Being Creative on Stage: Insights from Taylor Hurt

Hey y’all!

Lately, I’ve been on a live music CRUSADE. I’ve developed this fascination with full band live recordings and the different rigs musicians use for their shows- from amps to synths, pedals, mics, drum kits, and beyond. I’m fascinated by why musicians choose their gear and how those choices help them lock in on stage.

After spending so much time on productions where there’s endless room to course correct and polish, there’s something magical to me about a “one take” moment- when the whole band locks in and it’s just go time. There’s something so musical, human, and inspiring about that energy.

These many thoughts are what inspired the topic of this blog post. 

Taylor Hurt’s Gear Journey: A Lesson in Creativity on Stage

On that note, I had a blast chatting with touring keyboardist, producer, and mix engineer Taylor Hurt.

I asked her: “Can you walk us through your live rig- what’s in it, how you’ve set it up, and what inspired the way you’ve routed your hardware pedals and chosen your gear?”

She said: “My live setup is contingent on which genre I’m playing, but the synth I use the most and have used for the last 8 years is my Juno-DS 61. It has a fantastic range of piano, organ, and synth sounds, so many that I certainly haven’t even cycled through all of them. Its range of sounds makes it a great all-around keyboard. You can split the keyboard into two different patches and layer sounds, making infinite possibilities for performance. When I started working for Death By Audio, truth be told, I really wasn’t a huge gearhead. I thought gear was mostly a boys’ club type of thing, and pedals were only meant for guitars. Within a year of working there, I purchased an Echo Dream 2 and immediately realized its potential beyond guitars. Instead of putting it on a pedalboard, I bought a tabletop that screws onto any mic stand so I can control the parameters simultaneously while playing. I’ll turn it on for many intros/outros of Strawberry Launch songs and use the feedback knob to create seamless transitions. Holding out chords with my right hand while moving the delay time knob with my left hand emits an extreme tape-delay effect with insane pitch swells. I’ll also use the square wave modulation at a slow speed and high depth to create a glitching effect. For a long time, I strictly used the ED2 for transitions, but sometimes I will use it as a normal slapback delay if there’s a riff or solo that craves it. 

Later down the line, I got the Disturbance. I put it before the ED2 in my chain, and have two main uses for it. First, it is an excellent phaser for songs that call for it. I like a slow and wide phaser, and it sounds super lo-fi. Second, I like to use the flanger at a really fast speed for solos, because it gives the sound a crunchy volume boost and a noticeable modulation that really says “hey, I’m soloing here!” because when playing in clubs, it can be hard to hear that there’s a synth solo going on. 

When I got asked to play for Sarah Kinsley’s tour, I knew I had to step it up with my setup. I bought a two-tiered stand so I could bring my Korg Minilogue. The Minilogue was sort of collecting dust for a couple of years. I got it from a friend for super cheap as I was learning more about analog synthesis, but I didn’t know it as well as my Juno. The Minilogue challenged me to think more from an analog sound-design angle. For that tour, I used my Juno for chords and used the Minilogue, through my pedal board, for solos and flourishes. I added the Pigtronix Cosmosis reverb pedal to the end of my chain because the Minilogue has no reverb. The Cosmosis is great because it has three reverb settings: theatre, temple, and cosmos. This gives me lots of options ranging from a small, more “normal” reverb to a huge atmospheric soundscape.

Pushing Sonic Boundaries on the Kinneret Tour

I just finished a fall tour with my good friend Kinneret. Her music is best described as “weirdcore”, with electronic, pop, and dance elements. Her older music even has some trap influence. When learning her songs, I spent 80% of my time creating the sounds and 20% learning the actual notes. Her discography has so many unique sounds, and when creating sounds for the tour, I really treated it like a puzzle to get the sounds as accurate as possible. I had pedals going for all 20 songs in the set, when normally only a handful of songs get the pedal treatment. I had a color-coded note taped to my keyboard for which song took what pedals. I only needed my Juno for this tour since there was already another keyboardist in the band. While learning the songs, I realized a lot of her new songs had filter swells and changes in the cutoff frequency. Normally, I would just play the riff/chord with my right hand and adjust the cutoff knob with my left, but these riffs required both hands to play. I decided it was finally time to look into an expression pedal, and I found a Pro-Line one for super cheap on Facebook Marketplace. I plugged it into the control jack of my Juno, and it has given me so much more control over my sound. In the choruses, I’ll play the riffs at full volume and frequency range, and then I can quickly pull back the cutoff with the pedal just in time for the verses.

Being on the Kinneret tour has really re-sparked my drive for sound design. Kinneret and the other keyboardist on the tour, Sofie Pederson (Candynavia), have inspired me that I don’t have to be so serious when it comes to the instruments I’m using, and I can get really crafty when it comes to creating sounds. Sofie’s setup included a Minilogue and a Roland 404, which served to play samples and control vocal FX. Some of these FX were just simple reverb, but others would chop her vocals or make her voice really deep and spooky. In addition to her Minilogue and sampler, she had an Omnichord, a kalimba, and a bird whistle. Most would consider a kalimba and a bird whistle to just be quirky toys for the home, and I would have never thought they could be used on stage. They added such great performance quality to the show, and it’s really inspired me to use more unconventional instruments on stage. One of my favorite keyboardists right now, who has been using pedals with her synths for a long time, is Bryn Bliska. She’s toured with Maggie Rogers and is currently on the road with Chappell Roan, and she is always seen with a huge pedalboard on stage. It’s cool to see such unique sound design with these huge pop touring acts.

I just bought the Rooms pedal from DBA, which is a stereo pedal with lots of abnormal reverbs and modulation. Truly, there are infinite possibilities with that pedal. I have also thought about bringing back my OP-1 to live shows, which I don’t see a lot of people using on stage. Having a small synth on stage that I can hold in one hand and play with the other is super fun because I’m no longer bound to my keyboard stand, and I can walk around and jam with the rest of the band. In 2026, I’m trying to get more experimental with the sounds I use on stage and promote more pedal usage on synths. They aren’t just for guitars!”

Bringing It All Back to Your Rig

Truth be told, I nerded out HARD reading Taylor’s answer. As a huge pedalhead, I was fascinated- especially seeing her gear journey unfold over time. Watching it all build up into what she’s using now is so sick. Her use of delay pedals to create transitions, intros, and outros really caught my attention. It made me realize I definitely need to start experimenting with that more. I love reamping sounds through guitar pedals in my productions, so now I’m excited to see what kinds of textures I can come up with. 

On a slightly different note, I also loved what she said about the Kinneret tour and the other keyboardist, Sofie Pederson (Candynavia). The way Sofie used unconventional instruments on stage- like the kalimba and bird whistle really stuck out to me. It opened my mind to how many different ways there are to break out of the box musically. It reminded me that not every track needs the usual lineup of conventional instruments and elements that one would perhaps expect.

I’ll definitely be referring back to Taylor’s piece- there are so many nuggets of inspiration here, and I can’t wait to get back in the studio and get experimenting. 

Thank you Taylor for sharing your amazing insights!!

Catch you next blog!!