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Can hot moniters intimidate you?

W

WashburnAB95

Nov 18, 2013
455
328
#1
So I have started to help my church group set up their sound. I made a couple changes that resulted in much louder and clearer sound from the moniters with no feedback. Our normal leader was absent so all the singers really needed to sing out confidently in his absence. It seemed like they where afraid to get close to the microphones and sing really confidently. Afterwords I asked them... if I turned down the moniters would you have sung out more confidently and they said yes.

I have seen this before.... sometimes singers have never heared themselfs clearly. When they finnally do it seems as though it casuses an existential crisis.

Have you ever been intimidated by hearing yoruself to well? Please share your story :)
 
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#2
I don't like when my monitor is too hot. I definitely want to hear myself, but if it's too loud
and I feel like my voice is just hitting me in the face, I don't like it at all.

It's not so much being intimidated by hearing my own voice, although, I admit, I find it
odd. It's more about there not being balance between my voice and the rest of the music,
so that I can't, literally, get IN to the music. I feel like my voice is on top of everything else,
and the rest of the music is somewhere in the background.

So, for me, it's more about the mix being balanced.
 
#6
It's all about what you are used to and comfortable with. The singers were not used to the monitors being as loud, so they took down the volume to return it to their comfort zone. Never make a change in the mix without being able to test it out before a gig.

Some years ago, I did an outdoor show - took a while getting the mix where we wanted it. Then right before the gig, the guitarist insisted on changing heads - guess had issues the entire show?
 
#7
Not "intimidated", but yeah, people are going to instinctively back off when they're getting blasted in the face by the sound.

The clarity and no feedback are good things, you simply had the level too high.

I like my monitors reasonably balanced with everything else. Vocal just slightly louder than everything else but not by much. When it's set similar to the FOH mix, the band can mix itself by mic proximity, vocal dynamics, etc.
 
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#8
Another thing too... we had a full drum kit so we needed a lot more volume from the vocalists. I don't think these vocalists are used to the higher volume.

I was standing right by a moniter, I didn't find it particularly loud but I felt as though I could finnally actually hear the vocalists for a change. The moniter didn't sound much louder than the singers do without a mic if that makes sense.
 
#9
I'm he other way around, I sing much more confidently when I have powerful monitor right in front of me giving that extra boost. Now that being said, I have plenty of experience with singers who have never heard themselves in a microphone before and get scared off when they do. It's worth teaching them to be comfortable either way.
 
#10
It really depends on the vocalist. If you are dealing with primarily people who don't sing into microphones, are used to being in a choir and "blending" with them, or in another application where they don't hear the amplified sound of their voice, it can definitely throw some people off. A lot of the time it ends up being the "Do I really sound like that?" type of reaction, and they aren't particularly happy with what they are hearing. That happens a lot when people sing in loud settings with bad monitor mixes (which sounds like what happened before you came along) and they get scared when they can hear what's happening. I don't sing all that often on stage, and it definitely takes some getting used to if you don't usually have a good monitor mix.

Something else to keep in mind is what the performers actually want to hear in the monitors. Some people want to hear the front of house mix coming right back at them, some people want to hear themselves and only the drummer etc. When I've played productions with large pit bands, generally I want to be able to hear the drum kit, (mostly his kick foot) any of the other harmony instruments like piano or guitar, and then a tiny bit of everything else. If I'm singing vocals in a band, I usually have my bass amp set at a volume that it works as a stage monitor for me, and I want my vocals above everything else in the mix so I can confidently know if I'm singing in tune. Especially if I'm singing harmonies, if the lead vocal is louder than I am in the monitor I have a bad habit of singing along to lead instead of sticking to my harmonies.

That's what works for me. Talk to your singers again, see if you can come out to a few rehearsals and experiment a bit, and you should come to a compromise that makes everyone happy.
 
#12
I suppose I would instinctively back off my singing until it sounded good to me in the mix, even though I know that what I hear is not the same as what goes out front.

Low/high bass mix will make me play harder/softer, too, but to less of an extent as I'm a better bassist than singer.
 
#13
yep. you can scare someone off the mic in a heart beat.

I spent most of yesterday dealing with that.

They would ask for monitor, I would give it to them, They would back up and ask for more monitor. I would give it to them..they would back up again.

Do you know what an SM58 sounds like when you sing into it from 2 feet away?
 
#14
This is just one of the reasons I like singers to have control of their own IEM mixes (whether via Aviom, wifi-capable mixers, blend knobs on wireless receivers, or simple more-me gadgets like the Rolls PM351). All the singers get mixes against which they can hear pitch and sing comfortably. And FOH spends less time acting as the singers' underpaid therapist.
 
#15
Because of the funky acoustics... I really wish the Church would go for IEMs but they are a bit cheap like that...


How come in general instrumentalists like to be as loud as possible but vocalists often want to be quiet?
 
#16
I like a loud vocal monitor, but too loud and I get a little wigged out. Not so much intimidated...I've come to accept that my voice is slightly above average ;) but I do sing differently when it's too loud.
 
#19
Steve said:
yep. you can scare someone off the mic in a heart beat.

I spent most of yesterday dealing with that.

They would ask for monitor, I would give it to them, They would back up and ask for more monitor. I would give it to them..they would back up again.

Do you know what an SM58 sounds like when you sing into it from 2 feet away?
Click to expand...


One of my biggest pet peeves mixing. That and when they just mumble 1...2... in the mic for "soundcheck", then come gig time, belt it out in their singing voice, get spanked in the ears, back off, and complain.

A lot of it is just simple inexperience, not knowing how to run a good soundcheck, or just not accepting the fact that things sound more isolated/empty/spacious when you're spread out on a stage with a monitor system than it does when you're crowded around the drumset in a little practice room with just amps and a little vocal PA.
 

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