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Personal near field monitors for singers?

#2
I don't have experience with those. In one of my bands, the singer/keyboardist just bought a Mackie SRM 150.

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It looks very promising. It's small enough to be held by the microphone stand, getting it very close to the singer's head, but yet behind the microphone to lessen feedback chances. Plus the knobs are all accessible so the singer can adjust what's needed directly without having to ask someone else to do it.
 
#4
I forgot to mention that floor space is an issue too. The problem with loud stage volume could be due to the fact that we are close to each other as well. because of that we turn up the volume on the monitors, then on the amps, add in the drums and soon it turns to mush...

the mackies seem real nice, hadn't considered using powered monitors.
 
#5
I used a near field personal monitor for about a year on several occasions. Mine was a TC Helicon. It worked ok but really didn't help as much as I hoped it would and it was just another thing to have to carry to gigs and set up. I ended up selling it on the bay.
 
#7
For those to be helpful, they need to be pretty close to head level. Our church drummer has used them with some success, as they can be placed on a mic stand, pretty close to his head.

They're great for keyboardists, drummers, or anyone else who sits most of the time. sitting them on the floor for even a 5' vocalist can be a problem.

I don't think you'd want to have extra mic stands sticking that far up in the air.

And... Nady? really? :hiding:
 
#8
yeah... well, Nady's price point is too appealing to not take into consideration!

I guess I could try to figure out a good monitor placement, perhaps having the keyboard player using one. I'd hate to have to tell the drummer to play really soft ( since he doesn't kill the drum set) in order to address the volume level problem.

I am trying to keep cost down so IEMs are out of the question :(
 
#10
The Mackie SRM150's are darn loud and sound decent enough for monitor use. At lower volumes when I was running sound, I have pulled the keyboard out of the mains completely and you couldn't tell, except for some bottom end rolloff. They seem good for the money.
 
#11
AmpedSilence said:
yeah... well, Nady's price point is too appealing to not take into consideration!

I guess I could try to figure out a good monitor placement, perhaps having the keyboard player using one. I'd hate to have to tell the drummer to play really soft ( since he doesn't kill the drum set) in order to address the volume level problem.

I am trying to keep cost down so IEMs are out of the question :(
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You don't need to go wireless to use IEM's. If you are looking at these near field monitors, obviously you are standing pretty still. Wired IEM's can be pretty cheap.
 
#15
AmpedSilence said:
Alright, thanks everyone for the suggestions. I feel I have a good amount of options I hadn't really thought of before! IEMs (wireless or wired) would be awesome... time to rob a bank.
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Check out IEM's, sure, but know that the mix in IEM's is a lot more critical than it is for any sort of speaker monitors. With speakers, you hear the mix from the speakers along with the rest of what is happening on stage, but with IEM's (at least with the custom molded ones) you must feed them everything that you want to hear. Badly fed IEM's will make you feel isolated from the rest of the band.
 
#18
First of all, Please avoid Nady with all possibility. - its cheap for a reason.

Ive tried lots of these little personal monitors and none of them really work as well as other solutions. A 15" is too big for you but a mini monitor is a big decrease in sound. I think you are better off with a keyboard amp with vocal input of some kind. Those mini monitors are for one person only.
Dont know if this is out of your price range or not but Keyboard amp/mixers like this are very versatile. You can alter your own volume and send a signal to the house. ( If this roland is too pricey try finding a used Peavey KB100 or KB50 on your local craigslist)

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--Or go with in ears if you can afford it.
 
#19
Just over a year ago, I bought four of the TC Helicon personal monitors (the ones with the full range of controls, not just the volume control) on closeout. Here were my reasons:

- Individual control of self volume without needing separate monitor channels for each singer.

- Lower stage volume, since you don't have big wedges bangin' up at everybody on small stages/in small venues.

- I wouldn't have to hear the lead singer over myself anymore.

- Way less expensive than IEMs.

- Way less gear to haul than wedges. I found a used equipment case locally that, with minimal modification, holds all four units with their little floor boxes.

- I cannibalized a couple of old mic stands, bought a couple of new ones, and semi-permanently assembled them with the mounting hardware for the personal monitors.

My assessment? They work great. I ran them configured so we only got our individual vocals, dry, through the speaker. They're lightweight, plenty stable when mounted on the mic stand, well built, highly adjustable.

My lead singer hates 'em (of course). Loves to hear his vocals wet, wet, wet, and LOUD. Likes to use a separate mic stand (fair 'nuff) so he can go all Freddy Mercury, but that means an extra stand on stage for the monitor. My guitarist swears he needs all vox through his monitor, but I think he's crazy; I hear everyone else plenty even when it's only me going through my personal monitor. Note that you *can* run individual monitor mixes to these from the board, but at gigs where nobody's running sound, this gives the singers control over their own mix and volume. If you run a single vocal monitor from the board and daisy-chain the monitor boxes, you *can* do a "more me" at each of the monitors and have wet vox, but that's a lot of wires running around the stage.

So if the venue we're playing has wedges in place, I use my personal monitor, dry and then to the board. Everyone else uses the wedges (our female has said she likes the personal monitor, but she's pregnant and on the way out).

Bottom line: I think they're a major win, but you'll see a lot of resistance because they're not what people are used to. But they're a ****load cheaper than IEMs.

-jb
 

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