Page 32 - Love-of-Music-Magazine-winter-2019

Tips to Make Your Band Sound Great Live

This article will focus on the benefits of using a vocal monitor

and best practices when you are running your own sound.

LOMM Staff - Drew St. John
The most common PA mistake is to neglect the use of a The position of each channel fader will dictate how much
vocal monitor when running your own sound system. signal from the instrument plugged into that channel will
Proper vocal monitoring is elemental if you want to have go to the master fader and then out of the main output
a great performance. jacks.
Vocal monitoring can come from a standalone solution You may have a knob on each channel that is labeled
or by simply changing the signal routing in your current AUX (auxiliary) or sometimes MON (monitor) but for this
rig. A monitor differs from a main speaker in the fact article we will call it AUX.
that it must provide audio to a musician that is in close This knob acts like the fader of that channel except when
proximity and who may be holding an instrument that you turn it up you increase the amount of signal that is
could introduce feedback into the system such as an being fed to the AUX SEND output on the mixer.
acoustic guitar plugged into the mixer. For this reason,
a monitor may need different placement, mixing, EQ “In some cases, if you don’t have an AUX
and volume than its main speaker counterpart. knob on each channel, you can turn off the
built-in effects and use the FX knob to mix
Placement a monitor with the FX SEND output”
Keep your monitor on the floor in front of the micro-
phone you are monitoring. Almost all microphones are Connect a cable from the AUX SEND to your powered
directional, meaning they have area around the mic monitor and now you can mix your monitor. Need more
that doesn’t pick up sound from one direction. The most vocal in your monitor? Go to the channel your mic is
common pickup pattern is cardioid (ex. SM58). If you plugged into and turn up the AUX knob on the channel
have a cardioid mic then put the monitor on the floor to get more signal into your monitor.
directly in front of the mic. Supercardioid microphones If you have a powered mixer, some models are
(ex. Beta58) pick up from behind the microphone but designed with a Main/Mon section.
have areas of rejection 120° away from the front of the By selecting the Main/Mon setting, you can treat one
mic on both sides. If you have this type of mic, place speaker as the Main speaker and one speaker as a
your monitors either a little to the front left or front right Monitor. In this mode, you often have a MON knob on
of the mic so that the monitor is in the area of rejection. each channel for mixing your monitors and a graphic
This will cut down on feedback. EQ for cutting back on feedback in the monitors.

EQ
EQ can be adjusted to further cut back on feedback
in the monitors. Feedback comes from a relationship
between volume and distance and when monitoring the
mic is in close proximity to the speaker. A study of
common EQ techniques for the mic and monitor speaker
you have will help in eliminating feedback altogether.

Volume
Fifteen minutes into a performance the artist’s ear adjusts
Photo Credit LOMM Staff to the volume of the monitors and they will want to turn
Mixing up the volume. About 3-4 songs into the set it’s a good
If you have a passive mixer with faders (sliders) you will idea to take a quick break and make adjustments.
often have a separate output section that will work for
making a monitor mix.

30 | The Love of Music Magazine - St. Louis
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