How to monitor mix a rock band with a brass band

There is a lot more to a monitor mix 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 or from a special monitor station by the side of the stage with a dedicated monitor engineer.

From a 4 AUX FOH position to a 10+ AUX dedicated monitor station 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(The Working Class Brass Band).

The results were 3 monitor wedges, 2 dual mono sidefills and 3 in-ear systems. 

Monitor results:

Breaking it down

• 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.

summing up

• 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 ambience.

Have any of you sound techs out there had the pleasure of working with something similar? Any of you had to be a monitor engineer for a symphony? I'd love to hear stories from you. 

For more tips in the live sound department click here.

5 Tips on Effective Monitor Mixing!

For another article on monitor mixing, check out my article on Audiotuts