Church Sound Monitoring - Silent Stage

[pisquee]

I've not been a sound engineer for a few years now, so a bit out of touch with stuff, so would like to pick some of your brains please...

 

Have volunteered to do sound at my church, and need to do some updates, but don't want to go out and spend their money before considering options.

 

Big old stone church, so echoey. Currently silent stage with electric drums, DIed keyboard, DIed accoustic, keys and guit player also sing, sometimes a violin. Currently they use a tiny guitar amp type thing as a wedge monitor - they can't hear themselves or each other play, which is definitely worst for the drummer, who although young can play well, but keeps tripping up when he can't hear.

 

As big old church, I'd like to keep the quiet stage, and go for a headphones option rather than lots of wedges, so have been trying to come up with some kind of personal monitoring system set up and can think of two options:

 

they each have a headphone amp/mini mixer, so I can send an aux mix to them all from the desk A&H Zed 24 channel analog, but they have feeds of themselves. I can find headphone amps for this purpose, but seemingly trip up on finding one which will take a mix and line feed for the player as well as the aux mix in, so then this developed into needing a small mixer/splitters for each of them.

 

The other option I can think of is to go digital with the headphones system, and use something like Behringer's PowerPlay P16-I with a passive splitter to give them all individual feeds, and then they each get a P16-M.

 

The first solution keeps everything analog and is going to be cheaper. The second option gives us the P16-M units for when we upgrade to having an X32 or similar. But then the P16-I unit would be redundant, as I can't see an Ultranet input on it to use it with an X32

 

Any other suggestions/discussion welcome.

[timsabre]

Behringer do a "more me" mini-mixer headphone amp which takes a band mix plus a tap off your own signal. We've used this successfully at our church for a while. Beware does not work with phantom power on the line.

https://www.behringer.com/Categories/Behringer/Signal-Processors/Headphone-Amplifiers/MA400/p/P0491

 

We now have an X32 and use the P16-M with that, that's a really good system, but it does take a while for the musicians to learn how to mix themselves a good monitor mix.The X32 outputs directly to the P16-M's, your P16-I would be redundant if you subsequently got an X32.

 

[pisquee]

Yea, I'd looked at the MA400, but it seems it would work for someone who was just singing, and wanted control of their mic level against the mix, but for the guitar player who also sings (or the keyboard player who also sings, I can't see how this would work for them.) So I was then seemingly resigned to small/tiny mixing desks like the Behringer 502

[timsabre]

Ah ok, yes it wouldn't work for someone who has two outputs. The other problem with the MA400's is they all need their own mains power supply, it gets quite messy with wires.

 

The P16-I is a good solution, if you can afford the personal mixer units which are quite expensive (a lot cheaper than other brands though). Then it's just one cat5 cable to each musician. You would have to swap your P16-I to a P16-D if you got an X32.

 

[jamesholt]

The other option I can think of is to go digital with the headphones system, and use something like Behringer's PowerPlay P16-I with a passive splitter to give them all individual feeds, and then they each get a P16-M.

 

The first solution keeps everything analog and is going to be cheaper. The second option gives us the P16-M units for when we upgrade to having an X32 or similar. But then the P16-I unit would be redundant, as I can't see an Ultranet input on it to use it with an X32

The Behringer S16 / Midas DL16 has a mode which allows it to be used as a standalone analogue head end to a P16 system (mode 9), essentially doing the same thing as the P16-I but with XLR inputs and finer gain control. It only has one Ultranet output so you'd also need to purchase a P16-D hub, however the upside is you could then repurpose the S16/DL16 as a digital snake when upgrading to an X32 console :)

[pisquee]

I'm going to put together three proposals for the church:

 

1. A staying analogue upgrade - Behringer mini-mixers/MA400 type units and a mic splitter for monitoring (defintiely want to stay away from wedges)

2. Going with the Behringer PowerPlay P16 systems, along with P16i and splitter etc

 

Both the above would also include the need to add some outboard (at least a graphic EQ and a reverb unit)

The eventual aim would be to move to an X32/M32, so both the above effectively throw away money on kit that will end up redundant

 

3. Go all in from the start with the X32/M32 with the P16 monitors and retire the analog mixer, but then not need to buy the outboard, or bodge together a monitoring system.

[timsabre]

Would be interesting to see the cost of these options. I would think options 2 and 3 might not be much different.

[pisquee]

That was my thought, and then I don't like the idea of buying kit in the knowledge it will be redundant if the plan is/was to upgrade the desk to an M32, which seemed to be what they were discussing previously.

[themadhippy]

option more expensive,buy a pro 1 and give the each band member an ipad with mixtender Edited September 15, 2019 by themadhippy

[david.elsbury]

option more expensive,buy a pro 1 and give the each band member an ipad with mixtender

If that was your preference wouldn’t you just do that with an x32 and iPads then?!

[samchurchill]

If you do end up with an X32 or M32 you could also opt to save a load on the P16s by using the mobile app for monitor mixing. We’ve used it for several years at my church with good results. We started off with simple Behringer headphone amps (like powerplay ha8000) but now mainly use Sennheiser wireless IEM with them.

 

Sam

[djw1981]

Sam,

 

By that do you mean using the Matrix out's as monitor feeds?

[ninjadingle]

How many band members are there? (I count 4?) If so maybe seeing if you can swap your desk out for something like a GL2400 which has more Aux outs so each member can have their own monitor mix from the desk might work out cheaper or even cost neutral?

[sandall]

Perhaps a bit of a faff, & might involve a bit of gaffer tape, but for about £100 you could give everyone a 2nd MA400, as a 2-channel mixer feeding into the line-in of their main one, giving you the 3-channel amps the singers need. Could be a lot cheaper than replacing a perfectly good desk.

[samchurchill]

Sam,

 

By that do you mean using the Matrix out's as monitor feeds?

 

I mean using the aux outs - you can control the aux sends and aux master volume using the M32-Q (or X32-Q) app for iOS or Android. This app is specifically for band members mixing their own monitors, it’s not the same as the tablet app that is designed for FOH mixing.

Edited September 17, 2019 by samchurchill