Splitting mic inputs for IEM feed

[Jakester]

Morning all, I'm doing a few dep gigs with a band on drums over the next few weeks, and at rehearsal we were briefly discussing stage setup, when they asked what monitoring I liked to use. 

 

I said I tend to use my IEMs, at which their faces dropped. Apparently they use an 'old-school' analogue desk which only has two aux outs; one which is configured for the singer (so has mainly vocals), and one is used by one of the other guitarists for his own IEMs. 

 

They asked whether 'stage sound' (i.e. the backline output from the bass and guitar amps) would be okay; I said without actually being on stage with them and playing, I didn't know. 

 

I was wondering whether there was a quick and dirty way of overcoming this; I have my own digital mixer, and I wondered whether a mic splitter might the solution?

 

If I can split the feeds from the mics (I'm assuming two vox, two guitars and a bass DI) and run them into my mixer, along with the drums; I can give them a drum feed out from one or two of the auxes from my mixer (if they want stereo) but still mix the incoming mics to my IEMs.

 

Would this work in theory? If so, would y-cable splitters do, or do I need a 'proper' splitter box?

[EBS_freak]

What digital mixer have you got?

 

You can just set up each channel you want to pass through on prefader aux - assuming you have enough auxes available.

 

Y cables are OK - but dont go there if there is any phantom power in play. Remember some analogue desks dont have phantom power per channel... it's either on or off for the whole mixer.

 

[Jakester]

Thanks, hadn't thought of that at all - it's a QSC TM16, so six mono auxes - so that would probably work, and I can take an IEM straight from one of the two stereo aux feeds.

 

Perfect, and means I don't need to buy any more kit! 

 

 

[EBS_freak]

May be worth taking the required cables from your mixer to theirs with you in preparation, just in case nobody has the additional cables in their kitbag.

 

[Jakester]

42 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

May be worth taking the required cables from your mixer to theirs with you in preparation, just in case nobody has the additional cables in their kitbag.

 

 

Yep, I'll take my box-a-crap(TM) with me! 

[jimmyb625]

I use the Behringer rack mounted mic splitters with my stage box rack mixer, in case there's a requirement to split feeds. 

 

It's a little pricier than using y cables, but I find it a neater solution and quicker to setup and strip out, which is the main issue for most of the use it gets.

 

I should really label the inputs.

[Elfrasho]

My band use hx pedals for guitar and bass so we juat split at that stage. We then use 3 of these.. rackmounted. In hindsight probably should've went for the behringer thing as above but things weren't originally rqckmiunted so these made sense.

 

They are awesome though and probably would be handy to have around anyway!

 

 

[Jakester]

On 21/08/2024 at 12:22, EBS_freak said:

What digital mixer have you got?

 

You can just set up each channel you want to pass through on prefader aux - assuming you have enough auxes available.

 

Just to circle back to this, had the gig last night and @EBS_freak’s suggestion worked perfectly. 
 

Set my digital desk to just passthrough each input pre-everything - and because that was only 5 inputs, I could send via the mono auxes straight out into the FOH desk, give them a stereo out of the drums (I was playing) and also send a separate feed for the other band member who used IEMs because he only wanted snare from the kit. (Though at help time he asked for more of everything else too). 

 

Excellent result and I didn’t need to buy any more kit!