Using column PA speakers as stage monitors?

[Beedster]

Probably a non starter but wondering if a) there are any potential issues and b) if anyone's tried it

 

I have a relatively small and lightweight Maui column PA that while pretty loud and decent is probably not quite big enough for the band/venue in question. The singer has a much larger old school Peavey PA that we're probably going to use instead. However neither system currently has any stage monitors and money's a little tight at present. Would it be madness to use the smaller PA facing the band as on-stage monitors, albeit with bass cut? There are only three mics on stage - vox, backing vox, and kick - all facing the back of the stage (no need for more on drums as it's a small venue and the drummer's solid). 

 

Thanks in advance 👍

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

No problem at all, I used to do this when touring in the '70s. Since our gigs were usually a full week I used to hang them in front of the band if there was available rigging.

[Beedster]

13 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

No problem at all, I used to do this when touring in the '70s. Since our gigs were usually a full week I used to hang them in front of the band if there was available rigging.

Thanks Bill, if it’s good enough for you it’s certainly good enough for us 👍

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Thanks. BTW, the columns I used were Shure Vocal Masters. They were too tall to work well as monitors, which I fixed by cutting them in half. That gave us four of them, so there were no dead spots on the stage. This was 1973-74, when monitors were still almost unheard of, so we were quite pleased to have them. I'm not saying I invented them by any means, but I'd never seen monitors used in clubs prior to that. They came about because the band had the Shures when I joined, while I brought along the JBL 4550 copies that I had built, so it was either figure out a use for the Shures or leave them in the van.

[Beedster]

3 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

Thanks. BTW, the columns I used were Shure Vocal Masters. They were too tall to work well as monitors, which I fixed by cutting them in half. That gave us four of them, so there were no dead spots on the stage. This was 1973-74, when monitors were still almost unheard of, so we were quite pleased to have them. I'm not saying I invented them by any means, but I'd never seen monitors used in clubs prior to that. They came about because the band had the Shures when I joined, while I brought along the JBL 4550 copies that I had built, so it was either figure out a use for the Shures or leave them in the van.

 

That's a nice story, we were thinking along the same lines 'We've got two PAs, two's gotta be better than one, but how do we do it'  

[Happy Jack]

And yet ... and yet ...

 

The inherent Devil's Advocate built into me is asking, "Do you really need monitoring?".

 

Life is SO much simpler without, and for pubs'n'clubs I've never really seen the point.

[Beedster]

1 hour ago, Happy Jack said:

And yet ... and yet ...

 

The inherent Devil's Advocate built into me is asking, "Do you really need monitoring?".

 

Life is SO much simpler without, and for pubs'n'clubs I've never really seen the point.

 

Decent point, but IMO we do Jack, we gigged without monitors last time out and both drummer and keyboard player struggled to hear the vocals and guitar (although to be clear, although they were probably the only two people in the venue if not the entire postcode who couldn't hear the guitar..... . If the set were more straight forward I think we'd get away with it, but we're doing Odelay by Beck in which a lot of changes in rhythm that also involve keyboard shenanigans and samples are cued by specific lyrics, and even in the rehearsal room - in which the sound is way easier to work with than the venue in question - the drummer is struggling to hear the vocals well.  

[Beedster]

1 hour ago, Happy Jack said:

And yet ... and yet ...

 

The inherent Devil's Advocate built into me is asking, "Do you really need monitoring?".

 

Life is SO much simpler without, and for pubs'n'clubs I've never really seen the point.

 

....but I'd also welcome alternative solutions, although in-ear isn't an option for us 👍

[JPJ]

Two of the best gigs I’ve played for onstage sound have both used side-fill for monitoring. One, a local bar that is popular on both the national and international circuit for up and coming bands has monitors mounted from the ceiling both in front and to the side of you, where they are pointing directly at your ears instead of your knees. The second was a major bike festival where the floor monitors were supplemented with two stacks of side fill stage left and right.

[nilebodgers]

1 hour ago, Happy Jack said:

And yet ... and yet ...

 

The inherent Devil's Advocate built into me is asking, "Do you really need monitoring?".

 

Life is SO much simpler without, and for pubs'n'clubs I've never really seen the point.

It’s a good question to ask. In a small venue at lower levels I’ve sometimes put the FOH speakers behind the band so that everyone just hears the main mix. This can sound really nice if the band can blend themselves and the singers aren’t struggling.

 

 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

3 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

The inherent Devil's Advocate built into me is asking, "Do you really need monitoring?".

I can't imagine not having it.

[Happy Jack]

I guess it's what you're used to.

 

The drummer in my 3-piece covers band likes to have it, but I insist he brings the gear himself and he sets it up.

 

Similarly, the lead singer in my 5-piece soul band sometimes wants it (depends on the venue).

 

Apart from that, never.

 

It's not that I don't have decent floor monitors available (2 x QSC CP8, 1 x QSC CP10) but life's too short unless they're really necessary. 

 

[Beedster]

1 hour ago, nilebodgers said:

It’s a good question to ask. In a small venue at lower levels I’ve sometimes put the FOH speakers behind the band so that everyone just hears the main mix. This can sound really nice if the band can blend themselves and the singers aren’t struggling.

 

 

 

How do you avoid bleed from the PA into the mics, is it just careful positioning?  

[Phil Starr]

13 hours ago, Beedster said:

 

How do you avoid bleed from the PA into the mics, is it just careful positioning?  

You can't, not really. Any mic including any drum mic is going to pick up everything that happens on stage to a greater or lesser degree as well as picking up audience noise. If you have meters on your mixer you can see the background noise. That's the thing; you have two concerns about bleed, the smearing of your sound due to unwanted noises coming in through the mics and of course genuine feedback. Pretty much any mic on stage will be a directional mic and they all favour sounds coming straight at them. Cardioid mics have a 'dead spot' down the other end of the barrel and with super cadioids the dead spot is on the side. Anything pointing at the mics is going to reduce your gain before feedback and increase the cr*p coming through the PA. At low sound levels you can get away with monitors behind you in that you avoid feedback but you will still degrade the sound for the audience. It's a judgement call as to how much bleed you deem acceptable. It's possible it will be unnoticeable compared with room reverberation and  audience noise.

 

The one thing I always say though is that whatever works in practice is good.The science helps make good choices and gives you a lot of help when things aren't working but the human interaction between you and the audience is the important thng. The tech just gets you there. I sing a little, I've a strong voice but can be pitchy if I can't hear the monitors. My best happens when I can hear what the audience hears and the sound levels on stage are really well down. I love in-ears generally but somehow at low levels (ie no drummer) and floor monitors I find singing a lot easier. I can understand those who like to be in front of the PA even if technically it poses problems.

[dave_bass5]

We use Powered PA cabs for monitors (for those that dont use IEM) and I hate it. Drummer has a 1x15 right by his kit, and his mic not only picks the drums up, but the monitor as well. He is very old school and won't change. Its like they want to be professional and want good monitors, but have no clue that this is overkill for our gigs and effects the sound for the audience. I now insist we sound check with all mic's active and try and balance  it all out front. On smaller gigs we might as well not even take a PA. In fact the monitors have the same power as our FOH. I guess this counts as having a back up if nothing else. 

[JPJ]

47 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

We use Powered PA cabs for monitors (for those that dont use IEM) and I hate it. Drummer has a 1x15 right by his kit, and his mic not only picks the drums up, but the monitor as well. He is very old school and won't change. Its like they want to be professional and want good monitors, but have no clue that this is overkill for our gigs and effects the sound for the audience. I now insist we sound check with all mic's active and try and balance  it all out front. On smaller gigs we might as well not even take a PA. In fact the monitors have the same power as our FOH. I guess this counts as having a back up if nothing else. 

Close mic the drums (as close to the skin as you can get) and gate the hell out of them to control the mush. For most of our gigs, mic ‘ing the drums is a bit overkill for front of house but essential for IEM’s and our drummer definitely plays better and more consistently on IEM’s. Quite often his drum mic’s are not in the front of house mix, save for a well eq’d and gated bass drum. 

[dave_bass5]

57 minutes ago, JPJ said:

Close mic the drums (as close to the skin as you can get) and gate the hell out of them to control the mush. For most of our gigs, mic ‘ing the drums is a bit overkill for front of house but essential for IEM’s and our drummer definitely plays better and more consistently on IEM’s. Quite often his drum mic’s are not in the front of house mix, save for a well eq’d and gated bass drum. 

I don mic the drums, other than the kick. We do place a small digital recorder close to the kit, this is for the IEM mixes and recording only, not FOH. Problem is, even that picks up his monitor, so gets quite a lot of the mix as well. That's really not a big deal though.

He point blank reuses to use Headphones or IEM's and will never budge. Unfortunately he owns the monitors so it's not like I could 'forget' to bring them to the gig. 

Edited 7 hours ago by dave_bass5

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

1 hour ago, JPJ said:

For most of our gigs, mic ‘ing the drums is a bit overkill for front of house

Not necessarily. Running instruments through the PA in small to medium rooms isn't about volume, it's about dispersion. No matter how loud the drummer plays the higher frequencies will always be coming from his kit and won't fill the room. The same applies to all the instruments. Where levels and balance are concerned leave that to your sound man, because he can hear what's out front, you can't. Most of the time my sound man is me, so the only way I can gauge what's out front is to have that same mix in the monitors. If I didn't have them I'd have nothing to go by. I just high pass them at 150-200Hz to keep the mud out. If you do it right you're unaware of what the PA out front is doing while on stage it sounds just like a good studio session. 

 

On the subject of drummers and big monitors, in one of the worst examples I've ever heard the drummer had a 2x18 monitor right next to him so he could feel his kick drum. The trouble was with every kick it fed back though the mains and the ringing boom masked everything else. The sound man was clearly an idiot, having no idea as to what was happening or how to fix it. I left halfway through the show, unable to handle it any longer. Now one could say that wouldn't happen with an experienced drummer who had a clue, but it was Max Weinberg. I'd say it's a safe bet that Bruce's crew does a better job. ☺️

Edited 7 hours ago by Bill Fitzmaurice

[dave_bass5]

45 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

Not necessarily. Running instruments through the PA in small to medium rooms isn't about volume, it's about dispersion. No matter how loud the drummer plays the higher frequencies will always be coming from his kit and won't fill the room. The same applies to all the instruments. 

 

 

This is what I find. Although our backline could fill the rooms and we'd get told to turn down, having the band turn down a bit and putting just a bit though the PA seems to give a better mix, without really getting any louder (or at least, not too noticeable). 

Unfortunately, as I pretty much have to do the sound from stage (basically set and forget but I do have the iPad close in case I do need to change something), I dont have our lead guitarist in the PA as he still hasn't got his levels sorted out, nor feedback control), and I dont want to risk that through FOH. 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

If anything the laser beam highs from guitar cabs mean they're what needs the most to be in the PA, both out front and in monitors. For all their fussing over gear they tend not to understand how it works very well. No one needs more than a 1x12 combo. But somehow far too many of them think it's still 1965 and they need rigs capable of filling Wembley with no PA.

[dave_bass5]

2 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

If anything the laser beam highs from guitar cabs mean they're what needs the most to be in the PA, both out front and in monitors. For all their fussing over gear they tend not to understand how it works very well. No one needs more than a 1x12 combo. But somehow far too many of them think it's still 1965 and they need rigs capable of filling Wembley with no PA.

Actually both my guitarist’s only use 1x12’s. One also uses a multiFX that goes directly to the mixer as well as his amp. The other has his amp mic’ed up.  

Edited 1 hour ago by dave_bass5