How to split signal for stage monitoring

[luvpbass]

We are interested in taking the stage monitor mix out of the hands of your regular sound guy because, well, he's far from the stage doing FOH and it takes too much to get the sound right for us.

Can we just Y jack the mics at the snake box, plug them into a small mixer on stage and go at it, or do we need to have mic/splitter transformers, which some have suggested.

[walterw]

this can work (as long as you're bringing your own mixer with enough channels and auxes, your own EQs, and your own amps and monitor wedges, and ultimately your own mics and mic cables, so they're not different gig to gig). if you go all in-ears, this arrangement begins to actually make sense.

a big pile of XLR Y-cables will work; splitter snakes do the same thing better, and splitter snakes with transformers in them do it better still.

[TimmyP]

Get a Allen & Heath MixWiz Monitor, A&H GL2800M, or Crest XRM console - they have splitters built in. Otherwise: Poor Man's Splitter Snakes

[MNAirHead]

splitter mixers also help.

[Jimbob Jones]

If you're on a budget, Y-cables do the job fine. The afformentioned solutions are better, but not always necessary.