How to Talk to a Monitor Engineer: Tips for a Better Stage Sound
How to Get A Great Sound on Stage
Has communicating with a monitor engineer frustrated you in the past? Did you feel you could not make yourself understood? Beyond needing your mix to be louder, were you able to get the sound you wanted in your in-ears, or in your monitor wedge?
The following is my guide to working with a monitor engineer effectively, getting the best sound and workflow that will please both of you. But first some facts about sound.
Understanding Sound Frequencies for Better Communication
Sounds that you hear as musical tones comprise regular, evenly spaced waves of air molecules. The distance from the highest point of one wave to the next wave’s highest point is called the wavelength. All sound waves travel at the same speed—about 340.29 meters (about 1,115 feet) per second. However, waves with a longer wavelength arrive at your ear later than shorter waves do. We measure this frequency of waves (or cycles) in Hertz (Hz). Hertz is a measure of how many cycles (wave peaks) go by in one second. Therefore, a 1-kHz tone means a wave with 1,000 wave peaks per second. (The average human can hear sounds that range from about 20 to about 17,000 Hz).
This is fine, but when you are tuning your saxophone, you do not ask your piano player for 258.65 Hz. No, you ask for middle C. That’s because musicians know the frequency as pitch. The shorter the wavelength, the higher the frequency, and the higher the frequency, the higher the pitch.
Use the language of sound
But what does that have to do with communicating with your monitor engineer? Well, playing music onstage will bring you into contact with engineers and technicians who understand these frequencies and wavelengths. They also often understand pitch. Many live touring professionals are also musicians, and they can speak both “languages.” It therefore makes sense that you do, too. Suppose you are standing onstage and listening to the sound coming from your monitors. The sound is wrong to you. You say to the monitor engineer, “This monitor sounds wrong.” How is she supposed to know what you mean? Is the mix of instruments wrong? Is the monitor too loud? Too quiet? Is the sound distorted?
To communicate properly, it really helps if you can convey your thoughts in a language that everyone understands. The singer of a very famous UK electro-soul band told a monitor engineer I know, “The monitors sound very blue tonight,” during the first song of the set. Is that a compliment or a complaint? What does a blue monitor sound like, anyway? Obviously, it was important to the singer to convey her feelings, but did it give her technical team anything to go on?
Guitar notes and corresponding frequencies musicians should know
You can use your knowledge about frequencies and pitch to communicate with the monitor engineer more effectively. Instead of saying, “This monitor sounds wrong,” try to identify exactly what is sounding ‘off’. For instance, you might listen to the wedge and then say to the engineer, “Hey, there is a low-pitched rumbling sound in this monitor.” This information will give the engineer something tangible to work on – she can probably identify what is causing the problem, fix it, and make your wedge sound better.
An engineer may ask you to explain what you are hearing using technical terms – the frequency and pitch discussed earlier. You might not identify frequencies by ear alone. You can use an instrument to guide you in identifying a frequency; the table here shows frequencies and the corresponding notes on a guitar.
Frequency | Guitar or Bass Guitar Note |
---|---|
E = 41.20 Hz | E string on bass |
A = 55.00 Hz | A string on bass |
D = 73.42 Hz | D string on bass |
E = 82.41 Hz | Bottom E string on guitar |
G = 98.00 Hz | G string on bass |
A = 110.00 Hz | A string on guitar |
D = 146.83 Hz | D string on guitar |
G = 196.00 Hz | G string on guitar |
B = 246.94 Hz | B string on guitar |
C = 261.63 Hz | Middle C on piano, C on B string of guitar |
E = 329.63 Hz | Top E string on guitar |
A = 440.00 Hz | Fifth fret of high E string |
E = 659.26 Hz | High E string at twelfth fret |
How musicians can teach themselves about sound frequencies
You can also ‘teach’ yourself about audio frequencies by applying them to sound sources in your favourite digital audio workstation (DAW) such as Ableton or Logic. Equalization, or EQ, involves cutting or boosting specific frequencies. You can do this in your DAW. Choose an instrument or vocal track in the DAW, apply an Eq plug-in to the source, and listen carefully to the difference in sound as you apply the cut or boost of different frequencies. You will definitely hear radical shifts in tone when you boost 5Khz on cymbals and vocals, for instance. (5Khz is a ‘nasty’ frequency in the live environment and one that causes much feedback grief on stage).
To further test yourself, you can download the free (as in ‘free beer’) Simple Feedback Trainer from Sourceforge at http://sft.sourceforge.net. The graphical user interface (GUI) of the program emulates a 31-band graphic equaliser, which is used in audio systems to help eliminate feedback. Each of the 31 faders corresponds to an audio frequency. When prompted, the program will play a random frequency; you must guess the frequency by moving the appropriate fader. If you are correct, the audio will stop. The audio will continue if you guess incorrectly – which is highly annoying if the frequency is in the high end (the 5Khz is particularly bad!).

Highly educational and hours of fun!
Common sound terms musicians should know
As well as hearing engineers and technicians talk about specific frequencies, you will also hear slang terms and buzzwords used to describe sound. The table below is a list of commonly used sound terms ranging from low to high. These terms lack professional acceptance and are not official definitions for sound requirements. (As with any industry or profession, slang words can evolve, and given the often ‘cheerful’ i.e. sarcastic and irreverent nature of touring professionals, it is not surprising that we seem to have more than one way to describe an event or phenomenon.) However, use these terms—they may really help you describe your stage sound to a monitor engineer or perhaps communicate with a fellow technician.
Term | Description |
---|---|
Chunky | Solid bass in the 80–90 Hz area |
Balls | Has some real feel to it, 60–90 Hz |
Boof | Bass at 100 Hz |
Thin | Absence of bass |
Woolly | Indistinct bass end, lack of high end |
Punchy | Giving definition, 120–160 Hz |
Knock | Can sound uncomfortable on kick drum and bass guitar, 160–350 Hz |
Dark | General lack of high end |
Rich | Falling off of frequencies above 400 Hz |
Boxy | Sounds like being in a cardboard box; the sound has too much in the 250–450 Hz range |
Honky | 600–800 Hz Sounds like the ‘ow’ sound when you say ‘honk’ really loud. |
Nasal | Boosted at 1 KHz |
Bright | Boost of frequencies above 2 kHz |
Muffled | General lack of high-end frequencies above 2 kHz |
Aggressive | Too much 3–6 kHz |
Sibilance | General hard “S” sounds, especially on vocals; excess of 5–7 kHz |
Brittle | Lack of bass and excess of upper harmonics above 6.3 kHz |
Hand signals to use on stage for better sound
You can use the terms above when working with a monitor engineer during a sound check—in other words, when trying to make your stage sound comfortable.
In the full flow of a gig, you cannot stop and articulate your thoughts to your monitor engineer, even if she could hear you above the sound of the backline and monitor wedges. You should use hand signals instead. Effective hand signalling is in two parts – identify the source you want adjusting, then point up or down to signify more or less of that source in your in-ears or wedge.
Here are the commonly used signals:






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I hope you found my tips on working with a monitor engineer useful. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions!