The IEM (in ear monitors) Bible thread - a guide to help every musician

[Woodinblack]

18 minutes ago, Rich said:

 The idea being that the in-ears themselves just give me a vocal feed and are loosely inserted so that they do NOT provide a tight seal in my ears, so that I get the ambient sound of my bass coming through (the bass being quite loud on stage as it's backline only and not going through the PA).

 

Loosely inserted earplugs fall out. In fact part of the problems with IEMs is them falling out, one of mine always does. And once you have something inears, you would probably want the bass there. If you are getting your IEM feed from the mixer, can't you connect a DI from your bass amp to the mixer? you don't need to put it out through the PA, just there so you can feed it to IEM.

 

As to the ZS10s, I love mine, other people not so keen but it is a good place to start as they are not hugely expensive so you can decide whether you like them or not. Although if you are genuinely going to try the loosely inserted things, maybe not the right choice as I am not sure it would be possible with those - they are reasonably heavy so not fitting them properly will make them just fall out - maybe something like iPhone headphones or something are a better way to go as they don't make a seal

[JPJ]

So I have been having such a positive experience since I started using my IEM’s more and more, with the exception that even the largest Comply tip doesnt seem to want to stay sealed in my left ear. As suggested by @dave_bass5 I’ve tried a smaller tip too without success. So, I am now thinking of going down the custom moulded route. My question is, is there a significant advantage in going with a vented ambient IEM such as the ACS Evolve over a standard non-vented ambient design? I’ve had great service from my ACS custom moulded ear protection, and I am minded to go with them for my IEM solution with the Evolve being about the price point I’d like to pay. 

[tayste_2000]

So obviously this is a hugely long thread so I’ve not been able to check if someone is already doing this.

 

But basically I had a really bad gig the other day (fine out front and performance etc) but my IEM mix was awful, so it just ruins my enjoyment.

 

I was using my new Cosmic Ears C8A’s and the isolation is absolute. So add in the PA only had the acoustic guitar, vocals and bass in it. My sound was lacking to say the least.

 

I’ve always had to hack an IEM mix and my current pedalboard is built around a Behringer P2 (Tried a Passive Rockboard option and I need the boost of an active circuit) doing XLR/Jack conversion and Stereo/Mono conversion (so I can take any type of feed basically) into the aux in on a Darkglass Element. So this gives me a blend between bass and feed. Works really well, was on tour in March/April and it was some of the best sound I’ve ever had.

 

But at the time I didn’t have my moulded IEMS and the band was going through the PA.

 

Anyway, I’d thought for ages about like an ambient pack or something. I know a few options exist but they only work with specific IEMs or are quite expensive.

 

Then I saw a content creator recommend these, they were recording guitar and vocals at the same time.

 

https://rode.com/en/products/wirelesspro

 

And it dawned on me I could use the receiver as a wireless IEM pack.

 

Run out of the element headphone into the 3.5mm in on one of the transmitters and stick the other transmitter somewhere central on the stage/on the singer/ or even wear it myself.

 

This would allow me to blend in whats going on on stage, whats in the PA and my bass.

 

Same setup could be used for just running out of the headphone out on the mixer into one of these wireless transmitters blah blah.

 

So it gives me a versatile way to hack a feed which just seems to be all I can ever do.

 

Can also click a button and record everything going through them which is an added bonus.

 

 

Other than that I think I’ll have to practice and get better gigs, but who wants to do that 🤮

 

So anyone doing this? Any issues anyone can see (except latency, I imagine it’s the same as any digital wireless system), blowing the mics out of the transmitters first snare hit?

[Mottlefeeder]

8 hours ago, tayste_2000 said:

So obviously this is a hugely long thread so I’ve not been able to check if someone is already doing this.

 

But basically I had a really bad gig the other day (fine out front and performance etc) but my IEM mix was awful, so it just ruins my enjoyment.

 

I was using my new Cosmic Ears C8A’s and the isolation is absolute. So add in the PA only had the acoustic guitar, vocals and bass in it. My sound was lacking to say the least.

 

I’ve always had to hack an IEM mix and my current pedalboard is built around a Behringer P2 (Tried a Passive Rockboard option and I need the boost of an active circuit) doing XLR/Jack conversion and Stereo/Mono conversion (so I can take any type of feed basically) into the aux in on a Darkglass Element. So this gives me a blend between bass and feed. Works really well, was on tour in March/April and it was some of the best sound I’ve ever had.

 

But at the time I didn’t have my moulded IEMS and the band was going through the PA.

 

Anyway, I’d thought for ages about like an ambient pack or something. I know a few options exist but they only work with specific IEMs or are quite expensive.

 

Then I saw a content creator recommend these, they were recording guitar and vocals at the same time.

 

https://rode.com/en/products/wirelesspro

 

And it dawned on me I could use the receiver as a wireless IEM pack.

 

Run out of the element headphone into the 3.5mm in on one of the transmitters and stick the other transmitter somewhere central on the stage/on the singer/ or even wear it myself.

 

This would allow me to blend in whats going on on stage, whats in the PA and my bass.

 

Same setup could be used for just running out of the headphone out on the mixer into one of these wireless transmitters blah blah.

 

So it gives me a versatile way to hack a feed which just seems to be all I can ever do.

 

Can also click a button and record everything going through them which is an added bonus.

 

 

Other than that I think I’ll have to practice and get better gigs, but who wants to do that 🤮

 

So anyone doing this? Any issues anyone can see (except latency, I imagine it’s the same as any digital wireless system), blowing the mics out of the transmitters first snare hit?

I have had a mixer on top of my rig and  mixed a pa feed, an ambient mic and my bass feed, and fed that back to my in-ears, so it can be done, but if all the mix controls are at the back of stage, they are not easy to adjust. Also, I found that an ambient mic at the back of the stage will not pick up a mid-song shouted comment from a band mate.

The closest I have come to my ideal is to wear the ambient mic and mix it and the bass in a belt pack, but that assumes you can pick up the band mix from a monitor speaker.

I hope this helps you avoid some of the unworkable solutions.

David

Edited June 25 by Mottlefeeder

[TimR]

If your main mixer has a spare aux out, you can mic everything and send yourself a dedicated sub mix. Those mics don't need to go to the front of house mix. 

 

If you don't have a spare AUX and your mixer has inserts there is a way of 'normalling' the output by using a mono jack and not pushing it all the way in (just to the first click) to give a send to another mixer without interrupting the signal path inside the first mixer, and dispensing with the need to have a return.

[tayste_2000]

8 hours ago, TimR said:

If your main mixer has a spare aux out, you can mic everything and send yourself a dedicated sub mix. Those mics don't need to go to the front of house mix. 

 

If you don't have a spare AUX and your mixer has inserts there is a way of 'normalling' the output by using a mono jack and not pushing it all the way in (just to the first click) to give a send to another mixer without interrupting the signal path inside the first mixer, and dispensing with the need to have a return.

Just wouldn’t have been possible on the last gig, no spare mics, inexperienced sound guy and I’m just the sideman who can’t be making such demands/adding so much complexity just for me

[la bam]

Morning all. 

 

Our band is all iems. 

 

We go straight into our own mixer and do our own sound. 

 

However, we are now lining up a tour where we will be going through the venues sound guy and pa. 

 

Is there any way you all use where we can keep our iems and mixes etc but send a separate feed for each instrument to the sound guy/foh. 

 

Like an xlr splitter etc? Does anyone have any experience with these or similar? 

[mcnach]

38 minutes ago, la bam said:

Morning all. 

 

Our band is all iems. 

 

We go straight into our own mixer and do our own sound. 

 

However, we are now lining up a tour where we will be going through the venues sound guy and pa. 

 

Is there any way you all use where we can keep our iems and mixes etc but send a separate feed for each instrument to the sound guy/foh. 

 

Like an xlr splitter etc? Does anyone have any experience with these or similar? 

 

Yes, the Behringer MS8000 is quite handy. We've got two of those (each has 8 inputs and 16 outputs) in a little rack case so that we can use one split to our mixer for monitors as usual, and the other split for FOH.

 

https://www.andertons.co.uk/behringer-ultralink-ms8000-splitter-8-channels/

[Buddster]

2 hours ago, la bam said:

Morning all. 

 

Our band is all iems. 

 

We go straight into our own mixer and do our own sound. 

 

However, we are now lining up a tour where we will be going through the venues sound guy and pa. 

 

Is there any way you all use where we can keep our iems and mixes etc but send a separate feed for each instrument to the sound guy/foh. 

 

Like an xlr splitter etc? Does anyone have any experience with these or similar? 

Are you using a digital desk with a tablet? If so, we've taken our rig, provided a stereo fed and given the sound guy the tablet to mix from. We then still have control over our IEM. Assuming ofc they are ofay with digital /tablets. 

[la bam]

3 hours ago, Buddster said:

Are you using a digital desk with a tablet? If so, we've taken our rig, provided a stereo fed and given the sound guy the tablet to mix from. We then still have control over our IEM. Assuming ofc they are ofay with digital /tablets. 

 

Yes we've done that at our previous gigs, but certain sound guys want full control on their own equipment etc

[JapanAxe]

2 hours ago, la bam said:

Morning all. 

 

Our band is all iems. 

 

We go straight into our own mixer and do our own sound. 

 

However, we are now lining up a tour where we will be going through the venues sound guy and pa. 

 

Is there any way you all use where we can keep our iems and mixes etc but send a separate feed for each instrument to the sound guy/foh. 

 

Like an xlr splitter etc? Does anyone have any experience with these or similar? 

Not a true analog split but I use this in a couple of bands. Only works on Behringer or Midas kit with the Ultranet system though. I have it set so that each output is a copy of the corresponding channel input immediately after the gain control - which you need to remember not to mess with, but thankfully the sound tech can’t either! It’s in the bottom rack space here, connected to to my XR18 via a single ethernet cable:

 

And here’s a handy video from Scott Uhl, who I’ve found to be a great resource on all things wireless:

 

 

[WalMan]

Looking for suggestions on cleaning the tubes of moulded plugs tubes. I have a set of moulded plugs that are coming up fours years old (I have a new set on order and due this week).

 

The right hand one of my original plugs stopped working I had that repaired but now find that the left one is very quiet compared to the repaired right hand one. I always clean my plugs after every gig, but either my hearing has got a lot worse in recent years on the left side or possibly there is some wax build up on the left side.

 

I’ll have them checked when I get the new ones but it would be good to keep the old ones as spares so before I start poking around in the tube with a wax pick and break something else I wonder if there is something like a small vacuum unit that might be available to keep the tubes pristine?

[EBS_freak]

You can get mini vacuums.

[WalMan]

1 hour ago, EBS_freak said:

You can get mini vacuums.

I thought so but initial searches drew a blank.

[EBS_freak]

Jodi-Vac, FIR vac...

[WalMan]

Yup reset my search terms and found them. 😁

Edited June 29 by WalMan

[MrPring]

Wanted to update everyone on our results moving the whole band to IEMs. 

 

Been a gamechanger for us and wish we'd have done this a decade ago when we were playing festivals and large venues with our own sound guy 🫣

 

We use a soundcraft ui16 (would have preferred the 21ir but managed to get a steal on the above). We've only got 16 inputs and 4 of us so it's enough ins and auxes luckily (utilising headphone amp as aux 5/6) and main outs. 

 

I'll upload our tech spec but we're sending 4 mics + 2 x Guitar, Bass & a mono backing track channel from our split to our mixer and FOH and then we use an EAD10 drum module for the drum sound in our ears (this thing is an amazing investment). The backing and click tracks are a single stereo file, tracks left, click right. The click signal only goes straight into our mixer so it's not being sent to FOH. 

 

Our split is a passive Behringer MS8000 we send the link out for those 8 channels to FOH and transformer out to our mixer. Then have a 6m 8 channel snake from the link out to feed the FOH stagebox. 

 

For IEMs me, the lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist/vocalist use the KZ As16 Pro. They seemed to be the best of their range for our uses. Drummer used the shure dual driver ones (can't remember name). We then use wired Behringer P2 headphone amps but have recently got the Donner ones which are lighter and rechargeable (stereo is via a stereo TRS cable so will be getting long lengths of those soon). For the behringer we have an xlr combiner cable made to turn the 2 mono xlr aux outs into an unbalanced stereo one. Link here... Splitter Cable you could just use 1 xlr if you want a mono feed. 

 

In terms of mixes, I've got everything in my mix except the backing tracks. Click is just there enough in quieter sections to hear it but then inaudible when we're going hammer and tongs and a slight boost to my vocal and bass. Perfect for me and sounds very similar to when I listen to our album. 

 

This was a cheap starter setup and my intention is to get proper customs moulds maybe LUGs? I've got the comply tips on the AS16s which seal perfectly and no issues for me. 

 

First gig is a week tomorrow for our album release at our home town Theatre 😮

 

Have now got proper bags for the tails haha and in the process of changing the tails from the split to our mixer to right angle xlr so that they can be permanently plugged in. Ignore the carpet I'm in the process of renovating this place top to bottom. 

 

Rack drawer is filled with foam and contains our vocal and cab mics as well as our headphone amps, iems and splitter cables. 

 

Will get a photo at next practice of it all plugged in so you can see it in action. 

 

I'm totally ampless now which again has been a gamechanger. Here's my pedalboard. The Element also allows me to practice with the same tone as live/band practice so another revelation. 

 

Thanks to everyone for their help answering my braindead questions along the way 🤣

 

Edited 2 hours ago by MrPring

[JapanAxe]

2 hours ago, MrPring said:

Wanted to update everyone on our results moving the whole band to IEMs. 

 

Been a gamechanger for us and wish we'd have done this a decade ago when we were playing festivals and large venues with our own sound guy 🫣

 

We use a soundcraft ui16r (would have preferred the 21i but managed to get a steal on the above). We've only got 16 inputs and 4 of us so it's enough ins and auxes luckily (utilising headphone amp as aux 5/6) and main outs. 

 

I'll upload our tech spec but we're sending 4 mics + 2xGuitar, Bass & a mono backing track channel from our split to our mixer and FOH and then we use an EAD10 drum module for the drum sound in our ears (this thing is an amazing investment). The backing and click tracks are a single stereo file, tracks left, click right. The click signal only goes straight into our mixer so it's not being sent to FOH. 

 

Our split is a passive Behringer MS8000 we send the link out for those 8 channels to FOH and transformer out to our mixer. Then have a 6m 8 channel snake from the link out to feed the FOH stagebox. 

 

For IEMs me, the lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist/vocalist use the KZ As16 Pro. They seemed to be the best of their range for our uses. Drummer used the shure dual driver ones (can't remember name). We then use wired Behringer P2 headphone amps but have recently got the Donner ones which are lighter and rechargeable (stereo is via a stereo TRS cable so will be getting long lengths of those soon). For the behringer we have an xlr combiner cable made to turn the 2 mono xlr auxe outs into an unbalanced stereo one. Link here... Splitter Cable you could just use 1 xlr if you want a mono feed. 

 

In terms of mixes, I've got everything in my mix except the backing tracks. Click is just there enough in quieter sections to hear it but then inaudible when we're going hammer and tongs and a slight boost to my vocal and bass. Perfect for me and sounds very similar to when I listen to our album. 

 

This was a cheap starter setup and my intention is to get proper customs moulds maybe LUGs? I've got the comply tips on the AS16s which seal perfectly and no issues for me. 

 

First gig is a week tomorrow for our album release at our home town Theatre 😮

 

Have now got proper bags for the tails haha and in the process of changing the tails from the split to our mixer to right angle xlr so that they can be permanently plugged in. Ignore the carpet I'm in the process of renovating this place top to bottom. 

 

Rack drawer is filled with foam and contains our vocal and cab mics as well as our headphone amps, iems and splitter cables. 

 

Will get a photo at next practice of it all plugged in so you can see it in action. 

 

I'm totally ampless now which again has been a gamechanger. Here's my pedalboard. The Element also allows me to practice with the same tone as live/band practice so another revelation. 

 

Thanks to everyone for their help answering my braindead questions along the way 🤣

 

Nice setup! Those slotted rack ears look to be a useful upgrade.