MON 2.0
After sitting down with our music department and members of the worship team, we decided to try something new with our IEMs. Last week we installed an Aviom system and tried it out for the first time this weekend. We have individual risers for each musician on the team, and the Aviom system basically puts an individual 16 channel mixer on each riser. We retained our IEM buds, and traded the PSM600 packs for the Aviom mixers.
We’re still using our monitor console, but things have changed a bit. Since the Aviom only takes 16 channels, and we’re typically running 24-32 channels of music on normal weekends, the monitor engineer is now doing stem mixes for the Aviom mixers. For example, we’re in the middle of a large Christmas Production (visit our website for ticket info) featuring a very large band. The monitor engineer has several stem mixes including a string section, horns, and a 12 piece vocal team and choir. On top of that the monitor engineer is still doing standard wedge mixes for our vocalists and band members that aren’t on in-ears.
So far the reviews from the band members have been huge. It’s also speeding up our soundchecks a little. There are still some bugs we’re working out, but the first run this weekend went pretty smooth. Thanks to the folks at Clark ProMedia for helping make this happen!
Dave,
As a fellow church sound user of Venue (since April ’05) we’ve been a beta site for the PQ’s using them for wedges, acoustic and bass guitars. The vocalist’s love them, because they have access to the mix for the wedges on stage. We’re also using Aviom for the other musicians, but our acoustic and bass guitars seem to bottom out with the Avioms. We’re having serious issues below 60 Hz. Since audio for the PQ’s comes right from the D/A’s the Aviom just cannot touch it in the bass and acoustic guitar categories. You guys have a large system, I would contact Sheldon and see if you could give it a try, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
We looked at the PQ system, but it wasn’t going to be the best solution for us. We’re already using 3 of the PQ mixes as stereo Matrix sends, and we currently have 8 Aviom mixers on stage so the 5 remaining wouldn’t have cut it. The Aviom system as it is was a big compromise since it’s only 16 channels; we really could have used at least 24. It is working for us because we have a MON engineer who can tailor stem mixes for the players on stage.
One of the big turn-off’s to the PQ system for us is that it puts some of the responsibility for MON mixes back in the hands of the A1, and I didn’t want to do that. We’re using stereo subgroups on the Venue right now, and to implement a PQ system, I would need to reconfigure for mono subgroups. However, I need subgroups for some of the matrix feeds and would have to lose those for the PQ system which wouldn’t have worked. And then the biggest deal to me was reconfiguring the Venue would affect the way myself and the other A1’s mix, and part of the reason we added a Monitor World was to remove anything dealing with monitors from the A1. I want my team to be able to walk up to the board and have all the options. We’re in the middle of a large prodution right now where I routinely have at least 48 channels of music to deal with. I ran out of VCAs real fast so I’m doing it the “old fashioned” way with the stereo subs.
We have 4 Meyer 700HP’s on the stage floor and then 4 up in the air just out in front of the stage. There is enough below 80 Hz floating around the stage that the players haven’t complained about the system. If it gets to be an issue, we’ll look at getting a throne shaker for the drummer and possibly installing a transducer under the bass player’s riser. We have a dedicated engineer for MON so he can EQ things specifically for the buds which we would have lost with the PQ system.
I think the PQ system is a great idea that will probably work for a lot of churches and bands out there, but it wasn’t going to be flexible enough for us so we went with the Aviom system.