running in ear monitor mix from the stage

[boonestunes]

I  play in a country/rock cover band, 4 sets a night, 2-3 nights per week. Singers, Guitarists, & Drummer use in-ears monitors. Right now we're at the mercy of whatever sound tech is installed at the club we're playing......don't really have the budget for our own sound guy (and YES, the simplest suggestion might be to get our own sound guy so he can deal with these issues wherever we go.....)

Would like to go to put together some kind of system that splits the signals of (at least) all the vox and guitars, sends them to a mixer that we have on stage, and then out to the 4 different in-ears devices (between us, we have a Carvin, a Shure, an AT, and drummer uses wired). They had a system like this with the last guitarist, but it left when he did (and that's where I come in)

So do I need a dedicated (and very expensive) monitor mixer or can I get by with a regular smaller mixer that has enough aux sends on each channel to get to all our in-ears devices? And all of those sends need to be 'pre' fader, correct? Carvin has some small mixers that'll do this (4 aux sends,+ 2 post fader sends) and won't break the bank, I think Mackie might have something as well..... What else is available?

And in order to split the signal...... Do I just need the "1F to 2M" XLR splitter cables or a dedicated splitter unit like the ART 8 channel splitter?

and my last question.... Power. We play at different clubs every weekend and the power to the stage (as well as all the cabling) can be very questionable. Last weekend, had a wicked buzz in my ears, that we just couldn't get rid of...pretty sure it was bad power, as we're having issues with buzzing amps on this stage as well.....anyway, is there something I can put in this rack that will help with the places that we have bad power? Something a step up from a standard 1U power rack?

My goal is to eventually mount all this in one rack, maybe add some fx and a power amp so we could use it at smaller shows.......

any suggestions are greatly appreciated

[djiceman1575]

You could get a standard mixer and control it on your own, but if it was me (and budget was no object) I would go with the Studiolive.  I use it, and it works great for just about anything.  Plus, you can run your own in-ears from the board, and send the channels from your board to FOH with a set of DB25 to XLR snakes.

[RoadRanger]

The drummer isn't going to be happy without the drums in his IEM .

[Gregidon]

If money were no objection, I'd seriously consider an aviom system. You can get a 16 channel (passive) splitter with local gain for each channel and then use a 16 channel stage snake to connect to the house snake. Each musician can then mix their own stereo ears without moving around. It is expensive (~$2500 for the splitter plus ~$500 per box), but it's seriously flexible.

[stix 518]

Been using a Studiolive for our wireless in-ears - 5 seperate mixes (+1 free aux out) for a while now.  When we deal with a place with house provided sound, we bring our splitter snake - 1 side goes to our board, the other goes to the house stage snake.  We set our individual levels/mixes then only have to tweak on occasion.  Works awesome either way... house sound or we provide sound. $1,500. for the mixer plus another couple hundred for the splitter snake, done.  No feedback issue from stage monitors and we have a great digital mixer (and no fx rack) when we do have to provide sound.  It's a win, win!

Stix

[mshifflett]

A self-contained IEM rack is the way to go for sure.  The console you choose is really up to you but make sure you have enough channels for everything, and enough mixes.  Some venues believe that you should provide the XLR split, some provide it themselves.  Either way you should be prepared and have your own.  And to take it a little further you may want to invest in a transformer-isolated split so that you don't fight the FOH guy for channel gain all night if he/she likes to tweak the head amps a bit much.  Of course that will be a pretty large expense but worth it to me in the long run. 

Someone also mentioned drum channels, and they are exactly right.  If you are going to continue down the IEM path (which is a great thing) you should go all in or nothing.  Include everything in your IEM mixes and you will be much happier.  I can't tell you how many times I have made a drummer happy because they could hear their hi-hat channel.  It's the little things.  When I play with my band I do the same thing.  I run all 20 channels (drummer has 10!) through my LS9 and even give the drummer a second mix for his butt-kicker with only the kick drum in it (gated of course).  I just think including everything makes for a better overall mix and gives the players a much better sense of being.