What's a monitor?
Sun, 11/07/2010 - 10:01
Glad you're having a great time in Europe. Hope the trip home is smooth and safe.
As a technical writer, I learned to ask the "dumb" questions, because if I have it someone else will too: So,
1. What's a monitor? and
2. In your awesome site with so much information, is there a spot I can go to that talks about monitors?
(I can't keep up with what you have already, and my guess is there's so much more to come.)
Hmmm... I don't think there's an official video on the subject (though it may be covered in Equipment > Amps, What You Need To Know. But I can answer this for you. It's part of the PA System (Public Address System) when you do a show. They are speakers that go on the floor that are angled upward for the vocalist and other instrumentalists to hear what's going on. The sound engineer can control what is heard in these monitors, separate from the house mix (a different mix than what the audience hears). You commonly just want vocals in monitors, but if you're having difficulty hearing yourself you can ask to have a little bit of your amp sound through the monitors (the sound engineer places a mic in front of your amp to be amplified though the house, so the engineer can also rout some of that sound into your monitor).