Monitor Engineering

Introduction

Front of house mixes for people who bought a ticket. Monitors mix for people who are working. That single difference changes almost everything about the job: who you are listening for, where you stand, how you judge whether the mix is right, and what it means when it is wrong.

A front-of-house engineer can make a questionable decision and the audience may never know. A monitor engineer who makes one finds out within a bar, because the singer turns round and looks at them. The monitor engineer's audience is six people who can see them, who know exactly what they want to hear, and who cannot do their own job if they do not get it.

That makes monitor world one of the most demanding positions in live sound, and one of the most rewarding. The best monitor engineers are trusted by the artists they work for more than almost anyone else on a tour, because on a good night nobody on stage thinks about monitors at all, and that silence is the whole achievement.

This book assumes you can already run a line check and set a compressor on purpose -- Audio Basics and Audio Intermediate cover that. It teaches what changes when the mix is for the stage: the desk built around outputs, the wedge and the in-ear, ringing out, the language of hand signals, and the calm needed to fix a fault while someone performs three metres away.

How to Use This Book

Read the first four chapters in order. They set out the role, the desk, the paperwork and the idea of running many mixes at once, and every later chapter depends on them. After that, wedges and in-ears can be read in whichever order matches the shows you are working.

Each chapter ends the same way: a reference table worth memorising, a procedure you can follow on a real show, a failure table written symptom first, a practical exercise, and a checklist that tells you when that part of the work is done.

Gear is named throughout by manufacturer and model. Monitor world is a gear-literate place -- a rider will ask for a specific console and specific wedges -- and knowing what they are is part of being credible in it.

Keep a notebook

Write down each performer's mix and what they asked for in their own words: what more me meant for that singer, the wedge positions that worked on that stage, the frequencies you rang out of each one, the in-ear level they settled on. Monitor world runs on remembering what somebody wanted last time, and the band notices when you do.

A note on the words

Monitor world has its own vocabulary and some of it misleads. A wedge is a floor monitor angled up at a performer. Cue and PFL both name the engineer's listen system, and which one your desk calls it depends on who built the desk. More me is a request about balance rather than about level, and reading it as level is the classic way to end up with a stage that is merely louder. This book says what each term means before it uses it.

A note on safety

Two sets of ears are your responsibility and only one of them is yours. You are sending level straight into a performer's hearing through their in-ears, so limiters get set and checked before a pack is handed over and levels come up in small steps rather than down from a guess. Your own exposure is a whole day of wedges, changeovers and support acts: wear filtered or custom-moulded earplugs whenever you are not actively checking a mix.

Where this book sits

This book assumes you have read Audio Intermediate and Live Sound Production, or that you already know what is in it.

If none of that is true yet, read Audio Intermediate first.

What pairs with this

• Wireless & RF Systems — the coordination every in-ear transmitter depends on
• Front-of-House Mixing — the other half of the split

Where it leads

These are not steps in an order. Take whichever one fits.

• Stage Audio & IEM Systems — the in-ear and stage hardware this book mixes on, in depth
• Monitor Engineering — Touring — taking monitor world on the road

The Monitor Engineer Role

The monitor engineer mixes for the people making the music, so that they can make it. Everything else in this book follows from that sentence, including the parts that feel strange to an engineer who learned at front of house.

While FOH serves the audience, the monitor engineer serves the people on stage.

Serving the performers

The monitor engineer mixes what the performers hear on stage — their monitor mixes — usually from a dedicated monitor console, often positioned at the side of the stage. It is a specialised role distinct from front-of-house: the A1 mixes for the audience, the monitor engineer mixes for the performers. Their job is to give each performer the mix they need to hear themselves and the rest of the show clearly, so they can perform their best. Comfortable performers who can hear themselves well perform better and create fewer problems; struggling performers who cannot hear themselves perform badly. The monitor engineer's work directly serves the performance from the stage side.

This is a crucial role on bigger shows, important enough to warrant a dedicated engineer and console. The monitor engineer focuses entirely on the performers' monitoring — building their mixes, responding to their needs, and keeping the stage sounding right for them — while the A1 handles the audience. They are, in a sense, the performers' personal audio engineer, making sure the people on stage can hear and deliver.

The monitor signal flow

The stage inputs have to reach two consoles: front of house and monitors. There are two ways this happens. The traditional way is an analogue splitter: a transformer-isolated split that sends one copy of every microphone to front of house and one to monitors, each with its own preamplifier and its own gain. Nobody affects anybody else.

The modern way is a shared digital stage rack. The stage box is on a network, both consoles receive the same digitised inputs, and there is only one preamplifier per input. That is cheaper, lighter and cleaner, and it introduces a question the analogue split never raised: who owns the gain?

The answer must be agreed before the show. Usually monitors own the analogue gain, because monitor world is next to the stage and hears problems first, and front of house uses a digital trim to set its own level. Whatever is agreed, one engineer changing a shared gain without telling the other changes the other's entire mix, and it is one of the few genuinely unforgivable things an engineer can do.

Once inside the monitor console the signal flow looks different from front of house. Every channel is sent to many outputs through pre-fade sends, so each mix is independent of the channel fader. Those sends feed mono buses for wedges and stereo buses for in-ears, and each output then has its own processing -- equaliser, compressor, limiter, delay -- before it leaves for the stage.

Mixing for the people on stage

At front of house the goal is a mix that sounds good to an audience. In monitor world the goal is a set of mixes that let each performer play well. Those are different targets, and a monitor mix that would sound terrible through a PA may be exactly right for the drummer who needs almost nothing but the bass, the click and a little of the singer.

That means the monitor engineer does not judge a mix by their own taste. They judge it by whether the performer is comfortable, confident and playing well. The fastest way to tell is not to listen to the mix at all but to watch the performer: somebody who can hear themselves plays with their head up, and somebody who cannot plays looking at their feet.

There is a second difference. A front-of-house mix is one mix. A monitor engineer on a mid-sized show runs ten, fifteen or twenty mixes at once -- every wedge, every in-ear, every side fill -- and each one is a different mix for a different person with different needs. The job is less like painting one picture and more like cooking twelve different meals in one kitchen, all served at the same moment.

Where monitor world is, and why

The monitor position is almost always at the side of the stage, just out of the audience's view, with a clear line of sight to every performer. That position is not a convenience. It is the job. The engineer must be able to see a performer ask for something, and the performer must be able to find the engineer's face in the dark in a fraction of a second.

Because of that, the setup of monitor world is decided with sightlines in mind first. If the drummer cannot see the monitor engineer past a stack of amplifiers, the position is wrong, however convenient it is for cabling. Engineers who arrive to find their position behind a pillar move it, politely and immediately.

Side-stage also means the engineer hears the stage directly, loudly, and in a way nobody else does. That is useful -- you hear what the stage is really doing -- and it is also a trap, because what you hear at your position is not what any performer hears at theirs. The listen system described later exists precisely to fix that.

What front of house and monitors owe each other

The two engineers share a stage, a set of inputs, a schedule and a band, and the show works best when they behave as a team. The monitor engineer owes front of house a stage that is not louder than it needs to be, because every wedge is also heard by the audience. Front of house owes monitors warning before anything changes on a shared input.

In practice that means a short conversation before line check: who owns the gains, what the input list is, whether anything has changed since the advance, and how the two of you will talk during the show. Most monitor-and-FOH friction is simply that conversation not having happened.

Front of house and monitors, side by side

Same inputs, same band, different job.

How to do it

1. Walk the stage and confirm every performer position against the stage plot.
2. Place the monitor desk where you can see every performer and they can see you.
3. Agree gain ownership with front of house before anyone plugs in.
4. Confirm the split -- analogue or shared network -- and test both consoles receive every input.
5. Patch every output to its wedge, pack or fill and label it by performer, not number.
6. Set up your listen wedge and cue in-ears before anything else is turned on.

What goes wrong

Practice it

At the next show you work or visit, before doors.

The Monitor Desk

A front-of-house console is built around channels. A monitor console is built around outputs. The same desk can do either job, but a monitor engineer sets it up and uses it the other way round, and the sooner that clicks, the faster the rest of the job becomes.

Thinking in outputs, not channels

At front of house you spend most of the show on channel faders: more vocal, less guitar. In monitor world the question is always "whose mix?" before "which instrument?". The drummer wants more bass -- that is a change to one channel's send in one output, and nobody else's mix should move.

Monitor consoles support this with a mode usually called sends on faders, or mix focus, or flip. Select an output -- the singer's in-ears, say -- and the channel faders become the send levels for that one mix. Every fader movement now changes only that performer's mix. Select another output and the faders jump to that mix instead.

This is the single most important habit to build. A monitor engineer spends most of the show with one output selected and the faders showing that mix, and the discipline is always to check which output is selected before moving anything. Changing the drummer's mix when you meant to change the bassist's is the monitor equivalent of muting the wrong channel at front of house.

Mono buses, stereo buses and matrices

Wedges are mono: one bus feeds one wedge or one pair of wedges. In-ear mixes are almost always stereo, so they use stereo buses, where each channel's send has a pan control as well as a level. A modern monitor desk may be running twenty mono buses and twelve stereo buses on one show.

Matrices are used in monitor world to build mixes from other mixes. A common example is a band mix bus that several performers share, feeding into each performer's own output with their personal additions on top. Another is a shared "effects to stage" bus so reverb reaches every in-ear consistently.

Each output then has its own processing chain. Graphic or parametric EQ for ringing out and shaping, a compressor for keeping an in-ear mix even, a limiter as the last protection before somebody's ears, and sometimes a delay to align a drum fill with the kit.

The monitor consoles you will meet

Monitor world has a dominant console family, and it is DiGiCo. The SD7 and SD12 and the newer Quantum 338 and Quantum 7 are found in monitor world on a very large proportion of major tours, for reasons that come down to output count, the ease of building and recalling many mixes, and the fact that engineers learned on them and riders ask for them. A monitor engineer who wants to work at that level needs to be fluent on DiGiCo.

Avid's VENUE S6L is the other common choice, and Yamaha's Rivage PM series, Allen & Heath's dLive and Midas's PRO series and HD96 all appear in monitor world, especially in venues and on productions where the desk is supplied locally. At smaller scale the Yamaha CL5 and the Allen & Heath SQ are common monitor desks.

The advice is the same as for front of house: learn one family properly using its offline editor, then learn where the others keep the same features. The concept of sends on faders exists on every one of them; only its name and its button move.

Scenes, snapshots and per-song mixes

Many shows change their monitor mixes between songs. A ballad needs more piano in the singer's ears and less of the drums; a guest guitarist needs a mix for two songs only. Monitor engineers store these as scenes or snapshots and recall them as the set progresses.

The danger is the same as at front of house, and worse: recall a scene with the wrong scope and it overwrites the adjustment the singer asked for two songs ago. Performers notice immediately. The usual practice is to protect anything a performer has asked to change during the show, and to save their request into the stored scene at the first quiet moment so it survives the next recall.

Keep a show file per artist, named clearly, and back it up to a second drive before every show. On a festival day a monitor engineer may load five artists' files, and the one that matters is always the one that did not get saved.

The monitor consoles, by name

The desks that appear in monitor world, and where you meet them.

Output types in monitor world

Every output has a job and a processing chain of its own.

How to do it

1. Create one output per performer, named by person, not by number.
2. Make wedge outputs mono and in-ear outputs stereo.
3. Set every send to pre-fade.
4. Put a graphic EQ and a limiter on every wedge output; a compressor and limiter on every in-ear.
5. Build a custom layer with the channels performers most often ask about.
6. Set up sends on faders and practise selecting outputs without looking.
7. Save the show file, and save it again to a second drive.

What goes wrong

Practice it

Using the offline editor for any monitor console.

The Advance and the Paperwork

A monitor engineer who arrives at a show and learns the band's needs at soundcheck is already behind. Almost everything that goes well in monitor world was agreed in writing weeks earlier, in a set of documents that are worth reading properly.

The technical rider and what monitors are asked for

An artist's technical rider describes what they need from the venue and the production. For monitors it usually specifies the console, the number and type of wedges, the in-ear systems, side fills and drum fill, and often the number of mixes and who each one is for.

Riders are frequently written by somebody on the artist's team who has copied them from the last tour, and they may be out of date. A rider asking for eight wedges from a band now entirely on in-ears is common. The advance is where this gets cleared up, and a monitor engineer who reads the rider carefully and asks good questions saves an enormous amount of time on the day.

When a rider asks for specific gear -- a DiGiCo Quantum 338 at monitors, d&b audiotechnik M2 wedges -- and the venue has something else, the question is whether the substitute is acceptable. That is answered in the advance, never discovered at load-in.

The input list and the stage plot

The input list numbers every source on stage and says what microphone or DI it uses. The stage plot shows where everyone and everything stands. For monitors, both are essential: the input list tells you what channels will exist, and the stage plot tells you where every wedge, pack and fill goes.

Monitor engineers often add a document of their own: the monitor mix list, sometimes called the monitor sheet. It lists every output, who it is for, whether it is a wedge or an in-ear, what that performer usually wants in it, and anything they must never have in it. A good monitor sheet from the last tour is the most valuable piece of paper a new monitor engineer can be handed.

Advancing monitors with the artist's team

The advance is the conversation, usually by email and phone, between the production and the venue in the weeks before a show. For monitors it should confirm the console, the output count, which performers are on wedges and which on in-ears, whether the in-ear systems travel with the band, who supplies the RF coordination, and who owns the gain on a shared split.

If you are the band's own monitor engineer you will be on the other side of this conversation, telling venues what you need. The same principle applies: be specific, be early, and confirm in writing. A rider that says "monitor console" gets whatever the venue has. A rider that says "DiGiCo SD12 or Quantum 338 at monitors, no substitutes without approval" gets the desk you can do the show on.

The monitor paperwork

Read all of these before the show, not at soundcheck.

How to do it

1. Read the rider, input list and stage plot together and note contradictions.
2. Confirm console, wedge count and model, and in-ear systems with the artist's team.
3. Confirm who supplies and coordinates RF for in-ear transmitters.
4. Agree gain ownership on the split with front of house.
5. Request the previous monitor mix list if one exists.
6. Put every agreement in writing, and bring a printed copy on the day.

What goes wrong

Practice it

Using a real rider, from a band you know or from a public source.

Many Mixes at Once

Twelve people, twelve mixes, one engineer. The only way that works is a method: start every mix from a sensible place, know what each role on stage usually needs, and change one thing at a time for one person at a time.

The defining challenge: build and ride a separate mix for every performer.

A mix for every performer

Every performer gets their own mix because every performer needs something different. The drummer needs to lock with the bass and the click. The bassist needs the kick and the drummer's hi-hat. The singer needs their own voice above everything, and enough of the band's harmonic instruments to stay in tune. The keyboard player needs themselves, because keyboards make no sound on stage at all without a monitor.

A useful way to start is to build each mix around the question: what does this person need to hear to play in time, and what do they need to hear to play in tune? Time usually comes from the drums, the bass or a click. Pitch usually comes from the singer's own voice and a harmonic instrument -- a keyboard, a guitar. Almost every sensible monitor mix contains both, and almost nothing else at first.

Start sparse. A mix with everything in it is a mix in which nothing is clear, and performers who are given everything end up asking for more of everything. It is much easier to add the one thing a performer asks for to a clean mix than to find it inside a crowded one.

Wedges and IEMs

Monitor engineers work with both types of monitoring: wedges (floor monitors angled at performers) and IEMs (in-ear monitors). Many shows use a mix of both — some performers on wedges, some on IEMs, some on both — and the monitor engineer manages all of them, building mixes for each. Wedges are simpler but add stage volume and risk feedback; IEMs give isolated, personal mixes but require the wireless and careful level management covered in the In-Ear Monitors chapter. The monitor engineer handles whichever each performer uses, applying the wedge or IEM knowledge accordingly.

Managing both means understanding their differences: wedge mixes contend with stage volume and feedback and are heard alongside the ambient stage sound, while IEM mixes are isolated and must be complete and carefully leveled (and protect hearing). The monitor engineer builds appropriate mixes for each, on each performer's monitoring. Combining wedge and IEM management — building the right mix for each performer on their chosen monitoring — is part of the full monitor-engineering craft, drawing on both the live-sound and IEM foundations. The engineer serves every performer however they monitor.

Starting points by role

These are starting points, not rules, and every performer will move away from them. But arriving at soundcheck with a sensible draft of every mix means the conversation starts at "a little more guitar" rather than at nothing.

• Lead vocal: their own voice clearly on top, a harmonic instrument for pitch, a little kick and snare for time, and reverb on their voice if they are used to it.
• Drummer: kick, snare and bass guitar strongly, the click if there is one, and enough vocal to follow the song's structure.
• Bass: kick drum and hi-hat for time, their own instrument if the amp is not enough, and a little vocal.
• Guitar: often very little, because their amplifier is on stage; a little vocal and whatever they cannot hear across the stage.
• Keys: themselves, prominently -- their instrument makes no stage sound -- plus vocal and drums.
• Backing vocalists: their own voice, the lead vocal, and a harmonic instrument for pitch.

The musical director, if there is one, usually needs something closer to the whole band, and often a talkback microphone that reaches every other in-ear mix so they can call changes during the show.

Click, tracks and playback in the in-ears

Many modern shows run to a click track: a metronome, often with a spoken count-in and cues, that keeps the band in time with backing tracks, lighting and video. The playback rig -- very often a laptop running Ableton Live, doubled for redundancy -- sends the click and the tracks to the monitor desk as separate channels.

The click goes to the musicians who need it, usually the drummer first and often everybody on in-ears. It must never reach front of house or any wedge the audience can hear. That is not a matter of taste: an audible click in the PA is one of the most embarrassing failures a show can have. Route it to in-ear outputs only, and check at line check that it is absent from every other output.

Tracks -- the pre-recorded parts that play alongside the band -- usually go to both front of house and monitors, and each performer will want a different amount of them. Count-ins and spoken cues are for the band only.

Starting points, at a glance

Time and pitch first; everything else only when asked.

How to do it

1. List every performer and whether they are on wedges or in-ears.
2. For each, add the source they need for time and the source for pitch.
3. Add their own instrument or voice where the stage will not supply it.
4. Route click and count-ins to in-ear outputs only.
5. Leave everything else out until someone asks for it.
6. Save the draft as the starting scene.

What goes wrong

Practice it

Using the input list of a band you know.

Wedges

The floor wedge is the oldest monitor there is and it is still everywhere. It is also the monitor most likely to feed back, because it is pointed at the performer who is standing in front of a live microphone. Getting a wedge right starts with where it sits, long before anybody touches a fader.

What a wedge is and how it covers

A wedge is a loudspeaker in an angled cabinet that sits on the floor and points up at a performer. It covers a fairly narrow area: stand in front of it and you hear it clearly; step a metre to the side and it falls away. That narrowness is useful -- it keeps the wedge's sound on the person it is for -- and it means the performer must stay roughly where the wedge expects them.

Most wedges have one low-frequency driver and one high-frequency driver, often coaxial so both come from the same point. Coaxial designs keep the sound consistent as the performer moves slightly, which is why they have become the norm on professional stages.

Wedges are often used in pairs for a lead vocalist, which widens the area where they can move and hear themselves, and a pair can be fed the same mix or slightly different ones.

Aiming a wedge at the microphone's rejection

Every directional microphone has a direction from which it hears least: its null or rejection. A cardioid microphone rejects most strongly from directly behind. A supercardioid or hypercardioid rejects most strongly at an angle either side of the back, and has a small area of sensitivity directly behind it.

The wedge should point into that rejection. For a cardioid microphone such as a Shure SM58, that means the wedge sits directly in front of the singer, facing back at them, so the microphone's back points straight at it. For a supercardioid such as a Shure Beta 58A or a Sennheiser e945, a pair of wedges set either side at roughly the angle of the nulls gives more level before feedback than one wedge straight on.

This is the most effective anti-feedback measure in monitor world, and it costs nothing. A wedge aimed at the null of the microphone can be several decibels louder before it rings than the same wedge aimed carelessly, and several decibels is often the difference between a singer who can hear and one who cannot.

Side fills and drum fills

Side fills are larger loudspeakers at each side of the stage, pointed across it, giving everybody a general mix of the band. On a big stage they let performers who move around still hear the whole band, and they add a sense of energy that wedges alone do not.

A drum fill is a monitor system for the drummer: usually a full-range loudspeaker plus a subwoofer beside the kit, because a drummer needs to feel the kick and the bass as much as hear them. Some drummers on in-ears also use a tactile transducer such as a ButtKicker bolted to the drum stool, which lets them feel the low end without any extra sound on stage.

Drum fills can be very loud and they are close to many open microphones, so they are a common source of low-frequency spill into vocal microphones. Aligning the drum fill's delay to the kit, and filtering what the fill does not need, keeps it from muddying everything around it.

The wedges you will meet

As with consoles, a handful of wedges appear on a very large proportion of professional stages. The d&b audiotechnik M2 and M4 are among the most common touring wedges in the world, the M2 in particular being a standard rider request. The L-Acoustics X15 HiQ and X12 are equally common, especially where the main system is L-Acoustics. Meyer Sound's MJF-210 and MJF-212A are self-powered wedges widely used in touring and theatre.

Adamson's M15 appears on many stages, and older designs such as the Clair Brothers 12AM still turn up and are well loved by engineers who grew up with them. In smaller venues you will meet powered wedges from QSC, RCF, Yamaha and Electro-Voice.

Knowing the model matters because the wedges differ in coverage, in how much level they will produce before they become harsh, and in whether they need an external amplifier and processor. A rider that asks for M2s and receives a different wedge is a conversation to have in the advance.

Aim the wedge into the microphone's rejection

The cheapest gain before feedback you will ever find.

The wedges, by name

Rider vocabulary. Know them by name.

How to do it

1. Find out what microphone the singer is using and its polar pattern.
2. Find where the singer actually stands, not where the plot says.
3. Aim the wedge into the microphone's rejection -- straight on for cardioid, a pair at the nulls for supercardioid.
4. Angle the wedge to reach the singer's ears, not their knees.
5. Check that the singer is inside the wedge's coverage where they move most.
6. Only then begin ringing out.

What goes wrong

Practice it

On a stage with a wedge and a microphone.

Ringing Out and Gain Before Feedback

Ringing out is the process of finding the frequencies at which each wedge and microphone combination wants to feed back, and reducing them, so the wedge can be louder before it rings. It is the first real task in monitor world every day, and doing it well is the foundation of a quiet night.

Why ringing out works

Feedback happens when sound from a loudspeaker reaches a microphone, is amplified, comes out of the loudspeaker louder, and reaches the microphone again. It does not happen at every frequency at once. It starts at the one frequency where the whole loop -- microphone, wedge, room, equaliser -- has the most gain.

Cut that one frequency a little and the loop has less gain there, so the wedge can come up until the next frequency starts to ring. Cut that one too and the wedge can come up further. Ringing out is simply finding and taming those frequencies in turn until the wedge is comfortably louder than the performer will need.

The key word is comfortably. The aim is not to get the wedge to the edge of feedback and stop. It is to get it to the point where it can reach the level the performer needs with several decibels of margin, because a singer who steps closer, or cups the microphone, will use that margin instantly.

The ringing-out method, step by step

Ring out each wedge with its own microphone in its real position, before the performers arrive, with the stage as it will be during the show. A wedge rung out with the microphone in the wrong place has been rung out for a different stage.

• Place the microphone where the performer will stand, at mouth height.
• Open only that microphone into only that wedge.
• Raise the wedge slowly until a tone begins to ring.
• Identify the frequency -- by ear, or with the analyser on the output.
• Cut that band on the output equaliser by three to six decibels.
• Raise the wedge again until the next frequency rings, and repeat.
• Stop after six cuts at most; more than that starts to damage the sound.
• Bring the wedge back down several decibels below the last ring.

Then open every other microphone that can hear that wedge and check again, because the combination of all the open microphones rings sooner than any one of them alone.

Graphic EQ, and the analyser that helps

The traditional tool for ringing out is a 31-band graphic equaliser on every monitor output, with bands a third of an octave apart. A monitor engineer learns to hear a ring and know roughly which fader to pull: the low-mid boom at 250 Hz, the honk at 800 Hz, the piercing ring at 2.5 kHz.

Modern consoles add a real-time analyser across the output, and many highlight the band that is peaking. That helps, especially while the ear is learning. But the ear must still confirm, because the analyser shows where energy is, not which frequency is actually feeding back.

Parametric equalisers, available on every digital output, let you make narrower cuts than a graphic can. Many engineers use the graphic for the broad shaping of a wedge and a few narrow parametric notches for the stubborn rings.

Gain before feedback, and what else changes it

Ringing out is one of several ways to gain level before feedback, and it is the one with a cost: every cut changes the sound of the wedge. The others cost nothing and should be done first.

• Aim the wedge into the microphone's rejection.
• Get the performer closer to the microphone -- halving the distance gains about six decibels.
• Use a more directional microphone.
• Mute or reduce microphones that are not being used at that moment.
• Reduce stage volume, so the performer needs less level in the first place.
• Move to in-ear monitors, which remove the loop entirely.

The last of those is the reason so many performers have moved to in-ears. With nothing on the floor pointed at the microphone, there is no feedback loop to ring.

Where rings usually live

A starting guide for the ear; confirm every time.

Gain before feedback, cheapest first

Do the free things before you touch an equaliser.

How to do it

1. Place the microphone at the performer's position and mouth height.
2. Open only that microphone into only that wedge.
3. Raise the wedge until it begins to ring, and find the frequency.
4. Cut that band three to six decibels on the output equaliser.
5. Repeat for up to six rings, then stop.
6. Bring the wedge down several decibels below the last ring.
7. Open the other microphones and check again.

What goes wrong

Practice it

On a stage with a wedge, a microphone and an output equaliser.

In-Ear Monitors

In-ear monitors put a performer's mix directly into their ears through earpieces, usually by wireless. They remove wedges from the stage, remove the feedback loop, lower stage volume and protect hearing. They also seal the performer off from the room, and managing that isolation is most of the craft.

Why performers move to in-ears

The reasons are practical. With nothing on the floor pointed at the microphones, feedback largely disappears. Stage volume drops, which makes front of house cleaner. The performer hears the same mix wherever they stand, which matters to anybody who moves. And the mix can be far quieter than a wedge would need to be, because it does not have to compete with the stage.

That last point is also a hearing argument. A performer who plays two hundred nights a year in front of loud wedges is doing lasting damage. A well-fitted pair of in-ears at a sensible level protects the one instrument no performer can replace.

The cost is isolation. A performer on in-ears hears only what the monitor engineer sends them. They lose the room, the audience and the physical sense of the band around them, and some performers never get used to it. Much of the rest of this chapter is about giving that back.

Mixing for in-ears is different

An in-ear mix is stereo, and that changes how it is built. Sources can be panned to where they are on stage -- the guitarist to the left, the keyboard to the right -- and the result is a mix with space in it, where each source is easier to hear because it is in its own place rather than piled on top of the others.

In-ears also reproduce low end and detail that wedges cannot, and they reveal everything: a noisy channel, a buzzing DI, a click that is too loud. A mix that sounded acceptable through a wedge may sound cluttered and harsh in-ear, and the processing on in-ear outputs -- gentle compression to keep the level even, careful EQ, a little reverb on voices -- is doing more work than it would on a wedge.

Reverb deserves a special mention. A singer's own voice, dry and close in a sealed earpiece, can sound unpleasantly exposed. A little reverb on their voice in their own mix makes it sound like they are in a room, and many singers perform noticeably better with it.

Ambience microphones and the isolation problem

Ambience microphones -- also called audience or crowd microphones -- are microphones aimed at the audience, fed into the in-ear mixes. They give the performer back the sound of the room and the crowd, and they are the single most effective answer to the isolation of in-ears.

They are usually a stereo pair at the front corners of the stage, pointed out at the audience. Between songs they let the performer hear the applause and talk to the crowd naturally; during songs they are often reduced so they do not bring the PA's slapback into the mix.

Some performers also want a little of their band-mates' on-stage sound or a talkback microphone that picks up the stage between songs. The point is the same: a performer who can hear the world around them feels part of the show rather than alone in a booth.

Fit, seal and the low end

An earpiece only works when it seals the ear canal. A good seal blocks outside sound and lets the earpiece reproduce low frequencies properly. A poor seal lets the low end leak out, and the performer compensates by asking for more of everything -- more bass, more kick, more level -- until the mix is loud and still thin.

Universal-fit earpieces, such as the Shure SE215, Shure SE425 and Shure SE846, use foam or silicone tips in several sizes, and the right size matters enormously. Custom-moulded earpieces, made from impressions of the performer's own ears by makers such as JH Audio, Ultimate Ears, 64 Audio and Westone, seal reliably and are the professional standard for performers who use in-ears every night.

When a performer says their in-ears sound thin, check the seal before changing the mix. A good habit is to ask them to press the earpiece in gently while listening: if the low end suddenly appears, the problem was the seal all along.

Level, limiters and hearing safety

The monitor engineer controls the level going directly into someone's ears. That is a responsibility, and it has a technical answer: every in-ear output should end in a limiter set so that nothing -- a dropped microphone, a feedback squeal, a mispatched channel -- can reach the performer at a dangerous level.

In-ear transmitters and belt-pack receivers often carry their own limiters too, and they should be enabled. The performer controls the final volume on their pack, and a common and worrying pattern is a performer who turns their pack up over the course of a tour as their hearing tires. Part of the monitor engineer's job is to notice that and talk about it.

Keeping the mix clear is itself a safety measure. A performer who can hear everything at a moderate level has no reason to turn up. A performer fighting a cluttered mix will keep turning up until they can pick out what they need, at a level that is doing damage.

The systems, earpieces and personal mixers

The wireless in-ear systems you will meet most are Shure's PSM1000 and PSM900, Sennheiser's 2000 series and the ew IEM G4, and Wisycom on high-end productions. They consist of a transmitter in the monitor rack, often feeding a combined antenna such as a helical, and a belt-pack receiver worn by the performer. Each performer's mix leaves the desk on its own transmitter channel, and every transmitter's frequency must be coordinated with every other radio on the site -- otherwise packs drop out and wireless microphones suffer interference.

Some performers, and many houses of worship and smaller venues, use personal monitor mixers instead of or alongside a monitor engineer. The Allen & Heath ME-1, the Behringer P16-M and Aviom's systems let each performer mix their own feed from a set of stems the desk provides. The monitor engineer then builds the stems rather than the mixes, and still owns the system.

At the high end, processors such as KLANG:fabrik create an immersive in-ear mix, placing each source in a three-dimensional space around the performer. It extends the principle of stereo panning: sources that are in different places are easier to hear separately.

In-ears -- what they solve and what they cost

Most of the craft is in giving back what isolation takes away.

In-ear systems and earpieces, by name

The names you will hear in monitor world.

How to do it

1. Confirm the earpiece seals -- press-in test for the low end.
2. Build a stereo mix with sources panned to where they stand on stage.
3. Add their own voice or instrument clearly, with a little reverb for singers.
4. Add ambience microphones and set them for between songs.
5. Put a compressor and a limiter on the output; enable the pack limiter.
6. Ask the performer to set their pack to a moderate level, and note it.

What goes wrong

Practice it

With a set of in-ears and a mix you can control.

Mixing & Managing Monitors

Monitor mixing is service. The performer tells you what they need, often in words that do not quite describe it, and your job is to hear what they mean and give it to them quickly -- while keeping the stage from becoming so loud that nobody, including the audience, can hear anything.

Give performers what they need, fight feedback, and control the stage.

Mixing what performers need

A performer's monitor mix is a tool for doing their job, and they are the only person who can judge it. That is uncomfortable for engineers who have strong opinions about how things should sound. A drummer who wants a mix that is nothing but kick, bass and click is not wrong; that is the mix that lets them play.

Performers rarely ask for what they need in technical terms. "I can't hear myself" might mean their voice is too quiet, or that something else is covering it, or that the wedge has moved, or that their earpiece has come unseated. "It sounds muddy" might mean too much of the bass guitar, or a drum fill spilling into the vocal microphone. Part of the craft is translating.

The most effective translation habit is to listen on your cue system to exactly what they hear before changing anything. The second is to ask a short question that narrows it down: "more of you, or less of everything else?" is often all it takes.

Feedback and stage volume

Stage volume is the total sound level on stage before the PA adds anything: guitar and bass amplifiers, the acoustic drum kit, wedges, side fills and drum fills. It matters for two reasons. It limits how loud any wedge can be before feedback, and it spills directly into the audience, where front of house cannot control it.

When stage volume creeps up, it creeps up together. The guitarist turns up because they cannot hear themselves over the drums; the singer asks for more in their wedge to be heard over the guitar; the bassist turns up to be heard over everyone. By the end of the night the stage is much louder and nobody can hear anything better. The monitor engineer is usually the person best placed to notice and to raise it.

The fixes are both technical and diplomatic. Amplifiers can be pointed at the players rather than the audience, raised on stands to point at the player's ears, or placed behind baffles. Drums can be surrounded by a clear drum shield. And the most effective fix of all is a conversation with the band before the show about keeping the stage under control, which is far easier to have at soundcheck than in the middle of a song.

More me, and why it keeps happening

"More me" is the most common request in monitor world, and a performer who asks for it repeatedly across a show is usually telling you something else. Often their own voice or instrument is being masked by something louder in their mix, and raising them only works until the next song gets louder, at which point they ask again.

The better answer is often to take something else out. If the singer cannot hear themselves over the guitars, less guitar in their mix does more than more voice, and it does it without pushing the whole mix up. The same principle that works at front of house -- carve rather than raise -- works in monitor world, with the added benefit of lower stage volume.

When a performer keeps asking for more of themselves in wedges, it is also worth checking whether their wedge is still pointed at them. Performers move wedges with their feet, and a wedge knocked ten degrees off its aim has lost several decibels at the performer's ears.

Translating what performers say

Listen on cue first, then ask one short question.

How to do it

1. See the signal and identify which performer is asking.
2. Select their output so the faders show their mix.
3. Listen on your cue to exactly what they hear.
4. Decide whether to raise what they want or reduce what is masking it.
5. Make one change and watch the performer for confirmation.
6. Save the change into their scene at the first quiet moment.

What goes wrong

Practice it

During a rehearsal or soundcheck you can observe.

Talking to the Stage

A monitor engineer and a performer have to communicate constantly, through a wall of sound, while one of them is performing in front of thousands of people. That needs systems -- a way for the engineer to hear what the performer hears, and a way for each to talk to the other -- and it needs a shared silent language for the moments when talking is impossible.

The listen system

The monitor engineer needs to hear exactly what any performer hears, instantly. That is the cue system: the engineer's own wedge and in-ears, fed by the console's cue bus. Select a performer's output and your cue follows it, so you hear their mix, not your own guess at it.

For wedge mixes the engineer uses a listen wedge that matches the performers' wedges -- the same model, so it sounds the same. For in-ear mixes the engineer uses the same kind of earpieces the performer uses, so a mix that sounds right on cue sounds right in their ears. Checking an in-ear mix on a wedge, or a wedge mix on headphones, misleads you.

Channel cue -- often called PFL, pre-fade listen -- lets the engineer isolate one source to check it. The two are used together: output cue to hear the performer's whole mix, and channel PFL to investigate one ingredient of it.

Talkback, both ways

Engineer talkback is a microphone at the monitor desk that can be routed to any performer's in-ears or wedges. It is how the engineer speaks to the band during soundcheck and between songs: "try it now", "is that better?". It must be routed only to the mixes it is meant for, and it must never reach front of house.

Band talkback runs the other way. A microphone on stage -- often on the drum riser or at the musical director's position, switched so it is live only when the button is pressed -- is routed to the monitor engineer's cue and sometimes to other band members' in-ears. It lets the band talk to monitors and to each other without their words reaching the audience.

On in-ear shows the musical director's talkback is especially important. It lets the MD call changes -- "going round again", "cut the last chorus" -- into every musician's ears mid-song. Getting that routing right, and making sure it is off when the MD is not pressing the button, is a monitor engineer's job.

Hand signals

During a song the performer cannot talk to you, so monitor world uses a set of hand signals that are close to universal across the industry. They are simple, and both sides must know them without thinking.

• Pointing at something, then pointing up: more of that in my mix.
• Pointing at something, then pointing down: less of that.
• Pointing at their own ear or wedge, then up or down: my whole mix louder or quieter.
• Pointing at their own chest or instrument: more of me.
• A flat hand drawn across the throat: cut it, now -- usually feedback or a fault.
• A thumbs up: that is right, leave it.

The engineer answers with a nod or a thumbs up as soon as they have seen the request, so the performer knows it is being handled, and then makes the change. Watching for the performer's thumbs up afterwards closes the loop. A request that goes unacknowledged is one the performer will keep repeating with increasing urgency.

Every artist develops some signals of their own, and a good monitor engineer learns them quickly. Agreeing the signals at soundcheck -- "if you want more keys, point at the keyboard player and up" -- is time well spent.

The hand signals

Close to universal. Acknowledge every one the moment you see it.

The listen and talkback systems

Hear what they hear; talk only to the people who need it.

How to do it

1. Set up your listen wedge to match the performers' wedges.
2. Set up your cue in-ears to match the performers' earpieces.
3. Route engineer talkback to every in-ear and wedge, and confirm it is absent from FOH.
4. Set up band and MD talkback with push-to-talk, routed to the right mixes.
5. Agree the hand signals, and any artist-specific ones, at soundcheck.
6. Test each path by talking into it and listening where it should and should not arrive.

What goes wrong

Practice it

With a colleague acting as a performer.

Line Check and Soundcheck from Monitor World

Monitor world is usually the first to hear every input on a show day, and soundcheck is the only time the engineer and the performers build the mixes together. Both have a method, and following it turns a stressful hour into a routine one.

Line check from the monitor desk

On most shows monitors and front of house line check together: one technician on stage speaks into or taps each input in turn, and both engineers confirm it arrives on the right channel, cleanly. In monitor world there is an extra step: every output must also be checked -- every wedge, every in-ear transmitter and pack, every fill.

The output check matters as much as the input check. A wedge patched to the wrong amplifier channel, a pack tuned to the wrong transmitter, a side fill with its polarity reversed -- none of these show up in an input line check, and all of them show up at the worst possible moment during the show.

Work through outputs by position: walk to each wedge with a known signal playing and confirm it is the right mix; put on each pack and confirm it receives the right transmitter; stand in each fill. It takes ten minutes and prevents most of the faults in the What Goes Wrong in Monitor World chapter.

Soundcheck, and building mixes with the band

Soundcheck in monitor world usually starts with the whole band playing a song they know well, so each performer can hear how their draft mix sits and start asking for changes. Work performer by performer, not instrument by instrument: satisfy the singer, then the drummer, then the bass, rather than chasing everyone at once.

Keep a note of every request. Some are for this room only; others reveal how a performer likes to hear things every night, and those belong in the monitor sheet for the rest of the tour.

Save the mixes as the starting scene when the band is happy, then run a quieter song and a louder song to check the mixes hold. A mix that works for one tempo and one level often needs adjusting for a ballad.

Virtual soundcheck and working without the band

Many monitor engineers record a multitrack of each show and replay it through the desk the next day, before the band arrives. This virtual soundcheck lets the engineer prepare mixes for a new room, check changes, and ring out wedges against the real content of the show rather than against speech.

It is not a replacement for soundcheck, because the performers' requests cannot be recorded. But it means the band arrives to mixes that are already close, and soundcheck becomes a matter of refinement rather than construction.

What must be checked, and how

Inputs prove the stage reaches the desk; outputs prove the desk reaches the stage.

How to do it

1. Line check every input with front of house.
2. Walk every output with a known signal playing.
3. Confirm click and talkback reach only the outputs they should.
4. Soundcheck performer by performer, not instrument by instrument.
5. Note every request, and which are for every night.
6. Save the starting scene, then check a quiet and a loud song.

What goes wrong

Practice it

At the next show you work in monitor world.

Running Monitors Live

Once the show starts the monitor engineer's attention is on the stage, not the desk. The job for ninety minutes is to watch, anticipate, answer requests in seconds, and deal with whatever goes wrong without the audience ever knowing.

On the night, keep every performer hearing what they need, instantly.

Serving performers through the show

During the show the monitor engineer's eyes belong on the stage. A performer's request can come at any moment, and it comes as a glance and a gesture, not a message. An engineer looking at their screen misses it, and a missed request is one the performer will remember.

The best monitor engineers anticipate. They know the set, so they know that the acoustic song coming up needs more guitar in the singer's ears, that the drummer always wants the click louder in the fast song, that the backing vocalist moves to the other side of the stage in the second half. Scenes handle some of this; attention handles the rest.

Keep a written set list at the desk with notes against each song, and update it after every show. It becomes the most useful document on the tour.

Calm, reliability, and the performers' trust

Performers go on stage with their confidence resting partly on the person at the side of the stage. A monitor engineer who stays calm when something fails, who fixes it without fuss, and whose mixes are the same every night earns a trust that is one of the most valuable things in the business.

Calm is practical, not just a temperament. It comes from preparation: spare packs within reach, a fallback wedge ready, scenes saved, and a clear idea of what to do first when each kind of fault happens. The engineer who has rehearsed their response does not have to think about it in front of an audience.

When something does go wrong, acknowledge it to the performer -- a nod, a gesture that says "I know, I'm on it" -- fix it, and then talk about it afterwards, honestly. Performers forgive faults far more readily than they forgive being ignored.

Guests, changeovers and festival monitor world

A guest performer who joins for one song needs a mix that exists only for that song. Prepare it in advance, test it at soundcheck if they are there, and recall it on cue. A guest who walks on to a silent wedge has been let down in front of an audience.

Festivals are monitor world at its most demanding. The festival's monitor engineer may serve eight acts in a day, each with its own show file or none at all, each changeover in twenty minutes. Some acts bring their own monitor engineer, who takes over the desk for their set; others rely on the house engineer, who must build mixes for people they met a quarter of an hour earlier.

The festival disciplines are preparation and humility: read every act's rider the day before, build draft mixes from their input lists, keep each act's show file clearly named, and when an act's own engineer arrives, give them the desk cleanly and stay nearby in case they need something.

Batteries, spare packs and redundancy

A dead pack mid-song is the most common monitor-world emergency, and it is almost always preventable. Put fresh batteries or freshly charged packs in every performer's pack before every show, regardless of what the meter says, and keep a written record.

Keep a spare pack for every performer on in-ears, already tuned to their frequency, charged, and within reach of the monitor desk -- or with a stagehand at the side of the stage. When a pack fails, the fastest recovery is a swap, not a diagnosis.

Keep a wedge available as a fallback for key performers on in-ears, even if it is muted. If a transmitter fails entirely, a wedge that can be unmuted in two seconds keeps the singer singing. On larger shows the in-ear transmitters themselves may be doubled.

Show-day monitor preparation

Most monitor emergencies are prevented before doors.

How to do it

1. Replace or recharge every pack battery, and log it.
2. Put spare packs and a fallback wedge within reach.
3. Keep your eyes on the stage, not the screen.
4. Acknowledge every signal instantly, then act.
5. Recall scenes on cue and protect live changes.
6. After the show, update the set list notes and the monitor sheet.

What goes wrong

Practice it

At the next show you work in monitor world.

Monitors Beyond the Rock Show

Most of this book has pictured a band on a concert stage, because that is where monitor engineering is most demanding. But the same craft appears in theatres, conference halls, churches and jazz clubs, and each of them asks for something slightly different.

Theatre and musicals

In theatre the monitor system is often called foldback, and it serves singers who are moving around a set, wearing radio microphones, and following a conductor. Much of it is loudspeakers hidden in the set or the proscenium rather than wedges on the floor, because wedges spoil the picture.

The musicians are frequently in a pit or even in another room, playing to a conductor on a video monitor and hearing the stage through their own in-ear or headphone mixes. A theatre monitor engineer may be building mixes for performers they cannot see at all, cue by cue, from a show that runs the same way every night.

Corporate events and conferences

At a conference the "performer" is a presenter who is not a professional performer at all. They need to hear themselves enough to speak naturally, and to hear questions from the floor, and they must never be surprised by feedback. The monitor is often a single discreet wedge or a pair of small loudspeakers at the lectern, run quietly.

Presenters also often need to hear playback -- video clips, remote guests on a video call -- and a remote guest must hear the room without hearing themselves returned with a delay. That mix, often called a mix-minus, is monitor engineering in all but name.

Houses of worship

Churches and other houses of worship often have a band every week, run by volunteers, on a permanently installed system. Personal monitor mixers such as the Allen & Heath ME-1 or Behringer P16-M are very common here, because they let each musician manage their own mix without a dedicated monitor engineer.

The monitor engineer's job in that setting is to build good stems, set sensible limits, and teach the musicians how to use the system well -- which is its own kind of service.

Jazz, acoustic and orchestral work

Acoustic musicians often want very little in their monitors, and sometimes nothing at all. They are used to hearing each other directly and may find a monitor mix intrusive. The skill here is restraint: providing just enough reinforcement for the one player who cannot hear across the stage, and nothing more.

A jazz drummer may want only a touch of the bass; a string section may want a little of the soloist. Stage volume is usually low, which makes every monitor audible to the audience, so the monitor engineer is working quietly and carefully rather than loudly.

The same craft, different rooms

What changes from one kind of show to another.

How to do it

1. Find out who the performers are and how experienced they are with monitors.
2. Ask what they are used to hearing, and how.
3. Decide whether wedges, hidden foldback, in-ears or personal mixers suit the room.
4. Start with less than you think, especially for acoustic players.
5. Check anything audible to the audience from the audience's side.

What goes wrong

Practice it

At a show outside rock and pop.

What Goes Wrong in Monitor World

Monitor faults happen in public, to a person who is performing, and they need fixing in seconds. The good news is that there are not many of them, and nearly every one has a first action that can be rehearsed.

The faults, and the first thing to do

A monitor fault is diagnosed differently from a front-of-house fault because the first priority is not understanding it, it is restoring the performer. Swap the pack, unmute the fallback wedge, pull the feedback down -- and then find out why.

The commonest faults, roughly in order, are: a dead or failing pack battery; a wedge or microphone knocked out of position; a feedback ring as the stage gets louder; a performer whose request was lost in a scene recall; an RF dropout on an in-ear transmitter; and a mispatched output that was never walked at line check.

Feedback in the middle of a song

When a wedge starts to ring during the show, the first action is to pull down that wedge's output level, not to hunt for the frequency. A few decibels on the output stops the ring immediately. Then, with the ring stopped, identify the frequency on cue or the analyser and make a small cut, and bring the output back up carefully.

If you cannot tell which wedge is ringing, the analyser across the outputs usually shows it, and the performers' faces usually tell you faster.

In-ear dropouts and RF trouble

An in-ear dropout -- the mix cutting in and out -- is usually radio, not the mix. The performer may have walked somewhere the transmitter's signal does not reach, another transmitter may have drifted onto the same frequency, or something new in the venue may be interfering.

The immediate fix is a spare pack or the fallback wedge. The investigation afterwards starts with the pack's signal meter: a weak signal means the performer left the antenna's coverage or lost its line of sight; a strong signal with noise means interference, and the answer is a coordinated backup frequency. What the monitor engineer needs to know is that dropouts are a radio problem, and that changing the mix will not help.

When the fault is the mix

Some monitor problems are not faults at all. A performer who is unhappy all night, whose requests never quite satisfy, may be hearing a mix built on a wrong assumption -- too full, too loud, a seal that has never been right. These need a conversation after the show, not more changes during it.

Ask what the best monitor mix they have ever had sounded like, and what made it good. The answer often reveals the real problem -- "I could hear everything but it wasn't loud" is a common one, and it points straight at clutter.

Monitor faults and the first action

Restore the performer first. Understand it afterwards.

How to do it

1. Acknowledge the performer with a nod so they know you have seen it.
2. Restore them first -- swap, unmute, or pull down.
3. Only then identify the cause, on cue or the analyser.
4. Make the smallest fix that holds for the rest of the show.
5. Note the fault and talk about it honestly after the show.

What goes wrong

Practice it

Before your next show in monitor world.

Mastering Monitor Engineering

Monitor engineering is learned on stages, one show at a time, and it is a career in its own right. The engineers artists fight to keep are rarely the ones with the cleverest mixes; they are the ones who are always there, always calm, and always listening.

Master the craft, and you become the engineer performers ask for by name.

The complete monitor engineer

Put plainly, a complete monitor engineer can do the following. They can set up monitor world where every performer can see them, agree the split with front of house, and build a desk around outputs. They can advance a show from the rider and arrive with draft mixes. They can place and ring out wedges, set up in-ear mixes that seal and sound good, and keep every level safe.

They can talk to the stage -- listen on cue, route talkback properly, read and answer hand signals within seconds. They can line check every input and every output, soundcheck performer by performer, and run a show with their eyes on the stage. And when something fails, they restore the performer first and fix the cause afterwards.

The performers' engineer

The monitor engineer's real product is trust. Performers who trust their monitor engineer stop thinking about monitors and start thinking about the show, and that freedom is visible to the audience. It is built from consistency -- the same mix every night -- and from the way faults are handled.

Monitor engineers often become among the closest people on a tour to the artist, because they share the most anxious moments of every show. That closeness is a privilege and needs professional care: discretion, patience, and the sense to keep the artist's confidence even on bad nights.

Relationships with the rest of the crew matter too. The backline technicians move the wedges and change the batteries; front of house shares the inputs; the tour manager decides the schedule. A monitor engineer who works well with all of them has a much easier show.

Practical sign-off

Monitor engineering is mastered at a real monitor console. The learner builds many personal mixes (wedges and IEMs), serves each performer's needs, controls feedback and stage volume, and responds to performers live. A mentor signs off when the learner can mix monitors for a band well.

• Built and managed several personal monitor mixes at once
• Mixed wedges and IEMs to each performer's needs
• Controlled feedback and stage volume
• Served performers responsively and reliably through a show

Protecting your own hearing

The monitor engineer stands in the loudest place in the building -- beside the stage, among the wedges, the side fills and the drum fill -- for every show. Over a career that exposure is the single greatest threat to the ability to do the job.

Wear filtered or custom-moulded earplugs whenever you are not actively checking a mix, especially during changeovers and support acts. Keep your cue levels moderate, and check them against a meter occasionally, because a monitor engineer's cue tends to creep up over a tour exactly as a performer's pack does.

The route into monitor world

Most monitor engineers begin as monitor technicians or stage technicians: setting wedges, changing batteries, walking outputs, and watching experienced engineers work. That apprenticeship teaches the stage from the performers' side, which is the right side from which to learn it.

From there the path is usually house monitor engineer at a venue or festival, then monitor engineer for touring acts, and eventually the artist's own engineer, travelling with them. Fluency on DiGiCo, a reputation for calm, and recommendations from musicians carry people along it far more than any certificate.

The monitor career path

Learned on stages, carried forward by recommendation.

How to do it

1. Work as a stage or monitor technician and watch every monitor engineer you can.
2. Learn DiGiCo thoroughly using the offline editor.
3. Ring out wedges at every opportunity until you can name a ring by ear.
4. Build and keep a personal set of monitor sheets from every show.
5. Ask musicians what their best monitor mix sounded like, and why.

What goes wrong

Practice it

Over the next month.

Glossary

What the gear actually looks like

Every device named in this book, in one place. Recognition is the whole point of Chapter 4 — use this page to attach a picture to each name before you meet it on a dock at six in the morning.

Audio

Dynamic microphone

Condenser microphone

Wireless handheld

Radio rack

Mixing console

Stage box / snake

Power amplifier

Main loudspeaker

Subwoofer

Stage monitor wedge

In-ear monitors

DI box

Video

Camera

Video switcher

Scaler / processor

Projector

LED wall panel

Confidence monitor

Lighting & control

Conventional fixture

Moving-head fixture

Lighting console

Dimmer

Show controller

Media server

Networking & infrastructure

Network switch

Patch bay

Equipment rack

Power distribution

Cable tester

A properly coiled cable

Connectors, close up

XLR

TRS / TS ¼-inch

SDI on BNC

HDMI

Cat5e / Cat6 (RJ45)

Fiber optic

DMX (5-pin XLR)

AC power — not signal