In ear systems

[Harlequin74]

Hi all , can i ask for your advice and expertise please?

 

i am starting my journey toward in ear solutions, mainly to save what is left of my hearing and also to get a good balance across the band. I am constantly struggling with that on stage.

 

can you point me toward the best systems you have experienced, and any pitfalls or issues i should beware?

 

thanks for your time

mike

[EBS_freak]

Have a read of this - if there's still questions, ask away!

Edited December 6, 2021 by EBS_freak

[Harlequin74]

Still fighting my way through it. Still wondering if there is a system that is recommended. The in ear part seems to be quite well catered for.

 

its the system which will allow me to mix the band into my in ears, which i have questions about

 

thanks for taking the time to ask

[EBS_freak]

Here's some pointers - 

 

You'll need a desk in which to create an inears mix. That desk should have the option to do enough mixes for each member of the band (consider if you want to run in mono or stereo). You'll need one aux for each mono feed, two for each stereo feed. Some desks have a limit on the number of stereo feeds (e.g. A&H QU series). Some desks allow you to plug in separate IEM mixers (look under the Ultranet bit). 

 

You'll need an IEM amplifier to take the feed from that desk to plug your IEMs into to get the signal into your IEMs. That can either be wired, or wireless.

 

 

The cheapest decent option, is something like an XR18, with Behringer P2s. That will give you up to 6 mono mixes... (6 people in your band) or say 3 stereo mixes (3 people in your band) 

 

[weeleigh]

We have an XR18, and our vocalist and I use IEM’s. I just take an XLR from an aux port on the XR18 to a Behringer PM1. My in ear monitors are Cosmic Ears, and they simply plug in to the PM1 which attaches to my belt.

 

Our system allows each of us to control our own personal mix using an app, which I have on my iPad. It works very well.

[Harlequin74]

Thanks guys, thats really helpful

[Harlequin74]

On 13/12/2021 at 16:55, EBS_freak said:

Here's some pointers - 

 

You'll need a desk in which to create an inears mix. That desk should have the option to do enough mixes for each member of the band (consider if you want to run in mono or stereo). You'll need one aux for each mono feed, two for each stereo feed. Some desks have a limit on the number of stereo feeds (e.g. A&H QU series). Some desks allow you to plug in separate IEM mixers (look under the Ultranet bit). 

 

You'll need an IEM amplifier to take the feed from that desk to plug your IEMs into to get the signal into your IEMs. That can either be wired, or wireless.

 

 

The cheapest decent option, is something like an XR18, with Behringer P2s. That will give you up to 6 mono mixes... (6 people in your band) or say 3 stereo mixes (3 people in your band) 

 

Hi there.

 

i would appreciate more advice if you have time? Perhaps a chat or continue on email?

 

i bought the ZK Z10 pros, which i used for the first time (wired) into a small mixer, with the mix controlled by the Allen & Heath digital desk that the band uses. I got on very well with it, much better than i thought i might. The ZS10 are very good value really and the sound was good.

 

the reason i am going down this path is to try and reduce the overall volumes on stage, hear what others are doing more clearly! And also to protect my hearing. I wear hearing aids, with alot of loss at higher frequencies for need to take that seriously.

 

the ZS10s having a super bass response, and i think they have a dynamic driver in conjunction with balanced armatures.

 

going forward i have a pm1 on the way, and plan to invest in moulded in- ears. Budget is not an issue,  but could do with your advice on two things please.

- the best in ears to get

- adding in a digital mixer to my set up to allow me to set the mix, not just the volume.

 

i have found your advice brilliant so far, and want to thank you for that. 
 

best, Mike

[Harlequin74]

Sorry, the other question i had was about the Backbeat haptic device. Is wiring one of these into the set up fairly easy?

 

 

[EBS_freak]

9 hours ago, Harlequin74 said:

going forward i have a pm1 on the way, and plan to invest in moulded in- ears. Budget is not an issue,  but could do with your advice on two things please.

- the best in ears to get

- adding in a digital mixer to my set up to allow me to set the mix, not just the volume.

 

There's not necessarily a "best" IEM as all of them have positives and negatives. If budget is not an issue, I think my favourite IEM would be the 64 Audio A12t - but they are around £1750. Not heard anything I prefer to it yet.

 

If budget is not 1750, these would be the ones I would check out

 

Ultimate Ears

UE6 - £615

UE11 - £955

UE18+ - £1280

 

64 Audio

A4t - (although this has now been replaced by the A4s which I haven't heard this one yet (circa 900-1000 I think))

N8 - £1490

and of course the A12t

 

JH Audio

JH11 - £900

JH13 or (if you like more bass) JH16 - £1150/1320

Roxanne - £1665

 

Don't be put off by the lower price of the UE6 - they are actually are really good proposition if you want to stick the other side of £1000. Certainly the only custom IEM I have tried and would recommend for bass players at that price point.

 

PM1 - will give you a wired headphone amp that can be run from a mixing desk, giving you a mono mix over a balanced connection, or a stereo mix over an unbalanced connection. Plug the PM1 into the bands desk and set a mix on there. If it's a digital desk that you are connecting into, the likelihood is that you will be able to download an app for your ipad, iphone or android device (although not all manufacturers support android) to control all the individual channels. Make sure you have a router for your desk so that you can connect remotely to it and dial in your mix independent of the physical desk itself.

 

If you are in the A&H ecosystem and want something physical to mix on, you may want to check out the ME1 as an alternative.

 

The overall volume of you your inears should be controlled via your PM1.

 

[Harlequin74]

Thanks very much, i really appreciate you taking the time.

cheers

[EBS_freak]

As for the Backbeat - the most simple way of attaching it (going by the 1st version, they haven't clarified how the (ughhh) breakout cables will work on the second version) is to to plug your bass output into the Backbeat, then go out of the Backbeat into your amp or whatever you'd normally plug it into.

[Harlequin74]

Thanks. What do you think of ACS custom iem?

[EBS_freak]

2 hours ago, Harlequin74 said:

Thanks. What do you think of ACS custom iem?

Crap

[Harlequin74]

Cool, so not very good then. 🤣🤣🤣

[EBS_freak]

I dont think I could get anything else past the swear filters.

 

(And that's not me just saying this out of thin air... this is me talking from experience and owning what was their flagship product)

Edited December 29, 2021 by EBS_freak

[Harlequin74]

34 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

I dont think I could get anything else past the swear filters.

 

(And that's not me just saying this out of thin air... this is me talking from experience and owning what was their flagship product)

great advice thanks

[Harlequin74]

EBSFreak what is your experience and opinion of the ambient in ear monitors, like these….

 

http://www.custom-inearmonitors.co.uk/iems/jh-audio-ambient-fr-custom-in-ear-monitors.html

 

I am based in sussex do you have any thoughts on the best folks to work with to demo and order?

 

i used the ZS10’s for the first time at our NYE gig. Currently from the A&H SQ desk wired to my small A& H mixer and wired to me. Using this set up to make sure its for me before deciding upon my final kit selection.

 

it was a revelation as you said it would be, although i noticed treble distortion after around an hour ( a 3 set evening!), perhaps my ears shutting down? Or the cheapy in ears? However this did not change my opinion-at all, i am defo going this route and about to start sourcing my custom in ears. Hi fi clarity, and no deafness at all-or ringing ears at the end of the night.

 

the whole band was playing at lower volumes leading me to think that i have been edging my volume up over the duration of gigs. I have been thinking this was others and i was compensating but i think not now! My bad.

 

all the usual issues as communicated - ambient noise, not being able to chat easily with bandmembers or hear when they change the set list which led to a super pregnant pause when we played ‘I Wish’ out of order as i start it. Lol. All of these can be solved i think and if not i would still use in- ears. Wish i had discovered it years ago. Not intending to go wireless either as i am not Flea!

 

thanks again

[EBS_freak]

I am not a fan of ambient ports on IEMs. Fine for most players - but not for bass players or those that like to hear the bass - as as you open up the the seal to the outside world, you lose bass response. This is particularly annoying especially when you are paying all the money for IEMs that are giving your the superior bass performance and it all gets lost.

 

If you are still feeling ear fatigue, it's likely that the volumes are still too high. What tends to happen, is that as your ears fatigue, you lose treble response. In that treble range, is where all the detail mostly resides (ears most sensitive between 1-4k). What tends to happen, as you have experienced, is that people then turn up (generally guitarists as they are the first to blast their ears) to compensate. What then happens is that their ears get further fatigued... so they turn up again. All that happens is that it becomes a volume war and the mix out front is wrecked for the audience.

 

What could be happening is that the volume on your IEMs are still high to get over the amount of noise that is leaking into the IEMs from the stage. You can probably improve this by improving the seals by trying different tips, going custom fit, or turn the volume down further on stage. The more you turn down your instruments on stage (or remove backline completely) and let a decent PA do the work, the better the band will sound out front.

 

As for comms, consider ambient mics on the stage or maybe a talk back mic. Ambient mics on stage are quite nice for adding the room back into the mix. They can also be put on a foot switch to turn them on between songs if you don't want them in the mix when playing. I quite like playing with a "dry mix" and I find the overheads of the drums are enough to keep me happy on the ambient front. 

 

 

[Harlequin74]

Cheers, good solutions thanks which i will take on board.

 

custom fits first, and will see about getting the talk back mic. Do you put the drum overhead on a standard mic boom?

 

mike

[EBS_freak]

I do a pair of overheads on the drums as I run all the IEMs in stereo. Mic stands boomed over top of kit. Remember to measure the mics to be equidistant from the snare to avoid phasing issues.

[LukeFRC]

Dear agony aunt (aka @EBS_freak)

 

church IEM use gets some distortion through my UE 900s …

chat on our WhatsApp group “oh some headphones will blow” - turns out we are using a Behringer powerplay 8 - which from what I can work out is looking for a minimum 100ohm per channel. 
my UE 900s are 30ohm 

this is going to be a problem isn’t it?! 

[LukeFRC]

And by problem I mean “it’s kinda been working for the last 3 years”

[EBS_freak]

Yeah - mismatched... although it's going to be causing the amp more problems than your IEMs as your IEMs aren't going to present a high enough load out on the output transformer of the headphone amp.

 

The Powerplay 8 is designed for in the studio where they are expected to be used with say 250Ohm over ears.

 

Solve the problem by just getting a P2 for your setup and ask if you can plug into that.

[LukeFRC]

On 03/01/2022 at 15:02, EBS_freak said:

Yeah - mismatched... although it's going to be causing the amp more problems than your IEMs as your IEMs aren't going to present a high enough load out on the output transformer of the headphone amp.

 

The Powerplay 8 is designed for in the studio where they are expected to be used with say 250Ohm over ears.

 

Solve the problem by just getting a P2 for your setup and ask if you can plug into that.

I realised I didn’t say a massive thank you!  

[Mottlefeeder]

As a fellow hearing aid user, I have noticed that when you take hearing aids out and put in-ears in, you lose the mids/top end that the hearing aid was providing. 

Does anyone make a monitor amplifier that has suitable eq built in?

David