In ear bass equalizing - signal chain HELP

[johnny1982]

Hi everyone!😊

I am thinking of ordering myself a custom molded In ear monitors ( i am a bassplayer)  and the thing i was warned about (from a fellow musician) was,

that i can expect a non enjoyable bass sound in my in ear which could lead me to abandon using In ears in general. The guy told me, it would be 

almost a "must", to EQ my bass sound that is coming ONLY to In ear monitors. I did a research on In ear "signal chain", and so on, but i can not

find any info or help on this, or that anyone is doing that.

 

So - how do you wire your bass signal for a good In ear monitoring? (If you are using a wireless transmitter, of course)?

Do you guys use your dry signal in your in ear?

 

I would really appreciate help - Thanks😉

 

 

[mrtcat]

1 hour ago, johnny1982 said:

the thing i was warned about (from a fellow musician) was,

that i can expect a non enjoyable bass sound in my in ear which could lead me to abandon using In ears in general. The guy told me, it would be 

almost a "must", to EQ my bass sound that is coming ONLY to In ear monitors.

 

Hmm, the guy doesn't really know what he's talking about if you ask me. Like many others on this forum, I've been on in ears for years and love it. The thing is, if you use cheap in ears or ones that you don't like the inherent sound of then yes, you probably won't enjoy it.

There's several things to consider. Firstly, when buying custom moulds you need to try before you buy. Places like www.custom-inearmonitors.co.uk have demo sets that are universal fit so you can try out. Ultimately pick a pair that sound good to you ears. Secondly, yes a little eq can really go a long way. What mixer do you use? If you're using a digital mixer then you can easily add eq to the Aux send that feeds your in ears. If there's spare channels on the mixer you can assign one input to feed two channels and have one eq'd for foh and the other eq'd for your in ears and only send one to front of house and the other to your ears. 

If using an older desk then you might need to consider outboard eq. Let us know what mixer you use and we can suggest options. EBS_freak is the IEM guru on this forum and will definitely be able to advise. 

IEMs are great if you ask me. A total revelation when you get them right and when you do you'll possibly never go back.

[johnny1982]

On 09/09/2018 at 04:22, mrtcat said:

Hmm, the guy doesn't really know what he's talking about if you ask me. 

Thanks for your answer😊 Well, i think i will give you right on this one...

By the band i play with - they use Behringer X32 digital rack mixer as far i know. 

But i am searching for a way to manipulate the sound on "my side of a chain" - so that i just can send it to mix 

and eq the "in ear" side only for me. Could that be done with a PREAMP/DI box and wire the bass out of that?

I was thinking of that, but... There are only 2 "outs" there. I would actually need 3 then - one for MIXER, one for bass hear and one

for In ear. Or is this an unlogical thinking? 

As far in ears go - i won't sadly be able to test ones, but i normally like headphone "bass playing" - i play only on headphones at home

through amp sim on my DAW. So i was thinking also about getting an Ultimate Ears UE 6 Pro (which they claim, should be for a bass players).

 

Edited September 10, 2018 by johnny1982

[mrtcat]

UE6 pro would be absolutely awesome. 

The good news is that the x32 rack is great for in ears mixes. However if you are adding eq to your bass sound between your aux send (the send that goes to your in ears) and your actual earphones then you are going to have to add another mixer into the equation and take several aux send feeds from the desk if you want to be able to hear the rest of the band. Surely you would be better off taking an extra channel on the desk, linking it to the input that your bass goes into, eqing it to suit your ears and use that for you in ear mix? With the x32 you can add all sorts of compression and eq to your in ear mix.

[EBS_freak]

To add to what mrtcat has already said... and going through each statement in turn -

1. "i can expect a non enjoyable bass sound in my in ear which could lead me to abandon using In ears in general"

- Looking at IEMs in isolation at the moment, if you buy a set of IEMs that are not up to the job, you aren't going to get a good experience. As a comparison, if you went out and bought a 1x10 bass cab and then decided to roll with a heavy rock band, you are going to be thraping that box within an inch of it's life. It's likely going to be distorting, give you a very poor audio reproduction... and generally, not put a smile on your face. With IEMs, there's two crucial things... and as bass players, we are quite demanding of them. First up, headroom is of critical importance. If you want to hear a lot of bass, you need to get some IEMs that are capable of reproducing that, free from distortion, at a volume that is applicable for you. A lot won't - unless you start investing the money in the low end drivers. This is where things start to get expensive. As a rule of thumb, I tend to recommend a quad with two drivers in the lows - to give you the extra headroom that will make you happy. Obviously, if you can extended this to a quad, even better. You mentioned the UE6 - which is actually a piece that I am reallly enthusiastic about. It hasn't got dual drivers in the lows... but it has dynamic drivers instead of balanced armatures. Dynamic drivers are what you would find in most headphones that I am guessing you would be familiar with. They aren't as detailed as balanced armatures (that are usually found in custom IEMs) - but they do produce more lows and typically have more headroom when comparing 1 BA to 1 dynamic. So whats the difference? Well, you generally end up with a warmer timbre with dynamic drivers and naturally more bass, with more headroom. The UE6 has two dynamics with a single BA to cover off the highs... which is lovely. Having heard the piece, I'm really, really impressed. It hits hard down in the lows... which alot of IEMs won't do until you spend over 1k.

So that's headroom and bass covered off, the next comment is about EQ. A lot of desks will lead to you pushing out a mix to an aux, or pair of linked auxes for stereo. A dry bass sound can sound not particularly great through IEMs because where you are tapping off the feed is pre the EQ that would be naturally added by your speaker cab. Even micing up your bass cab can sound not great in your ears because you won't necessary capture the lows that you are looking for unless you are using a combination of mics... plus, being an IEM convert, you want to be looking at taking your big rig out the equation anyway. If you think about it, if you are running your bass through a PA with subs, if you EQed for you inears, you'd be slaying the audience with the amount of lows coming out of the subs that are FOH.

2. "The guy told me, it would be almost a "must", to EQ my bass sound that is coming ONLY to In ear monitors."

For some people, not having the bass EQed in their ears isn't a deal breaker - they'd still take a dry aux and not have all that feeling of deep bass in their ears - because they'd rather just hear their bass clean and at a volume that isn't going to deafen them. Obviously, if you can do better than this, why wouldn't you? For typical aux setups, you send your mix prefader to your aux, so you get what generally comes into that pre - and depending upon your desk, can send pre/post EQ (remember, in other words, this means, the EQ as it is, or sharing the EQ that you have with front of house) and/or pre/post DSP (for things like compression). As far as the output on that aux goes, you then have a compressor and a global EQ... but this can also be limiting. For example, if you start boosting the lows on the EQ, you are also going to be boosting the kick and keys players left hand... which isn't always ideal).

Options? Well, you can split you signal into two channels on the desk, as suggested above... or digitally split it on the mixer. If you split the signal in an analogue style before the mixer, you can put an EQ in line to change your EQ to suit your inears. One would go to FOH, and the other goes to your monitor mix only. With a digital mixer, you can achieve the same in the box.

With the X32, you also have the option of using Ultranet and using the now pretty cheap P16M... https://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Behringer-Powerplay-P16-M-Personal-Mixer/IU1 - that you can assign 16 channels to for your personal mix. This enables you to mix (e.g. EQ, Pan) your own inears and put your own custom EQs on the 16 channels you decide to send to your ears. This may be your easiest option if you aren't able to get the control you want over the desk to achieve what you want. All this routing can get pretty complex if you decided to get into custom routing for inears mixes off one desk etc. That's why you tend to run two mixers - a foh and dedicated monitor mixer... that way you can run completely independent DSP and processing for FOH and Monitors.

3. "But i am searching for a way to manipulate the sound on "my side of a chain" - so that i just can send it to mix and eq the "in ear" side only for me."

As suggested above, you can EQ the whole of the aux output - so no need to have any separate EQ on that front. Basically, you need to have the bass sounding like you want before it leaves the mixer - the only exception if you are using an outboard mixer like the Ultranet P16M or Aviom systems etc.

 

Sorry if the above is a bit garbled - I just did a bit of a brain dump

 

Edited September 10, 2018 by EBS_freak

[knicknack]

Or, more simply perhaps... through your bass/pedalboard/DI/Whatever you could get a tone you like, and enjoy playing to...and then let anyone on FOH work with that the same as they would your amp sound. This is where stuff like the MXR/Sadowsky/Noble Preamps/DIs come in. My favourite thing about IEMS is that what I'm playing to is representative of what I'm sending to the PA, so I can be reasonably aware of how the changes I make apply to the FOH. I don't really want what I'm hearing to be different to the DI feed. 

[johnny1982]

Wow, many thanks guys! I will reconsider all those facts listed. 

I'm very new in the In ear territory - especially when it comes to the setup. 

But that info provided really give me something to think about 😊

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by johnny1982

[mrtcat]

It's a really great way to go. I'll never go back to the old school ways of having an amp onstage. We don't have any backline now and let the pa do it all. Modern PA stuff is light years ahead of most bass / guitar amps and the front of house sound is just so much better now that we don't have to fight stage volume. Being able to hear all my band mates clearly at a comfortable volume is just awesome. 

[EBS_freak]

I'm with mrtcat - when you see what is in your average top end/boutique bass cab and see what is in a fairly mediocre PA cab, it's criminal that bass companies are charging as much as they do for such low end components.

@johnny1982 - where abouts in the world are you based?

 

[johnny1982]

@EBS_freak I am based in Switzerland😊

 

Just wondering - did any of you guys ever tried a Kemper with an In ear?

I am also seriously thinking of this option...

[EBS_freak]

2 hours ago, johnny1982 said:

@EBS_freak I am based in Switzerland😊

 

Just wondering - did any of you guys ever tried a Kemper with an In ear?

I am also seriously thinking of this option...

Was gonna say, if you are UK based, come to the drum show and try out all the IEMs.

I run a Kemper. Kempers are great.

[johnny1982]

20 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

Was gonna say, if you are UK based, come to the drum show and try out all the IEMs.

I run a Kemper. Kempers are great.

Oh, wow! @EBS_freak I'll send you a PM - not to spam here about the Kemper😊