Standalone IEM solution recommendations

[Jolltax]

The IEM thread is a bit overwhelming, lol, I decided not to add this to it - but I have read the first section and was hoping for some advice, I have been playing 4 years (but 58 yo), and just started rehearsing with a local band which is amazing / brilliant fun.

 

They rehearse in a small room and play very loudly (to me), at times I can't hear what I am playing and I quite worried about hearing damage. I have bought some Fender Musician Series Ear Plugs for our next session. The band mostly play through their own speakers / cabs and I am standing right next to mine which makes it even more difficult to hear.

 

Is there a standalone / self contained solution whereby I can have my bass, some ambient sound so I can hear what the band are playing into IEM's which allow me to control the volume and what I am hearing but still hear my bass in the mix. I read the 'bible' at the beginning here and see that potentially the Zoom H6 or similar might be the ticket with built in mikes - is that right?  Can it be combined with wired or wireless IEM's - could anyone suggest something suitable?

I don't mind spending some money but it looks like it will cost enough to not want to make a wrong purchase! I would be very grateful for some advice on what will work well.

 

EDIT : The more I read about wireless IEM's the more scary (and expensive) it gets.  I'm going to buy some wired IEM's and a Behringer P2 just to see if I can get used to it first, maybe I'll be able to hear enough noise through the IEM's to avoid the need for additional mikes and mixing etc etc

 

Thank you

 

J

Edited April 25 by Jolltax
duh!

[Mottlefeeder]

The behringer P2 and its rivals are designed to take line level outputs from a mixer, so your bass may not have a strong enough signal to give you enough volume, especially if it is passive.

 

A cheap used mixer (2-3 channels) and a basic microphone would allow you to mix ambient sound and/or PA sound with your bass and would give you a headphone feed. When you decide what mix works for you, you can buy the gear you need and sell the mixer on, or you can use it for silent practice at home.

 

David

[Kirky]

The Zoom or similar will work.   The H4 (I think) which I have, has stereo mics, and two XLR inputs, with separate volume controls.  The simplest option is to take a DI feed from your bass amp or a different pedal, plug into one of the inputs and mis that and the stereo mics, plugging your IEMs directly into the headphones out of the Zoom.  No need for a P2.   If possible you can take a feed from the desk and plug that into the other input and mix as little or as much as that into it.   How effective it will be will depend on how effectively the IEMs block out ambient sound from the room.   

Edited April 26 by Kirky

[Phil Starr]

I've used the Zoom H4N for just this purpose and it was the experience that sent me all the way to IEM's I wish I'd done it earlier and my hearing loss would have been less. I bought the H4 as a recorder so I already had it to hand but any small recorder would work I tried my old Olympus WS-650S dictaphone thing and that works just as well, at the cost of having to record everything and then erasing it to free up the memory for next gig. I'd look at something like the Zoom H1 if I was buying something to do this now though, the H4 is bulky and over the top for this purpose and you could wear the H1 on a lanyard. Plenty of other rivals to the Zoom also, look at Tascam and Olympus too.

 

What was stunning and should have been obvious is that I simply plugged myself in and could instantly hear everything on stage much better than without them. That was entirely down to the reduction in sound levels. to make this work you need to concentrate on getting the best for possible for your headphones, the more of the over-loud drums and backline you can cut out the better your experience will be.

 

Using a personal mixer can be just as good. Think of it as a system in three parts Microphone>headphone amp>headphone. You can use an ambient mic and a mixer as your headphone amp or a mini-recorder as both mic and headphone amp. Using a recorder assumes that you have a decent monitoring sound where you stand anyway. If you want control over levels and creating your own monitor mix then a personal mixer is the way to go. I know at least one bassist with a mixer fixed to their pedal board for their own monitoring.

[ratman]

ASI 3DME. They're not cheap at £650 but you could easily spend that on normal IEMs. You can use the built in ambient mics to attenuate the room volume, and you can mix in an IEM feed too. I've had mine almost 2 years and I think they're awesome.

 

https://3dwaveaudio.co.uk/

[pete.young]

Another Zoom H4 user here. Does the H1 have any inputs to take a feed from the bass? I can only see one 'microphone' socket which presumably replaces the built-ins.

[dave_bass5]

I use a Zoom H4 essential for ambient these days, but i was using a cheap Behringer B-5 mic in to a small mixer before that and it worked really well. Once i had it sorted out i felt much more comfortable with IEM’s. 

I guess one question is do you want stereo or mono? Personally i find stereo much more natural sounding. Even though the bass is mono it’s nice to hear a bit of spread from the room IME.

You could get a small Behringer mixer and a pair of Behringer C-2 mics for around £100.The mics even come with a mic stand holder that holds both. 

[Jolltax]

I think stereo ambient would be better as it sounds more natural, my bass I would mix in mono i.e. in both ears the same

 

The behringer IEM amp works well but I'm not sure how well the ambient sound will come through the IEM's and I obviously cant boost it in any way, i'll have a look at the H4 essential - i guess a mixer with mike would be cheaper?

[dave_bass5]

1 hour ago, Jolltax said:

I think stereo ambient would be better as it sounds more natural, my bass I would mix in mono i.e. in both ears the same

 

The behringer IEM amp works well but I'm not sure how well the ambient sound will come through the IEM's and I obviously cant boost it in any way, i'll have a look at the H4 essential - i guess a mixer with mike would be cheaper?

Yes, stereo all the way for me. 
 

[Jolltax]

I just placed an order for an H4n pro it sounds like a lot of you are using them for this and  its given me the confidence to hit the button, thank you!

I'll let you  know how I get on, we rehearsing this week and I'll give it a try

 

J

 

[JPJ]

Sounds like (no pun intended) you are sorted, but i would have recommended you tried good hearing protection first. I have some ACS custom moulded ear protection that I run with 17db filters which work perfectly for lowering the overall volume level and letting me hear my bass above the cacophony. 

[dave_bass5]

3 hours ago, Jolltax said:

I just placed an order for an H4n pro it sounds like a lot of you are using them for this and  its given me the confidence to hit the button, thank you!

I'll let you  know how I get on, we rehearsing this week and I'll give it a try

 

J

 

It also means you can record the rehearsals, which is always a good idea IME. 

[EBS_freak]

On 01/05/2024 at 17:45, ratman said:

ASI 3DME. They're not cheap at £650 but you could easily spend that on normal IEMs. You can use the built in ambient mics to attenuate the room volume, and you can mix in an IEM feed too. I've had mine almost 2 years and I think they're awesome.

 

https://3dwaveaudio.co.uk/

 

https://www.inear.de/en/products/monitoring/active-ambience-sound/hearmix-pro

 

Alternative where you can use your own customs as the mics are on the cable (as long as you are using a two pin connector)

 

Just throwing them into the melting pot of options.

[ratman]

It's great to see somebody else making an ambient mic IEM system. I really am surprised that there aren't more around. On the Hearmix the only controls are ambient mic volume and treble & bass EQ cut. It looks nice and simple to use. Like the ASIs you daisy chain your normal belt pack into this. A brief search suggests they cost around £500 in the EU, so importing to the UK would likely make them similar in price to the ASI system.

 

[dave_bass5]

I used to think i had to have ambient, but our stage mics pick up so much that i really don’t need it. Its nice to have that extra bit of control over what I hear though. 

[EBS_freak]

12 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

I used to think i had to have ambient, but our stage mics pick up so much that i really don’t need it. Its nice to have that extra bit of control over what I hear though. 

Exactly. I think a lot of people get obsessed about the idea of ambient, but in reality, most people don't miss it.

[dave_bass5]

52 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Exactly. I think a lot of people get obsessed about the idea of ambient, but in reality, most people don't miss it.

Id say the same about IEM's in general at the moment. its like everyone wants to use them.

Saw two bands on Sat. Small pub but loud bands. each was just a 5 piece, no keys. One only had a monitor on the floor for the singer and sounded great. The other all had IEM's, larger amps and sounded awful. There was no sound guy so the bands were doing their sounds themselves. It's like the IEM lot were lost in their own in ear mixes, with no real out front mix. 

The first band was a mates band and he said they do use them on larger stages, but when they do smaller venues like this the on stage sound is so loud there is just no need for IEMs, other than if the singer needs to use them. When you are standing right on top of your bass rig, next to a drummer, its earplugs you need lol.

[Dood]

On 01/05/2024 at 17:45, ratman said:

ASI 3DME. They're not cheap at £650 but you could easily spend that on normal IEMs. You can use the built in ambient mics to attenuate the room volume, and you can mix in an IEM feed too. I've had mine almost 2 years and I think they're awesome.

 

https://3dwaveaudio.co.uk/

 

I have a set in to review right now and it's a game changer!! Absolutely and utterly brilliant. I love th eonbbaord EQ and limiter as well as the extra onboard functions. I set the volume control up so I could quickly switch to hear people talking and then right back to gig level without straining, or having to remove an ear piece.

 

Expect a video very soon! 

[Al Krow]

18 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Id say the same about IEM's in general at the moment. its like everyone wants to use them.

Saw two bands on Sat. Small pub but loud bands. each was just a 5 piece, no keys. One only had a monitor on the floor for the singer and sounded great. The other all had IEM's, larger amps and sounded awful. There was no sound guy so the bands were doing their sounds themselves. It's like the IEM lot were lost in their own in ear mixes, with no real out front mix. 

The first band was a mates band and he said they do use them on larger stages, but when they do smaller venues like this the on stage sound is so loud there is just no need for IEMs, other than if the singer needs to use them. When you are standing right on top of your bass rig, next to a drummer, its earplugs you need lol.

 

IEMs make really good sense when you have a silent stage, or at most acoustic drums and no backline, and put everything through the PA to get a really nicely balanced FoH sound. It's pretty common in the function band scene.

If you're using backline then, agreed, there's much less need for IEMs for the instrumentalists. The vocalists obviously need to be able to hear themselves and be heard by the band but a small stage monitor should deal with this.

 

I don't think how good the two bands you mention sounded had anything much to do with one using IEMs and the other not though? Much more likely to be down to how good the two bands are. As you said, your mates (i.e. the better) band use IEMs when the need arises - I'd be very surprised if IEMs made them play / sound worse.

[Dood]

1 hour ago, EBS_freak said:

Exactly. I think a lot of people get obsessed about the idea of ambient, but in reality, most people don't miss it.

 

I think its like anything in IEM, when it is done properly, you really don't wanna go back to poor mono, congested and painful in-ear mixes on cheap IEMs. I guess it also depends on what you are happy to live with and whether or not the band budget will stretch to what is still perceived as a bit of a luxury.. hearing yourself properly! Horses.. courses..  

[Rosie C]

On 25/04/2024 at 21:59, Mottlefeeder said:

The behringer P2 and its rivals are designed to take line level outputs from a mixer, so your bass may not have a strong enough signal to give you enough volume, especially if it is passive.

 

 

I use a Behringer P2. I run my bass into a Boss TU-3 tuner pedal - the 'output' jack goes to my amp, the 'bypass' jack goes into the P2. I'm not sure what's going on inside but there's a strong enough signal to drive everything. I use it with ACS ambient IEMs which are something like ambient less 17dB.

 

 

Edited May 8 by Rosie C

[dave_bass5]

56 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

 

 

I don't think how good the two bands you mention sounded had anything much to do with one using IEMs and the other not though? Much more likely to be down to how good the two bands are. As you said, your mates (i.e. the better) band use IEMs when the need arises - I'd be very surprised if IEMs made them play / sound worse.

I didn't say they played bad, just sounded bad. The mix was very unbalanced. I'm sure we have all stood on stage and can gauge how loud we are compared to the rest of the band, and make a pretty good judgment call as to how it sounds out front and make adjustments. We use our ears for this. When you have a full band that are all listening to personal mixes in their ears, they lose a sense of what it sounds like to the audience and can't make these judgement calls. Both bands were very tight but the second had a pretty poor mix.

 

EDIT: to add to this, ive experienced the same thing in my band. When one of our guitarist went over to IEM's, he more or less gave up on settings a volume to match the other in the band. We would  all be telling him we couldn't hear him and had to get him to take them out for a song or two so he could set his amp level a but better. He has now stopped using them for really small gigs like the one I posted last week, so he can hear his amp and gauge if it's too loud/quiet etc. 

Edited May 8 by dave_bass5

[dave_bass5]

45 minutes ago, Dood said:

 

I think its like anything in IEM, when it is done properly, you really don't wanna go back to poor mono, congested and painful in-ear mixes on cheap IEMs. I guess it also depends on what you are happy to live with and whether or not the band budget will stretch to what is still perceived as a bit of a luxury.. hearing yourself properly! Horses.. courses..  

I couldn't possibly go back to mono now, at least not unless I really had to. When I'm playing keys I get a really nice stereo mix. Guitar's panned, backing vocals panned, stereo spread on the keys etc. its like listening to a recording. 

[JPJ]

45 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

If you're using backline then, agreed, there's much less need for IEMs for the instrumentalists. The vocalists obviously need to be able to hear themselves and be heard by the band but a small stage monitor should deal with this.

 

This is my experience in a nutshell. The first time I tried IEM’s on a non-silent stage was a massive disappointment. OK I was using the Basschat favourite KZ non-custom in-ears, but I had the volume maxed on the aux and the receiver and still I wasn’t getting a clear improvement over my custom ACS hearing protection with way to much spill from the drums in particular. Running everything at high volume rather defeated the point of the IEM’s in the first place. Despite having upgraded my in-ears to Sennheiser, I still find myself reverting to the ACS solution as it works and I don’t have to suffer the post-gig tinnitus. 

[dave_bass5]

3 minutes ago, JPJ said:

This is my experience in a nutshell. The first time I tried IEM’s on a non-silent stage was a massive disappointment. OK I was using the Basschat favourite KZ non-custom in-ears, but I had the volume maxed on the aux and the receiver and still I wasn’t getting a clear improvement over my custom ACS hearing protection with way to much spill from the drums in particular. Running everything at high volume rather defeated the point of the IEM’s in the first place. Despite having upgraded my in-ears to Sennheiser, I still find myself reverting to the ACS solution as it works and I don’t have to suffer the post-gig tinnitus. 

Sometimes it seems the best solution is the simplest.