How monitor engineers are 'hooked up'

[bitofagiggle]

Up to now if any monitoring has been needed I've set up the mixes from the FOH board's AUX sends. I've never had the chance to work with a monitor engineer as I've only ever done hires for small pub gigs. So my question is, how does it all link together? How does the monitor engineer receive his inputs (as in, where in the signal chain) and how does that interact with the FOH desk? Any diagrams for this lone newbie would be greatly appreciated!

[peza2010]

Up to now if any monitoring has been needed I've set up the mixes from the FOH board's AUX sends. I've never had the chance to work with a monitor engineer as I've only ever done hires for small pub gigs. So my question is, how does it all link together? How does the monitor engineer receive his inputs (as in, where in the signal chain) and how does that interact with the FOH desk? Any diagrams for this lone newbie would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

In the Analogue world, the signals will be being split somewhere along the way.

 

In my experience, this tends to happens onstage, before it has hit the monitor desk, then one set of splits goes to the monitor board, the other goes down the multicore to the FOH desk. sometimes this involves a clever multicore system which does the splitting, sometimes its just a rack of splits.

 

Another way of making the split is if the monitor desk has direct outs, which is untouched by the desk (so just splits the input "before" the channel strip)so inputs go into the monitor desk, then direct out >>>> Multicore >>>> FOH desk.

 

Sometimes you will find 3/4+ ways of splitting when broadcast and record engineers become involved.

 

One thing to remember is to decide who will be providing phantom power, and I'd say 9/10 in my experience this happens on the monitor board.

 

 

 

In the digital world it tends to be very different, and in my eyes (and being less sound based for the past 3 years) more complicated.

 

Essentially the digital stage box can feed both desks via CAT 5/6 cable. One desk then controls head amp gain etc etc. This can then start getting clever/complicated with the use of auto make up gains to name one.

[themadhippy]

In the digital world it tends to be very different, and in my eyes (and being less sound based for the past 3 years) more complicated.

Or kept simple like analogue with 2 stage boxes,no gain sharing needed

[Electrolytic]

the split can be a simple parallel like a 'Y' cable or isolated via a passive transformer. 'Y' split is ok when everything is running off the same ring main, a third party such as broadcast truck might not be so the signal needs to be isolated by either a transformer split or active system.

 

dedicated monitor boards sometimes have the split built in and as they are closest to stage the stage box goes to them first. If a FOH board is being used for mons then direct outs will be line level and the pre amp gain determined at that desk. Monitor desks generally don't have faders just pots to fit the large number of aux sends on the desk and of cause there is no main L&R, the main channel pots are used if the aux sends are post fader and the whole channel needs bringing down fast ie feedback.

 

two X32s connected together via CAT5, one on stage for monitors set as the master mic ins to this desk. the FOH desk gets everything the mons gets but can't remotely operate the channel pre amps, foh only has +/-12db of digital trim.

using the X32 digital stage box S16 with two desk I don't know what options are available.

[Simon Lewis]

In the analogue world, it is best to split the mic signal and send it to two desks (or more if needed).

 

Unless there is no other option, you wouldn't use the output of a desk (direct out, aux out etc.) to achieve this as the second desk would be at the mercy of the first desk's gain control.

 

Mic splits can be s simple passive "Y" split, a transformer split or an active split. The first two will usually present an additional load to the microphone, which can affect level and tonality. Passive splits are cheap to do, Transformer splits are expensive (or at least good ones are) and can have a number of issues. They do provide very good galvanic isolation though - useful when working across two different mains power supplies or in outdoor environments.

Active splits can overcome the loading problem.

 

In the digital world, it can be fairly easy to split a copy of the signal off, but as mentioned above, there has to be some agreement as to who has control of gain for the digital stagebox. There's also the issue that if a hire company wishes to send the desks out separately, a shared stagebox isn't too much use. In such cases, it can make sense to split the signal with an analogue splitter into two separate digital stageboxes.

 

This website has some useful information and diagrams.

 

Simon

[peza2010]

In the digital world it tends to be very different, and in my eyes (and being less sound based for the past 3 years) more complicated.

Or kept simple like analogue with 2 stage boxes,no gain sharing needed

 

correct. I just wanted to show the OP both sides of the coin :)