Behind The Mixer

Learn Church Audio Artistry | Church Sound

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Photo provided by MikeGoat

“I’ve always set the monitor levels first, with the mains off, that’s how ____ taught me to do it,” they said to me.  As those words escaped the sound tech’s lips, I could tell they had been trained by a musician.

A musician wants to hear the right sounds in the monitor. They want to hear themselves in the monitor. However, if you go with a musician-centric stage monitor setup you are going to have problems with stage volume and clarity in your mix. Let’s look at the problem of a musician-centric setup and how an audience-centric setup correctly deals with these issues.

Musician-centric;

  • Setting monitors first starts you off on the wrong foot because, basing the monitor mix on a absent of the mains, you will be raising monitors levels in excess of what they could be if the mains were active. Therefore, you’re adding volume to monitors that does not have to be added to the same degree if the main speakers were active. I think I just said the same thing twice…consider it important enough to say twice.
  • Monitor levels are unrestricted. You are setting levels without any regard to their volume bleeding off the stage. This is done in part because you are giving the musicians what they want but as you don’t have the main house volume to compare, you can’t tell when the stage volume is so great that it’s negatively affecting the house mix and the audience in the first few rows.
  • Right out of the mixing gate, you are mixing against the stage volume. Phrased more accurate to what’s happening, you are mixing so the blend of the mains and the stage volume produces a good sound.

Audience-centric;

  • Setting the general house levels first, you can set up your baseline mix for the room without having to deal with and existing loud stage volume. The musicians are also hearing a limited amount of volume in the room in which they can base their monitor requests.
  • Monitor levels can be limited as you will hear the point where they are impacting the house mix. At this point, you can work with the musicians to modify their monitor mixes so they get the sounds they need…

…for example, a musician might find that if they drop another instrument’s volume in their mix, that they don’t need to boost another quite so much. Also, you can tell them that when their monitor levels go above a certain volume, the audience is hearing a bad sound because of the mixing of house and monitor sounds at different times.

Wait, but what if…

My wife knows how I can easily debate both sides of anything. With that in mind, let’s say you go with a musician-centric setup process by setting monitor levels without turning on the mains. And let’s say you can do it AND get a good mix as a final result.

I’m going out on a very short limb and guessing your mixing process involves quite a bit of back and forth with the monitors after you set your house mix levels and/or you spend an extended period of time working on the house mix to mix the monitor sounds in with the house. You are spending more time than you should!

Keep it simple

Here is a simple outline for running your sound check after checking line levels and such;

  1. Set your channel gains, with the faders set to zero, for a good baseline mix.
  2. Perform some simple eq’ing on your channels so they are close to where you want the sound. Note that frequency changes can raise or low the volume of a channel.
  3. Set the monitor mixes with the house speakers on.
  4. During the next practice song, walk up within a few rows of the stage and listen for the monitors. If they are washing past the 2nd row of seats, you’ll need to turn them down.
  5. Put the finishing touches on your mix.

Summary

Musicians want to hear the right sounds in the monitors so they can play tight as a band. However, you should know their real desire is for the audience to hear a great sound. Using the proper stage monitor setup, you can reach both of these goals.

Question: What’s your biggest problem with monitors / stage volume?

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Comments

  1. MAy seem like a dumb question… I run a Behringer SFX2442 for live shows.. it has 2 aux sends but we want to run 4 separate monitor mixes.. not sure if I can do that through this board Any help would be greatly appreciated

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  2. My biggest problem with monitors and mains is the feedback. After talking about it with a sound engineer, I learned that I should never put vocals on monitors. Now my issue is making the vocals sound as loud as if I did have their voices on monitors.

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    • That engineer is an idiot. Of course you put vocals in a monitor. The feedback problem is probably because they are using a microphone that doesn’t have rear rejection – don’t use omni-directional microphones, they are dropping the microphone by their side and thus putting it very close to the monitor, or there is something that’s too loud in the monitor that the microphone is picking up.

      Reply

  3. hi Chris sometimes when am done with sound check its ok and well mixed but my problem is after church service I get to listen yo the recording they I noticed that when the minister is shouting the mic seize lik a break….pls how can I fix that

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    • Are you saying on the recording the pastors mic sounds bad (general quality) or that its makes a crackling sound? Watch the recording during the next service and see if it’s clipping on the recording. The output level to the recording device could be too high.

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      • the sound is not bad….they was no clipping on the minister channel…it does’t sound from the FOH but sometimes in the recording…i dont do the recording the media dept taps from the mixer and the siezing was blamed on the tech dept

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        • I’m nearly a year late with this comment but… It sounds like the level being sent to the recorder is set too high, causing the audio in the recording to clip when the minister shouts or talks too loud. Had the same problem when I started working at the tech dept. at a local church, the gain on the recording computer’s input was set way too high.

          Try turning down the level on the output you’re using to send audio from your mixer to your recording device (Probably a Tape out or Group out) or check your recording device’s settings for Input Gain or Volume and lower that. That should rectify the problem.

          Reply

  4. while playing at a local fest, i found the stage monitors so loud it was hard to hear what was going on on-stage. as we are an acoustic duo (guitar, upright bass) would it be best to do away with monitors, or have them set very low? what would you suggest?

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  6. My church uses different monitors for the vocalists and the instrumentalists. The problem is,no matter how much we increase the instrumentalists’ monitor volume,they still complain that they can’t hear themselves as an individual. Help please!

    Reply

    • Give them ONLY the sounds they need to play in time and in pitch. They don’t need to hear everything in their mix. And instead of turning up their sound, turn down other instruments/singers in the monitor. Now, if you have a bunch of musicians sharing the same monitor mix, then there isn’t much you can do.

      Reply

  7. hi there how to hook up a monitor to the mixer.I have a yorksville VGM14.My monitor is makie SRM150.

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  8. Thank you.
    As we have entered into the near, we are changing some positions at church and minus the fact I want to start learning more about sound, I also now need to learn more about it. It looks like I have found a solid site to learn from and will be passing along some blogs.
    I have heard this also regarding monitors, but now I know more why.

    K, bye

    Reply

  9. do i really need a side full on my stage to complement the monitors, so that the band has a feel of the front of house?

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    • Regarding side fills for a FOH feel, I’d say it depends on the desire of the band. If they say “I want to know what it sounds like in the congregation” well…side fills can do that but it’s still not the same as sitting out there. They should focus on hearing what they need to play in time and in key. They should leave the mixing up to you.

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    • It’s ok if your monitors are sent a dry (non-modified) signal as long as the musicians know that they are hearing something different than the house.

      Reply

  12. While I agree with what you are saying it doesn’t always work in every room. Our church meets in a gym, when empty it has a bad echo. Setting the mix for the band from the mains first causes the monitor levels to be higher as they fight to over come the slap-back off the rear wall. We set wedges first, aiming for the lowest levels the musicians can work with then bring the mains in. Works for us, max 90db “A” slow at FOH, 75 ft from stage. (unless the drummer is going crazy.)

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  15. You are so right. Years ago when i was still a newb behind the board the worship leader decided that he would help me set the levels. Yes he started with the wedges and worked outward. When he was done all I could think of was “This sounds so awful and I hope he doesn’t notice me changing things back.” Slowly and carefully I went about resetting the levels, while the band practiced. When I was done the mix sounded right and nobody noticed anything. After practice the worship leader came over and asked me how it went I umm and ummed for a few moments until he noticed I had put everything back. He was upset and I told him it had sounded like really bad garage band. I got the musician glare and he walked away the band was better off and my skills grew a notch or two that night.

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  16. I must admit that I used to do the musician-centric approach awhile ago, but now I have adopted the audience-centric approach which seems to work out better.

    One big problem we have is that awhile ago the church leadership decided to move the sound desk into a separate room with a small open window so we can supposedly hear what the sound sounds like in the main church area. The reality though is that what we hear is very top end compared to the sound in the main church area. This necessitates having somebody being in the church and walking backwards and forwards to the sound room through two doors to communicate the need to make changes.with inevitable delays.

    If somebody could give some advice on this problem I would really appreciate it.,

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  17. One of the problems that often comes up is full bass in the monitor mix during pre-service rehearsal. Because low frequency music tends to be omnidirectional, once the mains are fully up to level a lot of bass energy from 50-200hz wraps around and fills the stage. The effect is a monitor mix that gets really bass heavy, muddy and loses definition. Bad for musicians and audience alike. The solution is to either fire up the mains at the beginning of rehearsal (not always possible) or roll off the bass in the stage monitors once the mains are engaged. If musicians are aware of this problem then they are much more accepting of remixing the monitors just before service begins. Clarity and definition is king in a good monitor mix.

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  18. My biggest problem is having only 2 monitor wedges for 5 musicians and 4 singers.

    At the moment the stage arrangement as follows from the front stage: Musician – Singers – Monitor Speakers – Main Speakers – Audience.

    Reply

  19. Can someone tell me what type of effects are used for live sound. I’m trying to do some at church to help the singers blend a bit better. I tried a hall effect but that did not work.

    Here is a youtube video of some guys singing that blend pretty well, I’m not sure what effect they use though..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b09TUxBNgQ

    Reply