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I play a Microkorg (sorry) thru my pedalboard and into a Peavey PA head that I believe is 600 watts into two 15" speakers. It just sounds bad and I can't seem to EQ it enough to make it sound nice and crisp like it should. Could the speakers just be old? My uncle used it at rodeos for years and now I have it and try to make use of it. I tried playing a guitar through it too and strumming hard or using dirt boxes just compresses the sound and comes out quieter than playing softly. I know nothing about how any of what I am doing works, besides compression. Help me please

no reason to apologize for the microkorg. most popular synth in the world. they're awesome if you know what you're doing with them.

600w its pretty huge, sure the speakers are built to handle that? also yes they can damage with age, especially outdoors / exposed to weather...

is it a tube amp or a solid-state amp? at 600W i'd think solid-state.

yeah solid state, the speakers are what came with it, both 300watts. They do have multiple inputs on each though which I don't know exactly how to use. There's two "Full Range/Normal" inputs and then a "BI-AMP HI" and "BI-AMP LOW"

I would check the speakers out if you could get to them. You never know what condition they are in after years of use as a PA system.
Make sure you use Full Range if you are just using one amp. Bi-amping should only be used if you are splitting the signal into high and low ranges with two different amps with a crossover. That's what generally makes a PA cabinet special.

So would it be alright to play Microkorg -> pedalboard -> Fender Quad Reverb?
I thought i remembered you weren't supposed to play keys through tube amps but i don't remember where i heard it or why i thought it was true

The only thing you'd need to worry about is blowing out speakers with super bass and volume. It doesn't matter what you plug into an amp.
Well, you know, instrument-wise.

i guess i planned on upgrading the speakers in the future anyway
thanks!

Junk wrote:i guess i planned on upgrading the speakers in the future anyway
thanks!

Are they just 15''s in a cab and nothing else??? Do they have Horns, the other speaker on top for highs??? If you don't really set up a 600w PA Head and 2 15"s it's always gonna sound like butt with just a Keyboard through some pedals... What's the model # of the Head and what do the speakers say on the back???

Peavey XR 600C Mixer Amp
the speakers are SP 5XT they have a 15" and a horn above it
says they're "Scorpion Equipped"

DUDE JUST RUN IT THROUGH THE QUAD

But, yeah, it should be fine if you just keep the volume on the korg not cranked.

something sounds a little fucked up...

that being said, i've run all of my keys through pedals and tube amps for many shows and many years and haven't had any issues. you'll need to bring the keyboard volume way down to play nice though, especially with pedals which are used to seeing the tiny little signal that is a typical guitar.

Peavey Scorpion speakers are kind of known for sucking compared to Black Widows. They blow pretty easily and Peavey's power ratings for their cabs weren't always what they labeled them to be. I think that might be your problem. I think if you swapped more recent, decent 15" drivers into the 2x15 you'd probably have a better sound and a more reliable situation

It's two separate 15"+horn enclosures. I probably will just end up running it through the quad reverb

how are you plugging into your poweramp?
if you're getting a squishy compressed sound when playing loud, it's because you're playing too hot, turn down your synth and/or pedals.

if you're gonna use your quad reverb, just watch out for speaker excision (your speaker voice coils knocking) with the low frequency.