On stage monitoring

[DeadKeys]

I play in a rock Cover band and place my EV ZLX15 about 4/5 feet behind me and it sounds incredibly
loud to me but I'm told im too low in the mix...this is evident on video we take as well.
What can I do to project more into the audience without blasting myself?

 

[anotherscott]

Looking at the specs of your EV, it has a dispersion of 60 vertical x 90 horizontal in its norma PA "tall" orientation. Are you using it horizontally or vertically? If the audience needs to hear you out of it, you want to stand it upright on a pole and not use it in "floor monitor" position, in order to get decent audience coverage. You want wide spread left to right, not top to bottom (since there is no audience on the floor or the ceiling, but there is plenty of audience off-axis near ear level). So maybe that could be part of the problem...?

 

[delaware dave]

move it very close to one side (almost parallel to you), this way when it is turned up it will pretty much blow by you and out to the crowd. Then you can turn it up more and not get killed by its volume. In one of my bands I have the same issue as we don't mic the instruments. To project to the crowd the speaker has to be turned up, when it is behind me it kills me and drowns out everyone out. I move it to my side. I can still hear it and can also project it out to the crowd at the volume necessary for them to hear it.

 

[DeadKeys]

Looking at the specs of your EV, it has a dispersion of 60 vertical x 90 horizontal in its norma PA "tall" orientation. Are you using it horizontally or vertically? If the audience needs to hear you out of it, you want to stand it upright on a pole and not use it in "floor monitor" position, in order to get decent audience coverage. You want wide spread left to right, not top to bottom (since there is no audience on the floor or the ceiling, but there is plenty of audience off-axis near ear level). So maybe that could be part of the problem...?

Id better look at it..I litaraly took it out of teh box and set it like a monitor on its side...but didnt pick any "mode" Think im gonna leave it horizontal blasting to the back of my knees almost like a seat and program it to live mode

 

[anotherscott]

The "Mode" and "Location" settings will help you get the best sound out of it... but have no affect on dispersion. If you use it on its side, the portion of the audience who is more than 30 degrees off center from the speaker will experience significant volume loss. If instead you use it vertically, you cover people up to 45 degrees off center. There's also the height issue I mentioned. If you put it on a pole, sound will reach further back. If you have it blasting at the back of your knees, not only do your knees somewhat block the sound to the audience, but unless your knees are over the heads of your audience, you'll also find that the people in front will block the sound to the people behind them. End result of both of these factors can be exactly what you're experiencing where you said "it sounds incredibly loud to me but I'm told im too low" in the audience.

Alternatively, can you set up such that you can use the monitor only/primarily for yourself, and have your keys put into the main PA to reach (further) into the audience?