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[Mal Brown]

As a bass player who mixes from stage and a sound guy, a decent wireless for my bass let’s me get a reality check.

Knowing mic pickup patterns and how to place monitors to accommodate them.

Understanding how the stage volume has to integrate with the Pa and by inference, why lower volume stages are generally preferable.

I personally am ampless these days.  I go to the board and run a spare K12 as an instrument monitor.  Room depending, the monitor may be located in the traditional wedge location or it may be behind me in the traditional amp position.

[Stephen Kirby]

To continue Tim's comments about the purpose of monitors.  You should not sound like Mike Rowe in a home theater though them.  That big woofy impressive sound will get swamped when the band starts going and you won't be able to get any more GBF out of them.
And they are (at a small venue band level) for things that aren't already loud on stage.  Like singing, or a horn.  Instead of putting the guitar in the monitors, maybe try a small satellite amp or cabinet on the other side of the stage.  In the old days folks would often put a bass extension cabinet behind the drummer on large stages.  And those walls of Marshalls often had a cab hooked up to the guy on the other side.  The ultimate extension of this was the Dead's "Wall of Sound".
And I still see lots of smiling graphic eqs.  Another corollary to the FM DJ out of the monitor disease.  Everybody wants a big impressive full sound, and then they want the PA to sound full and impressive.  Most of the sound you're trying to get to the audience is contained in the bands you just bottomed out in that smile.  Save the mud for the tractor pull and make each element narrow and clear.  It doesn't have to be exceedingly bright, but the more you have going on, the narrower each thing needs to be so that it's sound isn't swamped by something else.

[Tom Roche]

Lots of good suggestions provided.  Here are a few of my observations of recurring issues I see/hear with bar bands that could be addressed:
- Vocals buried in the mix
- Over doing effects...a little goes a long way
- Guitar amps pointed at ankles
- No HPF on vocal channels; too often someone in the band converses w/ patrons and I cannot understand a word because it's so bass heavy
- Bad EQ (e.g., smiley face); as Dave P. mentioned wrt live EQ, cut offending frequencies rather than boast around them
- Bad FOH speaker placement
- Monitor mix(es) too loud
- Safety: introduce your audience to Mike Sokol's write-up on Reverse Polarity Bootleg Ground and how to test for it using a non-contact voltage tester (Fluke 1AC-A II). You can probably find the info in the AC Power and Grounding forum, but I had this link handy: http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=146019

[Rick Powell]

Getting the mids and highs above the audience’s head level, so you can actually distinguish those sounds 1kHz and up (I can’t count the times where this simple principle was ignored, by people who thought sound would somehow go through waterbags like x-rays).Why much of a speaker’s pattern often goes to waste...if it’s a 45 degree vertical and your cabinet is level, half the pattern is going into the sky or the ceiling, a waste at best and another set of unwanted reflections at worst, unless there’s a balcony up there (there’s no law against tilting a speaker downward, but then there are safe and not-so-safe ways to do it). Point the speakers where you want the sound to go (again, have seen many systems pointed in a direction where no one was, and missing the people who were there). Watch out for mics set ahead of the FOH, you are inducing an unnecessary feedback loop.

[Peter Kowalczyk]

Wow, thanks everyone for your great ideas!  Lots to digest here...

I agree that while the 'theory of' approach is valuable to some extent, most of my audience will benefit from a more procedural approach, so I'm planning to work that angle.  I'm anticipating a mix of newbies and veterans with bad habits... we'll see who shows up! 

Lots of great info about stage volume and monitoring.  When I'm mixing these musicians, I'm so often asked for 'Oh, just a little of everything' in the monitor.  Grrr...

FWIW, Here's a link to the event on FB; We're in Truckee, North Lake Tahoe; any nor-cal or reno area folks are most welcome!
https://www.facebook.com/events/966373530205784/

As incentive, the taproom where we'll be working has The Best Beer in northern California; no joke  ;-)

[Scott Holtzman]

Wow, thanks everyone for your great ideas!  Lots to digest here...

I agree that while the 'theory of' approach is valuable to some extent, most of my audience will benefit from a more procedural approach, so I'm planning to work that angle.  I'm anticipating a mix of newbies and veterans with bad habits... we'll see who shows up! 

Lots of great info about stage volume and monitoring.  When I'm mixing these musicians, I'm so often asked for 'Oh, just a little of everything' in the monitor.  Grrr...

FWIW, Here's a link to the event on FB; We're in Truckee, North Lake Tahoe; any nor-cal or reno area folks are most welcome!
https://www.facebook.com/events/966373530205784/

As incentive, the taproom where we'll be working has The Best Beer in northern California; no joke  ;-)

I spent the summers of my youth in Incline Village.  I dated a dispatched for the Truckee Sheriff's office in the late 70's

[Peter Kowalczyk]

I spent the summers of my youth in Incline Village.  I dated a dispatched for the Truckee Sheriff's office in the late 70's

.... same girl you mentioned here?  ;-)  http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,153348.msg1426424.html#msg1426424

(pg. 13)

[Scott Holtzman]

.... same girl you mentioned here?  ;-)  http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,153348.msg1426424.html#msg1426424

(pg. 13)

ROFL, I talk too much.  Yeah that's why she is so memorable.

Man that was almost 40 years ago. 

[frank kayser]

A couple of folks mentioned microphones and their uses.
I would say most bands could use a good primer in microphone technique.  Many problems start there.
Maybe also that guitar amps pointed at the muso's feet is less than optimal.
Beaming of amps/speakers
That excessive monitor volume can poison the house mix.
That they can't judge the house mix from the stage.


Probably the best lesson is leave running the band PA to a pro...    


frank

[Steve Loewenthal]

As someone else mentioned, it is impossible to hear from the stage what the mix sounds like in the audience.,
As a band member tasked with running the PA, (and perhaps unqualified to do so) it is my opinion that we would sound better paying a relatively cheap sum to an unqualified acquaintance to ride the faders compared to running it ourselves from the stage. (Of course we would sound even better paying a qualified person to do so, but we would often have to pay more than we typically charge.)
Short of that, try to rely on a trusted friend in the audience to tell you what they can't hear in the mix. (Then turn everything else down.)

[ProSoundWeb Community]