The IEM (in ear monitors) Bible thread

[warwickhunt]

On 30/04/2023 at 14:30, warwickhunt said:

I'm trialling IEM and need advice... has anyone ever not?  LOL

 

I'm trying to go IEM and no backline.

 

I tried my KZ10's with our guitarists x-vive and I wasn't convinced as I was having drop outs of either or both of my IE and my instrument wireless gear.  I bought a P2 and I seem to have the most horrendous latency/boxyness to the sound in my ears particularly when doing vocals.  No time to analyse what the cause is as it was bish/bash/bosh in/on/off/away at the gig.  

 

My set up went; vocal to desk (Soundcraft U12), bass to desk via Sansamp DI.  Aux send from desk via cable to wedge monitor (not turned up but there as a back up) > thru to cable to P2 on strap and to KZ10s.

 

Can I possibly be missing something but how come the other vocal in the band were fine and clear yet my vocal sounded like it had loads of delay/latency?  

 

Going to try new stuff this afternoon inc direct from desk to ears no monitor thru.

 

I 'think' I've made a bit of progress re. my mushy, overdriven, compressed, boxy tone via wired IEM.  

 

I've continued to have massive issues with my bass sounding like it was an Amstrad/Binatone POS from the 70's.  So much so that I spat my dummy out and basically told the main man in our band (owns the PA, pushing the IEM) that he could stick the IEM in another orifice and I was going back to backline.  We'd had a 20 minute discussion at the gig re my IE sound (FOH was fine) and I was being told it was unrealistic to expect the bass to sound as good IE as it would in front of a cab and that you have a compromise to make because IE have tiny drivers 'v' bass cabs and spl.  However, all I wanted was to have a bass sound that had clarity and definition as you'd expect listening to any sound source (CD/phone/Hi-Fi).  I even tried the drummers headphones (closed back not IE) and they sounded EXACTLY the same.

 

On having my hissy fit, he went back to the desk and hey presto... 50-75% improvement!  He said he'd tweaked the compression attack on the aux send and it wasn't as hard an attack.  

 

I've yet to get to the bottom of why I need any kind of compression on my aux send as I'm not putting the (acoustic) drums through, so other than a bit of guitar, vocals and my bass, I'm keeping my levels at the volume of the drums that are picked up via vocal mics and fed into ears.  

 

Is there a specific / good setting I should use on the IEM, should I be just turning it off (bass is compressed for FOH)?

 

Any other comments welcome.

 

 

[EBS_freak]

Sounds like you haven't got a sound engineer that knows their onions!

 

And IEM should sound clearer than a cab as you are effectively taking a DI without any of the ambient fluff (assuming you aren't micing a cab) - I could understand if you were using some rubbish IEMs, but the KZ10s have bags of bass response and headroom (so there shouldn't be any distortion or farty bottom end)

 

Got knows what they are doing to cripple your sound that much.

 

Early compression is a bad idea on IEMs, as it impacts the way that people play and sing - singers especially as any make up gain really screws dynamics and singers tend to back off the mic.

[warwickhunt]

Sound engineer is our guitarist/singer.  Loads of experience with assorted guitar/PA gear but I don't think he is approaching the use of the i16 desk and it's complexity anywhere near as much as he could.  Part of our problem is we have never in close to 10 years had so much as a band rehearsal; we turn up to gigs an hour before start time, set up the kit and play (material is learned at home in isolation and played/busked/improved at the gig). 

 

We've had multiple 'discussions on the fact that what I hear through my IE is a compressed/farty/buzzy/mush and the responses always reverted to 'compromise'... which I was at the point of saying that I'm not compromising what 'I' want to hear for the sake of anybody.  Possibly a selfish approach but it was at the point where I wasn't even enjoying playing any more.  It was even suggested that my choices of preamp (I own and trialled; Fishman Plat Pro, NuX MLD, Sansamp, BBE Acoustimax) was limiting and I should go to Helix and that my KZ10's were budget and a decent set of headphones would fix it.  This btw was the final straw as I knew I could listen to various sound sources and get great clarity, yet the band bass mix was just buzzy/mushy/shyte... several hundred pounds was not going to fix this as we weren't discussing nuances of bass/mid levels or 2db peaks at XYZ frequency, it was a compressed mush. 

 

We shall see how we progress from here.      

 

I'm going to request ALL compression be taken off my aux mix and I'll deal with volume/dynamics via my Behringer vol control.    

[BigRedX]

5 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

Part of our problem is we have never in close to 10 years had so much as a band rehearsal; we turn up to gigs an hour before start time, set up the kit and play (material is learned at home in isolation and played/busked/improved at the gig). 

 

And as you have said there's your problem. For me there's a big difference between rehearsing to play the songs and rehearsing to make sure that all the technology I'm (and the rest of the band are) using works properly.

 

Time for a technical rehearsal for your band. Once you've sorted out all the IEM issues you should never need to do it again, because all the settings will have been stored.

[warwickhunt]

2 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

And as you have said there's your problem. For me there's a big difference between rehearsing to play the songs and rehearsing to make sure that all the technology I'm (and the rest of the band are) using works properly.

 

Time for a technical rehearsal for your band. Once you've sorted out all the IEM issues you should never need to do it again, because all the settings will have been stored.

 

It will happen but it's like herding hungry kittens at meal time!    

 

We've agreed to at least get to the gig 30 minutes early so that I can get a baseline setting to work from with no effects, compression, added IRs or anything applied to my aux send.  iirc we did try this but the interface interaction from my phone is limited; hence I'm taking along a tablet and I'll get our guy to just show me how to access all menus on my aux and go from there!

 

Any tip to globally switch off everything on an aux send (Soundcraft iu16)?

[EBS_freak]

You've unearthed one of the problems of digital desks. More virtual knobs to turn. Just because it's there to use, doesn't mean you should, especially if you don't know how to use it effectively. Compression is the number one culprit. People have survived for years without going into compressors on analogue desks... yet, give somebody a compressor, with no idea what they are doing - and without using their ears, will slam compressors all over the place... because.... compression. And compression is good, right?

 

There's compromise, and compromise. Compromise due to stinky poo setting on a desk is not one that should be taken.

 

Tech rehearsal time... before you all fall out. 

[warwickhunt]

4 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

You've unearthed one of the problems of digital desks. More virtual knobs to turn. Just because it's there to use, doesn't mean you should, especially if you don't know how to use it effectively. Compression is the number one culprit. People have survived for years without going into compressors on analogue desks... yet, give somebody a compressor, with no idea what they are doing - and without using their ears, will slam compressors all over the place... because.... compression. And compression is good, right?

 

There's compromise, and compromise. Compromise due to stinky poo setting on a desk is not one that should be taken.

 

Tech rehearsal time... before you all fall out. 

 

Indeed!  Our analogue desk (in use till last year) had 1 knob compression and I bet you can guess how it was set... OFF.  

 

I'm off to Google/youtube how to use this desk/interface.

[Chienmortbb]

1 hour ago, warwickhunt said:

 

It will happen but it's like herding hungry kittens at meal time!    

 

We've agreed to at least get to the gig 30 minutes early so that I can get a baseline setting to work from with no effects, compression, added IRs or anything applied to my aux send.  iirc we did try this but the interface interaction from my phone is limited; hence I'm taking along a tablet and I'll get our guy to just show me how to access all menus on my aux and go from there!

 

Any tip to globally switch off everything on an aux send (Soundcraft iu16)?

You have a pre/post setting on the aux send for each channel. Ican't remember but assume that that would  be pre processing and bypass all EQ and dynamics.

[Buddster]

It's been said already, but a tech rehursal really should be the next step. One where there's no pressure of setting up for a gig, and everyone can say what they need with time to sort it. 

Set up in a rehursal room as you woukd for a gig. 

We use the Soundcraft U24 and and IEMs (and have done for 3 years) but we just had a 'reset' of levels and spent a good couple of hours setting it up right. Myself and the drummer can both engineer live sound so we can both work the desk (and we have an engineer for gigs). We've had terrible sound before, and I agree it can be a terrible experience. And you shouldn't compromise, you just need time to sort it. 

The pre-gig stress time isn't the ideal place to be sorting out issues . 

[Jakester]

I've not used an ui16, but the digital desks I have used have allowed each user to control their own monitor (aux) sends via an app. 

 

Can you not do that so you're in control of your own mix?

[Buddster]

12 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

You have a pre/post setting on the aux send for each channel. Ican't remember but assume that that would  be pre processing and bypass all EQ and dynamics.

Not 100% sure, but i think pre/post is just pre/post main fader. It should keep the processing. If FOH levels are changed, you'll want foldback set to pre so it doesn't effect the foldback. Sends to effects however are set to post so if the FOH levels are changed, so is the send level. Otherwise you'll just endup with the effect return and no dry signal. 

[Chienmortbb]

I will try it out in the next few days as I have a Ui16

[EBS_freak]

12 minutes ago, Buddster said:

Not 100% sure, but i think pre/post is just pre/post main fader. It should keep the processing. If FOH levels are changed, you'll want foldback set to pre so it doesn't effect the foldback. Sends to effects however are set to post so if the FOH levels are changed, so is the send level. Otherwise you'll just endup with the effect return and no dry signal. 

Depends upon the desk, but typically you can confiigure pre/post fader as well as pre/post DSP. Whatever DSP you apply to FoH will apply to your aux (unless you bypass the DSP). You can do a digital split if you have enough channels to apply different DSPs and effectively have a FoH channel and a monitor channel for each instrument (assuming you have enough channels on your mixer - or you could use two mixers - one for foh, one for monitors)

[warwickhunt]

17 minutes ago, Jakester said:

I've not used an ui16, but the digital desks I have used have allowed each user to control their own monitor (aux) sends via an app. 

 

Can you not do that so you're in control of your own mix?

 

I do have my own aux mix which allows me to mix the instruments in my IE (on my phone) but our ongoing issues have been the actual tone/sound of the bass through my IE.  It has been an awful buzzy, boxy, compressed tone.  Don't ask me why I didn't immediately identify compression as the main culprit but I was too busy chasing my tail thinking it was MY equipment/IEM that was either generating the awful tone or I was inducing latency.  I'm hopeful that if I can just get clean, unadulterated signal from the input to the aux, I can leave the FOH to do what it wants/needs.  

[WalMan]

My moulded plugs have now arrived and I'm in discussion with the sound guy for my main band about getting an aux line that I can control from my phone for my mix. A technical rehearsal would be good but I can't see that happening anytime soon. I was going to get 3 driver plugs from Mercury but they gave me a discount on 4 drivers as I had used them before for sound protection plugs

 

I also experimented with using my Zoom H6 for an ambient line at rehearsal, and plugged my mic into it on an XLR splitter cable. I could also take another line to it from the DI on the Revolt Bass pedal and mix as required.

 

As a quick check, the H6 line out into a Behringer P2 on my belt worked well at rehearsal as I could hear all that was going on and chat in between, so that shows a lot of promise.

 

For live I'd need to think where to put the H6, possibly over the kit? Plugging mic and bass to that won't really be an option as I'd have no way of adjusting the mix on the fly, but possibly feeding the X16 aux into the H6 and setting a general mix between aux and ambient from the H6 mics at soundcheck will work. I'll also need to trust others for setting stage level of the bass, and soundguy to mix it in for FOH, but hopefully won't be digging in as hard as because I can't hear the bass on stage as I should have a line to the IEM's

 

One guitarist is completely old school and will never go to IEM's and said "where are you going to put that live" after I put the H6 on a mic stand in the middle of the rehearsal room ... as if I was expecting to just plonk it on a mic stand front & centre for gigs 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by WalMan

[mrtcat]

3 hours ago, WalMan said:

My moulded plugs have now arrived and I'm in discussion with the sound guy for my main band about getting an aux line that I can control from my phone for my mix. A technical rehearsal would be good but I can't see that happening anytime soon. I was going to get 3 driver plugs from Mercury but they gave me a discount on 4 drivers as I had used them before for sound protection plugs

 

I also experimented with using my Zoom H6 for an ambient line at rehearsal, and plugged my mic into it on an XLR splitter cable. I could also take another line to it from the DI on the Revolt Bass pedal and mix as required.

 

As a quick check, the H6 line out into a Behringer P2 on my belt worked well at rehearsal as I could hear all that was going on and chat in between, so that shows a lot of promise.

 

For live I'd need to think where to put the H6, possibly over the kit? Plugging mic and bass to that won't really be an option as I'd have no way of adjusting the mix on the fly, but possibly feeding the X16 aux into the H6 and setting a general mix between aux and ambient from the H6 mics at soundcheck will work. I'll also need to trust others for setting stage level of the bass, and soundguy to mix it in for FOH, but hopefully won't be digging in as hard as because I can't hear the bass on stage as I should have a line to the IEM's

 

One guitarist is completely old school and will never go to IEM's and said "where are you going to put that live" after I put the H6 on a mic stand in the middle of the rehearsal room ... as if I was expecting to just plonk it on a mic stand front & centre for gigs 

 

 

What gets mic'd up in your band's stage setup? If there's overheads on the kit already surely you'd just mix that into your mix coming from your aux and use the P2 connected direc to the mixer? If there's no overheads on stage can you use your H6 as a stereo overhead plugged into a channel on your x16 and just mix that into your aux mix? Seems to be overcomplicated trying to work in an H6 between your aux out on the desk and your P2. 

Edited June 7, 2023 by mrtcat

[WalMan]

2 hours ago, mrtcat said:

What gets mic'd up in your band's stage setup? If there's overheads on the kit already surely you'd just mix that into your mix coming from your aux and use the P2 connected direc to the mixer? If there's no overheads on stage can you use your H6 as a stereo overhead plugged into a channel on your x16 and just mix that into your aux mix? Seems to be overcomplicated trying to work in an H6 between your aux out on the desk and your P2. 

Tends to be guitars, bass on DI and bass drum mic but no overheads. I was only thinking of the H6 for some general ambience that won't be there otherwise and over the kit seemed like an option to keep it out of the way and give a bit more kit to me. I need to talk to sound guy about the availability of channels to take the H6 through the stage box, possibly just for my IEM mix

[mrtcat]

1 hour ago, WalMan said:

Tends to be guitars, bass on DI and bass drum mic but no overheads. I was only thinking of the H6 for some general ambience that won't be there otherwise and over the kit seemed like an option to keep it out of the way and give a bit more kit to me. I need to talk to sound guy about the availability of channels to take the H6 through the stage box, possibly just for my IEM mix

If you only have guitars, bass, kick and vocal mics you should find there's plenty of spare channels. A cheap condenser mic might be even better. I've gigged on iems for years and have never had an ambient mic. The vocal mics pick up lots of ambient noise and even when we used electric drums with no mics I never felt I was missing anything.

[WalMan]

2 hours ago, mrtcat said:

If you only have guitars, bass, kick and vocal mics you should find there's plenty of spare channels. A cheap condenser mic might be even better. I've gigged on iems for years and have never had an ambient mic. The vocal mics pick up lots of ambient noise and even when we used electric drums with no mics I never felt I was missing anything.

There is that. How much goes through you PA otherwise though?

 

I did pick up a pair of Behringer C2's as well, but it remains to be seen what I can work out as feasible with the sound guy. We shall have to investigate but the possibilities for use with other bands I play with that do not have as much in the way of PA (one in particular that I actually rarely play with now but has a guitarist who really cranks his amp) look good with a simple option using the H6 

[SimBass]

I use a tascam x8 (Same as Zoom H6), and have never had a need to mount it up above the drums. I have it mounted on a mic stand next to may cab so I can easily control levels without it being in the way.

I purposely have it above the cab to get as litte bass cab as possible and send a DI bass signal to it for more control.

If I need more drums than guitar, I point it more towards the drums, if I want less drums, I rotate it away from the drums.

Simple and accessible, doesn't get in the way of the stage and if there is a nice aux signal then I plug that in too and reduce the ambient mic. (I'm often playing with un-mic'ed horn section so that's pretty rare)

 

[Jakester]

22 hours ago, WalMan said:

My moulded plugs have now arrived and I'm in discussion with the sound guy for my main band about getting an aux line that I can control from my phone for my mix. A technical rehearsal would be good but I can't see that happening anytime soon. I was going to get 3 driver plugs from Mercury but they gave me a discount on 4 drivers as I had used them before for sound protection plugs

 

Slight tangent, but how do you find the Mercury IEMs? I'm currently looking and I was angling towards ACS, as I can't really justify super high-end IEMs with the amount of playing I do, but Mercury seem slightly cheaper for a similar spec. 

[WalMan]

On 08/06/2023 at 11:24, Jakester said:

 

Slight tangent, but how do you find the Mercury IEMs? I'm currently looking and I was angling towards ACS, as I can't really justify super high-end IEMs with the amount of playing I do, but Mercury seem slightly cheaper for a similar spec. 

They seem fine to me, though I have not fully used them in anger yet. They are just down the road from my office to I popped in to get the moulds taken. It did take a while longer than anticipated for them to arrive because there was a delay in getting drivers (apparently).

 

I was going to get the 3's but they did 4's at a discount as I was a returning customer.

[WalMan]

On 08/06/2023 at 10:11, SimBass said:

I use a tascam x8 (Same as Zoom H6), and have never had a need to mount it up above the drums. I have it mounted on a mic stand next to may cab so I can easily control levels without it being in the way.

I purposely have it above the cab to get as litte bass cab as possible and send a DI bass signal to it for more control.

If I need more drums than guitar, I point it more towards the drums, if I want less drums, I rotate it away from the drums.

Simple and accessible, doesn't get in the way of the stage and if there is a nice aux signal then I plug that in too and reduce the ambient mic. (I'm often playing with un-mic'ed horn section so that's pretty rare)

 

My only worry with that would be that part of my reason to go back to IEM's is being tucked in the corner at times the other side of the kit to the guitars so it might be drum heavy but it will be experiment and I suppose if I all have an aux feed from the stage box that I can control from the iPad it may not be an issue

[SimBass]

On 09/06/2023 at 15:31, WalMan said:

My only worry with that would be that part of my reason to go back to IEM's is being tucked in the corner at times the other side of the kit to the guitars so it might be drum heavy but it will be experiment and I suppose if I all have an aux feed from the stage box that I can control from the iPad it may not be an issue

Forgot mentioned, the Tascam X8 (same functionality as Zoom X6 but big touch screen interface). Has an optional Bluetooth adapter meaning you could set it up above a drum kit (or even opposite side of the stage) and it's fully controllable from your phone. Everything from gain levels to mix levels and beyond. It's about £100 more than the zoom H6 but if you really want that functionality?

[warwickhunt]

On 06/06/2023 at 13:17, warwickhunt said:

 

I do have my own aux mix which allows me to mix the instruments in my IE (on my phone) but our ongoing issues have been the actual tone/sound of the bass through my IE.  It has been an awful buzzy, boxy, compressed tone.  Don't ask me why I didn't immediately identify compression as the main culprit but I was too busy chasing my tail thinking it was MY equipment/IEM that was either generating the awful tone or I was inducing latency.  I'm hopeful that if I can just get clean, unadulterated signal from the input to the aux, I can leave the FOH to do what it wants/needs.  

 

Back to square 1 for me!

 

I've no idea why, considering desk settings were saved, but last 2 gigs I've set up, plugged in and been assaulted by this god awful IEM bass tone! 

 

PA guy assures me there is now no compression or effects on my Aux send (wired to P2 > IEM) but I have this buzzy/compressed bass tone which is a million miles removed from the FOH sound but apparently that is the compromise for using cheap IEM... this has led to heat exchanges as the IEM may be cheap but when I play ANY other sound source through them there is no compression/distortion.  I've plugged the drummers studio headphones into my P2 at the gig and it sounds exactly the same, so imho nothing to do with my choice of earphones.

 

Thinking it through, I've never actually listened to any of the other Aux sends that the drummer and guitarist use so I'll be checking that.  It has been suggested that I use my A&H 4 channel mixer to get a DI bass tone + a feed from the PA and I mix from that for my IEM, which is an option.  However we are doing a theatre gig this weekend so it'll be interesting to give the engineer my feed and see what I get back as a mix!