Couldn't hear the backline?

My suggestion is get your backline angled so it points at your head. Not much point in having all the sound firing at your ankles. Get it pointed at your ears and you might hear a lot more without turning up. There are cab stands that'll do this for you, but you can experiment beforehand by leaning your cab against something in practice.

Budda said:
You use the backline to hear “your” tone and the monitor to hear what the audience hears.
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No offence intended but this is dead wrong. The monitor mix may sound completely different to FOH for a start, meaning all kinds of differences in masking, etc. but add that the speaker and box will be completely different sized and have different frequency response and resonances and your monitor tone might be very different to FOH.
 
Greg Ferguson said:
You forgot:
  • Stand closer to the speaker/monitor.
People turn up when their ears get tired and they can't hear as well, and it takes discipline in every person on stage to leave their volume alone and trust that the settings at sound-check were right.

As far as IEM go, I'm seriously thinking about getting a pair of the 3DME IEMs. Pete Thorn has a great video about using them. They're expensive because you still have to connect them to the regular IEM receiver, but they'll let in as much ambient sound as you want, they limit it, and they can also take the normal IEM feed and you can balance the two.
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I just bought those. I think they can be a game changer as you can adjust the mics and they also have a limiter. But not for this weekend! :)
 
Brucegregori said:
To me an FRFR can that is powered is there for only the purpose of you. If you can't hear it then there is a stage/sound issue. A real cab on stage can serve two purposes - to let you band hear you and maybe the audience. You should just face that right toward you and put it volume wise why where you can hear it. Sounds like sound check was a fail..lol
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Soundly got there 15 minutes before we were to go on stage. Life of a weekender :)
 
boyedav said:
Any chance you weren't wearing ear plugs? Using ear plugs to bring the overall volume down can make it easier to pick out different instruments, including your own. Plus, if you can't hear yourself during the first song, it's only going to get worse as your ears get fatigued.
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Had an earplug in my left ear (where the sax was :))
 
Dave Merrill said:
That's the kind of stuff that makes bands go to IEMs with their own mix(es) that they control themselves.
Let FOH do what they do, but what the bandhears is always pretty close to the same.
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Yep, we bring our own mixer these days. We hand FOH the cables they need and make zero requests of them.
 
WITELITE said:
Soundly got there 15 minutes before we were to go on stage. Life of a weekender :)
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That pisses me off more than you, probably. No sound check? No helping the band get squared away? No way to sugarcoat it, that is just unprofessional and, frankly, quite rude.

I work sound when I'm not playing and if I'm running late, I'm still there 90 minutes before game time. I really prefer to be there before the band starts their setup, so that I have an empty stage. That way I can get my stuff squared away before I'm dodging equipment and musicians. Between the stage, board, DI boxes and cabling, you name it.... there is always something that needs adjusting, fixing or re-aligning....duct tape or a swift kick. If all goes well, the drummer and I will even have time to duck out and have a smoke. :)
 
WITELITE said:
Soundly got there 15 minutes before we were to go on stage. Life of a weekender :)
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Got it...Next time if you can during a sound check let them fire you up a bit and then once everything is said and done ask to play a small segment of a song..some venues don't dig this but at least you have an idea if you can hear yourself. The other thing is to face that towards you away from the audience vs out. Chances are your sound guy won't give you too much of a hard time as it is "too loud" and you can push a tad more air. Even a stand facing again toward you - in ears are great but you can lose the thump if that is what you like. You don't need much volume to be able to hear yourself - even in the loudest biggest places I worked. With FRFR it is all about the placement of the speaker not how much the dial is turned up. That is the cool thing about running this way. It is a different kind of loud to what an amp is like.

The downside is it not sounding just like a cab. In some case I have used both where the FOH needs to hear some of the guitar as well as me. I would use a cab behind me facing out and an FRFR as a monitor facing in. You can sub out a FRFR behind you to get the same effect but chances are you can't get that loud enough to act the same as a guitar cab.

All volumes are not created equal. It is tricky how things can cut through a mix in different ways. But if volume on stage and volume to the audience is the concern then sometimes you have to try multiple set ups.

Since you only do this on the weekends, and to make things easy, start with the FRFR toward you (away from the "fans") or on a stand the same way. That should get you there since many of the FRFR's are designed to be right in front of you - whoever on stage drifts off axis of the speaker shouldn't complain about the volume.

Looking at it overall it just sounds like the placement of your speaker was just in the wrong spot and maybe a little more volume. Everyone is different how they hear on stage.

If I have to use FRFR only to FOH then I found for myself I liked to face it on my left side if the drummer is on my left (away from the drummer). He/she can still get some of the mix if needed but for me that worked the best vs right in front of me or behind me. Experiment where to put it.

And you can't get there for a proper sound check which is almost always the case lol....move it around to find the spot - that is the bene of an FRFR vs cab.
 
Geoff L said:
I use IEM and do my own monitor mix. Problem solved.
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Yep. I'm just building out a system for our band so we can always control our monitors, whether we provide FOH or not. Setup both wedges and IEMs, use a little on-stage cab for bass and guitar, but rely on FOH for the room. Everyone gets a dedicated mix with iPad control. As long as you keep stage volumes in check it can work well. IEMs are the priority, but wedges are there if that works better at any point, and can be brought up when needed. All inputs can be split to FOH, mics isolated. Just drop a fan tail snake at the stage box. It makes the band's setup straightforward and consistent - we plug in and hear ourselves (mostly) the same way, every time.

At least, that's the idea...

Before the leap to IEMs, when running amps I used a small cab tilted or positioned like a monitor wedge, and let the sound guy handle FOH. This works really well, and helps everybody, audience included.
 
Think of it like if you were using a real amp. You'd still want guitar in your wedges, even with the feel/rumble behind you from your cab.
 
I seem to be the only one NOT wanting my guitar in the regular monitor when I'm using a monitor or cab myself... To me hearing my signal from multiple sources makes it diffuse and more difficult to hear clearly.
 
merlin17 said:
I seem to be the only one NOT wanting my guitar in the regular monitor when I'm using a monitor or cab myself... To me hearing my signal from multiple sources makes it diffuse and more difficult to hear clearly.
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You're not the only one.
My guitar from here, my voice from there please.

Now if we're talking monitors only, no cabs or in-ears, then everything in my monitor, but more me if possible.
 
What could also help is a PEQ block at the end of your chain with the different channels set to help you sit in the mix. I do this when swapping between different guitars, like my Tele and my Les Paul, but I want the Les Paul to still hit the amp harder but retain brightness closer to the Tele. But I have also used it to brighten my tone when it was hard to hear myself. You could set say, channel A and your neutral channel, channel B as brighter, channel C as more midrange, and channel D as darker. This allows you to keep your core tone, but change on the fly without having to go to the Axe to adjust the output EQ mid gig or first song without a sound check. Also, I agree with angling the speaker towards your head as well, that helps a lot!
 
Sounds like you’re playing with folks who either refuse to or never learned how to play as part of a cohesive group. If you cant be heard, good chance they cant hear you either. They should then play softer so every element is audible. If everyone keeps turning up, it becomes a volume war.
A little guitar in the front monitor wouldn’t hurt in this case.
 
Tannhauser said:
My suggestion is get your backline angled so it points at your head. Not much point in having all the sound firing at your ankles. Get it pointed at your ears and you might hear a lot more without turning up. There are cab stands that'll do this for you, but you can experiment beforehand by leaning your cab against something in practice.


No offence intended but this is dead wrong. The monitor mix may sound completely different to FOH for a start, meaning all kinds of differences in masking, etc. but add that the speaker and box will be completely different sized and have different frequency response and resonances and your monitor tone might be very different to FOH.
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stepping in between 2 monitoring sources always feels like vertigo to me. Big phasey blah of a mess. Amazing how different they sound.
 
Run a separate out from what you give to FOH. Boost the crap out of the mids. Place the CLR on your 'outside' of the stage and put a -10dB earplug on the drummer side.

I gave up on IEMs and FRFR monitors because of all this. I gotta hear some stage, and I gotta hear what note(s) im playing. I jerk 4x12s around like a caveman.

If I had a full time monitor guy, I might try IEM again, but I'd still have a box pointing at me for that precious feedback.
 
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