CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, March 08, 2022

Dialing It In: Sound Check Approaches & Techniques From The Monitor Perspective

ProSoundWeb: Check! One, Two. Check! One, Two. Si! Uno, Dos… Probando. I remember the days of absolutely requiring a full sound check and starting from scratch E-V-E-R-Y time. It was just standard procedure when working with an artist.

1 comment:

Nick Huettig said...

This article popped up at just the right time. I've been doing a lot of reading on mixing bands and concerts recently, and one of the things that I've been struggling with is proper monitor mixing, and how to get it sounding right for each artist. I appreciate the author equating FOH and Mon mixing as equal importance - in essence, they really are equal to get the performers comfortable and playing well so the audience can really enjoy it. I appreciate that this article dives into a lot of the subtler, less tech-y but more theoretical and time-saving parts of Monitor mixing. The tip about watching the performer's body language was fascinating to me. I'm sure this is something that just comes over time, but that seems difficult to get a read on when just starting out.

The section about virtual sound checks was incredibly interesting as well. I never even thought to do that quite frankly, but for bands you can get those tracks from/returning bands, it seems like a huge time-saver. I love when sound-check takes as little time as possible, so these tips seem fantastic.