The IEM (in ear monitors) Bible thread

[lemmywinks]

4 minutes ago, RichardH said:

 

 

It does "work" but there were issues with the signal when I tried it at home, like little dips in volume and momentary distortion which I attributed to the signal incompatibility. Had a similar experience when trying to use a wireless guitar dongle that didn't like active or high output basses. I've had worse monitoring at gigs tbh but it wasn't ideal!

 

It works fine with a mic.

Edited November 5 by lemmywinks

[RichardH]

Ahhh - stuff that for an idea then. I'll stick with wires

[Muzz]

3 hours ago, RichardH said:

 

 

 

Argh, sorry, the forum editor is driving me loopy. This is the post I was referring to - I assume there are better ways to kludge things together then?

 

That's what I use every gig; simple and useful (and cheap), not had any issues with dropout or levels or anything like that...

[EBS_freak]

5 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

I think you will need 30-40dB and that can be achieved in a single attenuator. Let me have a look though my past archives. 

Hence the double comment.

[lemmywinks]

Tried the MW-1 again straight from my Fishman Platinum Stage DI set to pre eq, was much better but the P2 (or rather the AE knockoff which was within easy reach) was at its limit. Tried it again through my Soundcraft Notepad 5 and could get ok results, however directly comparing the wireless sound to wired it seems to compress a bit and lose some low end.

 

The distortion is weird, doesn't sound like clipping but just an intermittent bit of background inteference fuzz on louder notes. Much more prominent right after changing channels and then settles down a bit, will try on the XR18 as I suspect the power supply on my Soundcraft may be on its way out as if I leave it plugged in (there's no power switch) when not in use it produces an annoying whine. Failing cap or something?

[vbance]

I want to put together a simple iem  set up...I have no idea but have done a bit of research on YT. All I really want is my bass and maybe my vocal  and that's it for now. I only do occasional backing vox and I just want to experiment at practice.

I purchased kz zs 10 pro 2's....and am thinking Xvive u4.

Could I as a starting point have the Xvive transmitter come out of an origin effects bass rig di just so I can hear my bass only. The idea being I have Kz's on and hear all the bands backline and drums and pa with my bass amp and Xvive signal and have the benefit of hearing protection with kz's.?

I also have a Behringer 1204 mixer. Could I then add my backing vocal. Bass by di from bassrig to mixer Vox to mixer xvivi transmit from phones out of mixer?

The rest of the band aren't interested but the drummer has used iem and thinks I could be the way to go....I just wanna get ahead and see how I get on wearing iem and understanding the process.

[EBS_freak]

3 hours ago, vbance said:

I want to put together a simple iem  set up...I have no idea but have done a bit of research on YT. All I really want is my bass and maybe my vocal  and that's it for now. I only do occasional backing vox and I just want to experiment at practice.

I purchased kz zs 10 pro 2's....and am thinking Xvive u4.

Could I as a starting point have the Xvive transmitter come out of an origin effects bass rig di just so I can hear my bass only. The idea being I have Kz's on and hear all the bands backline and drums and pa with my bass amp and Xvive signal and have the benefit of hearing protection with kz's.?

I also have a Behringer 1204 mixer. Could I then add my backing vocal. Bass by di from bassrig to mixer Vox to mixer xvivi transmit from phones out of mixer?

The rest of the band aren't interested but the drummer has used iem and thinks I could be the way to go....I just wanna get ahead and see how I get on wearing iem and understanding the process.

You wont hear enough of the band. You should assume you wont hear anything unless you have the other band members in your mix.

 

Here's what I would do with your setup (whilst keeping costs down)

 

Plug your vocal mic into channel 1 on your Behringer 1204 mixer.

 

Use a balanced jack to XLR cable to connect the aux output from your 1204 to your FoH mixer. (Set aux send at unity on the channel aux send and master aux send). As far as FoH is concerned, just consider your mic as being directly connected as usual.

Plug your bass DI into channel 2 on your Behringer 1204 mixer.

 

Buy a pair of cheap condenser mics (e.g. something like a Behringer C2), plug them into channels 3 and 4 on your mixer - and put them on stands L and R of the stage so you can pick up whats going on on stage. I'm not sure whats happening lead singer wise, but you may need to experiment with mic placement to pick up everything as you need (maybe even having your mic pointing towards a wedge if they are monitoring that way). Make sure you turn on phantom power on you your desk so the condensers work.

 

Ensure all aux sends are down on all channels apart from the vocal mic channel.

 

Plug your Xvive U4 into the L out on the desk. (Being mono is fine as long as all channels are panned centrally or all to the L)

 

In order to set your mix, just ride the faders (remembering the master output needs to be up also). 

 

Doing it this way gives you some control of your feeds by enabling you to add in some EQ (cut lows) to taste.

 

Have fun!

 

 

What desk are you using for FoH? Or is the Behringer the FoH? If it is the FoH, disregard the above...

Edited November 11 by EBS_freak

[vbance]

1 hour ago, EBS_freak said:

You wont hear enough of the band. You should assume you wont hear anything unless you have the other band members in your mix.

 

Here's what I would do with your setup (whilst keeping costs down)

 

Plug your vocal mic into channel 1 on your Behringer 1204 mixer.

 

Use a balanced jack to XLR cable to connect the aux output from your 1204 to your FoH mixer. (Set aux send at unity on the channel aux send and master aux send). As far as FoH is concerned, just consider your mic as being directly connected as usual.

Plug your bass DI into channel 2 on your Behringer 1204 mixer.

 

Buy a pair of cheap condenser mics (e.g. something like a Behringer C2), plug them into channels 3 and 4 on your mixer - and put them on stands L and R of the stage so you can pick up whats going on on stage. I'm not sure whats happening lead singer wise, but you may need to experiment with mic placement to pick up everything as you need (maybe even having your mic pointing towards a wedge if they are monitoring that way). Make sure you turn on phantom power on you your desk so the condensers work.

 

Ensure all aux sends are down on all channels apart from the mic channel.

 

Plug your Xvive U4 into the L out on the desk. (Being mono is fine as long as all channels are panned centrally or all to the L)

 

In order to set your mix, just ride the faders (remembering the master output needs to be up also). 

 

Doing it this way gives you some control of your feeds by enabling you to add in some EQ (cut lows) to taste.

 

Have fun!

 

 

What desk are you using for FoH? Or is the Behringer the FoH? If it is the FoH, disregard the above...

im not sure what foh we use but its much better than my mixer so should be fine....thanks for your help.

[Wombat]

Hola!

 

Qestion about abmient mic placement please.  The drummer and I have been using IEM's in our 4 piece pub band for a while but we are finding the experience a bit 'sterile'.  Its also a pain to hear the singer counting in if he isn't talking into his mic!

 

I have an Aston Element that I was using for recording so am going to have a go at putting that up at the next gig.  Just not sure where!  If I put it near the drum kit I guess I'll just get 'more drums' so was going to put it on a clip on one of the FOH speaker stands (so its behind and won't pick up that/feedback).  Or will that be 'too far away'?  For context a lot of the places we've been playing I'm using a headless bass so I'm not constantly braining the singer!

 

Not particularly bothered about picking up the band or using it for recording (using a Zoom L12 desk with everthing goin in there), its more so that the Drummer and I don't think we are in a separate room!

 

Thoughts?

[dave_bass5]

5 hours ago, Wombat said:

Hola!

 

Qestion about abmient mic placement please.  The drummer and I have been using IEM's in our 4 piece pub band for a while but we are finding the experience a bit 'sterile'.  Its also a pain to hear the singer counting in if he isn't talking into his mic!

 

I have an Aston Element that I was using for recording so am going to have a go at putting that up at the next gig.  Just not sure where!  If I put it near the drum kit I guess I'll just get 'more drums' so was going to put it on a clip on one of the FOH speaker stands (so its behind and won't pick up that/feedback).  Or will that be 'too far away'?  For context a lot of the places we've been playing I'm using a headless bass so I'm not constantly braining the singer!

 

Not particularly bothered about picking up the band or using it for recording (using a Zoom L12 desk with everthing goin in there), its more so that the Drummer and I don't think we are in a separate room!

 

Thoughts?

I used to use a small Roland recorder strapped to the singers mic stand. 
Now i place it as close to the drum kit as i can, as this seems to bring in the ambiance of the stage better for me, especially the snare and HH etc. We have 5 live mics on stage so i get all the on stage chatter as well. 

Edited Monday at 17:52 by dave_bass5

[MichaelDean]

7 minutes ago, Wombat said:

Hola!

 

Qestion about abmient mic placement please.  The drummer and I have been using IEM's in our 4 piece pub band for a while but we are finding the experience a bit 'sterile'.  Its also a pain to hear the singer counting in if he isn't talking into his mic!

 

I have an Aston Element that I was using for recording so am going to have a go at putting that up at the next gig.  Just not sure where!  If I put it near the drum kit I guess I'll just get 'more drums' so was going to put it on a clip on one of the FOH speaker stands (so its behind and won't pick up that/feedback).  Or will that be 'too far away'?  For context a lot of the places we've been playing I'm using a headless bass so I'm not constantly braining the singer!

 

Not particularly bothered about picking up the band or using it for recording (using a Zoom L12 desk with everthing goin in there), its more so that the Drummer and I don't think we are in a separate room!

 

Thoughts?

We used to have a couple of overheads on the drums soley for monitoring and found we got enough ambient noise through those that it was never an issue for us. It wasn't really high up in the mix, but gave you a sense of space. At practice, we could talk between songs and not have to take our IEMs out.

[EBS_freak]

43 minutes ago, Wombat said:

Hola!

 

Qestion about abmient mic placement please.  The drummer and I have been using IEM's in our 4 piece pub band for a while but we are finding the experience a bit 'sterile'.  Its also a pain to hear the singer counting in if he isn't talking into his mic!

 

I have an Aston Element that I was using for recording so am going to have a go at putting that up at the next gig.  Just not sure where!  If I put it near the drum kit I guess I'll just get 'more drums' so was going to put it on a clip on one of the FOH speaker stands (so its behind and won't pick up that/feedback).  Or will that be 'too far away'?  For context a lot of the places we've been playing I'm using a headless bass so I'm not constantly braining the singer!

 

Not particularly bothered about picking up the band or using it for recording (using a Zoom L12 desk with everthing goin in there), its more so that the Drummer and I don't think we are in a separate room!

 

Thoughts?

What is your setup - what have you got in terms of open mics in your existing setup? If you are purely silent stage it's all going to sound a bit dry. But if you are looking at putting some mics up to get the drum kit, it sounds like you've got analogue stuff on your stage...

[MrPring]

How's it going gang? 

 

Keep coming back to this thread as its filled with gold now that we're getting closer to getting back gigging and moving to IEMs. 

 

One question I haven't seen specifically answered is what I'm looking to do with a wired IEM set up (apologies if I've missed this)... 

 

4 piece originals band, 2x gtrs, bass, drums, 4 vocals and 16 inputs to FOH so thinking an Xr18 as the desk. We wouldn't be controlling FOH from our rack, solely for our ears. We're still using 'real' amps but I'd like to experiment with going down the ampless route as stage volume was pretty ridiculous. 

 

Instruments are wired and as we're getting older we're not jumping into the crowd or moving about as much on the stage as we used to so thinking of going wired for IEMs and rigging up a custom cable containing instrument cable and xlr/s for a p1/2 probably. 

 

We used the powerplay p16 when in the studio to sort our monitor mixes and could you replicate this live with ultranet or would you be better controlling your own monitor mix through an app on your phone than having a powerplay mounted on your pedalboard? Thinking it would be easier having cat5 running around the stage than long headphone cable or xlr runs? 

 

Anyone doing anything similar to this? If wired would we be better getting a racked  4xheadphone amp and going from there? Or sticking with individual? Think there's the behringer HA8000 we could run headphone extenders from but then lose the ability to alter the volume on the fly if we've got an individual belt pack amp. 

 

Venue wise we're not going to be playing massive stages, probably biggest would be 5mx5m so guess long cable runs wouldn't be a factor? 

 

Would be looking to spend the bulk of the budget on better custom IEMs than going wireless at this point. 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated from Russ or the wired IEM gang 🤠

 

Edit: looking for people using wired IEMs to guide me on my quest on how they are doing it and if my suggestions above are sensible. 

 

Thanks to @EBS_freakfor getting me to clarify what my stream of consciousness is actually asking 🤣

Edited Monday at 14:11 by MrPring

[EBS_freak]

Hi @MrPring - what is it you are actually asking?

[acidbass]

Just a heads up - Ultimate Ears Black Friday sale is currently on until 2nd December.  As an example - UE18s have been reduced from approx £1500 to approx £1200.

Edited Monday at 14:44 by acidbass

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, MrPring said:

Would be looking to spend the bulk of the budget on better custom IEMs than going wireless at this point.

 

From a conceptial point of view there is no different between wired and wireless IEMs, other than the physical transport of the signal, all the other considerations, channels, routing etc are the same.

[MrPring]

27 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

From a conceptial point of view there is no different between wired and wireless IEMs, other than the physical transport of the signal, all the other considerations, channels, routing etc are the same.

Thanks. Guess I'm just more worried about the practicalities of getting the wired signal from our IEM rack which will be next to the drumkit to our ears. I'm 100% on how to provide splits to FOH and have been on the same bill with several bands who do this (including silent stage types) but they've all been wireless. 

 

Just looking for advice or tales of people doing either of the following:

 

1) running xlrs/trs cables from outputs of xr18 to each of the 3 of us at the front of the stage for plugging into a p1/2

 

2) running cat 5 from the ultranet out of the xr18 then into a p16m for each person at the front then some sort of headphone extension/instrument dual cable setup. 

 

Hope that is a bit clearer? Appreciate all the help! 

Edited Monday at 15:31 by MrPring

[Wombat]

2 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

What is your setup - what have you got in terms of open mics in your existing setup? If you are purely silent stage it's all going to sound a bit dry. But if you are looking at putting some mics up to get the drum kit, it sounds like you've got analogue stuff on your stage...

3 SM58s for singing. Acoustic/electric using helix to FOH, monitoring with Behringer mic stand speaker. Electric using an amp (keep hoping he’ll use some sort of modelling) with DI to FOH (mostly used for a bit of throw & recording) monitored with the little Bose wedge thingy (technical term). I use a Stomp to FOH (and an amp for bigger gigs) with IEMs. Drummer has one of those Yamaha gizmos that sits over the bass drum for throw and recording (if needed), monitoring through IEMs.

Sometimes you get enough ’room’ through the drummers Yamaha mic but he doesn’t always use it.

It’s the sterility of not feeling ‘part’ of the room vs being able to hear everything. The vocal mics pick up most stuff but if the (main) singer turns round I can hear him less than if he’s talking ‘at’ the audience so am hoping some sort of ambient mic placement will help.

I guess it will be trial & error but any pointers of where to try (at least 1st) gratefully received.

[MrPring]

After a million YouTube and reddit rabbit holes think I've sussed what I'm going to do. 

 

P1 velcro'd to our pedalboards for those wanting stereo (me). 2 xlr each ran from the monitor rack next to drum riser to pedalboards. If mono, I'm going to create a loom with a trs and xlr going from guitar amp to pedalboard. trs for amp to pedalboard and xlr from aux out on monitor to P1 on the board. Then another loom that's headphone extension cable and trs to plug into my bass (stereo iem mix). For the other 2 (guitars) they can have a shorter xlr combined with their guitar cable which will go to their p2 they'll wear on their belts. 

 

I reckon I'm gonna go ampless first, they might take some more convincing. 

[MrPring]

Also seem to have narrowed down my ciem search to the 64 audio a4s. 

 

Have got LUGS as a fallback but like the idea of a dynamic driver in there for that bottom end. Anyone any experience with LUGS or the 64 audio model (or the n8). 

[gazhowe]

1 hour ago, MrPring said:

Also seem to have narrowed down my ciem search to the 64 audio a4s. 

 

Have got LUGS as a fallback but like the idea of a dynamic driver in there for that bottom end. Anyone any experience with LUGS or the 64 audio model (or the n8). 

I've got the A4s. I demoed them v UE6's and UE11's before buying. Fit and sound quality are both excellent as you would expect. They have plenty of bottom end headroom but the low end is certainly not overpowering. The learning curve for me has been to lower the volume of my backline and apply a high pass filter to my bass in my IEM's. I'm happy with the results so far but feel that I can improve the sound of my bass in my IEM's with a little more experimenting, rather than any issue with the A4s. 

Edited 22 hours ago by gazhowe

[MrPring]

58 minutes ago, gazhowe said:

I've got the A4s. I demoed them v UE6's and UE11's before buying. Fit and sound quality are both excellent as you would expect. They have plenty of bottom end headroom but the low end is certainly not overpowering. The learning curve for me has been to lower the volume of my backline and apply a high pass filter to my bass in my IEM's. Um happy with the results so far but I feel that I can improve the sound of my bass in my IEM's with a little more experimenting, rather than any issue with the A4s. 

Nice one Gaz. That's good to hear about the low end not being overpowering. 

[Muppet]

2 hours ago, MrPring said:

After a million YouTube and reddit rabbit holes think I've sussed what I'm going to do. 

 

P1 velcro'd to our pedalboards for those wanting stereo (me). 2 xlr each ran from the monitor rack next to drum riser to pedalboards. If mono, I'm going to create a loom with a trs and xlr going from guitar amp to pedalboard. trs for amp to pedalboard and xlr from aux out on monitor to P1 on the board. Then another loom that's headphone extension cable and trs to plug into my bass (stereo iem mix). For the other 2 (guitars) they can have a shorter xlr combined with their guitar cable which will go to their p2 they'll wear on their belts. 

 

I reckon I'm gonna go ampless first, they might take some more convincing. 

All sounds very complicated to me!

 

What happened to your XR18/P16M idea?  I run that setup and it's perfect.  You can then run the P16M in to a wireless unit or from the headphone out in to a P1.  You already have experience of the P16M so you know how good it is when modifying your own stereo mix..

[MrPring]

47 minutes ago, Muppet said:

All sounds very complicated to me!

 

What happened to your XR18/P16M idea?  I run that setup and it's perfect.  You can then run the P16M in to a wireless unit or from the headphone out in to a P1.  You already have experience of the P16M so you know how good it is when modifying your own stereo mix..

My guy! I'm definitely still considering the p16m but that might be an future upgrade once I get the system up and running. One question though on daisy chaining. Presumably I can just run 1 cat5 from the xr18 into the first p16m and then 'thru' to the next and so on and they can have their own dedicated mix? 

[bassmansam]

3 hours ago, gazhowe said:

I've got the A4s. I demoed them v UE6's and UE11's before buying. Fit and sound quality are both excellent as you would expect. They have plenty of bottom end headroom but the low end is certainly not overpowering. The learning curve for me has been to lower the volume of my backline and apply a high pass filter to my bass in my IEM's. I'm happy with the results so far but feel that I can improve the sound of my bass in my IEM's with a little more experimenting, rather than any issue with the A4s. 

I'm interested to know what you think about the UE6 vs UE11. 

 

I have the UE6 and will need to change someday.