Wedges for Headliner/Opener wants In Ear

[Speedhead]

I've got a show in a couple weeks with a headliner and an opener.

The Headliner will be using my monitors with 4 seperate mixes (all that is available from me) which isnt a problem at all. But....the openers have told the club that they have 2 guys in the group who use In Ear monitors.

 

I dont plan on spending a huge ammount of time on the opening band, so basically if i say i will accomadate them with the in ears what is the easiest way for me to do this using two of the same Auxes the headliner will be using?

I dont really have any experience with in ear monitoring so any suggestions as to how i should be prepared would be appreciated!

 

All of my snake returns are 1/4"....am i able to just take input cables from a couple of the monitor channels and put them into their in ear systems?

Thanks.

[smitty0069]

 

I've got a show in a couple weeks with a headliner and an opener. The Headliner will be using my monitors with 4 seperate mixes (all that is available from me) which isnt a problem at all. But....the openers have told the club that they have 2 guys in the group who use In Ear monitors. I dont plan on spending a huge ammount of time on the opening band, so basically if i say i will accomadate them with the in ears what is the easiest way for me to do this using two of the same Auxes the headliner will be using? I dont really have any experience with in ear monitoring so any suggestions as to how i should be prepared would be appreciated! All of my snake returns are 1/4"....am i able to just take input cables from a couple of the monitor channels and put them into their in ear systems? Thanks.

 

Yeah, you can just use two of the aux sends that will go to the headliner & send them to the openers IEM rigs instead.I'm assuming the other guys in the opening band still need wedges?

If you have enough channels available on the board setup as many seperate channels for the openers monitor needs as needed/available which would make this scenario pretty easy to do.

Think about the most logical way to share channels if needed & if you have to share channels then get the headliners mixes setup & mark them so you can go back to them later.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

All of my snake returns are 1/4"....am i able to just take input cables from a couple of the monitor channels and put them into their in ear systems? Thanks.

 

 

Yes. If you can advance the band find out what IEM system they use, to see what the input jacking is.

 

Many IEM's have parallel jacks so you may be able to simply cable from snake to IEM to wedge rack, minimizing changeover work.

[fishmanrod]

As an EIM user I have to say that most sound guys that don't work for the band find it pretty challenging to do anything with EIM's. As well, as an opening act you get not much attention. When we open we don't use our EIM's, or have not so far, and my whole band is EIM's.

 

The big problem I see is getting the mix set up, and EIM's are pretty fussy that way. You probably don't have the time or gear for it, as all your aux sends are used up. Also, the mix in EIM's is very different than what you set up in wedges. Usually you don't put instruments through wedges unless you are a big touring act with side fill monitors and a monitor guy and all that crap, right?

 

It also depends on what gear, and on what inputs.

 

I use the cheapy Shure PSM 200 with the "transmixer", which has 2 inputs which each take either an xlr or 1/4", and you can run the signal right through, in the front and out the back to whatever. You can plug a mic into this thing, then XLR out the back into the board or snake. What you could do is put the house mix through one channel of the transmixer, daisychained to the next to everyone gets the hosue mix, and the major input for the musician (ie, his bass, whatever) in the other, through it to the board. Then all you can adjust for the guy is his instrument and the volume of the house mix. It is dead easy and does not affect the mix you have on the wedges for the main act, though, AND the house mix should have lots of vox in it, so the vocals and probably drummer would be happy with that mix as is. The instruments can be tweeked with the transmixer pot to give an instrument player enough to hear himself. Not perfect, but workable for an opener.

 

All that being said, unless this is really big time stuff I would tell the opener they are gong to have to either provide their own monitor guy to work that out or put up with the wedges.

 

Cheers!

[Craig Vecchione]

 

, through it to the board. Then all you can adjust for the guy is his instrument and the volume of the house mix.

 

 

That sounds like three inputs to the transmixer. The PSM-200 Transmixer has two channels. Did you mean 'daisychained to the next' as in going out to some other transmixer or monitor amp?

 

I typically forego any mix manipulation with my PSM-200, instead daisychaining the aux input from ch1 out to ch2 in, which increases the otherwise {censored}ty headroom this system's got....I basically got tired of spending more time riding the levels on the transmixer to keep it out of limiting, than any other aspect of running the show. The limiters get really ratty so the 40% or so increase in headroom makes a huge difference.

[Speedhead]

Thanks for the quick replies!

 

My board is a Yamaha MG32/14FX. So i actually have 6 Aux Sends...but 4 are pre and 2 are post. So my last 2 will be available but i'm not sure if it would be a great idea to use those for the in ears?

 

I will try to get more information from the band beforehand so i can make the call on what i will do for them. I would definately seperate as many of the channels from the first and second band as possible. Drums will be shared so those mics will remain on the same channels all night. The rest could probably be kept seperate.

[Square]

I am the monitor guy in my system.

 

We supply wedges (9 mixes including drum and side fills), but are seeing more and more IEM's showing up with bands.

 

What we do to accomidate them is we made an additional fan with all the monitor returns on it. The monitor "returns" go from the monitor board, to the first monitor amp rack, then chain to the second monitor amp rack, and then chain to the fan we made. When someone has their own IEM's, we disconnect the speakon from the monitor amp rack output panel on their mix, and run an XLR cable from our additional fan to their IEM transmitter. When thast band is finished, I simply remove the XLR cable and reconnect the speakon.

 

It may be worth your while to find out if the IEM's use 1/4" or XLR inputs and run a couple of XLR returns (or use snake channels if you have them available) when you setup your rig to be ready for them.

 

If both bands use the same drumset, and you have a 32 channel board, then you should have enough channels to keep the bands seperate. You may want to put a "Y" cable on the kick channel at the console as drummers usually want kick in their monitor and this will let you keep that seperate as well (i.e. Channel 1 is headliner kick channel, channel 2 is opener kick channel).

 

I have found that IEM's want a much hotter signal than wedge amps, so for piece of mind I roll down the amps that I am not using so I don't have to look at the amp clip lights from the massively increased signal (even though the speakon is disconnected).

[agedhorse]

 

Thanks for the quick replies! My board is a Yamaha MG32/14FX. So i actually have 6 Aux Sends...but 4 are pre and 2 are post. So my last 2 will be available but i'm not sure if it would be a great idea to use those for the in ears? I will try to get more information from the band beforehand so i can make the call on what i will do for them. I would definately seperate as many of the channels from the first and second band as possible. Drums will be shared so those mics will remain on the same channels all night. The rest could probably be kept seperate.

 

 

Don't you use the last 2 for effects??? At least one of them?

[Craig Vecchione]

Post-fader sends are not suited well for monitors.

 

There's no reason you can't use the existing wedge mixes for the IEM's. As long as the mix suits the musician's needs, it can supply both wedge and IEM simultaneously.

[Speedhead]

 

Don't you use the last 2 for effects??? At least one of them?

 

 

Yes i usually would. This room is kind of an acoustic nightmare with a Bare concrete wall directy in front of the stage....and not too far away at that. The reflections in the room are tough to work with. with monitors cranked pretty loud singers still say they hear more vocals from out front than from their monitors because of the reflection from the back wall.

This room is one where in the past i have not used any effects in the mix and have had my best results. So that is why i thought possibly using the 5th and 6th sends as monitor mixes. But i will just stick to the 4 mixes.

 

I think it is definately a room that IEM's would work great in. Thanks for the help everyone, it shouldnt be a problem to make this work for everyone if i contact the opening band prior to the show with the suggestions provided here.

[Speedhead]

Ok....for this show i will be using 4 Yorkville YX15P Wedges. They are equiped with an XLR line out. So what i will probably do is just use the line out from the 2 required monitors for use in the IEM's.

Since everything will be going into the IEM's i will just turn the volume down on the 2 monitors while that band is on stage.

 

Anyone see any issues with this?

[agedhorse]

Don't forget to bypass mix eq's for the IEM mixes. Nobody would want the wedge eq's in ears.

 

P.S... don't forget to re-engage the eq's for the wedges...

[gspointer]

I seem to need more comps when using IEM's, and, of course, more channels in the monitor's. I have PSM600, and senn g2's, when I don't use any compression, I have too much dynamic range, if I use just a compressor (or limiter) across the whole mix, the loudest signal of course pushes everything else down. I have the best luck by compressing the kick, guitar's and vocals individually, and limiting the inputs to the IEM's.

 

This brings up the concern that I am doing something wrong, as I have never seen anyone else mention the need for comps and limiters on IEM mixes.

[Speedhead]

 

Don't forget to bypass mix eq's for the IEM mixes. Nobody would want the wedge eq's in ears. P.S... don't forget to re-engage the eq's for the wedges...

 

 

Thanks, Good advice.