Tips for mixing monitors?

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

Over the past few months my bosses have been slowly moving me over to live audio instead of stage lighting which I couldn't be happier about. The only thing is that about 85% of the time i've just stuck to being one of the grunts on the jobs, because some ass hat was hired that had no clue what he was setting up. So while im at the console and trying to learn some things from my boss I always catch a glimpse of someone running something wrong or just doing something that makes no sense so I run right to them and get that all sorted. And by that time, the show has started.

On saturday i'll be mixing monitors for what i'm gonna say is my first time. (i've done it a few times but normally someone has already soundchecked and had to leave so i just hop on the mixer and finish the job). Most likely i'll be using one of the allen and heath consoles that we have. Not sure which model so i cant help on that one. But enough rambling.

Treat me like a noob, what do I do to get the best possible sound so I dont fuck up my boss on the FOH console, or fuck anything else up for that matter.

 

[ahjteam]

- if you already haven't, set up one of the wedges for yourself for cue listening. if you have to mix in-ears, setup an ambience microphone on the side of the stage and use headphones for listening.
- have atleast reverb unit on the rack. preferrably don't use compressors, except maybe on vocals and the bass. noise gates only on toms and kicks.
- don't give "just a bit of everything" to the monitor; only bare minimum amount of stuff to the monitors or the clarity will suffer a lot.
- ALWAYS use earplugs unless the band is low volume in general, but do not use the foam ones; at least the xmas tree type plugs.
- Cut out the low end from everything with a highpass filter (80-100hz is good) and maybe even with the low shelf. the less low end on the stage, the clearer the stage sound.
- be quick, as most musicians are impatient.

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

Thanks for that. I religiously carry plugs with me on any job I go to because I never know where i'll actually be working in the venue that day. I checked and none of the band members have in-ears so it will be strictly on stage mons.

Also, as far as drum micing goes, my boss is a firm believer in micing the kick and throwing up 1 OH. So I dont have much to work with as far as that goes. I've asked to do it differently at times but thats just how he likes it.

Now on to feedback, does anyone have any links to sites that I can read up on as far as identifying the freqs. so that I can fix that if need be. And basic soundchecks and troubleshooting?

 

[aortizjr]

How big of a place are we talking about here?

Having a separate monitor mix station tells me fairly big, but then the 1-kick 1-OH being preferred tells me pretty small...

I mean at least Kick-Snare-HH-and 1 OH in a super pinch. Maybe not HH for metal since those guys slam it, but for almost all other styles, HH for sure.

Feedback stuff, for swooping in on a new system, usually just watching the gain is the best you can do. Then scooping out frequencies if the talent needs more. But a console EQ isn't going to give you ultimate precision. Monitor placement is important and mic placement. When setting up the PA, we would mock up a set-up and crank everything and notch feedback problems before bands would even show up. This of course included some PA EQing and such as well.

General tips, label label label, so you can find and fix stuff fast. And communicate with the talent. An extra minute or two to help them out goes a long way. I agree 100% with ahjteam's input.

From the band's perspective, having a guy that listens to my requests and is chill and asks what I need before I have to tell them is nice. Then doesn't leave their post until at least 3rd song in By then things are usually worked out. Hats off to the guys who sit through the set.

 

[arv_foh]

Have fun, it's pretty much the worst job in the world, when the band gets pissed about something they can't yell at the FOH engineer, they yell at you

I don't take shit from anyone, if the band are dicks I'll mute their mix and walk offstage and they can enjoy playing the rest of the set without monitors

Ring out the monitors beforehand. If you have an iPhone download "RTA lite" it's free and you can use it to identify feedback frequencies if you can't get them by ear. Take the mic, crank it, and point it right at the wedges, find the freq, and pull that shit out on the 31 band eq.

I don't ever have inserts in monitor world; you're lucky if you do. I bring my own set of 4 comps to use as limiters for really dynamic vocalists. I never have problems without using gates on anything.

I only put the following in the wedges: kick, snare, bass, guitar, vocals and any di instruments (keys, samples etc). Sometimes hi hat if the band requests it. Hardly ever put toms in there, but if I do I roll out most of the low end out of them or you'll have feedback issues.

I make the vocals the loudest thing in their respective wedges, then layer guitar (only if said vocalist is playing guitar, no guitar in center wedge), kick and snare underneath of it. If you have sidefills crank the kick, snare, center vocal, and bass guitar in the sides. Kick, snare, and guitars in the drum fill. With this basic mix "template" I have had so many bands tell me it was the best monitor mix they've ever had, so I'd say it works.

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

Arv thanks dude that was some fucking ace advice that you wrote.

My boss actually has the whole suite with RTA in it and he bought a mic and little mini interface that goes with it, plus I do have RTA lite so we should be set on that.

Thanks for the help guys. And if you have any other random tips and shit you wanna throw at me, its more than welcome, and greatly appreciated.


Cheers!
-Mike

 

[ahjteam]

I never have problems without using gates on anything.

I never said it was mandatory.

 

[Trevoire520]

Now on to feedback, does anyone have any links to sites that I can read up on as far as identifying the freqs. so that I can fix that if need be.

http://sft.sourceforge.net/

Get practicing with this man. Soon enough you'll be able to get very accurate at identifying which frequencies are feeding back.

 

[ahjteam]

well, usually you can identify the problem by how quickly the feedback starts;

- If it's slowly climbing in, it's somewhere between 0-600hz
- If it comes when you cover the grille of the mic and appears in about second, it's usually 1khz
- If it comes really fast, its 1-20khz

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

http://sft.sourceforge.net/

Get practicing with this man. Soon enough you'll be able to get very accurate at identifying which frequencies are feeding back.

As far as I can tell, thats a windows program and im running a mac. Is there a program floating around like that for mac also?

 

[Trevoire520]

No mac version that I can find. Shame as it's a great training tool I think.

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

So I did the show yesterday, And aside of a few feedback problems in the first couple songs everything went fairly smooth. The band loved it, I on the otherhand, wasn't as happy with it. But it was my first time really doing mons so i'll just keep practicing. The band was cool as shit though they just let me know what they wanted in which monitor and were really easy to work with. Thanks for the advice guys, I def used some of the things from this thread and it made it alot easier for me.

 

[blags]

I may be a little late but here are some tips from me:
-As someone said before ring out all monitors,then go on the stage and have a listen.It may not feedback no more but it may sound like crap.So make a compromise.
-If you can always use sidefills with subs.It can help you a lot when some deaf musician is asking for "more me"in floor wedges and it just cant be done because of feedback thats when the sides are kicking in.
-Learn to say NO a lot.Especially to reverb in wedges if you can.This can be a problem with young and inexperienced bands(most of the pros I have had chance working with said big NO to reverb in their wedges).Most of them(demo bands) are not sure about FOH village and monitor city being two separate worlds,so they believe what they hear in wedges is what is coming out of PA.Your job is to explain this stuff to them and repeat it several times if needed(i just finished mixing monitors for a 4 day festival of demo bands so I have some quite unbelievable stories to tell)
-Always maintain eye contact with the band especially during first two,three songs so you can act quickly for any changes needed to be done.Then you can "relax" for a while until,lets say last third of the show.Thats the time when their ears get fatigued because of the noise and they will usually ask for more me in their wedges.So maybe is not a bad thing to preserve headroom for situations like this.Pay attention to drummers as they are backbone of every rock/metal band(at least they should be)
-Have a cue wedge.
-Arm yourself with patience.If needed take a pill(mild tranquilizer)to stay calm.Dont make it a habit of course.If you know that you are gonna be dealing with jerks or difficult persons,its better to take pill then to lose your nerves.:zombie:

 

[Trevoire520]

I may be a little late but here are some tips from me:
-As someone said before ring out all monitors,then go on the stage and have a listen.It may not feedback no more but it may sound like crap.So make a compromise.
-If you can always use sidefills with subs.It can help you a lot when some deaf musician is asking for "more me"in floor wedges and it just cant be done because of feedback thats when the sides are kicking in.
-Learn to say NO a lot.Especially to reverb in wedges if you can.This can be a problem with young and inexperienced bands(most of the pros I have had chance working with said big NO to reverb in their wedges).Most of them(demo bands) are not sure about FOH village and monitor city being two separate worlds,so they believe what they hear in wedges is what is coming out of PA.Your job is to explain this stuff to them and repeat it several times if needed(i just finished mixing monitors for a 4 day festival of demo bands so I have some quite unbelievable stories to tell)
-Always maintain eye contact with the band especially during first two,three songs so you can act quickly for any changes needed to be done.Then you can "relax" for a while until,lets say last third of the show.Thats the time when their ears get fatigued because of the noise and they will usually ask for more me in their wedges.So maybe is not a bad thing to preserve headroom for situations like this.Pay attention to drummers as they are backbone of every rock/metal band(at least they should be)
-Have a cue wedge.
-Arm yourself with patience.If needed take a pill(mild tranquilizer)to stay calm.Dont make it a habit of course.If you know that you are gonna be dealing with jerks or difficult persons,its better to take pill then to lose your nerves.:zombie:

Do tell dude. Always good to hear funny studio/live stories about engineering.

 

[arv_foh]

So I did the show yesterday, And aside of a few feedback problems in the first couple songs everything went fairly smooth. The band loved it, I on the otherhand, wasn't as happy with it. But it was my first time really doing mons so i'll just keep practicing. The band was cool as shit though they just let me know what they wanted in which monitor and were really easy to work with. Thanks for the advice guys, I def used some of the things from this thread and it made it alot easier for me.

Honestly the #1 thing that will make you a good MONS guy is learning your frequencies. Often times feedback happens and disappears really quick so you can't use RTA for that, you just gotta know what it is and pull it out.

Another trick I use is if I didn't quite catch what frequency it was but if I know the general area it was in, I'll grab the EQ and "spike" the frequency (increase it by 3-5dB) and if it feeds back you pull it down by the same amount you increased to cause the feedback.

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

Honestly the #1 thing that will make you a good MONS guy is learning your frequencies. Often times feedback happens and disappears really quick so you can't use RTA for that, you just gotta know what it is and pull it out.

Another trick I use is if I didn't quite catch what frequency it was but if I know the general area it was in, I'll grab the EQ and "spike" the frequency (increase it by 3-5dB) and if it feeds back you pull it down by the same amount you increased to cause the feedback.

I actually didnt even pull RTA out. One of the stagehands wired the mics at the snake, but never actually plugged the fucking things into the mics, so I go to start soundcheck and nothing is coming through my board, needless to say I had to run around last minute getting all the mics plugged in.

With that little feedback trick. You're doing that on your monitor right? Or are you doing that on stage during the show? And what your saying is if I spike it at 3db and it feeds back, I would then be dropping it 6db right?

 

[ahjteam]

One of the stagehands wired the mics at the snake, but never actually plugged the fucking things into the mics, so I go to start soundcheck and nothing is coming through my board, needless to say I had to run around last minute getting all the mics plugged in.

sounds like a fucking useless stagehand.

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

sounds like a fucking useless stagehand.

That's putting it nicely

 

[arv_foh]

I actually didnt even pull RTA out. One of the stagehands wired the mics at the snake, but never actually plugged the fucking things into the mics, so I go to start soundcheck and nothing is coming through my board, needless to say I had to run around last minute getting all the mics plugged in.

With that little feedback trick. You're doing that on your monitor right? Or are you doing that on stage during the show? And what your saying is if I spike it at 3db and it feeds back, I would then be dropping it 6db right?

On stage during the show... I pick the mix I think that it came from, grab the 31 band EQ, spike the frequency by 3db, if it feeds back, I pull it down by 3db.

 

[timislegend]

sounds like a fucking useless stagehand.