Answering Questions about Post Fade Aux Sends @ Monitor World.

[DcSoundOp]

[Pro Sound Guy]

Isnt it amazing how ALL analog was basically set up the same way on the console?

With the digital consoles all the layers and such are all setup different.

Honestly the Soundcrafts digital consoles are setup so an idiot can run them.

 

 

[wesg]

Some of the information in this video was a surprise to me. Maybe because I don't spend a lot of time thinking about "monitor world".

 

When I started running sound for my band, I used post-fader sends for effects, and pre-fader sends for monitors. Why? Because everybody did it that way. Or so I thought.

 

Now I am running our monitors post-fader, which seems to work pretty well. In particular, it helps me fine-tune the FOH mix while playing. Aux sends for instruments which should not be in a monitor are turned all the way left, instruments I want in a given monitor are turned to noon (unity) and "more me" gets turned to the next tick on the knob, I which I think is about +3dB. So I kind of put myself in monitor world, and trust that any changes I make (which are usually very small) get reflected with reasonable accuracy out the FOH.

 

I used stereo returns for my effects sends, one is reverb and one is slapback. Slapback return is the same in the monitors and the mains, but reverb return is turned off or pretty close to it....reverb sends are usually off, too; when the lead singer wants to hear feedback, he adds reverb with his vocal processor. Only the lead singer and I get any effects returned due to a strange design decision at Mackie (each stereo return can only be routed to two auxes), although I may change that shortly as I just freed up a stereo channel strip. I could also change that by going with fewer monitor mixes, but running four nearly-identical mixes has been working well...I put lots of kick and snare in the drummer's monitor to get him to play quieter, I need more lead guitar on my side of the stage because I can't hear the amp from where I stand, that kind of thing.

 

One thing I'm curious about is lightly compressing the vocal subgroup on the way to the FOH. I haven't done this yet, as I have no good way to hear what it does from where I'm mixing. I am using a Lexicon MX400 for the effects, so could easily insert compression into the subgroup by robbing a channel from slapback. We don't need stereo slapback.

 

Wes