In ear monitoring for a loud Rock/metal/hardcore band

[Johnnyc]

Firstly, hi from Stockholm Arlanda airport! As I've been thinking about in ear monitoring the last couple days I thought I'd pose the question to you fellas on here while I have bags of time slowly drinking my pint in the airport... Here goes:

So my band is a loud metal band, we play to a backing track which comes from the drummer's MacBook, into an interface and then into the PA. the drummer uses in ears for a direct feed from the laptop. He gets the click in his ears but it doesn't go into the PA. what I'm asking is do you guys know how we can set up a wireless monitoring system where the other four of us in the band can use wireless in ears and each have our own monitor mix?
There are systems around which have one transmitter and four receivers which we looked at but they only transmit one mix. Btw we will want the click in our ears also.
Our drummer has a pair of custom mould monitors from www.alienears.com, not sure if you guys have heard of them? He says they're awesome, way cheaper than ultimate ears.

So yeah hope I have explained my situation clearly enough, hope to hear back from yous with some Basschat wisdom

[Bigwan]

You need a matrix mixer (inputs needed from all instruments and click) where each member of the band has their own channel to fiddle with. Then each member needs their own headphone amp with either hardwired headphone connection (for drummer or other members who are stationary) or wireless in-ear system.

The method I'd looked at before was using one of those jamhub practice mixers as the matrix mixer and then (since I don't do wireless) having a custom cable made up with a headphone output and bass input so I was only dragging one cable around. Haven't actually done anything about it though since the band is pretty much dead in the water...

[Johnnyc]

Hmm that's really interesting. I had seen a jamhub in dv247 last year and thought 'wow that'd be cool' and then forgot about it lol. Do you definitely need headphone amps as well as the jamhub? With this kinda setup wouldn't it be a little complicated to sort out at a gig? Would need two di's/mics for each channel as it still all needs to go into the house pa right?
Thanks

[Bigwan]

The jamhub might be fine without the headphone amp, but until you try it with your headphones of choice it'd be hard to say.

The complicated setup will be the same no matter what system you use I think. I can't see how you can simplify it - you're going to want to make it independant of the FOH as you'll never know what you'll be confronted with from one venue/gig to the next - so you probably need to T off everybody's signal before it gets to the PA. How you get the drums in there I'm not so sure, and I'm a big fan of e-drums specifically for this reason.

If I were setting up a whole band I'd hardwire the whole shooting match into a rack (including wireless transmitters) to simplify setup anyway.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Bigwan

[Johnnyc]

Yeah I was thinkin you'd have to face that problem no matter what. If you were to put it all into a rack, what would that look like? Would jus Be the transmitters in There right? Can't rack the jamhub

[crez5150]

Have a look at this.... just add IEM's

http://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/Behringer-POWERPLAY-16-P16-M-Personal-Monitor-System/IU1

[plumbob]

[quote name='crez5150' timestamp='1341582897' post='1721347']
Have a look at this.... just add IEM's

[url="http://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/Behringer-POWERPLAY-16-P16-M-Personal-Monitor-System/IU1"]http://www.gear4musi...itor-System/IU1[/url]
[/quote]


We have been using these in the studio , and we have all been surprised how good they are, seems behringer have done something right.
Really nice to have individual monitor control over 16 different tracks etc.
You need to have one of these as well

http://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/Behringer-POWERPLAY-16-P16-I-Personal-Monitor-Mixer/ITY

I believe you can daisy chain 64 of controllers off one cat cable

Were looking at using it live in the future , only the keyboardist has got his self set up yet for gigs but so far he loves it , just like being the studio except on stage he reckons !!!

[fealey]

The simplest way would be to send the signal from the macbook into 2 channels of the desk.

Adjust the audio files so that the track comes out of the left channel, and the click out of the right.

Attach your IEMs into the aux channels and send the click to the Aux but not front of house.

My party band has a 16 channel, 6 Aux mixer. There are 4 of us so Aux 1-4 gives us an individual monitor mix, and the remaining 2 run to a delay & reverb.

IEMs can run into a lot of cash though!

[Bigwan]

[quote name='Johnnyc' timestamp='1341579410' post='1721230']
Yeah I was thinkin you'd have to face that problem no matter what. If you were to put it all into a rack, what would that look like? Would jus Be the transmitters in There right? Can't rack the jamhub
[/quote]

I don't mean rack mount per se, more case it all up in a rack. You could mount the jamhub in a rack drawer or in an open-top mixer rack. The rest would basically look like a patch bay (for inputs and outputs, all hardwired to the jamhub inside the rack) and rackmount transmitters i suppose.

This would of course be the MacGyver version compared to everybody elses suggestions, but a damn-sight cheaper!

[Johnnyc]

Looked into the Jamhub a little more and while it's cool I don't think it has enough channels... We have 2 guitars, 3 vox, bass, drums, & the backing track.

"The simplest way would be to send the signal from the macbook into 2 channels of the desk.

Adjust the audio files so that the track comes out of the left channel, and the click out of the right.

Attach your IEMs into the aux channels and send the click to the Aux but not front of house."

This looks like a decent way to do it, but means you have to rely on the PA desk having enough aux outs and that varies from gig to gig, should be fine for most but for the odd one or two sh*tty pub gigs it could be an issue right?

still struggling to figure out how that behringer system works =/

Thanks for all the responses so far

Johnny

[plumbob]

[b]still struggling to figure out how that behringer system works =/[/b]


As far as I understand it , you require your FOH mixing desk to have direct outs , 16 of these can be fed into one of these

[url="http://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/Behringer-POWERPLAY-16-P16-I-Personal-Monitor-Mixer/ITY"]http://www.gear4musi...nitor-Mixer/ITY[/url]

which then enables these all to be fed down one cat cable to stage , there upon you can plug it into one of these

[url="http://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/Behringer-POWERPLAY-16-P16-M-Personal-Monitor-System/IU1"]http://www.gear4musi...itor-System/IU1[/url]

from this you can daisy chain up to 64 of the above,

so if you have one personal monitor you can select 16 other band players in your personal ear mix , and have control over each players volume , eq, pan, solo and mute etc

likewise your drummer with his personal monitor can select 16 band players in his personal ear mix how he wants it , ie volume, eq, pan , solo and mute etc , and so you go on for another remaining 62 personal monitors !

Just think if you were in a 64 piece choir , all 64 members could have control over there own in ear personal mix, all off one small cable , no need for massive monitor cabs etc

Probably a bit over the top for your setup , but it does make you rethink whats now possible !

[Commando Jack]

[quote name='plumbob' timestamp='1341872079' post='1725596']
[b]still struggling to figure out how that behringer system works =/[/b]


As far as I understand it , you require your FOH mixing desk to have direct outs , 16 of these can be fed into one of these

[url="http://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/Behringer-POWERPLAY-16-P16-I-Personal-Monitor-Mixer/ITY"]http://www.gear4musi...nitor-Mixer/ITY[/url]

which then enables these all to be fed down one cat cable to stage , there upon you can plug it into one of these

[url="http://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/Behringer-POWERPLAY-16-P16-M-Personal-Monitor-System/IU1"]http://www.gear4musi...itor-System/IU1[/url]

from this you can daisy chain up to 64 of the above,

so if you have one personal monitor you can select 16 other band players in your personal ear mix , and have control over each players volume , eq, pan, solo and mute etc

likewise your drummer with his personal monitor can select 16 band players in his personal ear mix how he wants it , ie volume, eq, pan , solo and mute etc , and so you go on for another remaining 62 personal monitors !

Just think if you were in a 64 piece choir , all 64 members could have control over there own in ear personal mix, all off one small cable , no need for massive monitor cabs etc

Probably a bit over the top for your setup , but it does make you rethink whats now possible !
[/quote]

I was looking at that too based on this thread. The crux is that it relies on having 16 direct outs from your desk, which our desk certainly doesn't have!

[Johnnyc]

thanks for explaining that so clearly Plumbob, makes perfect sense now. It does seem like a really good option, but I've no idea how many direct outs you'll find on the average desk at a gig that are available for comandeering. if theres less than 6 then its probably not worth it. anyone know much about what to expect from your average desk at a half-decent venue?

[bertbass]

You could use mic splitters, this would give you 2 outputs from each mic. 1 output of each mic to the main desk and the other to your monitors. You could use just a y-cable to a load of these, http://www.studiospares.com/splitter-combiners/studiospares-red506-microphone-splitter/invt/458250/?htxt=%2FUvRjc0xAaKk26JwgsxcsV6E2gjpK53ITJCPcypNRrR6jhjYX3SDlEUFWaOdTpLU0xVcTayKYYOc%0Aw4t9gBa9qg%3D%3D, or even some of these, http://www.behringer.com/en/Products/MX882.aspx.

[Commando Jack]

[quote name='bertbass' timestamp='1341998313' post='1727559']
You could use mic splitters, this would give you 2 outputs from each mic. 1 output of each mic to the main desk and the other to your monitors. You could use just a y-cable to a load of these, [url="http://www.studiospares.com/splitter-combiners/studiospares-red506-microphone-splitter/invt/458250/?htxt=%2FUvRjc0xAaKk26JwgsxcsV6E2gjpK53ITJCPcypNRrR6jhjYX3SDlEUFWaOdTpLU0xVcTayKYYOc%0Aw4t9gBa9qg%3D%3D"]http://www.studiospa...4t9gBa9qg%3D%3D[/url], or even some of these, [url="http://www.behringer.com/en/Products/MX882.aspx."]http://www.behringer...cts/MX882.aspx.[/url]
[/quote]

I couldn't get the second link to work so maybe this [url="http://www.behringer.com/en/Products/MX882.aspx"]link[/url] will.

[vsmith1]

I think that some desks may have Inserts on each channel. These normally have a TRS so that the signal from the channel is sent out to a in-line processor then back into the channel via the same TRS Insert - normally an Insert cable is a Y- type with a TRS jack splitting into two jacks. Of course you could just partially insert so as to take the out from the Insert.

Personally, our desk doesn't have Inserts and live I'm not sure I'd like partially inserted jacks - seems like a recipe for disaster.

[EBS_freak]

Holy thread revival batman!