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Rudess’ KeyFest Turns to QSC at Sweetwater

The three-day clinic, held annually at the campus of Sweetwater Sound, made use of QSC live sound gear.

Fort Wayne, IN (July 12, 2019) – When not on the road or in the studio with Dream Theater, Jordan Rudess can be found working hard as an educator, sound designer, virtual instrument app developer, and more. As part of that, every year he puts on KeyFest, an intensive three-day clinic for keyboardists of all levels of ability, always held at Sweetwater Sound in Ft. Wayne, IN.

This year’s co-instructors included David Rosenthal (Billy Joel, Cyndi Lauper) and Latin jazz player Otmaro Ruiz. To hear and capture it all, KeyFest 2019’s live sound equipment was QSC.

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Two clinician rooms were each outfitted with K12.2 powered loudspeakers for mains, K8.2 loudspeakers as monitors, and a TouchMix-30 Pro digital mixer to route and capture audio. To host KeyFest’s marquee performances, the larger Crescendo Club employed four KLA12 active line array cabinets and two KW181 active subwoofers as well.

“I was immediately comfortable when I showed up and noticed all the speakers around us were QSC,” says Rudess. “Maybe that’s because Sweetwater knew I’ve endorsed QSC for a long time, or maybe it was just because they wanted to have really great sound.”

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Rudess’ appreciation of QSC goes back “at least eight or ten years,” he says, “when I was traveling doing a lot of clinics. There was one music store in the Boston area [not affiliated with Sweetwater] where whatever speakers they had set up for my clinic didn’t sound very good. So, I asked them, ‘Do you have anything a step up from this. You know, something good?’ They brought out some QSC speakers—I think maybe they were the original model K10 or K12—and I was pretty blown away. I remember making a mental note of it, because I figured that at any music store I found myself at, I could just ask for QSC and be happy.”

Rudess recalls that at the next NAMM show he attended after that fateful day, “I went over to talk to them, and that’s when I became an endorser” – since adopting K Series, and later, the K.2 Series for all his personal use.

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“I’m sort of obsessed with them,” he laughs. “At home, I have the K8.2s for practicing, then the K10.2s in the studio. I also have a pair of K12.2s that I take to rehearsals and writing sessions with Dream Theater. Onstage, I use in-ear monitors, but I use QSC speakers for everything else. If I’m doing a recording session, I’ll bring a pair to use as monitors in the tracking room.”

Jordan Rudess • www.jordanrudess.com

KeyFest • www.sweetwater.com/events/keyfest

QSC • www.qsc.com

Sweetwater Sound • www.sweetwater.com

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