Mixing Monitors for Worship - Part 1

Sound Advice by Leon Sievers Sound Professional September 12, 2011

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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