Sound Advice by Leon Sievers Sound Professional May 15, 2009

The objective in establishing
a good monitor mix is to provide the worship team with the necessary information
they need to maintain their vocal balance and keep time. Sometimes this
means giving them the entire band in their mix. Others only need to hear
their own vocals or maybe the guitar and keyboard. If the drums happen
to be behind shields you may add the hi hat or kick to keep time. All of
this should be accomplished while keeping stage levels to a bare minimum.

There are a few essential
items necessary to mixing stage monitors. There are also several ways to
arrive at a good mix depending on the equipment you have to work with.
Let's begin with the monitors themselves. Quantity and quality play a big
part in a successful stage mix. You will need at least one monitor for
every vocal position. That does not mean for each vocalist, but rather
for each piece of real estate occupied by a vocalist. Often the vocalists
can share a monitor while it is more difficult for the singing musicians
to occupy the same small space.  Since the goal here is to reduce
the ambient sound level from the stage, smaller monitors go a long way
towards keeping SPL in check. This means saying no to double 15"woofers
and yes to monitors which use 10" or 12" low frequency components. Look
for monitors, which use a real compression driver and horn rather than
a peizo tweeter. Remember you are trying to re-produce the vocal region
as faithfully as the budget will allow and full range fifteen-inch woofer
and simple tweeters are not designed for the task at hand.  Monitors
that use a passive crossover, minimize your need for extra equipment such
as electronic crossovers and multiple amplifiers. They also sound good
out of the box and need fewer technical adjustments once installed. Bi
amplified monitors can offer a higher degree of performance, but they come
at considerable additional cost. 

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