We all take monitors pretty much for granted. Whether you use in-ears or floor wedges at your church, they are as common as your main front of house speakers. But did you know that, in the early-mid 1960’s, many bands hit the road without the benefit of monitors of any type. Before floor wedge monitors became popular and commonplace, speakers were simply placed on either side of the stage and turned toward the performers.
The performers got the same mix as the audience, because those early mixing boards didn’t have any aux sends. I’ve got one more bit of monitor trivia for you: Judy Garland was the first performer to use speakers designed specifically as monitors. The show was at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium on September 13, 1961. Okay, enough history, on to something a little more current.
Priority #1: No Feedback
The most important thing you can do as a worship house audio engineer is make certain that your floor wedges do not feed back. Especially during a Sunday service. At the very least, feedback is annoying, and at the worst, painful. So, how do you keep those useful floor monitors from feeding back? First; you need to know how and why feedback occurs. This phenomenon is created when an audio signal entering a microphone returns through a loudspeaker (in this case a monitor) and is “heard” again by the microphone, which re-amplifies the original signal and sends it back through the monitor again and again in a howling loop. Feedback will generally latch on to one frequency and take off with it. That frequency will depend on the overall volume of your monitors along with the acoustics of your room and resonance characteristics of your mic and monitors.
Now that you know what it is, how do you stop it? Placement of the floor wedges is very important. When setting up monitors for singers and speakers, you want the monitor speaker facing the back side of the microphone. This puts a cardioid mic 180° off-axis to the monitor speaker. Avoid placing the wedges to the right or left of your singers/speakers, unless you’re using hypercardioid mics that have “null” points that are about 120° off-axis. Side placements with cardioid mics and rear placements with hypercardioid models will only increase your chances for creaating that unwanted feedback. For any worship band members who don’t sing, placement of the monitors is less critical. These players only want to hear the other band members and the vocalists. So, you can set up their monitors wherever it is practical and convenient.
Getting a Great Monitor Sound
Now that you have all the floor wedges where you want them, let’s make them sound great with sufficient volume and clarity while eliminating any chance of feedback. In order to accomplish this task, you’ll need the assistance of two individuals (yourself being one). This process of balancing and correctly equalizing your monitors is referred to as “ringing out” the monitors. (You could actually undertake this process on your own, but two makes it much easier.) Both of you will need to have the ability to identify frequencies fairly accurately, however. So if you can’t hear and point out 500 Hertz or 1k Hz or 2,000 Hz with certainty, you’ll have to download a frequency generating app and start listening.
Now that you and your helper have tuned up your ears, you are almost ready to begin. Proper monitor EQ will need an equalizer. If you are using an analog board, an outboard graphic EQ with 15 or 31 bands will be best (I prefer 31 bands). If you’re working on a digital board, you should have a virtual one at your fingertips.
Okay, let’s begin. Your partner will stand on the stage in front of a floor monitor and speak into a handheld microphone. You will slowly turn up the aux send feeding the monitor. Adjust the EQ until your stage hand tells you his (or her) voice sounds natural. If they can sing, have them belt out a few verses. Now that the wedge sounds good and clear, slowly increase the aux level to the monitor until a slight bit of feedback is heard. Now the stage assistant will tell you what frequency (approximately) got out of control. Bring that slider down a bit until no feedback occurs. Increase the level of the monitor again until more feedback is heard. Then, once your stage helper identifies the offending frequency, you can bring it down. After a couple of EQ adjustments, your monitors should be loud and clear. So, now bring the entire aux/monitor level down to a comfortable stage volume. Remember, you are in a church, and the last thing you want is for the stage monitors to be louder than the front-of-house speakers.
Personal Monitors and IEM’s
That’s just about all I’ve got on floor wedges, but I should say a little something about small personal monitors and IEM (in-ear monitors). I know I wrote about this subject a few months ago, but I think I can add more.
As an engineer, you will want to dedicate one of your aux sends to your IEM’s. If your board has a matrix, that will work even better. However no matrix = no worries, so just use the aux send. Each voice and instrument should be sent through the aux at the same level. Your musicians and singers can adjust their own personal mix themselves. You are just ensuring that they are all on the same audio playing field. You will not have to add any EQ to your in-ear monitors. The signal sent through the aux will have each individual channel’s EQ.
If you are using Hot-Spot-style monitors (these are little one-person monitors generally mounted on a microphone stand) they will need to have their own aux send — mainly because these speakers will need some equalizing, and it will be very different from your floor wedges. Some of these mini-monitors have their own onboard EQ, but it would be nice to have a graphic equalizer on hand to help them out.
Some Final Advice
One last thing (that I may have mentioned earlier): House of worship monitors don’t need to be blisteringly loud. Mix them just loud enough to keep the players on track and the singers on pitch.
Low-profile wedge monitors can reduce the chance of blocking views from seated parishioners. In some sanctuaries — such as here in Austin’s Unity Church of The Hills — the monitors can be “stairstepped” to increase sightlines even farther.
