Moniters, Powered or Not?

[Dan (now in stereo)]

Should I use powered or non-powered monitors? and are monitors sent in stereo? If so from whose point of view should the left and right be?

[MarkPAman]

See this topic for the powered / unpowered debate.

 

Stage monitors are not usually run as stereo pairs, but if they are then L & R for the listener would seem sensible.

[Rob_Beech]

As Mark says, we usually talk about left and right from the view of the stage so left would be right to us at FOH. Though as he also points out its rare that you'll see stereo pairs with monitors.

 

However, In Ear Monitoring is often done in stereo for some band members where they can have a different mix in each ear, this can be quite handy although its perfectly acceptable for a mono mix.

 

Interestingly I tried a set of stereo IEM's and quite liked them. I could have peoples vocals positioned slightly left or right dependant on where they were on the stage, and of course my own smack bang in the middle. I could also have my keyboards stereo outputs outputting left and right in my ears as necessary.

 

Back to wedges now, its been known on larger shows where a lead singer may have 4 wedges for the outer pair and inner pair to be on a separate mix allowing better separation between instruments and vocals etc.

 

 

Rob

 

 

 

Edit :

 

Also, you may find a lead vocalists pair of wedges run from separate amp channels in case of failure, these still tend to be driven from the same mix though.

[Just Some Bloke]

Just to agree with those above, that monitors (notice the spelling is "ors" not "ers") are run as single channels usually, except for stereo IEMs (luxury!).

 

But just to add that if you ran unpowered monitors using a stereo amp, you could run the amp as 2 mono sends rather than 1 stereo pair. In other words the left channel could be used for the guitarist's monitor and the right channel for the bass player's monitor, for instance.

 

Hope that helps.