Jsut got back from a week using IEMs. Thoughts.....

[jrm27]

due in part to some wonderful folks on here and a ton of great advice our band set out last week to do 5 days of music at a camp in nebraska for ~400+ kids with our very own IEM rig. Granted, it was pieced together, and a bare bones setup, but I thought I'd share with you guys how it went down. I'm also open to any advice you might have to give.

 

the rig is as follows:

Allen/Heath Mix Wiz 16:2dx

EWI 16 Channel 15x30 splitter snake

Sennheiser ew300 IEM transmitter with two body packs

2 Rolls Monitor amps for the drums and bass to be hardwired

2 sets of westone ES3

2 sets of westone ES2

**all of this racked up nicely in a Pearson case.**

 

We set up 15 of the 16 channels, with our drums, bass, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, vocals, and a talk back mic from the FOH board. Last minute we also setup a spare sm57 as a ambient mic. We used three of the aux mixes for all four musicians (the two guitarists shared a mix).

 

 

Overall, i really enjoyed the system. Getting to refine the mix every single day (multiple times) was great. By the end of the week we were pretty happy with what we were getting in the ears. The verb on the board was useful to give a little atmosphere to the ears as well. It was also a relatively easy and painless setup. The FOH guy loved that he didn't have to mix monitors, or even fight with them at all. Good stuff.

 

The negatives we came across were:

1. Ambient micing. Admittedly we didn't have great gear for it, so we need to figure out how to get a good ambient environment working in our ears. we do a lot of worship music so that interaction is very important. I notices a few of the guys popping a monitor out here and there to get the crowd noise.

 

2. Due to not having any real limiting or compressing in the rack we may have blown one of our sets of IEM's. The main vocalists IEMs were distorting this morning at church. I was sharing his mix in my ES3 and had no distortion in my mix. so, it may just be a quick driver repair, but alas, that still is a bummer. There was one night the drummer went a little heavy and that may have blown out the ear.

 

So at this point I am just looking to make it better! Any thoughts?

 

-jon