The IEM (in ear monitors) Bible thread - a guide to help every musician

[Linus27]

On 11/03/2025 at 08:20, dave_bass5 said:

No problem, and good luck.  Might take a a while to adjust to them and find the right pair (i couldn’t get on at all with the KZ stuff), but once you do it’s like a lightbulb moment. 

 

Just an update from me. Tried out the Behringer P2 and the KZ ZS10 Pro headphones tonight at a local gig and they worked an absolute treat. I didn't mess around with the mix but just settled with the FOH mix so not perfect for what my preference would be but good enough that I played a bunch of songs no problem. I miss the ambient sound from on stage and the raw energy of a live stage sound but I also liked the clarity and quietness of wearing the headphones. Overall, a great success and not a bad £70 spent on a basic setup. The headphones were really comfortable out of the box as well which I wasn't expecting.

 

[mcnach]

Has anybody tried one of those little lavalier mics, so that one can use it to hear other people -but with the ability to switch it on/off at will-? 

[warwickhunt]

47 minutes ago, mcnach said:

Has anybody tried one of those little lavalier mics, so that one can use it to hear other people -but with the ability to switch it on/off at will-? 

 

You can buy a footswitch that when depressed cuts the vocal mic to FOH but can still transmit to all/any IE.  Not sure what you call them but our band leader had one; he could step on the switch mid song and let us know if we were going to change next song etc.

[EBS_freak]

6 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

 

You can buy a footswitch that when depressed cuts the vocal mic to FOH but can still transmit to all/any IE.  Not sure what you call them but our band leader had one; he could step on the switch mid song and let us know if we were going to change next song etc.

Talkback mic/MD mic/God mic

 

Switch is usually a A B switch to 2 channels on the desk, (1 to front of house, 2nd to aux feeds only) or a MIDI switch which effectively kills foh but being pre fader allows the signal to still pass to the auxes.

 

2 channels is nice as it allows you to have 2 different levels for when the MD is singing vs louder for instruction.

[shoulderpet]

Hi all, I am a complete noob to iem (I know nothing at all about them) I currently use ear plugs when I play gigs, are there any iem's that will do the job of enabling me to hear myself but also protect my hearing?

 

Or am I better off just sticking with ear plugs and eq'ing in some extra mids to enable me to hear myself better? 

 

Thank you

[EBS_freak]

First up - have you read the opening posts. You need to get your head around how this stuff works first. Happy to help, but your question at the moment is not at all what you want to be doing as your EQing to hear yourself better is a) going to make your bass not sound how it should to the audience b) is effectively just turning up the volume and defeating the point of what your ear plugs are meant to be doing!

 

If you are not wanting to plug into anything and have a standalone solution (e.g. volume controllable ear plugs), I refer you to this section in the opening post - 

 

If you haven't got a desk or aux available to you, you can try using the above with a field recorder (e.g. a Zoom recorder - others are available). See section 3.4.

[police squad]

On 15/03/2025 at 00:39, Linus27 said:

 

Just an update from me. Tried out the Behringer P2 and the KZ ZS10 Pro headphones tonight at a local gig and they worked an absolute treat. I didn't mess around with the mix but just settled with the FOH mix so not perfect for what my preference would be but good enough that I played a bunch of songs no problem. I miss the ambient sound from on stage and the raw energy of a live stage sound but I also liked the clarity and quietness of wearing the headphones. Overall, a great success and not a bad £70 spent on a basic setup. The headphones were really comfortable out of the box as well which I wasn't expecting.

 

this is actually how I gig mostly

As the singer in 2 bands, I like the whole mix so I can make sure my voice sits in the right place, so I come out the headphone socket

Both bands have everything in the pa, so I get a great sound

I did a bass only gig last week (U2 Tribute) and we only had time for a line check, I got a kind of mix in my IEMs but not what I wanted.

The out front sound was ace, just not enough time to sort the IEM mix properly (and there's no way I was going to take them out)