From House to Monitors

This was an extremely insightful article and very interesting to me. There was a lot of information on the difference between FOH and monitors but there was also a lot of information on just how to make monitors better. The first thing that caught my attention was when he mentioned there are artists out there who actually let you experiment with the sound through the wedges. I have been under the impression that it really doesn't matter what you think or what you want you do what the artist is looking for and then you stay in the shadows. Knowing that it's possible to actually have some input is something that I wouldn't have expected but is something that is really cool to me. Another thing that got my attention was using everything around you to make the mix the best it can be. Let backline do a lot of the loud stuff and use the monitors to fill in what backline doesn't do enough of. When the venue is big use the house speakers to control the low end on stage, it's going to be up there anyways just from the nature of subwoofers so why not use it to your advantage. It makes sense to follow all these steps but at the same time I think there are a lot of people out there who don't really think about using everything as one working unit. It seems there is more of a compete against type of mentality instead of a work together mentality. Knowing this information is definitely something that I will try to put into my practices as time goes on, even as soon as live labs. The bandwidth part was also very interesting to me. Saying that everything has to fit in a certain bandwidth but can cause a lot of problems depending on the size of the band. The solution he had was to make every instrument sound different. If you have 3 guitars don't let them all just sound like the same guitar do something to add some separation so everyone is aware of what's going on even with so many sounds coming at them at once. I've always been interested in monitors and reading about them more and more hasn't made me want to shy away from them yet. I think the pressure is enjoyable in a way and the constant attention to detail needed helps to not make the job seem monotonous over the years. I think this was a great article and definitely one that should be read if people want to be monitor engineers especially beginning monitor engineers.