NOOB: Possible switch to In Ear Monitors?

[UMT]

I'm doing alot of screwing around with monitors lately and I'm wondering if I might be better off just going in-ear. I understand the basics of the whole deal. I have a 3 piece band and I'm doing my own sound most of the time. I've heard guys say they only run vocals thru IE's but, what happens to getting a good stage mix and balance with the guitars? Best to mike the guitar and bass also? (I think we'll be cool without miking the drums) Best to run a send thru the monitor system or just take it off the mains? I'ld like to use them effectively but keep it as simple as possible.

 

Can someone point out the pro's/con's or show me the right direction to a thread or something? I'm good with tech stuff but don't know too much about how the systems are actually used.

 

Playing in a rockin Classic Rock band, if it makes any difference.

 

Appreciate any ideas, suggestions and/or help!

[scottc]

I play guitar.I have a problem with judging my amp/guitar vol when using IEMs.

For me, If I only sang they would be great,I would probably kick those mon wedges out across the yard.

Playing and using IEMs did not fit well with me, even adding my guitar to the mon mix did not help.

But, like anything else new,you probably could adjust and get used to it.

[mshifflett]

IEM will take some getting used to. Guitar players are the worst since they rely on hearing their amp so much (just a mental crutch for the most part). You just need to get over that and trust the system a little more. You will want to run most everything through them though. If you mic each individual drum you could just slap an overhead above the kit and send that to the monitors instead. One of the whole points of using them, besides saving your hearing, is that you can bring your stage volume down and get a cleaner mix out front. You will most likely want to take a couple of aux outputs from your board to use as your monitor sends to the transmitters. Whatever you do, don't skimp on the equipment or you will never be happy with them. And MAKE SURE you get good quality buds so that you can get a good seal in your ear canal. The seal is everything! Go custom buds if you can swing it, if not then at least get the custom slip-ons for the universal buds.

[mshifflett]

One other thing to keep in mind. It will be more difficult to run sound from stage with monitors in your ears.

[jwlussow]

In ears are great but they take a little getting used to. In order for them to properly work you need a good seal of the ear canal. That means you get very little stage volume at all. That means everything you need or want to hear has to be miced. It is very dangerous to your hearing to just use one in ear and leave the other earbud out for ambient sound. Do a search here for the reasons.

 

If you need to hear what is going on on the stage but do not want to mic everything, dont switch to in ears. If you are willing to mic everything and keep your ear canals sealed in ears will save your hearing and the singers voice. No more straining to hear monitors. It is a big step but the pros outweigh the cons, at least for us. Now we rehearse and perform with the same sound for monitors. Doesn't matter where we play, the sound is always consistent. We have no stage volume at all so our system is pretty much set and forget. Only minor changes are needed for any show. Those changes are usually only the main faders.

 

Look at the pros and cons and decide for your self. Also, remember you are talking about your hearing. Don't cheap out on something that can easily PERMANENTLY damage your hearing. The hearing in my right ear is gone because of abuse, loud monitors and a loud drummer. It's been over 20 years that I have constant noise and no real hearing in that ear. In ears are allowing me to keep playing. Without them, I could not handle loud monitors at all. Just be careful and make sure, if you do the switch that the units are high quality with built in limiting.

[UMT]

Thanks to everybody for your thoughts. The biggest problem I see with the setup that I'm running now, ie: running my own sound at most gigs is going to be the issue of not being able to hear or judge FOH sound.

 

But, what if I used the mains signal as the input to the IEM's??? I would run guitar,bass and vocals only thru it.... Tell me what the problems are with this situation. Isn't this exactly what I want: to know what's happening FOH while on stage? (I can't help but feel I'm missing something) I'm not too worried about drums as they seem to sound just fine with no miking other than a slight boost to the bass drum.

[OneEng]

I use a furman wired system which has an option to hear just the main mix with the push of a button. This isn't exactly what the FOH hears since it does not include the ambient; however, if the stage volume is kept under control, it is pretty close.

 

I also play guitar. There are issues with lowering your stage volume as well. It becomes difficult to get the sustain you would normally get with a raging 4x12 cab blasting on 9. My cure for this has been to use a 1x12 guitar cab monitor on an angled amp stand pointed at me and located in front of me. Despite the fact that I can't hear the amp monitor (because of the in-ears), this provides tons of action on the strings without lots of volume to the crowd from my guitar amp.

 

Keeping the stage volume under control is much easier with in-ears since you don't have each musician trying to raise his/her local sound up to the point where they hear themselves well over everyone else.

[jwlussow]

FOH from stage is a problem. There are ways around it. First keep the stage volume under control. We do this by all being emulated and the drummer uses a TD-20 kit. So we have no stage volume at all. The Shure PSM200 body pack has a mic input so I can use the Shure ambient kit to get an idea of FOH. We also have to actually occasionally go out front and hear what is going on. Our setup makes FOH very easy compared to other bands but we can use our in ears and control FOH from stage. Since we only have two mics that have dynamic signals we can basically keep our mix the same from night to night and venue to venue.