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

[Woodinblack]

Tonight at practice my IEM cut out breifly a couple of times, so I was a bit concerned after saying how reliable it has been (and it has). Then it occured to me that the receiver was clipped to the top of my right pocket, and my XVive wireless bass transmitter was right next to it because of that. I swapped it to my left pocket and it didn't cut out again. So it seems it doesn't like touching another transmitter!

[EBS_freak]

13 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

Smooth-hound wireless, when it was market leader,

 

Umm… no.

[Al Krow]

24 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

 

Umm… no.

 

Yeah, clarification required i.e. in the budget compact format end of the market that the Xvive U4 etc being discussed have muscled into. It was certainly one of the more popular wireless devices on BC a few years back. Seems to have faded from view these days. 

[javi_bassist]

11 hours ago, wateroftyne said:

Ordered these bad lads on Sunday. Winged their way over the Atlantic from Canada in four days. What a time to be alive!

 

Plunge Audio Dynamics. They'll get a run out next weekend...

 

 

Let us know what you think of them once they arrived!

[javi_bassist]

11 hours ago, wateroftyne said:

Ordered these bad lads on Sunday. Winged their way over the Atlantic from Canada in four days. What a time to be alive!

 

Plunge Audio Dynamics. They'll get a run out next weekend...

 

 

Let us know what you think of them once they arrived!

[Happy Jack]

I've used ACS Custom moulded plugs for so long that I've ended up with a couple of pairs of moulds that are surplus to requirement, one pair not even having filters any more.

 

Stumbled across a Basschat post from a few years ago (which I now can't find again to link to) where someone in this situation had bought some cheap earbuds and glued them into ACS moulds.

 

So I thought "what the heck" and bought pair of £20 buds from Amazon plus some special silicon-friendly glue. @Silvia Bluejay and I then spent a happy half-hour gluing our fingers together, and left the resulting Blue Peter mess to cure overnight.

 

Tried them at rehearsal (on keys) last night and - knock me down with a feather - it worked. 

[Kev]

4 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

I've used ACS Custom moulded plugs for so long that I've ended up with a couple of pairs of moulds that are surplus to requirement, one pair not even having filters any more.

 

Stumbled across a Basschat post from a few years ago (which I now can't find again to link to) where someone in this situation had bought some cheap earbuds and glued them into ACS moulds.

 

So I thought "what the heck" and bought pair of £20 buds from Amazon plus some special silicon-friendly glue. @Silvia Bluejay and I then spent a happy half-hour gluing our fingers together, and left the resulting Blue Peter mess to cure overnight.

 

Tried them at rehearsal (on keys) last night and - knock me down with a feather - it worked. 

 

Intrigued!  But what does it look like??

[Happy Jack]

4 hours ago, Kev said:

 

Intrigued!  But what does it look like??

 

In truth, not as bad as I feared.

 

For a first attempt we deliberately used far more glue than we probably needed, because my main concern was having the whole kludge fall apart the first time I took it out of my ears.

 

Next time, we'll be a lot neater.

 

[Kev]

Nice, good to see that it works, I was considering doing the same with mine, but was worried how much it'd stick out from my ear, didn't want to look like a pillock.  Assume all good?

[EBS_freak]

3 hours ago, Kev said:

worried how much it'd stick out from my ear, didn't want to look like a pillock.

[SimonK]

OK - first trial of the Swiff WX520s today. Two negatives:

 

1) When you turn them on there is a distinct, albeit quiet, white noise hum

2) They need to be line of sight. I had a quick walk round and as soon as there was something between me and the transmitter the signal dropped out

 

But on the the positives they are a really neat, compact, design, they definitely work, and as soon as a signal comes through you forget about the hum. I also didn't realise they accept balanced xlr, 6.35mm mono or stereo, AND 3.5mm stereo - giving all the options. You can also switch between +4dBu or -10dBV or instrument level, the latter triggering a gain control for amp free practice. Finally the transmitter is also rechargable so you don't need to plug it in either.

 

All in all I think I forgive the two negatives as for £150 its a pretty good package.

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, SimonK said:

 I also didn't realise they accept balanced xlr, 6.35mm mono or stereo, AND 3.5mm stereo - giving all the options.

 

As well as a stereo XLR.

 

1 hour ago, SimonK said:

 

All in all I think I forgive the two negatives as for £150 its a pretty good package.

 

For two you mean?

[SimonK]

40 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

As well as a stereo XLR.

 

 

For two you mean?

 

No I just got the single version in the neat little box. I think the double version was £20 more but it doesn't have the robust box.

[Mokl]

With much inspiration/guidance from this excellent thread, I'm now 4 gigs in with IEM, with the last being a silent stage at a venue with particularly tricky acoustics.

 

I'd say that so far the success rate in terms of my experience/sound in my ears is at about 60%. Areas I know can be improved are FOH chap not altering my levels mid set (!), seal of the IEMs (if I insert them just right, then there's a definite improvement, getting better at that), then finally the actual tone in my ears. 

 

The last point is the one I'm after advice on. DI from my amp sounds ok but very dry in the ears. It's not so bad when I've got stage sound as some of that leaks through to a fairly pleasing effect. Last gig and rehearsal before it I tried using my HX Stomp with cab and amp sim engaged to try and get a more pleasing sound to my ears (silent stage this time), but in rehearsal guitarist thought my tone suffered out front with the cab sim on, so I ended up running just the amp model, and it wasn't much really much different to my amp DI. No surprise there really.

 

My question is, what do you all do to get a satisfactory bass tone to your ears?! Would a decent DI with cab sim likely sound better than the Stomp, do I just need to experiment more with the Stomp? Answers on a postcard please!!