Managing Monitors and Mains

[cw4u]

I've got a problem in our youth building that the praise team likes to have the monitor mixes so high that it'll basically create an echo. I then have to increase the mains to let them overpower the monitors. Now, people complain that the mains are too lound, but I can't stand to hear any echo from our stage. Is their an alternative to what I'm doing? It just drives me crazy. We have three main speakers and three monitors.

[Gene]

How many different monitor mixes do you have? A common reason for requesting louder monitors is because people can't hear themselves and think that just turning everything up will allow them to hear themselves.

[adamdiehl]

Bottom line is that you need to work with the worship leader/MoM, to figure out the best solution with the band. Obviously monitor levels need to come down!

One way is to split up some monitor mixes to get less things in each mix. This would make the things they need to hear more prominent.

Another thing is a sound mixing trick. When someone says, "I need more guitar" . . . maybe what the really mean is "Turn the keyboard down so I can actually hear the guitar." Musicians rarely think of it this way - so the sound guy should listen to the monitor in the mix to see if there is something that is covering up the needed instrument.

My third suggestion is to consider some hot spot monitors. For example, if the keyboard player is getting turned up really loud in a monitor that is shared by many... you can pull the keyboard OUT of the communal monitor, put then the keyboard would just have its own little hotspot (receiving a signal from the 1/4" parallel output on the Direct box). This has helped me greatly - almost everyone has a hotspot for their own instrument, and they share a communal monitor mix that has a little bit of everything.

[Gracetech]

What i do to take care of monitor issues with the youth is to setup two monitors as side fills to cover the whole band. Then i stick a monitor in the fish bowl with the drummer. If you place the side fill directly behind the mains(if that's possible) you will find you will have less slur on the stage which will help the musicians hear better. You can try angling down the sidefills to reduce the bounce of the walls behind them or get curtains or such to deaden the walls down a bit.

crt

[waynehoskins]

Welcome to rock-and-roll. FOH has to be above stage volume to have any sort of clarity, but the blue hairs on the front row don't understand that.

Drum shield helps more than I ever thought it would. Lid on the top of the shield helps more than I ever thought it would. IEMs help a whole lot. If you can get your drummer on ears and in an aquarium, that will go a long way. That, and proper monitor placement will help. Also, putting as few things in each mix can help a lot, so they can hear what they need to hear at a slightly lower level.

[cw4u]

We have three different monitor mixes. One is for stage right, the other for stage left, and one for the drummer. I'll talk to our worship leader about this, and I hope I can get the stage noise reduced by this Wednesday. I'm looking at asking to buy at least one wireless in ear monitor for the leader and expanding later. Do y'all have any suggestions? I was looking at the new series made by Audio-Techncia.

Thanks.

[[Admin] osborn4]

I've heard that you can get better payback (stage volume wise) on IEM or headphone monitors if you implement them for your instrumentalists. They are usually the ones that want more and more of their instrument in the mix.

I don't mean to over generalize. But the rule of thumb I've seen for implementations is drums, bass, electric guitars. This is assuming you have their amp volumes under control. And butt kicker type feedback for the bass and if you have e-drums, so they can feel the bass.

[Gene]

The two big changes I made to reduce our stage volume were:
- going from 1 to 4 monitor mixes. There's one for the leader, one for the instrumentalists, one for the vocalists, and one for the drummer. Each mix is as sparse as possible, e.g., the vocalists just get themselves and some of whatever the lead instrument is.
- putting the drummer on headphones. After the first change, the loudest thing on stage was the drummer's wedge, because by definition it had to be louder than his drums for him to hear. Putting him on headphones helped.
And of course, no or few amps on stage. If there are any, they're turned sideways and mic'd.

[tedanderson]

The only way to solve this problem is to get to the root of the problem. Your musicians will have to learn to play together and they will have to learn not to play so loud. If the band will not permit the audience to enjoy the music, there is nothing that you can do with the sound system to change that.

Multiple mixes and in-ear monitors are nice but the musicians will have to learn that louder is not necessarily better if the audience complains.

[waynehoskins]

The two really loud instruments are drums and electric guitar.

If your electric guitar players can get by with playing lower-power amps (a la AC15), that will save you lots of headache, because 15 watts of guitar is manageable; 50 or 100 is not.

Also take a listen some day on stage to the overall quality of the stage volume. What's the loudest thing? Is it the keyboards in the monitors? (we have a synth/piano/B3 guy who plays sometimes and we've learned to just give him ears because he can't hear his keyboards unless they're screaming out his monitor) Whatever that thing is, try to tackle that first.

Placing guitar amps sidestage and blowing them across can help reduce the stage volume that goes out to the audience.

What instruments do you have?

[cw4u]

We have four acoustic guitars, one bass guitar, and one electric guitar. Not included in those numbers is our worship leader who will either use an electric or acoustic. We also have one keyboard person. This Wednesday, we'll have at least one mic for the drummer. In addition, we'll have five wireless mics on stage for vocals.

Also, I'd like to state that all of these people excluding our worship leader are all teens. (Jr./Sr. High) They sometimes don't really know what they want in their monitor mixes. They just want me to make it sound better. I would have to say that they're an excellent group of people to work with though.

Thanks.

[waynehoskins]

So, all told, one of:
drums, bass, electric, five acoustics, keyboards, five vocals
or
drums, bass, two electrics, four acoustics, keyboards, five vocals

That's too many, in my opinion. That's a big part of the problem. Get them to have fewer at one time. They're all (the six guitars) fighting for the same spectrum.