splitting signals for monitor mixer

[robertp431]

We have everything going through DI boxes and to the main mixing board. Alto 16 channel with 2 pre-fade subs. My guitar, the bass player and keyboard each have our own amps and have them plugged in from the front of our Di boxes. I finally hooked the keyboard and the main vocalist through sub-A and used her amp as a powered monitor as she wants to hear her voice and her keyboard. She is also our worship leader. This way, whatever she wants to hear, can be turned up or down just for her, right? Well, if she can't hear her voice, she tells the inexperienced engineer to turn up her mic so he does....with the fader.. arghhhhhh! Or sometimes, just cranks up her monitor which is a Crate 200 watt guitar amp. suddenly bad feedback and she yells to the engineer to fix it. Gains get turned, faders get slid down, etc. again arghhhhhhh!
We have decided it might be best to set up a smaller mixer on stage and get some control. We have 4 monitors and I picked up a Peavy 2.6C rack mount amp, small but plenty of power for stage monitors in a small church. I found a Makie Pro FX8 mixer. My problem is that I am not sure how to split the signals from our instruments and the mics so they go to both mixers.
I found a Nady RDI-8+ line mixer. it has ins and outs on the front with XLR outs on the back. I figured those XLR's would go to the main mixer. Could I take the outs on the front to put signal to the small mixer on stage? If I can, do I need to go from these outs through our origional DI boxes and then plug into the moxer on stage?
Thank You,
Robert

[robertp431]

I forgot to mention, we plan on having just 2 custom stage mixes. 1 having vocals and keyboards, and the other we will probably have my guitar and bass. This way we can get our individual amps off the stage.
Thanks again

[prochlea]

Seems like it might work, but you're going to create a nightmare gain structure situation, and really make the whole system harder to use. The real answer is not to throw more gear into the mix, but to train your engineers a little - and your Worship Leader. If she said - turn me up in my monitor, they might think a little bit before just moving the fader.

[Tim Padrick]

If you don't have people sufficiently competent to deal with what you have now, are you sure that adding a monitor console will help? If so, get an Allen & Heath MixWiz Monitor or a Crest XRM (both are hard to find used, unfortunately). Both have great channel EQ, plenty of mixes, and a built-in splitter.

[waynehoskins]

A Crest XRM and other monitor boards of the like are a great choice for a band's self-contained monitoring system, especially if it's all ears. Once it's set, it's right from gig to gig. It sits there on stage with you, and the house engineer takes most of his inputs from the split on your monitor board.

If an XRM solves your monitoring problems, that's great. However, you still have the problem where your house engineer needs more training and experience. The band may be rocking in their ears, but the house mix may be the opposite.

The other possibility is that the monitor board adds another level of complexity, that someone on stage has to mix monitors. That may just make problems worse, and still you don't have a good FOH mixer.

--

To the more general question of how to split, there are three basic techniques:

The most recommended is to use a splitter bank, either active or transformer. One board gets a direct feed and provides phantom power, the others (commonly one or two, such as monitors and broadcast, with FOH being on the direct tail) get isolated feeds and don't provide phantom. Some splitter banks provide their own phantom power, with none of the boards providing it. This provides the ultimate in isolation, both electrically and in terms of gain structuring.

Another method is to feed one board from the balanced direct outs from another. This links some degree of the signal chains, including at least the head amp and possibly EQ and inserts, to the first board. Not very ideal, not what you'd want for a long-term solution, but it can work in a pinch.

The third method is a hard parallel split. Each source is wyed to both consoles. There's no isolation at all at the front end, the two consoles are tied together. Care has to be taken on which board provides phantom on a given channel, since there's not even DC isolation between them. Some consoles may be sensitive to a foreign source of DC on their inputs. This technique has been used many times with success, and often there's no issue from not having transformer isolation, but you have to be careful.

I believe most of the monitor boards with built-in splits (like the XRM) use transformers to provide the split, offering the ideal splitting solution without the need for a separate splitter bank.

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by robertp431

We have everything going through DI boxes and to the main mixing board. Alto 16 channel with 2 pre-fade subs. My guitar, the bass player and keyboard each have our own amps and have them plugged in from the front of our Di boxes. I finally hooked the keyboard and the main vocalist through sub-A and used her amp as a powered monitor as she wants to hear her voice and her keyboard. She is also our worship leader. This way, whatever she wants to hear, can be turned up or down just for her, right? Well, if she can't hear her voice, she tells the inexperienced engineer to turn up her mic so he does....with the fader.. arghhhhhh! Or sometimes, just cranks up her monitor which is a Crate 200 watt guitar amp. suddenly bad feedback and she yells to the engineer to fix it. Gains get turned, faders get slid down, etc. again arghhhhhhh!
We have decided it might be best to set up a smaller mixer on stage and get some control. We have 4 monitors and I picked up a Peavy 2.6C rack mount amp, small but plenty of power for stage monitors in a small church.

Can you clarify the current setup and what you are thinking of doing? Is the "control" from a mixer on stage basically envisioned as being a separate dedicated monitor mixer or as more of a submix on stage? Are you considering having two monitor mixes and maybe adding stage monitors other then the WL's? What is "sub-A"?

It really sounds like some of the problems could possibly be solved through better communication and training. For example, they really are two different things so might the WL learning to differentiate between saying that she can't hear herself in her monitor versus to turn up her microphone help?

Will having a separate monitor mix resolve some of the problems? If getting sufficient level for the WL of her own vocals without feedback is a challenge then would it really address that?

[robertp431]

Brad, this was the origional set up. Drums, without mics. WL has a keyboard and a wireless mic. 2 FOH speakers and 2 smaller monitors, all hooked together. One monitor on a table pointing at the drummer, one on a table pointed at the WL. No problems except occasional feedback.
We added a bass guitar pluged into a DI box which plugs into the snake to the mixer and also has an output which is plugged into a small bass practice amp pointing up at the bassest so he can hear himself. This was added noise, so they hooked up an amp to her keyboard so she could hear her keyboard better. Then I was added, accoustic guitar, soundhole pickup, set up the same as bass. I have an amp aimed right up at my face so I can hear if I am strumming the right chords. LOL Now she couldn't hear her voice out of that small speaker because it had the complete mix coming through it as well as that keyboard now coming at her other ear loud and clear.
Our mixer has aux-1-4 with 1 and 2 being pre-fade so........ I took aux 1 and put that to her amp. I turned the little white knobs all the way down except for her mic and her keyboard. She liked that and if she need more voice, we know what to turn up. She also wanted to keep the smaller monitor pointed at her that has the whole mix as it is still just the same as the FOH speakers. Unfortunately, we have a few people who man the sound board and after 6 months, no one seems to grasp that what she hears and what they hear aren't the same thing. If she needs more vocals, they don't need to touch the gain or the faders. Just turn the little white knob on the row that is labeled "Monitor." God Bless Them.
Or...... it is the middle of the first worship song, she doesn't want to yell out to the sound guy so she reaches down and turns up her amp. Then there is feedback, soundguy hears it and starts turning down her gain or fader and if that doesn't work, he starts turning the other mics down. God Bless Them All.
We have discussed this and we think there a number of things we need to do to remedy these things. 1-control the monitor volume from the stage. 2 get that big amp off the stage. 3 Try to do some training.
We now have, that we can set up. 4 monitors, after disconnecting those first 2 from the FOH chain of speakers. I picked up the ProFX8 mixer and the Peavy amp, which should be plenty for the monitors but no where near enough to try to overpower the house speakers.
I thought of just going from aux 1 and aux 2 into the amp and the monitors, giving us 2 seperate mixes, which is enough and would work just great. Except, someone in the back is going to touch those little white knobs. Last week, we turned on the cd player for awhile before church. The cd music was blasting through the WL monitor/amplifier and was louder there than it was out the FOH speakers. We ran around trying to figure out how the signal was even getting to that amp. We figured it had to be something with the mixer and sure enough, someone had turned that channel up on the little white monitor knobs. Someone still isn't grasping something. Oh well, we will keep plugging away at a solution.
We want to do some training but then again, we would like the sound guys/engineers???? to come to the church when we practice too. That alone would make sure that we have things all set up to start each Sunday.
Maybe if we give the sound guy the responsibility of listening and making adjustments out there and don't confuse him with things we hear but he cannot, everything will sound better.
You can't even imagine how our cd recordings sound on some days. HA!
Any help will certainly be appreciated.
Thank You and May God Bless You today!
Robert