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Post by oldwoodak on Apr 6, 2008 21:14:15 GMT -7
My band played a gig last night at bar with a full sound system and sound guy; we usually play private parties and set up our own system. The sound guy miked everything and made a recording. I knew he had compression on every channel and found out last night that he also compresses the monitors. I noticed that the vocalist was straining all night and was beat by the end of the second set (sounds that way on the recording too). I posted this question on live sound forums before and got a strong NO COMPRESSION IN THE MONITORS response. Any opinions here?? The sound guy owns the local music store and I respect his opinion but I beg to differ on this one. Thanks
PS. My new Z-28 kicked with a 335 and Godin with p-90s.
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Post by benttop (Steve) on Apr 6, 2008 21:25:43 GMT -7
The problem with compressing the monitors is that vocalists are used to raising their voice to hear them better. But a compressed monitor won't respond to that - it actually turns itself down if the vocals come in hotter. So they raise their voice because they can't hear, and it doesn't get them there and they raise it some more. The monitor is actually working against them at this point, and the result is what you saw. It might be OK to compress instruments that are in the monitor, but never the vocals.
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Post by billyguitar on Apr 7, 2008 10:31:51 GMT -7
I never heard of anyone doing that. I wouldn't like it either.
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Post by benttop (Steve) on Apr 7, 2008 10:52:40 GMT -7
I tried it on our system once. At first it seemed great, because the vocalist could lower his voice to a whisper and the monitors automatically turned up so he could hear it. But when the band started getting too loud, the singer had no way to raise the level of the monitors, and shouting into the mic just made his voice hoarse. It only took one night of using compression on the monitors to realize it was a bad idea. That's when we went to In Ear Monitors for all the singers - they have overwhelmingly embraced them as the solution to all their problems. It is a pity they are so expensive to deploy because they really do help for vocalists especially.
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Post by bluzman on Apr 7, 2008 12:08:19 GMT -7
With monitoring vocals I always like "no nuthin" on the monitors... just the vocals.
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Post by John on Apr 8, 2008 6:25:26 GMT -7
I've NEVER heard of compressing the monitors. That would freak out a singer, as they use the dynamics from the monitors to make adjustments in their voice.
If you ever work with the guy again....and you're paying the bills, tell him NO!
Maybe he's doing it as a poor man's feedback control?
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SG123
Full Member
Posts: 221
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Post by SG123 on Apr 8, 2008 18:45:36 GMT -7
Are you talking about additional compression on the monitors? [ not that anyone would want to do that, normally ]
Unless you're doing a split ahead of FOH to a dedicated monitor board [ as most larger venues do ], the compressor you're using on the individual channel insert is also affecting what's going to your Aux. [ monitor ] sends.
I'm trying to think of a way on your typical stand-alone club board to compress/gate only the individual vocal channels in the mains, but not the monitors. The channel insert is ahead of everything except the mic preamp on the ones I'm familiar with.
If you have the luxury ( or space ) to have a separate monitor board on stage and a splitter snake, then the "problem" goes away.
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Post by rcrecelius on Apr 22, 2008 7:12:55 GMT -7
I tried it on our system once. At first it seemed great, because the vocalist could lower his voice to a whisper and the monitors automatically turned up so he could hear it. But when the band started getting too loud, the singer had no way to raise the level of the monitors, and shouting into the mic just made his voice hoarse. It only took one night of using compression on the monitors to realize it was a bad idea. That's when we went to In Ear Monitors for all the singers - they have overwhelmingly embraced them as the solution to all their problems. It is a pity they are so expensive to deploy because they really do help for vocalists especially. I used to use IEM's in a band several years ago and we had a compressor for each monitor mix just as a precaution in case something got real loud it would compress and not kill your ears before you could get to the mon console to turn it down. Now for floor monitors I would never think of using compression.
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Post by hdahs143 on Apr 22, 2008 9:47:22 GMT -7
It sounds like they were over-compressed to me. I've been in situations where the monitors either had their own dedicated compressor, or were ran through a DriveRack, and done properly, I liked it a lot. I hate a loud barky monitor mix. Typically the key to a good vocal monitor mix relies more on proper eq than volume.
Compression is a great tool if used properly, but is easy to misuse.
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