In ear monitors

[EBS_freak]

22 hours ago, okusman said:

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.

 

 

 

Im in the camp of running a processed IEM mix (hence why I always run two desks - one for monitors, one for front of house).

 

Why? Cos it can sound like this....

 

 

[MGBrown]

Great mix! And top bass playing. Who is he?

Edited September 7, 2022 by MGBrown
Added more.

[stewblack]

Cheap in ears then spend the real money on the Backbeat.

Just my experience. Listening to a live band via earphones and not feeling any bass is a depressing, sterile experience, a million miles away from the real thing.

But they are good for singing. Hearing your own vocals so clearly is great.

Also cheap wireless bug marketed to guitarists is fine and way less money than you might otherwise spend.

[EBS_freak]

10 hours ago, MGBrown said:

Great mix! And top bass playing. Who is he?

Tasty isn't he?

Kevin MacIntire

[Deckard]

On 07/09/2022 at 03:34, Franticsmurf said:

If I'm using an amp rather DI then I run a line from the pedalboard to the second input on the P1. 

Can you clarify this pls? I think you’re doing what I’m planning to do so I’m interested in the specifics. I want to use a P1 to blend a feed from the desk with my own’ signal. Are you feeding both foh and the p1 from your pedal board or one of them from the amp? What’s on your pedalboard?

[Franticsmurf]

4 hours ago, Deckard said:

Can you clarify this pls? I think you’re doing what I’m planning to do so I’m interested in the specifics. I want to use a P1 to blend a feed from the desk with my own’ signal. Are you feeding both foh and the p1 from your pedal board or one of them from the amp? What’s on your pedalboard?

Things have changed slightly from when I posted. In one band we have FOH sound and in this case I no longer use the P1. My bass DI signal goes from the amp to FOH, and the amp gives me and the drummer (who is not on IEM) a bass monitor which I can adjust without having to wave at our sound guy 😃. But my main monitor sound is a mix from the FOH desk which includes bass, lead vocals and my backing vocals, lead and rhythm guitar. The FOH signal goes into a Gear4Music wireless transmitter and I take a feed direct from the receiver into IEM.

 

In the other band I use the P1 as I am mixing a feed of vocals from the PA desk and my bass. I split the signal from the board (content varies) with a small Behringer headphone distributor feeding the P1 and the amp. To be honest, the last couple of gigs with this band I've not bothered with the bass signal in the P1 as I'm getting enough volume from the rig for me to hear. 

 

The main reason I bought the P1 was to provide some protection for my hearing (it has a built in limiter). The singer at the time, who operated the desk, had a tendency to unplug his acoustic guitar without muting the channel and also to fiddle with the desk creating other unpredictable pops and bangs. He's no longer with the band now. 😃 I suspect going forward the P1 will be a standby at gigs and a means to practice quietly at home.

[Phil Starr]

A couple of observations because I'd advise anyone thinking of moving to in-ears to read the bible (the long thread in post 2.)

 

Don't be scared of doing this and don't worry about it being somehow artificial or not properly rock'n'roll. I can promise you will make the adjustment and quicker than you think, you won't want to go back because your music/playing will be better. Hearing yourself better than the audience hears you puts you in control you will never be in one of those grotty venues where you can't hear yourself again.

 

Try it at rehearsal first, you can wear a giant pair of over ear headphones and look like a Cyberman but there's no fiddly earbuds so you can get a decent sound first time. In the rehearsal room you don't need to worry about what you look like. Basically you don't have to be scared of change, you can take baby steps. My first experiment was using a Zoom portable recorder taped to my mic stand straight into my Sennheiser £20 buds I used with an iPod. I've tried taking a feed from my monitor speaker and from the front of house and i tried everything in rehearsal before trusting it on stage.

 

Unless you play big stages don't worry about not hearing the drums, if they are anywhere near the vocal mics you'll hear them.

 

The KZ ZS10 pro are great for bassists, I just paid £26 for a spare pair so the cost is really low, I find them not so great for vocals but you can always hear yourself and IEM's pretty much rule out any feedback

 

Spend lot's of time on getting earbuds that fit; all our ears are different shapes and my right ear has a much smaller ear canal than my left, I had no idea until I tried getting in-ears to fit. That seal is going to get you the best bass sound possible and will be the thing that cuts out the noise from the drums/guitarist or anything that drowns out what you need to hear.

 

You can get by with a FOH mix but a digital mixer will give you your own aux channel(s) and you can have 'more me' if that is your choice.

 

Here's the final tip. I'm deaf in the ear that faces the drums with added tinnitus. Ears ringing after every gig is the death warrant for your hearing. Do this before it is too late 

[mrtcat]

I literally couldn't think of anything worse than going back to the old days without in ear monitors. I hear everything I want, I don't lug an amp, I don't ever get home with my ears ringing and I just feel so much more in touch with the drummer. 

 

Some gigs everything is mic'd up. Others we just have an overhead and kick mic on the kit but guitars / bass / keys are always DI'd and it always sounds killer in my head. 

 

I have a pair of UE6s and a pair of KZ10s but my UE6s are now completely unusable because it seems my ear shape has changed a bit and now they just sound muffled and distorted. The KZ10s are great as long as you can keep stage noise down.

[Franticsmurf]

To add to @Phil Starr's post, if you're just dabbling to get a feel for IEM, try using a pair of Sony noise cancelling earbuds. I paid £10 for mine and they are all I use. The 'phones that came with the Gear4Music kit didn't give me any bass but the Sonys are great.  (I'm not sponsored by Sony - yet. 😃)

[Muppet]

1 hour ago, mrtcat said:

 

I have a pair of UE6s and a pair of KZ10s but my UE6s are now completely unusable because it seems my ear shape has changed a bit and now they just sound muffled and distorted. The KZ10s are great as long as you can keep stage noise down.

Is it possible to get the internal gubbins put in to a new custom mould or do you need to pay for a complete new set? 

[mrtcat]

32 minutes ago, Muppet said:

Is it possible to get the internal gubbins put in to a new custom mould or do you need to pay for a complete new set? 

That's the plan. They are currently with Robert at Lugs waiting for me to have new impressions done. 

[gafbass02]

I switched a year back and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done, for all the reasons already given. I use the KZ10s and a rolls pm50 as a more me box,  also have a custom cable which carries both my guitar signal and my headphone signal. It’s just ace  

Edited December 19, 2022 by gafbass02

[mike257]

3 hours ago, mrtcat said:

I literally couldn't think of anything worse than going back to the old days without in ear monitors. I hear everything I want, I don't lug an amp, I don't ever get home with my ears ringing and I just feel so much more in touch with the drummer. 

 

Some gigs everything is mic'd up. Others we just have an overhead and kick mic on the kit but guitars / bass / keys are always DI'd and it always sounds killer in my head. 

 

I have a pair of UE6s and a pair of KZ10s but my UE6s are now completely unusable because it seems my ear shape has changed a bit and now they just sound muffled and distorted. The KZ10s are great as long as you can keep stage noise down.

Usual advice is that you need fresh moulds every 4-5 years, as your ear shape continues to change over time. 

[Risk101]

On 06/09/2022 at 20:38, EBS_freak said:

Im in the camp of running a processed IEM mix (hence why I always run two desks - one for monitors, one for front of house).

 

Why? Cos it can sound like this....

 

 

+1 for the KZ10 which I've been using for a couple of years now.

 

Great Video and great bass playing - I found this comment in the Youtube comments section interesting:

"a completely computer formatted show with metronome loop and voice countdowns. Even the audience participation on Let the Good Times Roll is formatted to eight bar patter and eight bar audience singing. Zero left to chance. Even their “walk out” is timed. The drone note is “in the can” and I have a feeling the background vocals on the first song are partially canned as well. I listened to Ben giving a lecture on his methodology and it was basically focused on discipline and preparation. So this makes perfect sense. Decisions are made, sequences are worked out and rigidly adhered to. He’s a gifted singer and a brilliant musician who also has a degree in business and marketing. Perfection is the goal. I have no problem with any of it."

 

Maybe I should be less surprised at how "tight" some gigs are!  That said, I heard "Ghost Note" at Ronnies a few months back - no in-ears in sight anywhere and an incredibly tight and funky set !

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[joel406]

I have Alien Ears. I have a 5-driver set (3 low, 1 mid, 1 high). They are fantastic. So good I ordered anther 8 driver set (4 low, 2 mid, 2 high). Can't really tell the difference. So, I primarily use the 5 driver set and keep the 8 as backup. The best part is no hauling around amps. I do have a Gator rack with my 2 wireless units and a Furman in. I'm using a QuadCortex to feed FOH. Amp sim, Parametrix, Compressor, noise gate. As well as a completely dry channel. My sound has never been better. I do miss my amps sometimes. 

[EBS_freak]

1 hour ago, Risk101 said:

Great Video and great bass playing - I found this comment in the Youtube comments section interesting:

"a completely computer formatted show with metronome loop and voice countdowns. Even the audience participation on Let the Good Times Roll is formatted to eight bar patter and eight bar audience singing. Zero left to chance. Even their “walk out” is timed. The drone note is “in the can” and I have a feeling the background vocals on the first song are partially canned as well. I listened to Ben giving a lecture on his methodology and it was basically focused on discipline and preparation. So this makes perfect sense. Decisions are made, sequences are worked out and rigidly adhered to. He’s a gifted singer and a brilliant musician who also has a degree in business and marketing. Perfection is the goal. I have no problem with any of it."

 

Maybe I should be less surprised at how "tight" some gigs are!  That said, I heard "Ghost Note" at Ronnies a few months back - no in-ears in sight anywhere and an incredibly tight and funky set !

Show less

 

To me, it's just making use of tools. There's plenty of bands making use of backing tracks, clicks or whatever... - at the end of the day, it's the entertainment game. If the audience is entertained, then job done. It still doesn't take away from the fact that in order to perform some of the songs, you have to be a great player. Take the bass player for example, there will be plenty of people poo pooing the above - but would have nowhere that level of competency on the bass themselves.

 

For me, the interesting bit about all this sequenced stuff is that it opens up a whole multitude of possibilities. For example, automated MIDI changes - the guitarist can be anywhere on stage when they need to change patches to their lead sound... automated lights (lets face it, a band turning up to a gig running time aligned lights to the audio without a lighting folk would be pretty impressive for most people)... Funnily enough, there's an awesome video worth watching on Katy Perry's band setup and how they do exactly all this. Less being tied to the spot and more about moving around stage and providing visual entertainment on top of the sound. And of course, they aren't miming which makes the experience better for those wanting a more purist approach to music than miming.

 

Also - worth noting on the looping - I don't know if it was done in the video above, but if you are playing with a sequence, you can lock a playback skeleton to loop - so I had a drummer trigger off a midi controller to enter an 8 bar loop in ableton. We would stay in it until he hit the midi controller for us to exit. You can also set up things like "jump to the chorus" if you want to elongate things.... so things aren't as necessarily prescriptive as you would think.

 

Anyway...

 

Here's the Katy Perry rundown - 

 

 

 

Wireless DMX to the lights on the guitar. Pretty cheeky eh?

 

There's  also this case study - there used to be a video but I can't find it -

 

https://www.allen-heath.com/media/Camryn-Case-Study.pdf

 

Basically, whole band in a rack, all the digital domain, time line running with all the MIDI changes, running VSTs for everything. Performers just provide the input, everything else done in the box. Pretty slick to be honest - and it sounded ridiculously good.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2022 by EBS_freak

[dand666]

Most high end bands now are all running IEMS and tracks.

 

I dep nearly every weekend and have to use IEMS pretty much every time. Useful to have and pretty much a necessity if you're depping a lot.