Recording - October 2014 - 29

Setting up the cans
And that brings me to the last monitoring
issue: setting up the monitor mix itself. There
are many variations of this. In the simplest
setup, you'd use the same Aux Send (e.g.
Send 1) from each channel of the board or
DAW mixer to create an independent musicians' monitor mix, send them (pre-fader, so
level tweaks made to the Channel Faders
during a take won't distract the players) to
an Aux channel, and send that mix out an
extra stereo output to a headphone amp. If
it's an overdub session with one player at a
time, you're good to go. If it's a session with
several musicians, then there are further
considerations.
You could take that one monitor mix
and mult it to several players. Ideally, this
would be done via a multi-headphone
amp with separate connections and volume levels for each phone, so each player can have a comfortable level in
his/her ears. If the phones must be multed from the same amp, with only a single
volume control, then at least try to use
matching headphones-otherwise, some
will likely be much louder than others,
and everyone will be unhappy.
In a more complex setup, different players may need different monitor mixes in
their phones. To accomplish this, you'll
need to use several different Sends and
Aux Channels, and if you're doing it in a
DAW, the interface will need to have multiple outputs. For example, if you have
eight outs, two can be used for a stereo
control-room mix, and the other six for individual mono mixes (or three stereo mixes).
Stereo monitor mixes are nice for separating the player's own instrument from the
other/backing tracks, but mono is fine, as
long as everything can be heard clearly.
I often create monitor mixes on a small
analog mixer, independent of the DAW. I
feed a mix of any pre-recorded DAW
tracks to that mixer and run or split all the
live mics to it, using the 4-6 Aux Sends
there to create independent monitor mixes.
This has two benefits-it provides true
zero-latency monitoring for the live instruments/mics (one less detail to worry
about), and, since that mixer can be off to
the side, it lets me delegate the constant
back-and-forth talkback chatter about monitor levels and mixes to the assistant engineer, so I can focus on the main recording.
Bigger studios often use multi-monitor
systems that put mix controls for the monitor mixes in the hands of the individual
players, via small boxes clipped to their
mic stands. These systems, while extremely convenient, can be costly, and they can
give artists too much control over what
they want vs. what they need.
RECORDING October 2014

An end to the beginning
Once this setup has been taken care of, with mics and baffles well positioned, headphones and monitor mixes at the ready, and an appropriate tracking strategy is in
place-live ensemble or overdubs, or both-then you're ready to start recording.
In a future article I'll touch on some of the other obvious technical aspects of recording, like setting levels and whether to use compression on the way in, etc.. This article
was more about dealing with issues and approaches to tracking; I hope it's been of
some help to those who want to be sure they're really ready to count off the song and
hit that big red button.
Joe Albano (joe@recordingmag.com) is a recording engineer, producer, musician,
and educator in New York City. Learn more at www.rooftopproductions.com.

http://www.rooftopproductions.com http://www.gracedesign.com http://www.gracedesign.com

Recording - October 2014

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