Small cast of 4 having monitor problems

[Ben_Uk]

After some advice.

 

I have been doing sound for many years but having some real problems with a very young cast.

 

Running a small cast of 4 with Radio mics, All but one of them have never used mics before which is making it real hard work. I have managed to get FOH sounding ok but they complain about the monitors.

 

At the moment they are post fade, due them moaning they can't hear lead vocals ect. I really want to get back to useing Pre Fade as this is what I have always used with show teams/Casts.

 

The problem they are having with post fade is that they are now saying they can't hear backing vocals.

 

My plan tomorrow is to set them to post fade and tell them they either learn mic control or they suffer, I really have run out of options.

 

If anyone could give me any advice that would be great, what setting do other people use?.

 

I plan on keeping the play back on post fade as they often have to do talk overs ect.

 

Its a small venue with 2 active monitors on different mixs. And about 3k out front.

 

 

Any advice would be really good. Many thanks in advanced.

[Matt Riley]

If it's only 4 mics which are causing issues, if you've got spare channels, use a Y-split on them, and then don't move the faders on the ones which are going to be used for your monitor sends!

 

M

[neilalexrose]

Running a small cast of 4 with Radio mics, All but one of them have never used mics before which is making it real hard work. I have managed to get FOH sounding ok but they complain about the monitors.

 

Are they handheld radios or headworn Lavalier's?

 

'Less is more'

 

Trick from musical theatre and indeed panto, is to get the stage volume quiet enough that the singers can hear themselves acoustically, no vocals in the monitor mix at all. Mainly because head worm Lavalier mics have an Omni-directional pickup pattern, which can mean feedback every time they move closer to a monitor speaker.

 

If you give them just enough track/band, but so they can still hear themselves acoustically, and see how they cope with that. Also worth sending a bit of the reverb channel, so they can hear a little bit of themselves sounding pretty!

 

Best advice I can give, is if you check the onstage volume before they soundcheck and have a quick sing yourself! If you put yourself in their shoes, you may understand what they are trying to communicate, but not saying efficiently. After all if they haven't used mics before as you say, they may not know what they need, only what they THINK they want.

 

There was a thread on here recently on monitor engineering. Main premise of the thread was that you as the engineer need to listen to the mixes yourself, and work with the performers to get the mix they actually need, to be able to sing their parts.

 

I used to play in an 8 piece tribute band, and monitors was always a bit of a headache. As saxophone player, I learnt that the best solution for me and the trumpet player sharing a wedge with me, was 'less is more'. Rather than needing to hear everything in a wedge mix, all we had was sax and trumpet, so we could hear each other, and play together. The rest of the band (bass, guitar, drums, keys and lead vocals), we picked up from the players amps and wedges around us. It worked well for us, as we weren't swamped with electric instruments in our mix, and so we weren't struggling to hear our acoustic instruments!

 

Just reading the OP again, I would also send all track/band stuff to stage pre-fade. They can't then moan at you if it get's too loud/quiet because you are trying to be subtle/get too excited! You say they talk over it, but if you get it quiet enough to sing over, then it should be quiet enough to talk over

 

HTH

 

Neil

[Brian]

Its a small venue ... 3k out front.

Is the on-stage sound being swamped by your FOH system?

[JackBrienLX]

HI,

 

Most (not all!) professional musicals do not provide onstage vocal fold-back at all, mainly because of the omni directional headworn mic's being so prone to feedback. Most of the issues I have come across is with singers not being able to pitch properly, so it may be an idea to change the onstage monitor mix to include more of the instruments that can help this (piano's for example) and less of ones that won't.

 

That being said we simply tell our cast when asked that there is no vocal fold-back by design, and therefore it is not possible, we have not had any issue so far in 10 months of touring like this.

 

Lastly the position of the monitors may help things? placing them front of stage on the floor will help those positioned downstage, however having them as side fills hung off a bar on either side of stage may provide more even coverage. Obviously this depends of dispersion pattern etc of the speaker.

 

HTH

 

Jack B

[Ben_Uk]

We are using Handheld mics.

 

"less is more"

 

This is a very interesting way of looking at it in normal venues, and I find it can work really well but afraid they are infront of some of the FOH speakers in this case. I say FOH speakers they are only 6 12 inch speakers with horns and 2 bass bins (18 inch active) I say infont, they are to the side, but they still get to hear them on stage.

 

The tracks are on post fade as mentioned and very very low in the monitor mix due to them be able to hear a fair amount of track from the FOH.

 

"Best advice I can give, is if you check the onstage volume before they soundcheck and have a quick sing yourself! If you put yourself in their shoes, you may understand what they are trying to communicate, but not saying efficiently. After all if they haven't used mics before as you say, they may not know what they need, only what they THINK they want."

 

This is somthing I generaly always do. Today in sound check more so. All mics are at now completey at the same volume in the monitors. So I'm leaving it up to them to pull back or forward depending if they are doing solo or backing harms. It was a little harsh to say none of them have, One of them have with a cast, one of them have only ever done solo work and two of them have never used mics before.

 

"Just reading the OP again, I would also send all track/band stuff to stage pre-fade. They can't then moan at you if it get's too loud/quiet because you are trying to be subtle/get too excited! You say they talk over it, but if you get it quiet enough to sing over, then it should be quiet enough to talk over"

 

Again very interesting point there, sound check was post fade as per normal, but I may try pre fade next time as like I say the track is now very low in the monitors due to it bleeding over from the FOH

 

"Is the on-stage sound being swamped by your FOH system?"

 

Not swamped no, but its fair to say they can here at least 2 of the 6 mid/high speakers and of course bass bins.

 

"Most (not all!) professional musicals do not provide onstage vocal fold-back at all, mainly because of the omni directional headworn mic's being so prone to feedback. Most of the issues I have come across is with singers not being able to pitch properly, so it may be an idea to change the onstage monitor mix to include more of the instruments that can help this (piano's for example) and less of ones that won't."

 

The problem as I mentioned earlier in this post is that FOH bleeds over the stage so having no vocals in the monitors is not an option for this cast. They claim not hearing the backing can really put them out of tune and damage there voices.

 

"That being said we simply tell our cast when asked that there is no vocal fold-back by design, and therefore it is not possible, we have not had any issue so far in 10 months of touring like this."

 

One can only dream, you have not met this cast!.

 

"Lastly the position of the monitors may help things? placing them front of stage on the floor will help those positioned downstage, however having them as side fills hung off a bar on either side of stage may provide more even coverage. Obviously this depends of dispersion pattern etc of the speaker."

 

Good post here, I increased the amount of monitors on the main part of the stage today, on the same mix as stage left but in the middle of the stage as both mixs are pretty simlar. I'm hoping this will mean I don't have to push the monitors so hard. I say monitors there Behringer B215A active speakers. As for using them as side fills this is not possible due to the design of the stage.

 

Many many thanks for the replys so far they have proved very usfull in todays sound check.

[dbuckley]

IEMs?

[Ben_Uk]

No budget.

[KidRay]

Something I'm just about to try myself, for rehearsals when we don't have full monitors, is some musicians' earplugs, which I hope will allow me to hear myself better (I play drums and sing backing vocals) while not affecting the overall sound I'm hearing too much. I may have to experiment with different 'strength' plugs to get the right ones, but they are fairly cheap (unless you go for the custom moulded ones).

[Dolomite]

I can't recommend using Y splits enough, it'll give you total control over both their mons and FOH eq and levels.

[Ben_Uk]

YEa I've made some in the past, I'm a lilttle limited with chanals on this desk though. :'(