Basics of Adding Monitor Mixing.

by Eric
(Indiana)

Question

We're a regular five piece band and we need to add a decent monitoring system to our live shows.
The PA we have is just a Yamaha MG mixer, subs, tops and a power amp. What would be the best route so that all the members of the band can control their own mix?

The drummer thinks we should all have IEM's but that can be expensive. I'm trying to figure out how to add a monitor mixer to the equipment I already have. Is it possible to achieve this just buy adding a monitor mixer? Is a monitor mixer essentially a smaller main mixer?

Any advice?

Answer

First of all, are you the one running the sound, or are you playing in the band? Because if you have a sound-tech working for you, they should be able to run monitor sound for you as well, and as long as you can sound-check well, your band members should be able to hear themselves. It can be pretty cumbersome trying to give everybody control over their own mix. It's better to have a dedicated sound guy doing the job for you.

But if you are running the mixer from the side of the stage and setting it yourself before going on, that's a different story. If you don't have anybody running it for you you have to take the time to set your levels before the show starts. You can't go turning knobs in the middle of a gig.

IEM's are a very effective way to monitor, although, like you said, a pretty expensive option.

Depending on the size of your shows, which I'm not familiar with I wonder if you can get away with using two big monitors for the overall sound. Obviously an extra IEM would help for the singer or drummer, but two extra monitors help lifting the existing stage sound if you are playing small venues.

Monitor mixers are essentially mixers that have many aux outputs so you can have different mixes in each aux. I recommend that you read my article on effective monitor mixing at the Audiotuts website: How Good Monitor Mixing Enhances a Performance

There is also a article in live sound section that might be of interest to you. It's essentially about doing a monitor mix for a rock band with a whole orchestra behind them, but you can probably grab some useful information out of it as well. Check it out here

Hope this was useful. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to comment with additional questions.