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Friday, March 18, 2011

Separate For Sanity: Mixing Monitors From Front Of House

Making the situation tenable for both ourselves and the band

If you’re a front of house mixer, here’s what you need to know about monitors. If asked to adjust monitor settings, look the person directly in the eye and say, “I handle front of house; I don’t do monitors.”

Speak it with authority and perhaps add a bit of disdain, then turn quickly and as you’re walking away add, “let me find the monitor mixer for you.”

At this point your job is done, unless of course, you actually happen to run across the monitor person. If so just say, “someone on stage is looking for you.”

Now let’s return to the real world.

Years ago, a band could be booked at a club three or four nights in a row; today, most clubs rotate bands on a nightly basis. This means the sound system has to go up and come down as quickly and easily as possible, including the monitors.

For those of us who do this system “up and down” work in a different club every night, a large monitor rig is neither time nor cost effective, especially without roadies.

While even smaller shows (think clubs) are now outfitted with a separate monitor world, a lot of mixers still must run monitors from front of house (FOH), usually due to necessity. And in my experience, it’s by far one the hardest things to do.

It doesn’t take very long to realize that regardless how good the house mix, your gig is insane if the monitors aren’t right. Between feedback and band member complaints, it can make for a long night.

A big drawback in handling monitors from FOH is often the limitations of the console – the majority used in club situations offer just two separate monitor sends, meaning that for a four-piece band, someone is sharing the same monitor mix.

For obvious reasons, a separate mix to each member of a band is preferred.

However, many of the consoles we use are also outfitted with several aux sends that can be used as monitor sends, thereby increasing the number of separate mixes on stage.

Keep in mind that when doing this, it’s important to use the pre-fade aux sends. Otherwise, any time house level is increased by using the fader that is on a post-fade aux, the monitor level will increase as well.

Most musicians want their monitors loud to begin with, so any further increases in level can result in feedback. So by running pre fader, any adjustments for the house will not affect the monitors.

This is not the case for the EQ section and gain control of every channel, where even running pre fader, everything else on the channel affects the monitors.

For example, let’s say you want a little more 3 kHz in a vocal out front - adding it via your channel EQ will also add it to the monitor as well. And this may not be favorable to whoever is getting that particular monitor mix; it may sound too thin and be on the verge of feedback.

By the way, one way to combat this is to put a separate EQ in line of each monitor send. 

In A Good Way?
Now, with all of this (and more) going on, the house still needs to be mixed, and keeping in mind that almost anything done to the mix out front will almost certainly affect the monitor mix. Will it affect it in a good way? Dream on!

Therefore, I threw in the towel years ago and came up with a separate monitor system that is cost effective, mobile, easy to set up/take down and keeps the musicians happy. And, it works well if you work with one particular band or several.

My gear list includes a 16-channel rack-mount mixer, two dual-15-band equalizers, a 16-channel rack-mount snake, a 1/4-inch patch bay and a rack on wheels.

Of course, depending upon need, the size of the console and snake can vary, and compressors, gates and effects units (and so on) can be added. Digital consoles also provide a lot of the comps, gates, effects and more that used to require separate outboard gear.

The main thing is to try to keep it all in one reasonably sized rack and pre-wired as much as possible.

I roll this on to the club stage, and then run three sub snakes: stage right, stage left and drums. These sub snakes plug into the splitter snake, which is mounted in the front of the rack.

The patch bay is also mounted at the rack front, and it provides sends to the monitor wedges, which are powered, by the way. (There are some amazing powered monitors these days.) When using non-powered wedges, I simply route from the patch bay to the monitor amplifier rack.

The only thing left to do is plug the splitter snake into the FOH snake, and then plug in the power. Having all connections at the front of the rack makes for fast and hassle-free interconnect, one of the big objects of this exercise.

When the band arrives, I dial in this monitor system for them, and then leave the rest to them. Each person in my band is familiar with this rig, and makes adjustments themselves throughout the night as needed.

If working with a different band, I still dial it in at the beginning of the night, with any adjustments made quickly during a break.

Driving Them Crazy
This, of course, brings me to the point that the monitor system needs to be as simple to operate as possible, and thus, it’s the reason I don’t include extra effects units.

Our drummer, however, does want some effects in his monitor, so I set him up with a small rack containing a rack-mount mixer and the effects unit he prefers. His monitor send routes to this rack and then to his wedge.

As you can imagine, the drummer was very happy about this. But the addition of effects to the vocals, guitar and keyboard in his mix drove the rest of the band crazy, because they could now hear reverb on things they didn’t want to hear it on. (Sigh…)

To fix this problem, I send two mixes from the monitor mixer to the drum mixer. One mix has the vocals and instruments, the other just the drums. Effects are applied to the drum mix only, with the other mix remaining “dry.”

Hurray! There’s nothing like a relatively content band, and we’ve been doing it this way long enough for the drummer to get quite good at changing his settings with his drumsticks.

I’ve yet to meet a FOH mixer that has expressed any sort of strong desire to mix monitors, and truth be told, most of us originally got into this line of work with the goal of working FOH.

So to all of you who take on the vital role of mixing monitors, simply, “thank you.”

And for the rest of us who are required to try to come to grips with doing both within the same show, remember, a little separation – as in separate systems – can go a long way to making the situation tenable for ourselves and the band.

With more than two decades of experience working with sound, Tim Andras is the mix engineer for the Tampa-based band Stormbringer and at Harborside Christian Church.

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