Am I mental ? No, don't answer that!
Once again, as the only band member who understands the PA, it's been left at my feet to be guitarist, backing vocalist and sound engineer for FOH and no less than three separate IEM mixes.
Sound checks are a nightmare. "Can I have more keyboard and less kick in my ears please?". .. " I can't hear the singer and everything is too quiet" etc etc...
Twenty seconds into the first number and I'm deluged with hand signals and mouthed pleadings to reduce the keyboard and increase the kick, turn down the singer and everything is too loud"! Aaargghhh!!
Then after the first number is done, they keyboard player (who isn't on IEMs) starts having a go about me constantly "fiddling". Aaaarggghhh!!
Does anyone else mix FOH and multiple IEM mixes from the stage?
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
Comments
Eqd Speaker Cranker clone
Monte Allums TR-2 Plus mod kit
Trading feedback: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/60602/
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
A couple of my lot are talking about iem’s!!!!
I got a Yamaha TF-Rack mixer, with HK Audio Linear 5 Power Pack for FoH and a couple of Linear 5 112 XA for monitoring. I've recently added a Dante card and a TIO1608-D digital stage box giving me 32 channels total. I put the two wedges on Aux 1 and Aux 2, and three band members have stereo IEMs on Aux 9/10, 11/12, and 13/14.
One thing that can help is to use the apps provided by the mixer manufacturer to allow people to do their own IEM mix on their phones.
We are an 8/9-piece band - drums, bass, guitar, keyboard, accordion, harmonica, plus 5 vocals.
A typical gig goes something like this:
16:00 - load PA + my guitar gear into friend's van
17:00 arrive at venue
17:00 - 18:00 Set up PA
18:00 - 19:00 Band sets up gear, stands around on stage getting in way
19:00 - 19:30 Setup mics, cables, etc.
19:30 - 20:00 Sound check, inc. IEMs + wedges
20:30 - 21:30 First set
21:30 - 21:50 Interval (spend it fixing niggles with IEMs)
21:50 - 23:15 Second set
23:15 - 00:00 break down PA
00:00 - 00:15 Load gear into van
00:45 - arrive home, unload van
01:00 - enter house
All good fun
R.
Eqd Speaker Cranker clone
Monte Allums TR-2 Plus mod kit
Trading feedback: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/60602/
Most of your problems are coming from the fact you aren't running a digital desk. If you were then the rest of your band mates could all mix their own ears via phones \ tablets and setup times would be greatly reduced as the EQ, compression and effects for each band member is stored and recalled
In my main (big earning) band I have one of these, absolute IEM luxury and highly recommended for A&H users
If you give everyone the exact mix they want they become lawless egomaniacs, if you just give them one vocal mix they have to back off the mic in the appropriate places, or sing louder when they should be singing louder.
They also give each other signals for what works musically and they can't tread on each others toes.
Ultimately it's about a communal musical expression and interaction - personal mixes totally fuck that up in my experience and make the performance artificial.
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Sorry, but this is bollocks.
Singers should have the mix they want and need, not what the guitar player thinks they need.
Just giving them both what you think they should have is, frankly, ignorant
R.
Eqd Speaker Cranker clone
Monte Allums TR-2 Plus mod kit
Trading feedback: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/60602/
I think I'm going to try restricting ourselves to a single invariable mix and, using that, hopefully hear and play better while also re-learning to be at one with our fellow band members.
I'm thinking that the glibness with which many folks go wowzer over the flexibility of phone-controlled IEM mixes belies what is probably quite a steep learning curve...
(Maybe a bit like the downsides of the flexibility of amp modellers?)
Hopefully worth it in the end though!
Eqd Speaker Cranker clone
Monte Allums TR-2 Plus mod kit
Trading feedback: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/60602/
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Reading through some of the comments it just go to show how people do things differently ....... I like to hear what everybody is doing because the I think the guys I play with are great musicians. I have the keyboard player panned in stereo across my ears and I can hear every tiny detail in his playing ...likewise the bass players and drummer ... stuff you would never hear without IEM's. Vocal wise we all tend to set a monitor mix that means the vocal is effortless .... last week I did 5 gigs on the trot and the last gig was 4 x 1 hour sets. You don't want to be pushing your voice hard at any point. We use compression on the vocals through the PA and someone is mixing out front anyway so the vocals are plenty loud enough out front.
Given the choice of earning £80 each for a pub gig and trying to mix the gig from the stage myself or taking £70 each and paying an engineer to mix out front with an iPad I would always go with the engineer .... and I'm pretty tight
If we start earning reasonable money, I’ll push to get a digital desk like the XR18 perhaps.
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
As a guitar parallel - without a FOH engineer I can't afford to go slashing away deafening myself with my own guitar amps knowing somebody else is sorting it out, and neither can our singers.
We have a set-and-forget pub band mix, and we self mix in and around that by being real musicians who respect and interact with each other as if we were sat around unmiked in a living room.
Our female singer is naturally louder than our male singer, and they both sing lead on different songs. When she sings BVs too loudly it swamps the other singer's lead vocal in BOTH their IEM's, so she has to back off the mic. When I used a sub mixer with their own mixes neither of them had any way of knowing the backing vocals were way too loud but the audience did.
I can't give our singers their own perfect individual mix any more than I could let them use headset mics - it just doesn't work while I'm trying to play the damn guitar and lead the band.
Our bigger gigs with a supplied PA are a totally different situation - everyone can have whatever they like in their monitors.
It might be bollocks to you but it pays my mortgage.
- One extreme is where I hear myself (guitar and voice) standing out very clearly from the rest of the band and I can hear every nuance of my own performance.
- The other extreme is where my IEM mix is the same as the FOH mix - so I hear the whole band in a nice balance but miss some of the nuances of my own playing.
What I was trying to say above is that I was initially tempted too far towards the first extreme - which at first glance seems to be what IEMs are all about - and that my over-self-indulgence detracted from the band's sensitivity and interactivity. I was performing great in isolation, but not "playing with" the band - they were more like a backing track I was playing to.
But the second extreme is not perfect either as I miss the nuances of my own performance and so don't play/sing as well. So something in the middle is required...
R.
Eqd Speaker Cranker clone
Monte Allums TR-2 Plus mod kit
Trading feedback: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/60602/
Any singer in any band needs to hear what they need to hear.
Using myself as a case in point, I have the following in my ears:
My vocal,
My guitar
Backing vocals
Small amount of keyboard
Drums can be heard even with IEMs in, likewise with the bass.
The other guys in the band would hate my mix as it has way too much of my vocal and the backing vox (so I can pitch myself). If I told our drummer for example that he had to share my mix, he'd struggle to hear the bass - which I'm sure you'd agree would be an issue.
Dictating that everyone can only have one vocal mix that they all share is frankly ludicrous, and if anything increases the risk of a substandard performance as people struggle to hear themselves - and in the case of a singer, OVER-sing to compensate - which can lead to vocal fatigue and can cause vocal damage.
We mix our own sound, and it IS possible to give everyone the mix they need without an FOH engineer - we simply take the time to get it right during the soundcheck.
I respect the fact that it's your opinion @p90fool , but I think you are wrong.