In ear monitors

[Manor57]

Thinking of going to in ear monitors , play bass so need ones that gives the low end , recommendations for make and general information on how good they are , I’m thinking of custom moulded type cheers

[Graham]

Everything you need and more is in this thread 😀

 

[Billleivers]

Hi

I went done the path of in ears a while ago. I went for moulded, as attenuation of ambient sound is also very important to me. 

I got a pair of ACS Engage, 2 driver mouldeds, £400. TBH I'm disappointed with them. Sound is not great, but neither is my hearing, so I may be doing them a disservice! The advice I wasn't given was go for min. 3 drivers for bass. In hindsight, that would be what i should have done, but shelling out £600 for something I wasn't sure was right for me was a bit of a risk, especially as mouldeds have nil resale value!

[Manor57]

Thanks for your views , I have been advised 3 drivers , ue6 pro seem popular and I like the fact that you can bleed in outside noise , acs do this as well but some negative comments on here

[Manor57]

4 hours ago, Graham said:

Everything you need and more is in this thread 😀

 

Thanks v helpful 

[Dood]

38 minutes ago, Manor57 said:

Thanks v helpful 

You'll also need a fair amount of coffee and a few free days. However I think it is one of the most informative threads on the internet regarding IEMs. I even bought my gear off the back of this thread. 

[CameronJ]

2 hours ago, Dood said:

You'll also need a fair amount of coffee and a few free days. However I think it is one of the most informative threads on the internet regarding IEMs. I even bought my gear off the back of this thread. 

+1. Definitely worth reading all of it!

[Manor57]

what did you go for in the end, quite fancy lugs with 2 bass drivers mid and top

[Dood]

1 hour ago, Manor57 said:

what did you go for in the end, quite fancy lugs with 2 bass drivers mid and top

I went in with both feet and ordered @64 Audio V8 models via The Custom IEM Company (who are amazing by the way). 64 Audio then offered a deal to upgrade to the newer A series.. and well.. I did. They are 8 drivers per ear in a moulded unit. They sound a bit like sitting in the front seat of a quality cinema when you have a great mix to plug in to. On the face of it, they seem really expensive, but when you price up a decent full range speaker cabinet per ear along with the added benefits of IEMs, it made lots of sense to me. I use them for everything now as well as just enjoying great sounding music whilst working. (Even tracking bass for an album release). As suggested in the BIG thread, I'd set yourself up for a visit to The Custom IEM Company who actually stock some of the best makes in IEMs where you'll be able to try them out to see what suits you best. 64 Audio might not be your thing, You might like JH or Ultimate Ears for example, that's for you to decide because we all hear things differently, but I have a huge thumbs up for 64 Audio that have been gigged loads without missing a beat. 

http://www.custom-inearmonitors.co.uk

 

[EBS_freak]

21 hours ago, Billleivers said:

Hi

I went done the path of in ears a while ago. I went for moulded, as attenuation of ambient sound is also very important to me. 

I got a pair of ACS Engage, 2 driver mouldeds, £400. TBH I'm disappointed with them. Sound is not great, but neither is my hearing, so I may be doing them a disservice! The advice I wasn't given was go for min. 3 drivers for bass. In hindsight, that would be what i should have done, but shelling out £600 for something I wasn't sure was right for me was a bit of a risk, especially as mouldeds have nil resale value!

Nope - I don't know why but ACS just don't nail it. They never have the headroom that bass players crave. They are OK to for listening to music but I have been underwhelmed, like many, by their use as a monitor - which after all, is their primary market. I would always advise a quad for bass too - that's treble, mid, with dual bass drivers.

19 hours ago, Manor57 said:

Thanks for your views , I have been advised 3 drivers , ue6 pro seem popular and I like the fact that you can bleed in outside noise , acs do this as well but some negative comments on here

Probably worth noting that the 3 drivers approach when it comes to the UE6 is a bit of a special case. The UE6 is a hybrid design - so has two dynamic drivers and one balanced armature. Typically custom IEMs are built around balanced armatures. The UE6 is currently unique in the fact that its a hybrid custom at a very competitive price point. The dynamic drivers offer great bass response and high headroom however, they do sacrifice a bit of clarity that is associated with balanced armatures - as such, they are said to have a warmer timbre than balanced armatures (which may be more to some people's liking anyway). The highs are still catered for by the UE true tone balanced armature (to maintain all that air, sparkle and detail in the top end). So in sum total, this gives a triple driver that has extended headroom and bass response (which is why the UE6 is such a good match for drummers and bassplayers) that is more akin to a quad balanced armature setup... but at a cheaper cost than an equivalent quad driver balanced armature.

This is quite a crucial difference - the UE6 is not directly comparable to other triple driver custom IEMs.

Bleeding in the outside is the last thing that you want to do... especially using the ambient valves. Good bass response requires a good seal. The second you break this seal and allow the outside world in, you begin to lose all your bass... which is a shame as it's the bass response you pay all your money for. ACS' system is different - it's like the Sensaphonics system - in that it keeps the seal and has tiny mics which is then mixed with the monitor feed from the desk to give you the sound of the outside without breaking the seal on your IEM. If you want to achieve similar with an IEM, use an ambient mic/s at your desk and blend that into your monitor mix. A lot of people seem hell bent on ambience - in reality, a lot of people, once they venture into IEMs, get used to the sound... or if you have a lot of open mics on stage anyway, you may not care for a dedicated ambient feed. In fact, in the thread, we also talk about other solutions- like using a Zoom h6 for example, as an all in one ambient mic, monitor feed mixer, more me mixer and headphone amp in one.

To be fair to ACS, if you were working in the theatre as a vocalist, the Live system is extremely good - it just doesn't cope with high SPL environments... like bands. The mics tend to distort.

[Jazzjames]

I’ve been down this route and have used all the usual non-moulded Shure/Sennheiser IEMs. I read up a bit on talkbass and KZ AS-10 came up. I thought for £50 at the time it was worth a punt:

 

Worth it! 

 

I genuinely really enjoy their sound live; great clarity and good fat bass.  5 drivers per ear. Much better sounding than the other non moulded IEMs at a fraction of the cost. Even if you end up going fully-moulded, it’s not a bad idea to have a pair of these chinese beauties in your gig bag in case the expensive ones break/get lost.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Jazzjames

[EBS_freak]

29 minutes ago, Jazzjames said:

I’ve been down this route and have used all the usual non-moulded Shure/Sennheiser IEMs. I read up a bit on talkbass and KZ AS-10 came up. I thought for £50 at the time it was worth a punt:

 

Worth it! 

 

I genuinely really enjoy their sound live; great clarity and good fat bass.  5 drivers per ear. Much better sounding than the other non moulded IEMs at a fraction of the cost. Even if you end up going fully-moulded, it’s not a bad idea to have a pair of these chinese beauties in your gig bag in case the expensive ones break/get lost.

Got an almost parallel conversation happening in the main thread -

Recommendations for multidriver without breaking the bank

ZT ZS10 (4 BA, 1 Dyn), ZT AS10, (5 BA) UE900s (4 BA), BQEYZ K2/KC2 (2 Dyn, 2 BA),  are probably your go to multi driver universals without breaking the bank. (well, maybe the UE900 is a bit more pricey!) I'd take all of those over a Shure 215-535 for live monitoring purposes.

I would have to caveat the statement of "Much better sounding than the other non moulded IEMS at a fraction of the cost though". The ZS10s and AS10s for example, have a weird top end going on, can be prone to phase issues and don't have a very wide soundstage at all. (In that the sound can feel very much boxed inside your head). What I will say however, for live use, is that they have bags of headroom and less likely to go into distortion (which means less ear fatigue also). So it's all about using them in the right context - would they be my go to choice for listening to music? Absolutely not - but for live monitoring use, they are a gem... and a bargain at the price.

For those new to all this...

Multidriver is generally a good thing for live use... as it gives more headroom and enables the use of drivers that are great for reproducing specific frequencies. The downside of cramming a load of drivers in a small housing right next to your ear drum is that you can cause a load of phasing problems due to the mixing of those drivers. These can to a certain extent be engineered out through tube length (of which the ZTs don't have any), bore and dampening... and create a crossover network between the drivers. This is very difficult and pleasurable to the ear tunings can be at the mercy of the specifications of the drivers themselves. The larger IEM manufacturers have the buying power to have balanced armature drivers made to spec to engineer audio issues that smaller manufacturers just can't afford to do.

So in short, a properly balanced twin driver IEM can sound far superior to a badly tuned 8 driver IEM... but doesn't have the headroom. The winning move is the higher driver count IEM with the headroom, with the components to allow for a winning tune at the same time! 

[Manor57]

I’m now looking at lugs in ears with 2 bass , mow mid, hi mid and treble , people seem to like them any experience on here 

[la bam]

What worries me a bit is real world experience. I tried the iem route and really didn't like it. If you are going that route remember your band must mic EVERYTHING if you want to hear it.

Starting off a gig and only being told after 15 minutes that the snare and high hat isn't mic'd isn't ideal for a bass player.

Edited May 3, 2019 by la bam

[EBS_freak]

1 hour ago, la bam said:

What worries me a bit is real world experience. I tried the iem route and really didn't like it. If you are going that route remember your band must mic EVERYTHING if you want to hear it.

Starting off a gig and only being told after 15 minutes that the snare and high hat isn't mic'd isn't ideal for a bass player.

That's why you talk to people.

And micing Everything is a bit of misconception... yes, it's best to mic everything if you want absolute control over your mix, but you can get a quite usable mix (one that I would take over no IEM mix) from a single ambient mic. Look through the various posts where the Zoom field recorders are mentioned for example.

[EBS_freak]

2 hours ago, Manor57 said:

I’m now looking at lugs in ears with 2 bass , mow mid, hi mid and treble , people seem to like them any experience on here 

They are good - having spoken to Rob in length about his building process, he's got it down and has experience outside of Lugs. He knows what he's doing. He's limited to off the shelf drivers but I know a few people that are happy with the results. I believe @intime-nick has a set of quad lugs and a set of UE6 and he, I believe, reckons they are comparable. So that's a pretty good indication.

[la bam]

52 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

That's why you talk to people.

And micing Everything is a bit of misconception... yes, it's best to mic everything if you want absolute control over your mix, but you can get a quite usable mix (one that I would take over no IEM mix) from a single ambient mic. Look through the various posts where the Zoom field recorders are mentioned for example.

I dont agree with that I'm afraid.

As a bassist you definitely need snare, high hat, bass drum, and to a lesser extent toms as an absolute minimum.

If you dont have the high hat and snare micd and coming through clear, you've no count ins or intros, never mind the actual playing.

For basic in ears, ie no flashy personal mixes etc and going through the desk, it really isn't the great solution it is said to be for everyone. Definitely wasnt for me.

 

[EBS_freak]

2 hours ago, la bam said:

I dont agree with that I'm afraid.

As a bassist you definitely need snare, high hat, bass drum, and to a lesser extent toms as an absolute minimum.

If you dont have the high hat and snare micd and coming through clear, you've no count ins or intros, never mind the actual playing.

For basic in ears, ie no flashy personal mixes etc and going through the desk, it really isn't the great solution it is said to be for everyone. Definitely wasnt for me.

 

That’s quite ok, our experiences can all differ.

What I will say however, is what I described is no different to gigging with earplugs in, except with the advantage of none of the muffling of frequencies that are associated with ear plugs... and having a volume control. Active earplugs if you will!

Edited May 3, 2019 by EBS_freak

[Les]

On 23/04/2019 at 17:35, Jazzjames said:

Worth it! 

Can I ask what type/size of gigs you're doing pal ? 

I quite like what I've read about the KZ AS10

[steve-bbb]

just bought a pair of shure 215 - seem ok but sound quality wise not much different from my £12 sony walkman headphones - is only when you take the hsure out after using for an hour that you notice how much they do noise cancel all the outside noise

[Graham]

I use ZS10s and whilst we normally mic the kick, drum overhead and guitar amp, I often don't need them in my ears due to ambient bleed-through

Most of the stages we play are small enough that I'm normally standing relatively close to the other instruments, and if it is a bigger stage then there's definitely mics on everything.

[EBS_freak]

56 minutes ago, steve-bbb said:

just bought a pair of shure 215 - seem ok but sound quality wise not much different from my £12 sony walkman headphones - is only when you take the hsure out after using for an hour that you notice how much they do noise cancel all the outside noise

That’s because they aren’t much different. Single dynamic per side in a nice casing. Not much happening on the tuning front either - they are an entry level point to IEM with a big brand name on the casing. The level of isolation is down to the fit on the tip although the isolation figures that Shure state are a little err... optimistic!

[Manish2547]

KZ EDA will be the good pair for you

Edited September 11, 2022 by Manish2547

[okusman]

Shure 535s With kick, sniff of the snare and overhead is plenty for me.

overheads give stick counts, etc and sufficient other drums and cymbals.There are no amps, so stage volume is low and therefore IEM is not fatiguing on the ears.

Keep your mix simple. Some people try to recreate the FOH mix. Just have what you actually need and listen.

 

 

 

[Franticsmurf]

I'm quite new to this IEM lark and rather than shell out for a complete system I thought I'd try out the concept to see if it worked for me using budget kit. The last few gigs I've played I've used a feed from the mixer's headphone out into a Behringer Headphone amp (to split the signal for the drummer) into a Behringer P1 into a pair of Sony earbuds. Only the drummer and I use IEM (he's using slightly more expensive ear buds.  The guitarist/singer and the lead guitar use on stage amps. If I'm using an amp rather DI then I run a line from the pedalboard to the second input on the P1. 

 

Because the earbuds aren't 100% noise cancelling, I can hear enough ambient stage sound to keep me grounded. I've always had problems hearing my own vocals but with this set up that is no longer an issue. My ears no longer ring after a gig, which is the main reason I wanted to go down the IEM route. This set up is working for the drummer and me at the moment and for the level and frequency we play, I'm not looking to upgrade in the near future.