Live performance, problems with monitoring

wheelema

wheelema

Boner-obo
I need to lay my hands on the cheapest possible wireless monitoring solution for a live performance. There are several singers, and one of them isn't very good, but for political/personal reasons must remain. The problem is that she is consistently complaining that she can't hear herself in the monitor, so the sound man cranks her up and up and up and pretty soon, she is the only female performer you can hear. The board they are using is a fairly cheap Mackie, but I believe it has aux send, so my thought was to get her a wireless headset so she could hear herself without having to overpower everyone else.

What I thought up (Shure in-ear monitoring is not a solution) was to take the signal from her aux send and from the lead's aux send to a Behringer headphone amp, from the headphone amp to a Ramsey FM transmitter, and from the Ramsey to a ear bud FM radio on her.

The cost for this would be (approx.) $140 for the Behringer HA8000, $55 for the Ramsey FM transmitter, and then whatever a cheap FM radio would cost.

Bottom line, about $200.

Tell me if I am full of it, or not.
 
Ooo....sounds good. Give it a try! Let us know if it works out.

This must be a church deal. I used to mix sound at a big ol' church, and this kind of situation was the norm, depending upon which of the several bands they had, was performing.

I will give you a little hint. That chick singer will probably NEVER hear herself well enough, because basically, she is probably so bad that she can't believe that what she IS hearing is actually her. :D But all kidding aside, it is usually the worst singers that complain the most about monitors.

Good luck.
 
I don't know much about this, but I'm wondering why you need the headphone amp? It would seem to me that the xmitter would work on the line level signal that the aux was sending. What am I missing?
 
This lady is not the lead and would need to hear the lead in her mix.

Also, while the Mackie has aux sends, it just doesn't have enough, but it does have inserts, so I will use those.
 
Farview said:
I don't know much about this, but I'm wondering why you need the headphone amp? It would seem to me that the xmitter would work on the line level signal that the aux was sending. What am I missing?
Click to expand...

You are correct the transmitter usually takes its input from one of the Pre fader aux sends.
 
wilkee said:
You are correct the transmitter usually takes its input from one of the Pre fader aux sends.
Click to expand...
You are absolutely correct. If I pull the signal from her insert I believe that signal is post fader, in which case the headphone amp would serve the dual purpose of blending two singers into one mix and allowing me to kick up the signal.

Another idea occured to me, and I am not too sure if it is a good one. If both the lead singer and the problem child singer have FM transmitters wired into their respective inserts, and set to the same channel, do you think she would hear both feeds clearly??

Hmmm?

Oh, and Sonusman, you are too smart for me! It is a church.
 
The soundman needs to take control and tell her thats all shes getting and learn to like it. I do sound at my church and nobody questions me more than once because they know I will only give them so much and thats it. When we have special groups in I tell them I do sound and you sing. The traveling preachers really hate it because they want the monitors wide open.


When I get one like that I turn them down everytime they asked to be turned up. They learn very fast.
 
Some people can "tune out" interfering sound from different directions or frequencies. However there are some that have hearing loss at certain freqs which makes it difficult and others that cant do it all. The answer is not over all stage monitor levels (I have fought this problem for years) but having a monitor with an eq for the singer that needs boost at certain freqs. My current monitor is a JBL Eon10 G2 with a cheap eq on stage. You can drastically eq it before any of the other singers notice it or complain. Remember that feedback might occur. Also thats why in a good setup every singer has one or two monitors on stage at different angles eq'd different and besides working the mics they are moving about on stage as necessary to hear the critical parts.
A KJ friend of mine uses hearing aids and sometimes when he sings at my gigs he uses the cans out of the mixer and I can hear a vast improvement in his singing. Maybe the answer is a combination of both....
 
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