Drum Monitor Placement

[yeshua]

I'm trying to figure out where is the standard place to put a monitor for the drummer without hitting the overheads preferred. (acoustic kit btw)

I've looked online and the only thing I've really found is "Use IEM's or headphones". I would like to make our drummer use a set of IEM's or headphones, but hes quite against it so I want to try to avoid it if I can for a while anyways....so please don't say "make him go on IEM's" because thats not helpful

Where do you place your monitor?
Do you use a floor wedge, or more of a sidefill setting? (or something different yet....besides IEM's...

Any helpful hints for monitor placement or even mic placement so that you get the whole kit (I only have 1 mic on the kit and thats all I have room for on my board) but no feedback or anything from the monitor getting picked up by the overhead.

Right now I'm actually debating about going from floor wedge for the drummer, and 2 sidefills for everyone else (only one monitor feed on my board), to floor wedge for the singers, sidefill pointed towards piano player, side fill pointed towards drummer (both sidefills now become personal monitors per say for those people, so placement within 4 feet of the individual). I was having major stage volume problems this sunday so I'm trying to figure out the best way to fix it within my powers....

My speakers available to me are: (only the YX12 I can't remember if thats exactly the right model...)
2 JBL EON 1500 for mains
2 Yorkville CX80P for sidefills
1 Yorkville YX12 for Drummer

Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks

[bpharmer]

What style of music/service are you dealing with?

Seems like the main thing your drummer would need is your lead vocalist depending on style of music. What are you trying to give the drummer in the monitor feed? Sounds like you have really limited options with your current setup.

What type of mixer do you have - you really only have a main, the fills and only 1 monitor? No other group outs, etc?

Also what is driving the YX12 and the JBL EON as far as Amps - the CXP 80s look like they are powered monitors so I would guess they are fed from the board or do you have some system controller

looks like you could chase down another monitor and daisy chain from the YX12 if you have some $ and the juice from the amplifier but that just gives you another point source to contend with but perhaps those two could be your vocal and drummer feed

Perhaps with appropriate placement the vocals and piano could share the 2nd monitor - need more info on setup to figure that

Just some rambling and thoughts

[EmilBarnabas]

Place the drummer's monitor as close as you can to his/her ears without getting in the way of anything else. You want to keep the volume down as low as you can so everyone else does not have to hear it.

[yeshua]

What style of music/service are you dealing with?

1 service, ages primarily 40-80, some preteens, but nothing really in between except me...seeing choruses and hymns....but haven't done much of some of the new stuff by some of the big artists....we have 5 different worship leaders, and no "team" attitudes (still trying to get that going within my soundman powers)....

Seems like the main thing your drummer would need is your lead vocalist depending on style of music. What are you trying to give the drummer in the monitor feed? Sounds like you have really limited options with your current setup.

Yes the current setup is very limited.

What type of mixer do you have - you really only have a main, the fills and only 1 monitor? No other group outs, etc?

Soundcraft Gigrac 1000st is really all that we have.....if I would have know more at the time we chose it, no way we would have gotten this one....but oh well....It only has two mixes out (2 powered outs and 3 passive outs, 1 record out, and 1 phones....which is kinda useless for this board I think but w/e....but theres still only 2 mixes....main and monitor...

Also what is driving the YX12 and the JBL EON as far as Amps - the CXP 80s look like they are powered monitors so I would guess they are fed from the board or do you have some system controller

see mixer above....

looks like you could chase down another monitor and daisy chain from the YX12 if you have some $ and the juice from the amplifier but that just gives you another point source to contend with but perhaps those two could be your vocal and drummer feed

Theres still plenty of juice to throw on another monitor, but unless the $$ is coming from pocket, I won't be getting a new monitor anytime soon...(well maybe in a couple of months since we are looking at a building to lease, we are currently in a gym)...

Perhaps with appropriate placement the vocals and piano could share the 2nd monitor - need more info on setup to figure that

Everyone is sharing the same feed so it doesn't matter too much....just would like to cut down on stage volume


Heres a pic of our stage layout.

So we have kids korner on the left on the mats, vocals center with video stage monitor and I just put my sub from home...kinda cool since we've never had a sub....thought I would try it....then piano on the right....in the back we have the drums, and to the left of the drums, the guitarist/bassist will put his amp there (since not enough channels to put him into the system)...obviously you can't see the speakers at all, but they are just on the outsides of the picture (+ the floor monitor on the hat side of the kit)...

And FOH pics....


actually, I switched the montior/mixer positions so that the girls doing propresenter can see a stage display...was originally using it to extend my laptop...but last week I changed my mind and I kinda like....


And this is the front of the mixer....the coil connected to the blue xlr is actually whats feeding my sub lol....need to find cheap volume control for it....right now its got on or off....


So thats how we are setup....if you want me to post more pics, I've got a few more....but thats really about all...I'm actually kinda thinking of just picking up a cheap behringer mixer ($25-50) to put close to the drums so I can get the kick, not just the whole kit....(I was able to spare a mic the last 2 weeks....was very nice having that kick....even without a proper kick mic...)

Thanks for any ideas

lol and sorry for the mega pics....

[prochlea]

with the overhead mic pointing like that, you're never going to find a place to put the wedge so that the drummer can hear it, but the mic can't. You might be able to cut it down if you put the mic over the drummers right shoulder pointed at the kit, and leave the wedge where it is...

[yeshua]

I tried a few spots around the kit including that and that spot was one of the worst spots....the monitor would shoot straight up at it almost....I've found that this position seems to give me the best sound....now if I change up monitor positions, then maybe not

[prochlea]

Essentially - There's no spot that is going to keep the monitor sound out of the overhead.

In looking at the pictures of your room, I wonder how much of the overhead mic you actually need to run in your main speakers? Or is it mainly for recording?

[bpalermini]

You might try moving the drum mic to the front of the kit at about the level of the toms, a couple of feet away. When I was at a church that only used one mic on the drums that's what we did and it sounded ok. As for the drummers monitor, we have ours to the left of the drummer up against the hat stand. We want it as close as possible to the drummer so the level can be as low as possible.

[yeshua]

Yes I could go without it, but the music doesn't sound near as good. You can hardly hear the drums (the drummer is more of a jazz drummer so he plays quite quiet). Add the overhead and it helps to reinforce the drums. He doesn't take control of the rhythm with his beats so for me to put it through the system also helps the musicians (no its not going through the monitors).

At this point I don't get much going through the mic and the monitor, I would just like to know what is the standard monitor position for a drummer and any ideas to reduce the stage volume.

Thanks though for the comments so far.

[Gracetech]

In the professional world we would have a sub back by the drummer(to one side or the other) and the monitor stacked on top of it so that the horn was dead in the drummers ear. In the church world i've never had to get that extreme. Plus church people don't like to see speakers they just want the sound to be perfect.

crt

[yeshua]

so out of 180 views, only 1 person actually said where they place the monitor....no one else uses wedges in 180 people?

anyways....So last weekend our Drummer went into ICU (sorry don't really know what for), so we were drummer-less, (please pray that he'll get better). I did rearrange our monitor positions this last sunday and it seemed like everyone was ok with it, but again, no drummer, so the music was really empty soundless making it difficult to tell how successful these positions will be....wedge in front and center for vocals, 1 sidefill aiming to the piano player and for her only, 1 sidefill aiming to the drummer for him only...when hes there of course...I hope he gets better soon...I miss my drummer

Still hoping some more people will state where they are putting their drum monitor....thats the main point of this topic

Thanks

[waynehoskins]

When we had a drum wedge, it was on the floor by his hi-hat. That seemed to work out pretty well. The closer you can get it to his head, the better things are, because it won't have to be as loud in terms of output to be the same volume to him.

That said, the biggest improvement to stage volume was when we moved the drummer to headphones. Drum wedge is just about the loudest thing on stage, since it has to be at least as loud as his kit for him to hear it. The second big improvement was moving guitar amps to an isolation room since they're loud too. We did both of those around 2007, and they both help immensely.