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In Ear Monitors - help needed...


MoJoKe

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You might want to look into these (don't seem to be readily available in the UK) - http://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_powerplay_p1.htm

theres always the trusty http://www.thomann.de/gb/millenium_hpa_in_ear.htm  too. (just get an extension cable for your headphones)

Edited by EBS_freak
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[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1418767050' post='2633226']
You might want to look into these (don't seem to be readily available in the UK) - [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_powerplay_p1.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...owerplay_p1.htm[/url]

theres always the trusty [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/millenium_hpa_in_ear.htm"]http://www.thomann.d..._hpa_in_ear.htm[/url] too. (just get an extension cable for your headphones)
[/quote]

I have the powerplay P1 and it's very good ... Fairly cheap too ... The xlr cable going into it ....did seem to get in the way a bit on times though.... But a great sound.

I have however now purchased an LD Systems MEI 1000 g2 bundle from Thomann as the guitarist has just moved to in ears too so he paid for half of it .... I must say I'm really impressed with it too as I was initially worried the unit would cover the really low bass sounds as it only goes down to 60Hz ..... But it's been great ... Crystal clear ... No interference ... And no cable .... I'm honestly well happy with it.

I use 1964 QI's with it .... Which are great too

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In our contemporary covers band, my daughter and her drummer both use the LD MEI 100G2s with expensive moulded in ear triple driver earpieces for Claire (lead singer) but the standard out of the box earpieces for Jamie. They rate this unit very highly. It costs about £156.00 for the standard transmitter unit and standard set of earpieces. It will take up to 8 recievers (bought separately). Not tried the other two but the MEI 100G2s are the latest version and £100.00 cheaper than the MEI 1000 unit you are looking at. In truth most of it is in the actual quality of the earpieces - single drivers are OK but twin or triple drivers give better results.

Hope that helps. NickMK1

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Hi Russ. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. We're at Akamba in Solihull on the 31st Jan. Local gig for me and Fiddy #sorted ;-)

Having lived with the LD Systems unit, it's been really good but then again, not had much comparison. We're limited by two AUX outs on the A&H desk so we usually run one mix for the singists and then the other mix for the rest of us. Works pretty well but a desk upgrade is the next move. We've got the two MEI1000's that we can focus left and right to give everyone their own mix. As you said all those eons ago, that's the ideal point we'd want to get to. Everyone with their own mix. Brian the keyboard player is investing in a pair of V6 or V6S in the new year plus another MEI1000 so that, with the Mackie DL1608, will give us what we need.

As you know, having become the Luke Skywalker to you, the Yoda, it's a real challenge to convince people that the investment in quality IEMs is the way to go. We invest thousands in our guitars and backline but baulk at hundreds in quality IEMs to hear the stuff through. It's one of those "aaaahhhhh, I get it now" moments when you get a great in ear mix through a set of top line IEMs. Because they're custom moulds, you can't exactly pop em into someone elses ears and say "listen to this shizzle".

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  • 5 weeks later...

Took the plunge yesterday and ordered T1 Live with the live pack.

I've been using Shure 425's which give a great sound, but I don't like the isolated feeling on stage.

Hopefully the T1 lives will sort that for me.

Andy at ACS demonstrated with a pair using ear buds - very impressive.

Should have them by the end of Jan, looking forward to trying them out.
Only slight concern is that Andy took a mouth closed impression and I do sing backing vocals.
Just spoke to Richard at ACS - he said if I have a problem with fit during the first 30 days they will remake.

Russ - with the live pack, do you still have a full band mix in your monitors? I'm wondering if I can just add a bit of bass and the kick drum.

Re our conversation on the QU16 and ME1, I now have channel naming which is sent through to the ME1; A&H defintiely listen to their users!

Cheers
Martin

Edited by martinbass7750
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Congratulations on your purchase - I'm sure you'll love the ambient feeling that the T1 system will give you.

Don't worry about the closed mouth impression - there is more give in silicon and its not unusable for the moulds be taken in a closed mouth position regardless of what you intend to do with the drivers. It's more critical with acrylic that an semi/open mouth impression is done if you intend to sing. My T1s are closed mouth impression and fit very snug and never break seal, even when singing.

As for the mix - it's all dependant on your own personal preference and to some extent, the gig. For example, in rooms where the acoustics are like an echo chamber, I'll do away with the ambient pack completely. If you are caught in a bass trap, I'll tend to not use the ambient pack either - the swampy ambient bass can muddy your mix and you'll lose definition in your bass. Sometimes, if the ambient sound it too loud, it can cause distortion problems with the ambient pack even when you engage the pad settings on the mics. Sometimes those little mics just cant cope with very loud environments... and you not think you are loud but when you stand the whole band in that 1m square stage in the corner of a pub, things tend to get loud!

Anyway... now that the bad environments are taken out the picture, what I tend to do is do a dry monitor mix and then blend in the ambient pack. I couldn't figure out if you understood how the ambient pack works but basically it blends the ambient mix with an incoming mix (if there is one). So without an external mix, you get just the mix from the T1 mics. If you plug in a wireless receiver or a cable from giving you the feed from the desk, the ambient pack passes through that mix but laters the ambient mix on top. It's a passive through from the desk mix meaning that if the ambient pack batteries fail, it won't take out your dry monitor mix.. only your ambient mix. I hope this makes sense.... Anyway, I find that the best monitor sounds come from having the precise mix from the desk and then adding in the hint of ambience from the pack to give it that airy, natural feel. I find if you do it the other way around, you'll find that moving your head off axis to the stage for example, can cause significant changes in monitor level and you'll find yourself messing with the mix all night. As crazy as it sounds, for me at least, the best sounding mixes are the ones that add just the tiniest of ambient mix in... that gives you the best sounding yet natural sounding mix. You get the 3d stereo positioning - like the drums becoming louder when you walk closer to them but without the cymbals suddenly taking your head off. Like everything, you have to play with it - trial and error is key but if you mix like I suggest here - I think you'll shorten your learning curve a lot and get to where you want to be. I started off with a bias towards the ambient mix and it was all over the shop.

AH are on the ball - they have to be, especially with all the desks that are coming out at the moment. For example, the Mackie DL32R should mix things up nicely! (assuming you already have an iPads and iPhones in your band)

Anyway, good luck on your T1 journey! Keep us all informed as to how you get on!

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Yes, I understood how the live pack works. Didn't realise it was a dry mix from the desk though.
Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.

The way I work currently is to have these feeds from the desk
Vocals
Lead guitar
Kick, snare plus an overhead
ambient mic.

I guess I'm replacing the ambient mic with the live pack.

The ME1 has a mono ambient mic, but if I have to keep the level very low as it distorts as soon as the band plays if I'm not careful!
I'm hoping the live pack will allow me to hear what's going on between songs - important if the band changes the set order 😄

Will certainly post updates.
Cheers Martin

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OK so how you set it up is that instead of plugging your headphones directly into the ME1, you'll need a longer headphone extension to plug into your ambient pack. (You'll need to buy one of these because the ACS ambient pack only comes with a short jumper cable - presumably because they assume that you'll be using the ambient pack directly next to a wireless receiver).

The ME1 seems to have not been geared (from an ambient mic point of view) for sitting in loud environments. You could try the old foam stuck down with a bit of tape over the mic trick to tame the sound levels a bit to give the mic a better chance.

Is all the band on in ears?

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Yeah, got that thanks.

Good idea re covering the me1 mic, hadn't'the thought of that.

Just me with in-ears at the moment, although I'm trying to convince the singer he needs it. When I play without in-ears he keeps asking for his monitor to be turned up through the gig, to the point wher it often hurts my ears. Not good for his hearing.

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http://blog.rfvenue.com/iem-ultimate-guide/

Some of you guys may find the above quite interesting - having been there in a heavy rf environment, I can certainly say that I have been through the pain that they talk about. Shure Wireless Workbench soon changed that :)

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Looks like there has been a refresh of the ACS lineup - the notable addition is the new Encore 5 driver (2 treble, 2 mid, 1 bass - 1 bass why??) in at 799 with the live mics built in. T1 been renamed to Evolve and the T3 is renamed the Evoke.

I think this is a great step forward for the UK company because they seem to be falling behind in the driver count war and tbh, pricing.

Will be interested to hear the Encore 5 to see if it can handle tonnes of bass that the T1 couldn't. On paper, I'm disappointed they didnt go with the dual low... but no doubt the response is that theyve used a bigger balanced armature for the bass. Will also be intrigued to see if the mids and highs are true doubles or the "two in one" balanced armatures.

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No latency issues - it's Dante from desk. The unit just mixes on the fly. The positioning of the stereo image won't matter even if it's circa 10ms out which I highly doubt it will be anyway!

Highly expensive but a great little gadget. Don't think it will be widely adopted though...

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i don't know theres been some buzz about it on some sound engineering groups i'm part of i'd be very interested in hearing it i do a decent amount of monitor mixing and i've never had an artist have a problem with this so i suspect this may be fixing a problem that isn't really there i can see them getting used on massive tours and even then probably just for a couple of mixes for the talent i doubt it'll be something that will become installed in venues

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If you are using them for stage use, they are pretty much as good as anything else you can get in the price range - there's the IE8s from Sennheiser too... which are meant to have have a very deep bass but I am yet to find anybody who can fit them in their ears without them falling out.

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I did think of getting the T-Bone 75 due to its cost, although the reviews on thoman were good, everywhere else saying it was rubbish persuaded me not to. My problem is not not hearing the bass, I haven't had an issue with that so far, I do backing vocals and I really can't hear that and so the worry of me being out of tune have made me not sing quite often. So I don't really need anything that is good, or low, just something to hear my voice.

So then I thought about just one of the wired things, but none of the wired things seem to ahve a microphone out, so I can't just tap off my microphone at my stand point and run it up to my ears.

Are the TBones really that bad that they are not worth trying?

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not sure whether this question has been asked already, apologies if it has, we do mostly small pub gigs where the only thing we mic up are vocals, our singer is moaning about not being able to hear his vocals despite the fact the rest of us can hear him ok, is it possible just have IEM for his vocals but him still hear the rest of the band? maybe use just one IEM or am I being silly

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[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1424002783' post='2691334']
not sure whether this question has been asked already, apologies if it has, we do mostly small pub gigs where the only thing we mic up are vocals, our singer is moaning about not being able to hear his vocals despite the fact the rest of us can hear him ok, is it possible just have IEM for his vocals but him still hear the rest of the band? maybe use just one IEM or am I being silly
[/quote]Oh yeah forgot to mention he uses a wireless mic, can the 2 things be combined?

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Using one monitor in your ear is bad idea - its a surefire way to get hearing damage very quickly as you over compensate the monitor ear and end up blasting your ears. Ideally you should be routing everything you want to hear through IEMs. Have you tried the wedge route or one of those on micstand monitors. I've said it numerous times in the thread, you can't do good IEM on the cheap.

Woodinblack - Drop tonyf a line. He uses LD systems stuff (not entirely sure which one) that is a lot cheaper than the Shure and Sennheiser monitoring systems mentioned. Maybe for a little more money you can stretch to the MEI 1. Anyway, ask Tony, I've never heard one - we keen meaning to have a shoot out but various situations have prevented so far!

You can always put am ambient mic pointing at the band and send that only through the aux and not fog if the singer needs to hear more of the band. Depends how good the inears are at blocking out the sound.

Wireless mics and inears can be run simultaneously as long as there is enough space in the spectrum in which they are operating to run without running into intermodulation problems. In band 70 you can expect to run 3 or 4 wireless devices. In channel 38, (paid band), you can typically run to 8 devices and maybe 9 if you are willing to risk a little robustness (of course, there are now devices that can be run on very low transmission levels and you can cram many of those into a very small piece of the spectrum... but they tend to be very, very pricey).

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[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1423999708' post='2691281']
If you are using them for stage use, they are pretty much as good as anything else you can get in the price range - there's the IE8s from Sennheiser too... which are meant to have have a very deep bass but I am yet to find anybody who can fit them in their ears without them falling out.
[/quote]

Thanks EBS'!

For stage use yes, but if they make good for 'quiet practice' then also good! I'll take a look at the IE8's too. Either that or it's time to hit the credit card ha!

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