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

[JPJ]

So these arrived in the post this morning. ACS Engage Classic custom moulded IEMs. Tried them for fit and they’re perfect. Will try them with my bass later today, but no chance to try them in anger until the new year. 

[wateroftyne]

On 16/12/2025 at 18:08, EBS_freak said:

And there goes all your bass.

 

Just curious (and to repeat what's already been asked) - do we know for sure that these are a bass-killer?

I prefer the idea of the Ambients in principle, but not if they sound like an old-timey radio.

[dave_bass5]

On the back of that question, is the effect the same (more

or less) as having a slightly loose earpiece, or is there more to it? 
i know i lose a lot of low end when one of mine gets a bit unseated. 

[Al Krow]

Interesting to pick up on this. Our singer mentioned on Sat night she only used one ear piece and left the other one out "otherwise she felt disconnected from the band and audience" - which is a classic IEM conundrum.

It doesn't affect me at all in the same way - I enjoy the clarity and comfort of having a tailored IEM mix and no one's complaining about missing out on the experience of a deafening guitar amp - ok maybe the occasional dep guitarist - now we're all going through FoH apart from the acoustic drums.

 

I don't really fancy the additional set-up faff and need to worry about an additional source of feedback from an ambient / overhead mic, just for the sake of one band member, but was wondering if there's decent ambient IEMs on a par with the KZ ZARs we're using, that don't cost the earth, and she can treat herself to a pair?

[EBS_freak]

To be clear - if the seal is broken, ambient or otherwise, there is a tradeoff in that you start to lose bass response. How much of that which is tolerable - but as a bass player, you probably won’t appreciate it.

 

Best practice is to think along the lines, anything you want to hear, you pump in via the mix.

 

There is a line of thinking that if you have a bass rig on stage, having that come in ambiently offsets the bass loss… but the goal is to keep stage volumes low so the mix the audience hears out front is better.

[EBS_freak]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

 

 

I don't really fancy the additional set-up faff and need to worry about an additional source of feedback from an ambient / overhead mic, just for the sake of one band member, but was wondering if there's decent ambient IEMs on a par with the KZ ZARs we're using, that don't cost the earth, and she can treat herself to a pair?

There is no additional risk of a feedback as the ambient mic won’t be going into foh. There’s no way the ambient mic will be picking up any output from the IEMs.

 

To be fair, setting up an ambient mic is pretty low effort.

Edited 7 minutes ago by EBS_freak

[wateroftyne]

7 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

To be clear - if the seal is broken, ambient or otherwise, there is a tradeoff in that you start to lose bass response. How much of that which is tolerable - but as a bass player, you probably won’t appreciate it.

 

Best practice is to think along the lines, anything you want to hear, you pump in via the mix.

 

There is a line of thinking that if you have a bass rig on stage, having that come in ambiently offsets the bass loss… but the goal is to keep stage volumes low so the mix the audience hears out front is better.

In that case I might go with the ambients - I don't think we'll be silent stage any time soon. Thank you.