How to monitor mix a rock group with a brass band

So yesterday was a tiny tip for guitars. Today I’m going to make it up to you with some pretty useful monitor mixing tips.

In my head Thursdays are Live Sound days so I’ll try to deliver useful or interesting tips or techniques every Thursday. When I was beginning to work as a sound-tech I used to mix every Thursday random underground bands, so in a way I’m still trying to work in live sound on these days. Although it’s only trying to help you guys out. How’s that for personal.

Back to monitor mixing.

There is a lot more to monitor mixing than just making sure the singer hears himself and the guitarist hears his outro-solo. There are also quite a few different states of monitor mixing, being it conducted from the FOH(Front of house) position by the sole sound engineer or from a special monitor mixing station by the side of the stage with a dedicated monitor mixing engineer taking care of the stage sound.

From a 4 AUX FOH position to a 10+ AUX dedicated monitor mixer with outboard effects, every concert is different in both band lineup and rider requirements.

I had the pleasure to set up a sound system a while back designed for a rock show with an additional big band brass orchestra, the band 200.000 Naglbítar and Lúðrasveit Verkalýðsins(Brass band of the working class).

The results were 3 monitor wedges, 2 dual mono sidefills and 3 in-ear systems. As seen in the diagram below the monitors were set up as follows:

5 level platform stage to fit everyone

• Aux 1 – Monitor wedge directed at the singer
• Aux 2 – Monitor wedge directed at the bassist
• Aux 3 - Monitor wedge directed at the drummer
• Aux 4 - Lower mono side fill designed for the brass orchestra to hear the rock band through their very loud instruments.
• Aux 5 – Higher mono side fill designed so that the percussion instruments at the top of the stage could hear and keep time with the drummer on the lowest platform.

In addition to these assortments of wedges and sidefills, the band also used dedicated in-ear mixes using auxes from 6 to 8.

Here is another picture so that you can get a better perception of the size of the stage and positions of the monitors.

Empty stage waiting for Rock 'n' Brass

This mid-sized setup proved quite good for the project at hand, allowing everyone to hear both themselves and whatever they needed to hear.

• The rock band had a powerful monitoring system as they had both wedges and in-ear monitoring at their disposal.

• The orchestra, although not having themselves in monitors could hear themselves quite nicely and had a very powerful presence of the rock band to follow through the sidefills.

• And lastly, the percussion at the top could easily hear the drummer at bottom from their own side fills, as well as a little bleed of the rest of the band, for added ambiance.

Have any of you sound techs out there had the pleasure of working with something similar? Any of you had to monitor mix a symphony? All stories and thoughts are welcome in the comments. I’d love to hear them.

5 ways to make your next monitor mixing gig run more smoothly

Being a monitor mixer can be a stressful occupation and usually involves a lot of different mixes as each artist requires a special mix of their own. In a way, it’s more complicated than running FOH(front of house) where you only have one mix to deal with.

So next time you find yourselves at the side of the stage, running 10 different mixes with 5 different bands, keep these simple things in mind and you can make your job so much easier.

Give enough time for sound-check

• By just making sure you have enough time to cater to each artist’s special need you make your job exponentially easier. Going into a gig that you are sure everybody is happy from the get-go is much easier than constantly being on the look-out for somebody’s signal to put their guitar up in the monitors.

Mark everything on the mixer

• Bring your favorite gaffer tape and make sure you know what every knob does. Turning up the guitar in the drummers monitors instead of the bassists is a sign of amateurish work and will easily piss of a group.

Mark every cable and every microphone.

• If you are working in a concert that has a lot of different acts with different instruments you can save yourself a lot of hassle by also marking all the microphones. That way, you know which microphones to move when the rock band with the three vocalists is succeeded by the choir act that only needed the stage condensers.

From FOH, make sure the auxes are pre-fader.

• If you are mixing the monitors from the FOH posiiton as well, make sure you have the aux knobs set to pre-fader. That way, if you think the singers needs a little less level, you don’t take his signal out of his own monitor by reducing his volume in the PA.

Introduce yourself and get to know the acts.

• Running sound, in a way is a service industry and you should treat your artists as customers. Making sure they know your name and can call on you when they need something is a great plus. It creates a good atmosphere when you have a made a friendly connection, especially if the acts are young or inexperienced.

I hope these tips help when you find yourselves servicing artists by the side of the stage. Being a monitor mixer is an important job and sometimes the one that gets you closer to the band than any other.

A step to correct monitoring

A quick no-brainer some people already know, but tend to forget.

Correct monitoring in your home studio is crucial for good results. Think of yourself as a point in a triangle, with your two monitors being the second and third point. That way, you should have equal distance between the monitors and yourself, minimizing the amount of the sound of the room you hear. Putting yourself in the “sweet spot” is the best way to hear your mixes if you cannot afford to sound-treat your room.

How are your home studios set up? Are you struggling with bad acoustics or do you recognize the faults in your room, knowledgably compensating for it in your mixes?