in ear monitoring

[guitarguru777]

I have a set pf PSM's I use live and I cant live without them now. I love being able to be ANYWHERE in the venu and being able to hear myself and the vocals. They have improved my live singing by leaps and bounds cause I have confidence I can hear myself when I sing now.

My In-Ear mix usually consist of:
Kick, Snare, Overheads (if available) louder then my guitars, Vocals just under the kick and snare, and my guitar. Everyone FOH guy I have worked with, including myself (as I am a FOH guy as well) prefers In Ear systems as they can keep the stage volume really low and get the Mains sounding great!

 

[El_Gato]

In small venues with little or no monitoring, I'm only running vox on my in-ears. I still hear the band (and I prefer that lower vol as I hear everything more defined) and I have no feedback from the mic. No need to kill my ears with more inst's vol and I prefer lower vols anyway.

 

[ahjteam]

Curious - is there a viable/practical way to use in-ears without having your own sound guy running FOH/monitors? My band might start using them for backing-track purposes since we'd all feel way better hearing the click and not just the drummer, but I'm not sure how we'd get a monitor mix without micing up the instruments ourselves separate from the house stuff?

Yes, you just need a splitter box (like Violet Audio DX16I for 16 inputs) and an additional mixer (like Allen&Heath WZ 3 12M that has 16 ins and 12 outs, meaning you can get 6 stereo mixes). I've seen many bands do that.

 

[JonWormwood]

I posted two threads like this with no response haha. I can't wait to get mine. not sure which ones tho

 

[NSGUITAR]

My whole band has a pair and has been jamming with them. Since we do some backing track stuff they work amazing. The vibe is still really.. um.. live feeling? I don't know how to explain it. But for the purpose of performance, I think they're a great steal, even paying full price.

 

[Parka Dez]

If you are playing to a click track and what not, what does everyone think of playing along to the actual recording of the song with that particular instrument missing from the recording?

Or to keep things a little simpler, just having no drums on one and no vocals (I don't know that many drummers who need vocal cues), and no vocals on another.

So you get that track and your live performance, and that's it. Would keep the consistency of what you are playing to every night.

 

[JeffTD]

^^While I could see that seriously working well, I could also see it removing the 'playing together as a band' element. Would love to hear what people who have actual in-ear experience would say, though! It'd solve the issue of needing a separate monitor mix; you'd just have each backing routed to a different in-ear set and be done with it, no real need to hear the other members playing.

 

[AdamWathan]

If you are playing to a click track and what not, what does everyone think of playing along to the actual recording of the song with that particular instrument missing from the recording?

Or to keep things a little simpler, just having no drums on one and no vocals (I don't know that many drummers who need vocal cues), and no vocals on another.

So you get that track and your live performance, and that's it. Would keep the consistency of what you are playing to every night.

I had a lot of luck doing this in a recording session with my old drummer actually. Sort of off topic but he was awful to the click, but when playing to the pre-pro tracks with programmed drums he was a complete machine, nailed everything flawlessly.

 

[DigitalMetal]

Would love to hear what people who have actual in-ear experience would say, though!

I was in a elecronic/synth industrial band when i had mine and only used them for a couple of rehearsals and apart from them falling out of my ears when i began to sweat i couldnt hear the chat between the rest of the band membes betwen songs and i had to get the singer to speak into his mic if he wanted to say something to me, i certainly felt detatched from the rest of the band with them in.
It was about 6 years ago too and i didnt know as much about audio gear as i do now so im interested to re invertigate.
I still have a pair of Sure E2's ut no PSM200 anymore im going to try them wired with just a feed of myself at my next rehearsal with my metal band and see how it is.

 

[arv_foh]

Instead of a buying a monitor desk, I've seen people use a dedicated Pro Tools setup for in ears... it works great if you have backing tracks too

all the inputs are run into a split snake, foh gets one split and the interface gets the other.. backing tracks are sent to FOH via the interface L/R output

all the auxes are set up in pro tools and run to a separate output on the interface, then that is run to the IEMS unit, so everyone has their own separate monitor mix

you really need a dedicated MONS engineer in case you need to many any adjustments on the fly during the show, and you'll want a crowd mic to get the room sound so that your IEMS don't have that "closed off" feeling

and honestly, if you weren't the headliner, I'd be pissed that I had to re-do my entire patch during a 15 minute set change, then undo it for the next band