IEM recs for bassist/singer - cheap and simple and just for me as the primary vocalist

[Cairobill]

My band is about to start making noise again in a live context.

We're a three piece and I can happily hear all the noise from our amps/drums but I would like to have a feed of my voice into an in-ear (perhaps with a touch of compression and reverb) so that I don't over sing and get pitchy etc

I can see systems costing a bomb and cheap as chips stuff but is there a reliable solution to just getting a feed of my voice that sounds even (and possibly vibey) in one or two of my lugholes?

It would need to be something I could just setup in a simple rehearsal room with an el crapola desk and then take to stages of various sizes...is there something that works independently of the desk for instance i.e. taking a feed of my voice off the mic DI box?

And if there is a solution, how do you choose to set it up?

Edited 7 hours ago by Cairobill

[JoeEvans]

Nearly every desk has an auxiliary out on each channel, you can use those to send whatever mix you want to a cheap headphone amp then into your IEMs. As it's only you using them, you can put just vocals or whatever else you need in your mix.

My partner just bought the bits for this (she plays the fiddle) and after one gig she described it as a total game changer. Can't remember exactly what she bought but it was a cheap and cheerful headphone amp and wired IEMs from Thomann.

If you wanted to run direct from the mic, I think you might need a mic preamp to bring the level up a bit before it goes to the headphone amp.

[Dood]

If its just your voice you need to hear for pitching purposes, but you don't need the rest of the band in In-Ears, I used a clever little trick which ended up getting compliments from my band mates at the time as to how my voice had improved.

 

I had some moulded ear-plugs made (it was a company like ACS who used the larger Etymotic Research ER filters) and I bought three sets of filters. They were something like -9dB -15dB, -25dB attenuation). I loved those ear plugs, the sound was really balanced and clear, as opposed to many that are peaky or muffled.

 

The trick was to pick a filter that attenuated the sound outside my head just enough that when I sang I could hear the voice inside my head just over the top. It worked really, really well and did rely on the ear plug filter passing a clear sound. For the band I was playing in generally the -15dB was about right. To be honest, a really good moulded ear plug should be used all the time anyway, so, it's not much of an investment, very cheap compared to the rigmarole of going to In-Ears if it isn't strictly necessary at this point.

 

It didn't really help the other voices inside my head or the ringing, but my voice improved ha ha ha!

 

 

 

Edited 7 hours ago by Dood

[Cairobill]

Thanks all - this is good stuff. I like the idea of filtering out the clatter!

[Dood]

For IEMs, I prefer to have a limiter in the chain somewhere before noise hits my ears too, especially useful for those bands that get louder and louder as the night goes on! Your ears will thank you! 

[itu]

 

[Cairobill]

Ah fabulous. Thank you!

[Franticsmurf]

Several years ago I bought a cheap Gear4Music wireless IEM system (transmitter and receiver plus earphones) to try out IEM before I invested properly. At the time my reason was the same as yours - to be able to hear my vocals. They were plugged in to the headphone out of the PA mixer (which was only handling vocals).  I'm still using the same system with an upgraded set of earphones (KZ ZS10s from Amazon) as recommended somewhere in the thread @itu has linked to above.

 

Before wireless, i invested in a Behringer P1 wired headphone amp (with built in limiter) which I had set up in the same way.