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Author Topic: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges  (Read 27909 times)

Bob L. Wilson

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Re: Re: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges
« Reply #40 on: February 13, 2013, 01:49:45 PM »

I have heard 4 singers and one of them with a guitar on a stage with one microphone, no monitors, no IEMs  just them and one mic.  They constantly rearranged them selves to "mix" there sound.  Different ones would move in front of the mic for a solo or lead part. It sounded great.

I work in a old church with a small platform that is completely unstable for a worship team.  The team is arranged in the only space available.  Four singers, one acoustic guitar, one electric guitar, a grand piano and a drum kit (no aquarium) right in front of the piano.  The nearest member of the congregation is about 8 ft away.  IEMs with personal mixers are the Silver Bullet in this case.  I would not be without them.  Our sound was good before we had them, now it is great.

We had a single mic old time traveling gospel group play last year for worship it was really great. I am glad IEMs work in your application I stand by my assertion that stage sound is the essence of live performance. If it isn't why not just wire the sanctuary so the entire congregation can wear headphones it would probably be cheaper than the ridiculous powered line arrays some churches are getting talked in to buying, in fact better yet lets have corporate worship by all sitting at home in our basements listening to the service stream over high quality headphones. reductio ad absurdum.
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: Re: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges
« Reply #41 on: February 13, 2013, 01:57:30 PM »

We had a single mic old time traveling gospel group play last year for worship it was really great. I am glad IEMs work in your application I stand by my assertion that stage sound is the essence of live performance. If it isn't why not just wire the sanctuary so the entire congregation can wear headphones it would probably be cheaper than the ridiculous powered line arrays some churches are getting talked in to buying, in fact better yet lets have corporate worship by all sitting at home in our basements listening to the service stream over high quality headphones. reductio ad absurdum.

Agreed.  And not as absurdum as you might thinkum......
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Jason Lucas

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Re: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges
« Reply #42 on: February 13, 2013, 02:27:31 PM »

This makes me think of something someone posted on a recording forum contrasting professional jazz bands and a lot of new amatuer bands:

Quote
So let's begin at the very beginning. Let's say you have a straightforward
jazz/blues combo onstage. Drummer starts with a backbeat. Kick,
snare,kick,snare... (can you hear this? bump, CRACK, bump, CRACK... maybe some
hi-hat eighth notes or whatever...) No Problems with Clarity or Punch so far. (I'm
going to abbreviate that last sentence as NPCP from here on-- with me?)

So the string bass comes in (or P-bass, whatever), with a walking line that hits the
backbeat accents. The bass player is in the groove, the bass notes are just giving
tonality to the drum hits. The bass player, onstage with the drummer, is playing
just loud enough to complement the drums. NPCP. With me?

Singer starts in, alto, let's say. She's singing, nice and mellow melodic lines over
the punchy backbeat and the mellow bass sustain and tonality. NPCP. Any
questions?

Singer breaks for the pre-chorus. Guitar player comes in with a little melodic fill,
echoing the vocal line, then switches to a spanky backbeat pattern that reinforces
the snare drum as the singer delivers the chorus. With me so far? NPCP, right?

Second verse. Singer. Guitar now continuing the backbeat pattern, just muted
chord stabs over the snare. Tenor Sax comes in low and mellow, an octave below
the singer, fattening up the melody and providing a tonal bed. NPCP, right?

Second chorus. Singer delivers full-throated, lots of harmonics, sounding almost an
octave higher as the tenor sax continues and as a Hammond organ jumps in,
reinforcing the tenor sax part an octave lower with the left hand, and playing some
fat upper-register echoes of the guitar part with the right hand. Band now sounds
huge, but everything still has its own space. NPCP, right.

Third verse. Guitar now switches to a funky chunka-chunka part that hits the
chords on the backbeat but also chugs the hit-hat. Singer picks up her tambourine
and the whole band starts to shimmer and shake with the jingle-jingle-THWACKjingle-
jingle-jingle-THWACK-THWACK! Organ still jabbing the right-hand chords and
echoing the sax on the lows, sax now playing fills between the vocal lines (there is
a reason why they are called "fills"), bass and drums still pounding out the
backbeat, singer still in full control of the alto range with full-throated harmonics
competing with the organ jabs for the soprano range.

NPCP like a motherf***er, and this is just the first song of the set. Nothing to do
but put up a mic and step out for a smoke. Even if you don't smoke. The band
mixes itself.
__________________
Now let's contrast the above with a typical amateur garage band.
For one thing, the drummer is never playing bump, CRACK, bump, CRACK-- he's
playing a drum solo the whole time, whether he's any good at it or not-- cymbals
crashing, toms rolling, kick and snare playing all around the beat but never on it,
with no attention paid or the decay of the drums or how the drum sustain fits with
the tempo...

Next, the bass player is not reinforcing the drum beat (there is none), the bass
player is playing her own lead part, complete with loosey-goosey timing, an
overloaded, clackety, stringy, midrangery sound that can barely keep up with the
steady atonal crush of overloaded mud in the lows as she strives to prove that she's
really just another guitar player...

The guitar player(s), meanwhile, are stomping all over the vocal range, thoroughly
convinced that the only reason anyone listens to music is to hear guitar riffs and
"solos," which are of course guitar parts played in the presence range whenever the
guitar player feels like playing them, without regard to whether any other
instrument including the singer have actually dropped out...

Meanwhile the singer is probably also cluelessly strumming chords on an overdriven
electric guitar, with little sense of punch or clarity, just trying to be heard above the
cacophony, often as not playing the wrong chords for the key of the song, but
determined to strum them on EVERY VOCAL NOTE and somehow you are supposed
to make that fit into the rhythm and tempo of the rest of the band (which has no
rhythm or tempo to begin with). On top of that, concepts such as "range" and
"melody" are lost on this singer who switches octaves constantly (badly) and who
makes up for inability to create melodic tension by howling tunelessly (which you
are somehow supposed to make sound "soulful" or "passionate")...

Meanwhile the keyboard player is in her own little world (and who can blame her),
playing some kind of late-80's rearrangement of the whole song that is completely
disconnected from the rest of the band (and also totally saturating the upper
mids)...

Our poor soon-to-be fired horn player is left trying to play fills in no particular key
(cue sad horns wah-WAHHHH)....
__________________
Okay, so let me take off my jaded audio guy glasses for a sec and stipulate that
the second example might actually NOT be a bad band. They might actually have
good songs, and an impassioned, energetic delivery and good musical and personal
charisma. They might be the next Nirvana. But this is not going to be a "set up a
mic and go out for a smoke" recording project...
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Frank DeWitt

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Re: Re: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges
« Reply #43 on: February 13, 2013, 02:43:59 PM »

We had a single mic old time traveling gospel group play last year for worship it was really great. I am glad IEMs work in your application I stand by my assertion that stage sound is the essence of live performance. If it isn't why not just wire the sanctuary so the entire congregation can wear headphones it would probably be cheaper than the ridiculous powered line arrays some churches are getting talked in to buying, in fact better yet lets have corporate worship by all sitting at home in our basements listening to the service stream over high quality headphones. reductio ad absurdum.

We have a stage sound.  We need to with acoustic guitar piano, drums, and singers.  It is a good sound.  On practice nights I routinely go up and listen to it so I am working to reinforce.  Our IEMs don't eliminate or ruin our stage sound. They allow us to control or manage it.  IEMs  The Silver bullet

The Chapel in Buffalo NY broadcasts there service live over the internet.  They have a large internet following and a guy in the booth monitoring twitter and facebook.  That guy has lead people to the Lord using twitter on Sunday mornings.  http://www.thechapel.com/

We use what works.

There live service in my opinion is better.  Frank
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Bob L. Wilson

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Re: Re: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges
« Reply #44 on: February 13, 2013, 04:21:03 PM »

We have a stage sound.  We need to with acoustic guitar piano, drums, and singers.  It is a good sound.  On practice nights I routinely go up and listen to it so I am working to reinforce.  Our IEMs don't eliminate or ruin our stage sound. They allow us to control or manage it.  IEMs  The Silver bullet

The Chapel in Buffalo NY broadcasts there service live over the internet.  They have a large internet following and a guy in the booth monitoring twitter and facebook.  That guy has lead people to the Lord using twitter on Sunday mornings.  http://www.thechapel.com/

We use what works.

There live service in my opinion is better.  Frank

Any path to the kingdom I guess but its a stretch for me to see that "where ever two or more are gathered in my name" means via twitter.
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: Re: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges
« Reply #45 on: February 13, 2013, 04:42:59 PM »

Any path to the kingdom I guess but its a stretch for me to see that "where ever two or more are gathered in my name" means via twitter.

Good one.
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Frank DeWitt

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Re: Re: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges
« Reply #46 on: February 13, 2013, 05:13:32 PM »

Any path to the kingdom I guess but its a stretch for me to see that "where ever two or more are gathered in my name" means via twitter.

They find that in most cases the people watching are students at a near by college. Most of them will invite a few friends and watch in there dorm rooms so I guess they meat the legal requirement for two or more.
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: Re: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges
« Reply #47 on: February 13, 2013, 05:20:14 PM »

They find that in most cases the people watching are students at a near by college. Most of them will invite a few friends and watch in there dorm rooms so I guess they meat the legal requirement for two or more.

Unless they're vegetarians.....
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Bob L. Wilson

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Re: Re: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges
« Reply #48 on: February 14, 2013, 09:25:44 AM »

Unless they're vegetarians.....

I will go so far as to say that from my viewpoint the balkanization of the Christian Church in America in to 100,000 individual congregations with no or limited connectedness to their brothers and sisters in Christ has been about as good for the Church's influence on American society as the breakup was for the USSR's influence on world affairs. We and everybody else in the world ignore the Russians and most Americans now ignore the Church. There is an old African proverb: without the harness even a hundred oxen can not pull the plow.
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Nick Simon

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Re: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges
« Reply #49 on: February 15, 2013, 01:55:07 PM »

Jason, I think they were talking about our praise band...j/k

"Noodlers" drive me nuts...  we have a very talented guitar player that between songs is everywhere from SRV to Jimmy Page to Yngvie Malmsteen, then when the song starts, is lost.... ::)
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Re: Monitors for Band: IEMs or wedges
« Reply #49 on: February 15, 2013, 01:55:07 PM »


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