The article begins with the author’s path from meeting the Saturday Night Live audio crew at NBC Studios in 30 Rock to working as monitor engineer for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. In that setting, monitor mixing sits inside a larger live broadcast machine, where audience response, performers, cameras, stage management and booth audio all affect what the musicians need to hear.
The first setup described used a Yamaha PM1D, with a custom 9-pin-to-XLRM cable from a BTS comm panel feeding director, stage manager, A2 and audio-department communication into the engineer’s IEMs. The system later moved through Avid Profile consoles and DiGiCo SD7s, with a small Mackie mixer and then onboard console matrices used to organize cue, comms, monitor talkback and a wireless shout mic. For the musical director, the workflow combined on-air microphones, a band talkback path and a split to the booth so music cues and production changes could move quickly during the show.
The practical point is that the band’s IEM mix is not only a music mix. It may include controlled amounts of program audio, video playback, effects, audience mics, director feed, clicks and counts, while each player or section has a switched talkback, preferably on a foot pedal. The article also notes a non-latching macro that ducks selected program channels by 10 dB so musicians can speak quietly through talkback, showing how routing, panning, EQ, gating, level setting and limiting become part of both show control and hearing safety.