brian, or anyone else out there in Cyberspace, if you hear of a magic bullet for the RD300GX sound piano sound problem please let me know.

Best regards,
Scott

The thing that drew me to the rd300gx was its excellent feel, very good piano sound (what i use mostly) and the big one… coming off a back surgery I couldn’t carry the rd600 around anymore. The rd300 is around 35 lbs(?) In any case it is the lightest digital piano i could find that had a great feel. I came here looking for an answer to something I am experiencing, but rather than answers I am finding other people with the same concerns. These days I am playing most often through the Bose tower systems with a small group, 3 or 4 musicians. The music we play ranges from mellow to light rock. In the times where I am leading with voice and piano, everything is wonderful. But when the band comes in, the keyboard just seems to disappear. It is the strangest phenomena. The band can be playing and I am straining to hear myself – very oftne cannot make out what I am doing at all Many times now thinking myself wrong on this, I’ll hit a note after the song is over and find it present and clear. We run the systme in mono sometimes and stereo others. It is a bit better in stereo mode of course, but the output still disappears. I am not talking about some little change here… but what is honestly the strangeset thing I have ever heard musically. The irony is this has nothing to do with Bose noise cancelling headphones, but that is what I liken the phenomia too.. cancelling out. I know thats not what is going on of course, it has something to do with the sounds themselves and I believe maybe how they occupy the stectrum and lack of presecnce in the biting part of the midrange. It just has no bite, that I can find anyway. Frustrated and digging for answers, that is precisely what landed me here.

Ok, enough said on that. Let me share some of the things I have noticed that can help a bit.

1) Adjust the keyboard touch. I run mine on light. The epianos at least come to life now, with some bit and responsiveness. This is also true of triggering soft synths in general.

2) There are two pianos at the very end of the piano choices. They are called MONO and even help a bit when running in mono Still not great, I feel like they thin out too much.. just not fun.

The keyboard sounds great when played by itself. I am still looking for solutions. There just isnt another board that feels this good for 35lbs. Thanks to everyone here and I wish you all well.

brian

i don’t think it’s uncommon to run pretty much everything mono into a mixer and have it sound fine. hard to believe that a non-defective Roland keyboard would have crappy line out sound quality from the factory. exprimenting with your PA, eq and gain sructure would be the place to start anyway I would think. for every new input device it takes some time to dial in it’s particular sweet spot.

if it sounds great at the music store thru a keyboard amp it should sound fine through a PA. if it sounds crappy at the store don’t buy it. and it’s pretty hard to judge how anything will sound live based upon how it sounds thru good headphones. try asking a guitar player to make a purchase that way.

wonder if Nick got it to work well for him?

Could you please tell me how you did add the compression and set the dual warm pad sound to the board? I would highly appreciate that!