The Cultivation Foundation Seal
Front of House · Module 6 of 8 · 3 hours

Monitors — the band's world, not yours

Your mix is for the audience. The monitor mix is for the person playing, and it is their ability to perform you are protecting.

6 lessons · 2 paper · 3 practice desk · 1 the room

Every lesson is read, then do, then check.

The check carries its answer underneath it. Look only after you have tried — the attempt is what teaches, not the answer.

Lesson 1 of 6Paper · Needs nothing but a pen

Wedges and in-ears

Read
A wedge is a speaker on the floor pointed up at a performer. It is simple and shared, and it puts a loud speaker in the same room as every open microphone — which is where most feedback and most stage volume comes from. In-ears put the mix inside the performer's head: the stage gets dramatically quieter, the front-of-house mix gets easier, and the musician gets a far better and more private mix. The cost is that they are isolated from the room and the audience, which some performers hate, and that each one needs its own mix.
Do
List the advantages of each, honestly, including the ones that work against your own convenience. Then say which you would push for on a small loud stage and be ready to defend it.
Check

A stage is too loud and feedback keeps starting. Why do in-ears help more than careful EQ?

Lesson 2 of 6Practice desk · Runs in a browser, including a phone

Where a monitor mix actually comes from

Read
This is the one that clears up years of confusion, and almost nobody is taught it. The fader feeds the room. The monitor send is a separate output that leaves the channel on its own path, goes to its own amplifier, and comes back to the stage in a wedge. They are two different destinations fed from the same source. So the signal a performer hears is not taken from what the audience hears — it is taken earlier, off the output side of the channel, before the fader has any say in it. That is why pushing a fader up does nothing for a singer who cannot hear themselves. It is also why a well-run show has one person watching the room and, on a bigger gig, a second person doing nothing but monitors — they are mixing a completely different set of outputs.
Do
On the practice desk, pick one channel. Pull the fader all the way down and confirm the monitor meter still moves. Then put the fader back up and pull the monitor send to zero and confirm the main meter still moves. Prove to yourself they are independent before you ever stand in front of a band.
Check

A singer says “I still cannot hear myself” and you have already pushed their fader up twice. What have you actually been changing?

Lesson 3 of 6Practice desk · Runs in a browser, including a phone

A mix a musician can actually play to

Read
A monitor mix is not a small version of the front-of-house mix. A drummer may need almost nothing but bass and a vocal to stay locked in. A singer needs their own voice and a pitch reference and very little else. Putting everything in a wedge at a moderate level gives a performer a wash they cannot find themselves in — the right monitor mix is usually surprisingly sparse. Ask what they need to play, not what they want to hear, because those are different questions and only one of them has a useful answer.
Do
On the practice desk, build a monitor mix for a drummer and a separate one for a singer from the same channels. Note how different they are and how much you left out of each.
Check

A guitarist says they cannot find the beat. What goes up?

Lesson 4 of 6Practice desk · Runs in a browser, including a phone

'More me', and what it actually means

Read
The most common request on any stage. Taken literally it starts an arms race: you raise them, so now they cannot hear the rest, so everyone else asks too, and twenty minutes later the stage is unmanageable and feedback is constant. Often the real problem is that something else is masking them, and the fix is to take that something down. Occasionally 'more me' means 'I cannot hear my pitch' and a different source entirely is the answer. The skill is hearing the question underneath the request.
Do
On the practice desk, respond to 'more me' twice: once by raising them, once by lowering what is masking them. Compare the result and the cost to the whole stage.
Check

Why is lowering something else often better than raising the person who asked?

Lesson 5 of 6Paper · Needs nothing but a pen

Talking to a performer mid-set without words

Read
You cannot hold a conversation during a song, but you can communicate. A performer pointing at their own chest and then up means more of me. Pointing at an instrument and down means less of that. A flat palm means stop, that is enough. Agreeing a handful of these before the show means you fix things between verses instead of between songs, and it stops a frustrated musician doing the only other thing available to them — turning their own amplifier up.
Do
Agree a set of signals with whoever you will work with, and write them down. Then rehearse them in silence until you both read them without hesitating.
Check

Why agree these in advance rather than improvising?

Lesson 6 of 6The room · Needs real equipment · the Depot

Why a loud stage beats you no matter how good you are

Read
Acoustic sound from the stage reaches the audience whether you send it or not. Once a stage is loud enough, the front rows are hearing the stage rather than your system, and you have lost control of the mix entirely — you can no longer turn anything down, only up, and you are now competing with the band instead of presenting them. No amount of skill at the desk recovers this. The conversation about stage volume is therefore part of your job, and it is better had at soundcheck than during the set.
Do
At the Depot, stand at the front of the room during a loud passage and listen to how much of what you hear is the stage rather than the system. Then write down how you would raise stage volume with a band without it sounding like a complaint.
Check

Why can you not fix an over-loud stage from the desk?

For whoever is teaching it

Instructor notes

  1. This module is three hours, the shortest in the tier, but it is the one that most affects whether a band wants you back.
  2. Four of five lessons need no equipment. Only the stage-volume lesson needs a real room.
  3. The 'sparse monitor mix' idea is counter-intuitive to every student. Have them build one and count how many channels they left out.
  4. The 'more me' lesson is really a lesson in listening to people. Treat it as such — it is the most transferable thing in the course.
  5. Hand signals feel awkward to practice and save entire shows. Make them rehearse it in silence anyway.
  6. If a student is themselves a musician, get them to describe what they need in a wedge. The rest of the group learns more from that than from you.
  7. Be careful teaching the stage-volume conversation. A student who learns to say it badly will damage a relationship on their first show.

Slide running order

What goes on the screen.

  1. A wedge on a floor beside an open microphone — the loop drawn in
  2. The same stage with in-ears: the loop gone
  3. Front-of-house mix and a drummer's monitor mix, channel counts compared
  4. 'More me' solved two ways: them up, versus the masker down
  5. Four hand signals, photographed
  6. A loud stage reaching the front rows with the PA bypassed entirely

If you want more

Extra credit

  1. Ask any musician you know what they need to hear to play well. Most have never been asked and the answer will surprise you.
  2. Watch live footage and count the wedges, then work out whose mix each one is.
  3. Next time you are at any live music, stand at the front and work out how much of what you hear is the stage itself.
Module 7 · Dynamics, effects, and building a mix →All eight modules