IEM as ear protection.

[Grassie]

Hey all,

I played my first full band gig in a couple of years last night and experienced the same issues that partially made me stop playing with the last band, namely loud on-stage volume. Now don't get me wrong - this new band are not ear-splittingly loud for a pub/function band, but we play venues that are small and this means that I am stood right next to the drummer for 2+ hours. I'm waiting to see the ENT specialist about my hearing loss, but I wanted to pick your collective brains about this.

Has anyone used something similar to this to monitor their own playing with the intention of filtering out on-stage volume at the same time?

https://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Behringer-P2-Ultra-Compact-Personal-In-Ear-Monitor-Amplifier/26FN

The only things that go through our PA is the vocals and keyboards, so I'm not intending to use something like the Behringer to monitor the whole band - more to cut the amount of volume from the overall stage sound while retaining my amp signal by taking a line out of my amp and into this neat looking box.

Any thoughts?

[Dad3353]

3 hours ago, Grassie said:

...Any thoughts?

It looks like a reasonable solution to your issue, and won't cost a fortune to try out, at least. As long as you can live with an umbilical cord, it looks to be sound. Not yet available, I see, so some patience, unless there are other, similar product already in use..? Please update with your decision and experience, either with this or any other product..? 

[Grassie]

1 minute ago, Dad3353 said:

It looks like a reasonable solution to your issue, and won't cost a fortune to try out, at least. As long as you can live with an umbilical cord, it looks to be sound. Not yet available, I see, so some patience, unless there are other, similar product already in use..? Please update with your decision and experience, either with this or any other product..? 

I certainly will. 😀

[Dood]

3 hours ago, Grassie said:

Hey all,

I played my first full band gig in a couple of years last night and experienced the same issues that partially made me stop playing with the last band, namely loud on-stage volume. Now don't get me wrong - this new band are not ear-splittingly loud for a pub/function band, but we play venues that are small and this means that I am stood right next to the drummer for 2+ hours. I'm waiting to see the ENT specialist about my hearing loss, but I wanted to pick your collective brains about this.

Has anyone used something similar to this to monitor their own playing with the intention of filtering out on-stage volume at the same time?

https://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Behringer-P2-Ultra-Compact-Personal-In-Ear-Monitor-Amplifier/26FN

The only things that go through our PA is the vocals and keyboards, so I'm not intending to use something like the Behringer to monitor the whole band - more to cut the amount of volume from the overall stage sound while retaining my amp signal by taking a line out of my amp and into this neat looking box.

Any thoughts?

I use and have the device that behringer 'modelled' their P2 on, namely the Fischer Stick. The Fischer is a very high quality and excellent headphone amplifier and yes you could take a line out from your amp, in to this and direct in to your IEMs.

I have another option you could try out too:

 

This video I do need to update as I have some other solutions I use too. Maybe using a little mixer instead of the P2, you could blend your bass volume with that of the on stage sound but at a much more controllable volume in your moulded IEMs! 

[Grassie]

Cheers dood, I'll have a look at that video. I played again last night and we were at a slightly lower volume so it wasn' so much of an issue, but I am now looking at a gig per week at least, so I think something like the Behringer is going to be an essential pice of kit as far as I'm concerned. 😊

[Dood]

44 minutes ago, Grassie said:

Cheers dood, I'll have a look at that video. I played again last night and we were at a slightly lower volume so it wasn' so much of an issue, but I am now looking at a gig per week at least, so I think something like the Behringer is going to be an essential pice of kit as far as I'm concerned. 😊

Definitely check out my video as it could offer an alternative.  If I think of anything else I'll drop you a line, but let's face it, when the P2 eventually appears (are they available yet? pre-order on G4M) 40 quid is nothing to test out a theory really.  Good luck and keep me posted.

[Grassie]

3 minutes ago, dood said:

Definitely check out my video as it could offer an alternative.  If I think of anything else I'll drop you a line, but let's face it, when the P2 eventually appears (are they available yet? pre-order on G4M) 40 quid is nothing to test out a theory really.  Good luck and keep me posted.

Will do mate, thanks again. 😊

[dougal]

WRT the umbilical cord: I recently constructed a 2 cable snake using two 8m cables bought from ebay (1 instrument cable, one a headphone extension), 8m of 10mm expandable braided tubing and two bits of heat shrink to stop the braid uncoiling. I got the idea from a youtube video of a pit bassist who had made one for himself. 

If you're interested I'll dig out the links. 

I've only tried it once (in rehearsal) into Ultimate Ears moulded plugs: it resulted in DI-ing the bass and micing the guitar so I could get a balanced level as they were a bit occlusive. I'll let you know how it pans out live. 

Edited April 23, 2018 by dougal

[Mottlefeeder]

I've gone in a slightly different direction to get to the same place. We put the PA at the back of the band so we do not need to carry monitors - that means I stand between the PA speaker and the drummer and I can't hear my own rig.

I started with a belt-mounted upmarket 'me/them' mixer like the Behringer P1, but I found that my budget in-ears did not keep out enough stage noise, so I sent that back and went for a small (cheaper) desktop mixer and an upgraded pair of in-ears. I now use the Shure SE215s, but I had to get the optional 'chistmas tree' type plugs to get good isolation. I take a feed from the nearest PA speaker through a resistive attenuator: a feed from my speaker output through a resistive attenuator; through the mixer and into my IEMs. Studiospares do a figure-of-8 twin microphone cable which gives me a 'bass to amp' feed on one side and a 'headphone left and right' on the other side. A belt-mounted plastic box holds the plug/socket adaptor to get from stereo jackplug to 3.5mm jack socket for the IEMs.

The reason for taking a feed from the bass-speaker connection is that I want to know if it fails.

David

[Dood]

1 hour ago, dougal said:

WRT the umbilical cord: I recently constructed a 2 cable snake using two 8m cables bought from ebay (1 instrument cable, one a headphone extension), 8m of 10mm expandable braided tubing and two bits of heat shrink to stop the braid uncoiling. I got the idea from a youtube video of a pit bassist who had made one for himself. 

If you're interested I'll dig out the links. 

I've only tried it once (in rehearsal) into Ultimate Ears moulded plugs: it resulted in DI-ing the bass and micing the guitar so I could get a balanced level as they were a bit occlusive. I'll let you know how it pans out live. 

Our very own @obbm makes them too