Monitor Mixes
Monitors are one of the most common battle grounds where band and engineer face off and play tug of war week after week after week. Too commonly the band needs to hear more of themselves, and the engineer needs to hear less of the stage noise. To the musician who only plays Sunday mornings, the ideal monitor mix sounds much like the worship CD he or she listened to on the way to church. Professional musicians know, however, that a good monitor mix has a specific goal.
The simple approach for monitors is that they should offer 2 specific roles. A good monitor mix will help the singer stay on time and in tune. For the band, the monitors should help the musician stay on time and play as 1 unit. As you probably already know though, it’s not that simple to get the band on board.
This is where your relationship with the band leader comes in. Although you don’t have the right to start demanding players to ‘turn down’ or refuse to turn someone up in the monitors, you do have the right to approach the worship leader and communicate in a professional manner that the house mix is suffering due to the stage volume. Having 1 person to negotiate with is much easier than trying to win an argument against 6, 7, 8 or more people.
Some steps you can take though are, separating competing instruments into different monitor mixes. Walk up to the stage and listen to the EQ and timbre of the sounds you are sending. If there are improvements you can make, don’t rely on the band to tell you how to shape your inputs. Perhaps you can make the inputs in the monitors a bit more separated. Also try to place the monitors as closely as possible to the band so the sound doesn’t have to travel as far to reach their ears.
I know you’d probably like to mix Sunday mornings like a rock and roll band- 105dB measured at the back of the room. The reality is though, it’s still church, and it isn’t rock and roll. The house doesn’t need to rock the face of the congregation, and the monitors don’t need to knock the band off their feet.
September 21st, 2009 on 10:08 pm
A very good description! Thanks!
September 22nd, 2009 on 7:29 am
That is my number one problem right now. The design of our church makes it a big echo gallery. We have no acoustical treatment on the walls, and no desire from the folks on the stage to wear IEM’s. So the house is a muddy, LOUD mess. I don’t really know what to do about it either.
September 22nd, 2009 on 10:51 am
Having professionally mixed monitors for a few years now, it’s really easy to separate the good from the bad as far as bands go. The professional bands know what they want and where. I build a mix for each of them on what they want. Usually have them point up or down as I line check the band. For the most part once their mix is set and they are happy I try not to mess with it. I do run through the wedges once they are playing and make the what they wanted to hear is still happening; i.e. the guitar player turned up and they drummer went from quiet sticks to clubs. The not so professional bands are a totally different story. The concept of raising your hand for more seems to escape them and I usually end up building their mixes for them. If they seem to be off during the show I’ll add a piano to help them find their pitch or some drums to help them find their timing. The hip-hop gigs always crack me up though. They ask for 4 biamped 15′s monitors in front of them plus sidefills. I’ve got it screaming at 120db through their wedges, completely overpowering the house, and they are still wanting more. It’s bad enough to make my ears rattle and vision blur and yet they still want more. Oh the joys of the ME.
September 22nd, 2009 on 8:17 pm
Aaron – yup – good bands that know how to do a great sound check – 10 minutes and we’re locked in – hand signals and the OK sign…. Less professional talk softly into the mic, play softly EVEN if I’m next to them on stage coordinating the sound check and they don’t even want to tell me when they are happy with the volume and inevitably it is always too soft since they do not take into account that the rest of the band will also play. It sometimes is better just to set what we think in that case since we have more experience. Of course many of them are just happy to have a monitor speaker within 5 feet of them
September 22nd, 2009 on 9:28 pm
had our first sunday with iem’s this week and our sound guys couldn’t stop raving about how much better and cleaner their mix was because they didn’t have to contend with the monitors. we are still running a few wedges on the stage for the choir and for a little bit of atmosphere, but with much lower levels.
@Daniel, if you have it in the budget, you gotta get them to try it.