Are you having a tough time hearing yourself when you’re singing onstage? You’re not alone. As a vocalist, you can’t simply turn up your instrument at the source — you can only sing so loud; straining may blow out or injure your voice. And endlessly turning up the vocals in the monitors is a recipe for feedback problems. Here are tips that can help you hear yourself sing onstage.
First, consider using in-ear monitors — they’re especially valuable for vocalists. You can have your ears piped in with a special vocal-heavy mix, without risking feedback from the vocal mic.
If you aren’t using in-ear monitors, be sure to place your vocal monitor at an angle that minimizes feedback from your mic, yet aims at your ears. Ask the sound person to give you as much vocal in your monitors as you can get. Be sure to do a full-band soundcheck (with everyone playing at gig volume), because this is a good way to get uncontrolled feedback if you’re not careful.
If you find that you can’t get the volume you want in your monitors due to feedback, EQ might be the answer. Cut frequencies that are above and below your voice’s frequency range, and then emphasize the presence of your voice with some boosting to help you cut through the mix with your monitor. Be careful not to just find the frequencies of your voice and boost those — just as when cranking excessive volume, that’s a good way to get feedback.
It can be challenging to get vocals to cut through a monitor mix of a dense band or on a crowded stage, but with a little work it can be done.