Early Sunday morning, the musicians arrive to prepare for the day. As the sound operator, you have to setup and test the equipment before the musicians arrive. After the sound check starts, the house and monitor mixes need to be fine tuned. And, when there's a problem, it's your job to isolate and fix it - FAST. This can be a stressful preparation.

One of the more time-consuming tasks is to create monitor mixes everybody likes. Now, imagine that each individual can adjust their own mix! What a stress-reliever. Well, there are products that make this a reality.

Interested? Keep reading.

Floor Monitors...

Floor monitors (Figure 1) are the oldest style of monitors. They are simple to use and setup is straight forward. While they help singers hear the music and their own voice, they have problems associated with them.

Figure 1
Floor monitors.

Floor monitors add acoustic energy on-stage, which can cause several problems. When the monitor volume is too high, feedback in the monitor loudspeakers can be a problem. An equalizer may help to achieve more volume before feedback. The equalizer should be a one-third octave band equalizer or a parametric type equalizer, or even both. There are also digital signal processors (DSP) which can automatically set filters to remove the problem feedback frequencies.

Another problem occurs when the monitor volumes get too loud. Most of the acoustic energy bounces off the front walls and ceiling and reflects into the congregation. Unfortunately, the reflected sound has lost its fidelity. The result is poor sound for the congregation. The louder the monitors, the worse the sound is for the audience. The sound operator can try to compensate by raising the volume of the house mix. However, it is easy for the volume to get out of hand.

One solution is to get rid of the floor monitors. This is accomplished by having the musicians wear headphones or tiny in-ear monitors. With the disappearance of the acoustic energy from the floor monitors, the platform volume goes way down and the house sound clears up. Usually the house levels can be reduced too. Everybody wins!

In-Ear Monitor...

In-ear monitors have been around for many years. A singer wears ear buds, as in Figure 2, and the mix plays directly into their ears. In-ear monitors can be wired or wireless, depending on the need for mobility.

Figure 2
In-ear monitors.

In-ear monitors can solve many problems. However, the limited number of monitor mixes still present difficulties. Every musician prefers to hear their own instrument or voice in a different mix than the other musicians. Unfortunately, most churches cannot afford a house mixer or large separate monitor mixer. Fortunately, there are new solutions.

Personal Monitor Mixer...

The personal monitor mixer utilizes the in-ear monitor or headphones. The really cool thing about this style is each monitor mix is adjusted by the person who uses it. No more calls to the sound person asking for more of this or less of that instrument. How great is that! A personal mixer can mount to their microphone stand so it's easily accessible. The output can feed wired or wireless in-ear monitors, headsets or powered loudspeakers.

There are a number of manufacturers that produce personal monitor mixing systems (i.e. Shure, Furman, Hear Technologies, Rolls, Benson Sound, Sound Associates, Aviom and Apex). The number of individual channels, features and cabling requirements affect the price. One of the simplest analog mixer systems has four channels along with a stereo sub mix. It requires two CAT-5 cables between each personal mixer.

Some new products use digital technology. They can have 8 to 16 channels over a single CAT-5 cable. The mixer shown in Figure 3 has six channels and one stereo mix. It also has a limiter on each mixer to provide vital ear protection.

Hear back images are reproduced with permission from Hear Technologies.
www.heartechnologies.com
David Holland can be reached by email - dave@heartechnologies.com
Current product has a lighter gray body with purple on the knobs.
Figure 3
Personal monitor mixer.

Personal mixers are usually connected to the house mixer, utilizing the Aux outputs and the channel direct outputs. The newer digital models use digital hubs to distribute the data stream. As shown in Figure 4, the CAT-5 cable between the hubs and mixers can be up to 200 feet. Distance between hubs can be 500 feet.

Figure 4
Sample set up diagram.

Summary...

As the number of musicians grows, the need for more monitors also grows. Some churches use many different monitor mixes or systems so instrumentalists and singers can each hear only what they need to hear. This enables the musicians to do their best. And the congregation hears a clearer sound with less volume.