Many of you musicians will know instantly what I'm talking about in this post, and can probably stop reading here, but for those non-musicians I thought I'd write a bit about the trials and tribulations of stage monitoring.
I don't think many audiences know or appreciate that the sound the musicians hear on stage is vastly different to what the audience hears coming from the Front Of House (FOH) speakers. Usually there are a number of speakers on stage for the musicians to hear themselves. In many cases, each speaker can be adjusted so that the individuals in the group get their own "mixes". Vocalists for example, typically have their vocals turned up a lot louder than the FOH mix so that they can tell they're in tune. The bass player may have his bass turned up to make sure he can hear it over the drums.
Our stage mix is a bit different from most bands given that we use loops on stage. I play them live off the floor, and then build on them which allows me to harmonize with myself, play some lead lines, or create more atmosphere - that is, it allows these things if I can hear the loops. It is also necessary for Mark to hear the loops, as the synchronization between the loops and drums is key to getting the song to sound right and not some muddy version of itself.
The soundcheck is where you get the opportunity to get the stage mixes right in order to make sure that the performance can start without a hitch. Lately we've been playing gigs without soundchecks, and sometimes without sound engineers, which means that we're in charge of setting our own stage mixes and it can be a complex task which has often meant that the loops are too low to be heard on stage over the drums, or normal guitar work. The funny thing is that getting off stage we're always told that nobody noticed that sometimes things were out of synch, or that the audience could hear the loops fine.
This is where my inner perfectionist (which doesn't show his head very often) tends to come out. Obviously I care that the audience gets the best sound possible, but it's hard to come away from a gig thinking you gave a great performance when all you heard was a mushy mess. So to combat this, Mark and I are going to invest in some in-ear monitors, which help to isolate the sound, and will (hopefully) ensure that we can both hear all the loops all the time so that we can create the best musical experience that we can.
Anyway, I don't know where I was going with this, but suffice to say, we're working on it, and if you ever get the chance to stand on stage and hear what the band hears instead of what comes out FOH, you'll realize just how different the two can be.
