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Custom Ear Molds for On-Stage Use - is this any good?


UstadKhanAli

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My singer works for Warner Bros and got this email. Is this practical for playing small clubs? How easy is this to set up at coffee houses, bars, and small clubs? Are there better things available? This is one area of audio that I know very little about. Thank you very much for any practical info.

 

-Ken

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

To All:

 

I am setting up time here at Warner Brothers to have Custom Ear Molds made for a few of our Artists. Since I have the maker coming to the building I am able to cut a better deal for all Warner employees who might want to have custom fitted hearing protection made. They will look just like the In-Ear monitors our artists wear on stage. The have two adjustable filters so you can control the amount of sound you would to block. We can also make the In-Ear monitors like our artists use on stage for everyone who uses an I-Pod or we can even have them fitted for your cell phone.

 

These are NOT little ear buds. They will be perfect molds of your ears and will be an exact custom fit to your ear so it is not something that will easily fall out.

 

The cost is not cheap but I can cut better deals if we have enough people that want to get them.

 

Ear Protection with 1 Filter - $140 for the pair

Ear Protection with 2 Filters- $210 for the pair - Maximum Hearing protection

 

Cell Phone set up $75

 

Stereo Set up for I-Pods $300

 

 

You can also look at the web sight to see more of what I am talking about. http://www.westone.com/music/

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Ken,

 

They're talking about two differrent things in that email.

 

Custom fitted ear plugs, without monitors.

 

and

 

Custom "in-ear" monitors.

 

I Highly recomend getting the plugs. They use very flat filters and as a result, they don't roll all the high end off and they don't feel or sound like you're wearing hearing protection. This is a huge step in protecting your hearing. In a small club, with a loud drummer or guitar amp, these will be your friend.

 

As far as the monitors go, if you don't have the luxury of a sound check, and a sound-guy who is willing to patch around things to get you a send for the "in-ear" monitors, you're better off using the wedges.

 

I just did monitors for a festival a couple of weeks ago. I did somewhere close to 30+ bands on my stage in two days. The guys that showed up with ears had the hardest time. It really takes time to dial these things in. With the custom molds, you really don't hear anything that's not being sent to you...

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C'mon...you gan get an egg full of Silly Putty for a couple bucks at Toys-R-Us. It's flesh-tone and molds perfectly to the shape of your ears... AND after your gig is over you can roll the silly plugs up into a waxy little super-ball and bounce it out into the crowd!

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  • 7 years later...
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Hi everyone, 

I know this isn't exactly the best place to ask but I'm new to HC and I couldn't find a "Start new discussion" so I'll ask here. 

I'm ordering a set of AlClair's:

http://www.alclair.com/products/monitors/alclair-duals/

I'm not sure what the procedure is because I wanted a set of custom molds, but AlClair doesn't ask you to send in your ear molds. 

What are the steps needed to take to get a pair of custom molded monitors? 

I'm a singer in an indie band and I switch from Singing to Trumpet whilst playing piano or acoustic guitar. They seem to be the cheepest best overall option. My budget is currently 200 and the AcClairs are 250. 

Any reccomendations for a cheaper but still reliable set of custom monitors? 

Thanks! 

 

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UstadKhanAli wrote:

 

Are these easy to use at small clubs and so forth for one vocalist?

 


 

Since they'll likely be fed off an auxiliary send, you'll need a headphone amplifier in addition to the phones. Rolls makes a fairly inexpensive one that's battery powered and can clip to the musician's belt. It also has a mic pass-through for "more me."

Since there are two phones, he might want a stereo mix of the band, which will require a stereo send or two mono sends. Unless you're using one of these newfangled digital consoles that makes linking of two auxiliary sends for stereo easy, as well as offering full recall of a mix that worked for a previous show (as a starting point for the custom headphone mix), it can be pretty tricky to get a decent stereo mix using two volume knobs instead of one volume and one pan knob.

Although you could send the same mix to the phones as the rest of the band is getting throuhg wedges, that usually isn't satisfactory when the acoustic sound from the stage is taken away. Sometimes they'll set up a mic or two to add ambience to the earphone mix.

I'm sure you're capable of hooking it up and setting up a mix, but I wouldn't say it was particularlly easy to use.

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JasonATWR wrote:I'm ordering a set of AlClair's:I'm not sure what the procedure is because I wanted a set of custom molds, but AlClair doesn't ask you to send in your ear molds.

 

That's kind of odd. I looked at the web site and you're right - although they use the term "custom mold" there doesn't seem to be any provision for you to send them an impression from which they can make a mold and, from that, custom mold the earpiece. And that's the first step for getting custom molded ear plugs or ear phones.

It might be worth a call to the company to ask whose ears they're custom molded for. ;)

 

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