Gear / Technical Help > Microphones & Setup

On stage / stage lip setup

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heathen:
I've read a bunch of old threads on here about setting up on stage or at stage lip, and one thing I'm not clear about is what most people do about the monitors.  My assumption is you generally don't want to be recording from the monitors, so you're going to try to have your mics on the audience side of the monitors?  How close can you get to the monitors before they start messing things up?

thatjackelliott:
Excellent question, one I am wondering about, too. Monitors are angled up and toward the rear of the stage so that the folk playing that music can hear them, and highs should "beam" without wrapping around the enclosure toward the stage lip and the mics. But as we go down in frequency, the less-directional the sound is. At some point -- something complicated involving the size of the enclosure and the wavelength -- the sound will no longer be so directional and stage lip mics are going to get some blowback. Does this happen at frequencies below what is normally sent to the monitors? Then there are cabinet resonances, where the top of the cab might take off loudly. I'm guessing that in the final analysis, the answer to this is going to be "it depends." Depends on the wavelength, depends on the cabinet construction, depends on whether the sound tech is sending enough energy into the cabs at sufficiently low frequencies that the sound wraps around the cabs, or at frequencies in the range where the panels might take off.

I wait for words of wisdom from those that know stuff.

heathen:
Anyone have some insights to share about this topic?

mfrench:
Phasing-induced shifting issues can run wild. Or, if carefully planned, can be taken advantage of.
One particular instance for me was a persian music ensemble, of a perisan fiddle, setar (long-neck lute), and two hand drummers, one on either side.
Now, to someone not at the concert, and not familiar with the music, what happened would not be noticeable. What did happen was that the drummer to the ensemble left (stage left). His entire kit stayed in the right channel, except for one particular drum, which was in the monitors louder than the others of his kit. The sound guy placed a monitor with my mics in front of the monitor, after I had already set up, and gone to dinner. When I returned, it was too late to do anything about it.  Its presence dragged that single drum from hard right, to being oriented to about 85%+ in the left channel, completely across stage from its actual presence.
No one else but myself, and the artists would know it, but, it drives me friggin nuts.

The drummer closest to the camera,... his drum came into the wrong channel, and sounds like it came from across this stage arrangement. You can sort of see my stereo pair in tight to the center players, about 3' out, centered between them..

Gutbucket:
It depends a whole lot on the monitor mix, as well as the balance of sound on-stage at the microphone position excluding the monitor(s) in question.  Can't really ad anything more of substance to the conversation than that which hasn't already been covered.  ;)

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