Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

I'm sure someone has posted some information on stage monitors. Unfortunely there is no search i can use.

After an almost disaterous preformance, i have concluded i need some stage monitors. My singer could not hear themselves enough and i had my giutar too loud. Yea, not a good thing. It was corrected after 3 min. but that not professional.

So what is a good choice . We currently do small show. 100 - 200 people venues. My PA rack is probally more than enough in power. 800 watts each channel. A feed back destroyer, Sonic opitmizer, and a compressor/limiter. I use 2 jbl 12" 2-way on sticks and 2 peavey 2way 12" on the floor.

I wanted to use the Peavey's as monitor but i was told that it would cuase feedback. If this is so what monitor would fit my situation. We mostly do Jazz and R&B music.

Any ideas????????????????????????

The Peavey's shouldn't cause feedback unless you're running them as mains and are just talking about turning them in towards you so that you can hear the mains and have no separate volume control over them. If you can run them as a monitor mix using the same power, 800 watts for monitor and 800 for the mains, you could get good sounding monitors that don't feedback, but you would only have the JBL's for mains which might work in most venues. If you'll get all the info on your PA equipment posted here, I'll try to figure the best way to get what you want out of it, or advise you on if you need to add a little more equipment to keep your cost down and your sound big. I'll need to know if you have a powered or nonpowered mixer? Brand and model. That'll give me something to work with.

I use a Alesis non powered 16 channel mixer. (multimix 16); Berlinger feedback destroyer pro; phonic limiter/compressor; BBE 882i sonic maximizer; and a crest cpx 1500 power amp.

Ok, then. With what you already have, pan all your channels hard left except for channel 16. Run from your left main out to one side of the power amp (chaining in your outboard stuff as normal)and power your JBLs for the mains. Run a short instrument cable from your monitor output into channel 16 and pan that channel hard right . Run out of your right main out to the other side of your power amp (chaining in your outboard stuff as normal) and power your Peaveys for the monitors. Left main slider for mains, right main slider for monitor. The reason for running the monitor output into a channel is, now you can use the Eq of that channel as an overall eq for monitor. Also, later if you add effects units you can control the amount into your monitor separately through that channel. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. If you wonder about the chain of outboard gear, tell me how you run it now (i.e. inserts or from output to one then the next) and I'll help more if this is confusing.

We are looking at investing in some spot monitors. Seems everywhere we play with the exception of our rehearsal area our back up vocalist cant hear himself. And no it's not the guitarist fault.

And no it's not the guitarist fault.

Yes, it is!!!!

OK, so if i had another amp i could run from the cr monitor to the other amp for stage monitors using the CR monitor volume controll?

The Feed back issue is still a worry for me . Is it true that basic stage monitors are equipted with something to eliminate Feedback?

I'll try out what you said . I really don't need four mains running. the rooms we play are small to medium.

OK, so if i had another amp i could run from the cr monitor to the other amp for stage monitors using the CR monitor volume controll?

I just looked up the model Alesis you have. It's more of a studio board than live board so it doesn't have the monitor out that I was talking about previously. If you're not using both effects aux sends, use one of those in post mode. That way you're getting the use of each channels eq. If you're going to get another power amp, get a monitor amp that has it's own overall eq. If you get just a regular power amp, invest in a 31 band eq so you can eq it for those speakers. Using the aux send instead of control room gives you the ability to only put in the channels you want and control the volume separately and easily, but if you use it in post mode, the faders for each channel will affect it so set them first.

The Feed back issue is still a worry for me . Is it true that basic stage monitors are equipted with something to eliminate Feedback?

No, good quality mics will cut down on feedback. Also just monitoring as little as you need to will help. Less mics in the monitor mix = less feedback problems.

I'll try out what you said . I really don't need four mains running. the rooms we play are small to medium.

Yeah, if you use a separate amp for monitors, the JBLs getting 800 watts apiece should be plenty for jazz and R&B.

So putting 10,000 watts in a 100 seat room is too much?

We use a Yam 7000 amp and 2 QSC 1450s for our pa. Of course other than the subs we are only running into 8 ohms. So we are probably using about 5500-6000 watts.

I'm a huge fan of IN YOUR EAR monitors but they can be cost prohibitive.

SELF POWERED stage wedges are great.
Don't need to have extra amps in the rack.
You feed them with guitar cords and can string up to a gazillion of them together since there's no impedence issues to deal with if you've only got four or five of them on stage.

Mixers capable of multiple monitor mixes get far less complicated because there are no amps to tote around.

If you're using a respectable PA, you don't need a lot of stage volume.
You can get by with a monitor with a 12" and small horn in it.
You can get a pair of Berhinger self powered monitors for usually around $250.

powered monitors fits. No weight added, and cost effective. good idea