Churches large and small that employ contemporary worship music will discover the importance of stage monitors at about the same time they realize their FOH (front-of-house) system needs.
I’m sure that we would all agree that the sole reason for sound systems in churches is to allow the spoken word and associated music to be heard and clearly understood by those who come to worship. No brainer. Even with this focus in mind, however, I often see churches place little emphasis on the stage monitor system compared to the FOH system, recording and other auxiliary systems. Often the stage monitor system is dealt with in a very haphazard manner and the musicians are left to fend for themselves. Bad move.
In almost all of the technical and practical issues that are involved in sound for houses of worship, we must look to the secular world for much of our guidance. Why? Because it is in this realm that almost all of the techniques and equipment that we have at our disposal originate from.
In the secular performance world, more often than not, there are a minimum of two sound crew members; one on FOH and one on monitor. As is the case in houses of worship, the monitor person operates in a completely different world or category than the FOH person. There is such great importance placed on monitor sound quality in the secular performance world that several generalizations may be made here: to the performers or presenters on stage, the monitor person is far more important than the FOH person. The stress levels associated with being on monitors (providing what the performers need) can be significantly greater than those at FOH. In the secular world, the monitor mixers are often paid more, plus have more job security than the FOH person.
In my 25 years of doing secular sound at all levels (from nightclubs to stadiums), providing good monitor sound has always proved to be the key to job security and also resulted in a greater sense of satisfaction. In those shows and tours where I was on monitor duty, I dealt with (and got to know) the musicians much more than I ever did working at FOH. In more recent times, as head-of-audio at Times Square Church in New York City, I found that it was far more important for those on stage to be happy with their sound than it was for the FOH sound to be great. Therefore, this is where I positioned myself 90 percent of the time. I knew that as long as the pastor was happy, I would continue to have a job.
Obviously, most churches cannot afford or justify a separate monitor mixing console and operator. In most cases, church sound is also a far more forgiving environment than that in other performance situations. However, this does not reduce the importance of providing good monitor sound to church musicians and singers.
The Basics
In its most basic form, a stage monitor system consists of a special mix that is fed into monitor wedges that are placed in front of the key players and presenters on the platform. Usually it’s the “second job” of the audio engineer who mans the FOH mixer, and they create monitor mixes via the FOH mixer’s aux bus’s and from their position out in the seating area. This is far from ideal in that the operators are almost completely removed from the environment they are mixing for. This method can actually work well, as long as the participants play well together and the musicians are willing to live with less than ideal mixes.
A much-improved approach is to either provide a stage monitor mixer with a separate operator or a personal mixing system. Of these two, personal mixing systems represent the best ratio of results versus cost as long as the users act responsibly.
Equipment quality will impact how well a monitor system works, as is the case with the FOH system. Stage monitor wedges need to be designed for this purpose and to provide very smooth frequency response. Equalizers are an important tool for taming monitors and anything less than 1/3-octave graphic EQ is simply inappropriate. Knowing what the pickup pattern is of the microphones being used and positioning the monitor wedges accordingly is a necessary ingredient. Finally: restricting stage volume is by far the most important aspect of getting good monitor sound that we can control.
New Technologies
Even though purpose-built personal mixing systems have been around for 12 years, lately there have been several new product introductions that are much more affordable and provide more control over the users’ mixes. Check out Furman Sound, Aviom, and Hear Technologies for more information on what they each provide.
By far the greatest breakthrough in stage monitors for both secular and house of worship sound is the advent of in-ear monitors (IEM’s). This technology greatly affects how we mix monitors in several ways: it removes the harsh acoustic environment that exists on stage, it eliminates a substantial amount of sound on the stage and it allows super-critical listening for the users. In many houses of worship, a hybrid system represents the best possible means to providing good monitor sound. Choir, ensembles, and sections get wedges, and everyone else gets in-ear monitors (IEM’s).
Tom Young is the owner/principal of Electroacoustic Design Services, a consulting firm based in Danbury, Connecticut, that serves the worship and performance space markets. He may be reached via email at: dbspl@earthlink.net.
