IEM System

[IanHey]

The band needs a set of monitors. Our old monitors are a "mishmosh" of floor and stand powered monitors ... that quite frankly have always been a bit of a pain to control / set up and don't sound very good to top it off.

 

Anyway, we need a better system. I can either buy a new floor type system or go to a wireless type IEM system

 

I know absolutely zero about IEM technology and systems other than the obvious ... they go in your ear!

 

So I'm looking for: The pros / cons with an IEM system; An idea of what kind of system / equipment might work for me; An idea of what cost I'm looking at.

 

We are just a weekend small local gig type band doing basic RR, blues, top 40. Our current basic PA is a Peavey 400W stereo mosfet amp, Mackie 1604VLZ mixer and a pair of Peavey 15 / horn combo 2 way cabs. The PA only handles vocals .... it isn't great but it's pretty good and certainly seems bullet proof, (hope I don't regret saying that). We have a leader singer, (male) and three of us singing backing and a few other songs here and there. Four monitors would be enough, if the system could be expanded to six then great.

[Ponch_A_Rella]

I LOVE IEM;s :D

 

My monitor rig consisted of.... 8 Community XLT48's, 2 Community XLT55's, 4 QSC RMX 1450's, 1 QSC PowerLight 3.4.

 

I had 2 XLT48's running on 1 RMX1450 bridged mono 600watts per cab... and the 55's providing stage bass fill running off the Powerlight 1200x2.

 

Its a sweet monitor set up dont get me wrong.. I get 4 separate mixes and plenty of coverage..... but.... thats a {censored} load of gear to haul, and 5 power amps just for monitors.

 

 

A few months ago my whole band switched to IEM's 2 of the guys got cheapo Carvin's dont even bother going down that road... YOu get what you pay for with IEM's

 

Finally everyone in the band ended up with Shure PSM600's and I ended up upgrading the ear buds from the Shure E5's to a custom molded triple driver ear piece from Ultimate Ears.Ultimate Ears

 

These are basically what every pro uses on tour....Britney Spears, Rush, Aerosmith,.. check out their client list.

 

I got the UE7 Pro $900.. but its the best money I have ever spent in my life!!!!!!! I will never do a show or have band practice without these. I LOVE THEM!!!!!!! My ears dont ring after shows/practice and I can hear EVERYTHING.

 

Now my all those floor monitors get to stay in the warehouse when my band gigs... however I do have to bring it all out when doing sound for clients who dont have IEM or dont like using them which sucks

 

 

---------------

 

The cons...

 

#1 With good buds in your ears you are looking at like 30 dbs of noise reduction which means you arent gonna hear the audience unless there are mics out there and you wont hear the other band members talk to you or signal you....

 

#2 You can clearly hear how much you actually suck with IEM's

 

#3 $$$$$$

 

Those about all the cons I can think of...

 

 

 

You said you have a Mackie 1604 and Peavey 15's for FOH which you only run vocals through............ I just dont know that you would get the full benefits of IEM unless you are micing everything.... drums... guitar cabs.. bass...keys.... whatever.

 

You dont have the gear to be able to that... I guess you could mic everything up and just not run it to the FOH... thats what we do at practice basically. But even if you did that or you upgraded your FOH system with some subs, more power, and did run the full band through the PA you still have a Mackie 1604 which only has 2 per fader AUX sends. Which again means you really wont be seeing the full benifits of IEM's where everyone can have their own personal mix.

 

Buying cheap IEM's is just throwing your money away IMO.. they are just totally useless. So you got to be willing to drop some serious coin on them.... $1200-$2000 per system. I just dont know if your situation calls for that kind expense.

[Jlliu59]

a thing about IEMs is that if you don't have a signal running to your monitors, your'e not gonna hear it. So if you're used to hearing your guitar through your amp, you're gonna have to mic it. I usually need to get some drums in my IEMs even when we were on a small stage.

 

I've been pretty intrigued by the HearBack products by Hear technologies. Seems like an optimal thing for control of your own monitors. With 4 mixes controlled for under a grand. It also has built in limiters. you can hook the hearback up before some wireless units or you can plug some iem headphones into them directly and save some money. (maybe with an extension for the headphone cord)

 

I don't know if you'll need to get all the custom molded ear peices, but you do need something that blocks out other noise. Shure E3 and E2 look pretty cool. Westone UM-1, UM-2 are good also. There's some talk that the E5s are a repackaged E5, but either way they have pretty similar performance.

 

In the end, I really like when I can use IEMs. I find that I can hear a lot better on stage because things are at a more manageable level. The ear is just made that way.

 

NO RINGING IS ALSO REALLY COOL

[tremendo]

While I am sure that the Ultimate Ears custom molds are excellent and far superior with the PSM600, I am pretty happy with the Shure PSM200 Wireless system I recently got. We've got a 3 piece Rock band, and I sing most everything. We don't mic everything, but the drummer has a headset mic that gets some bleed through, and I can hear some through the foamies. The PSM200 system has a transmixer, so I run a monitor send to it, and have 1 other input, I can either use for a mic near the drums and bass, or my guitar if it's not mic'd. Granted, not the way a high level pro may do it, but it seems to work for us.

 

The E2 earset is pretty good for my needs, however, the most important thing (in my understanding) with IEMs is that you have a limiter so you don't blow out your ear drums. The really cheap ones don't have that, or going straight line from a monitor amp could also create a risk.

 

Next month I was asked to play a small bar in NC again for a 3 day weekend. I fly our with my guitar and IEMs. Small stage, medium volume. I've played there once (also 3 nights in a row), no monitors at all, and killed my voice. Just by bringing my IEMs, I'll be able to perform better and be much more comfortable.

 

The whole setup for me was under $500.

[Zeromus-X]

I'm still so incredibly tempted to go the IEM route with my band. I've got so much bass gear and huge cabinets that I'd love nothing more than to be able to show up with a bass and a little IEM case and be done with it. The problem is, if I do it, we all need to do it.

 

Right now we only mic the kick at practice to run it through a dual 15" setup. Everyone else just cranks it. We're way too loud, and it doesn't always sound the best in the world.

 

If we went with IEMs, I could use my preamp and ditch everything else I've got, basically. That frees me up for a PSM600 and some $800 molded earbuds right there. However, I'm worried about the rest of the band. How much would it really cost, in you guys' opinion, to get a band completely hooked up?

 

Off the top of my head, I assume we'd need:

 

One IEM transmitter

Five IEM receivers w/ earbuds

8-channel mixer (bass, guitar1, guitar2, vocals, kick, snare, center of toms, overhead)

Drum mics

Pair of 57s for the guitarists

 

...that seems like a lot of stuff!

 

I assume that if we went with the PSM400 or PSM600, they have the "more me" feature, which means we could send one mix to everyone and they could "more me" themselves, right? Or does this require something additional from the mixer?

[tremendo]

The PSM200 comes with the transmixer, allowing the "More Me" thing. 2 input channels to the transmitter, and 1 local input, if you're OK wired.

 

If you run the whole band out of 1 transmitter, everyone is getting the same mix, unless you use something like the wired input. That probably won't work for singers, etc, since the guitars will be heard mostly through the IEMs.

[IanHey]

Thanks for the input ... it definitely sounds like its worth a shot ... I might try and just get the singer set up a first to see if he likes it?

 

Anyway... a few more "stupid" Q's before I start looking for a system:

 

Concerning hearing the drums, guitars etc... since we only have vocals going through the PA ..... Is there not enough "bleed" through from the vocal mikes into the IEM system? Could you use the IEM in just one ear ... or is that defeating the purpose? As a last resort I suppose setting up a few mic's and using a mix that doesn't go to the main PA would be a solution?

 

Are the systems typically one transmitter and multiple recievers / or one transmitter + one receiver per person? I looked around on the web and I couldn't find any specific details.

 

Lastly, I saw on one site that NADY has a system .... that seems to be pretty reasonably priced. Does anyone have any experience with them?

 

 

Thanks!

[tremendo]

 

Originally posted by IanHey Concerning hearing the drums, guitars etc... since we only have vocals going through the PA ..... Is there not enough "bleed" through from the vocal mikes into the IEM system? Could you use the IEM in just one ear ... or is that defeating the purpose? As a last resort I suppose setting up a few mic's and using a mix that doesn't go to the main PA would be a solution? Lastly, I saw on one site that NADY has a system .... that seems to be pretty reasonably priced. Does anyone have any experience with them?

 

 

 

I've read from Shure that going in 1 ear can be dangerous. One ear has a 25db or so cut, the other doesn't. I tried it, it didn't feel good. Although I saw a post from someone who said they do it.

 

 

 

 

I would say stay away from Nady. After I researched quite a bit, I felt that the cheapest you can go and get something can work well is the PSM200.

[Craig Vecchione]

Ianhey, the number of xmitters you use is related directly to how many monitor mixes you need and can send. If the whole band can use one, then you only need one xmitter. You can use an unlimited number of receivers per xmitter, obviously.

 

And I'd avoid Nady.

[Zeromus-X]

So, assuming we all wanted the same mix except our own instruments turned up louder, one transmitter + 5 receivers would theoretically work? How does one feed "more me" into the thing?

[ashivraj]

 

Originally posted by Zeromus-X So, assuming we all wanted the same mix except our own instruments turned up louder, one transmitter + 5 receivers would theoretically work? How does one feed "more me" into the thing?

 

 

nope, each transmixer has two inputs. if each of you want 'more me', you'll need one transmixer for each. the aux send (monitor mix) is paralleled (common) to all transmixers, and each person's individual feed (bass, vox, whatever) goes to the other channel.

 

or, if you can live wired, get one transmixer to send the common mix, and add your personal feed into the beltpack (with a hi-lo gain switch for crude volume control)

 

AS

[madjack]

As to using one bud; I've been doing just that. In my last band, I shared front-man duties with the keyboard player. That meant I needed to be able to hear what was coming back from the audience, and what the rest of the band was saying in between songs. I got into the habit of only putting in the bud on the side of the guitar amp. As to it's being dangerous, the PSM200, which is the system I use, has a very good limiter, so I don't have the problem of turning the system up too loud. I purposely keep the volume down, as I don't like the sound when the limiter kicks in.

 

I have moved to a different band, playing keyboards now, and I still am using just one bud, as I need to be able to hear what the rest of the band is telling me about song keys, arrangements, etc.

 

By doing this, you will be able to hear the non-mic'ed instuments.

 

That said; a better solution would be to pick up the Shure PSM200 system with the ambience pack. This system includes a lavalier mic which plugs into the wired port so that one can use both earbuds, and still hear the stage and audience sound.

 

As to the custom earbuds; I have been using the E2 w/foam sleeves, and have had no problems with discomfort or sound. Given that, I see no reason to spend another $500-1000 for custom buds. YMMV

[Ponch_A_Rella]

 

Originally posted by madjack As to the custom earbuds; I have been using the E2 w/foam sleeves, and have had no problems with discomfort or sound. Given that, I see no reason to spend another $500-1000 for custom buds. YMMV

 

 

 

The thing about custom ear buds like Ultimate Ears is.....

 

#1 its a mold of your ear... when you put them in it actually creates a suction... which means they are not coming out. And thats good for drummers or anyone else jumping around on stage alot. I remember what a bitch it was keeping my Sure E5's in my ears while playing drums.

 

#2 Because they are custom molded it means true isolation... real 30dbs of noise reduction. You put them in and you are deaf to anything thats not miced.

 

#3 It doesn

[Ponch_A_Rella]

 

Originally posted by IanHey Anyway... a few more "stupid" Q's before I start looking for a system: Concerning hearing the drums, guitars etc... since we only have vocals going through the PA ..... Is there not enough "bleed" through from the vocal mikes into the IEM system? Could you use the IEM in just one ear ... or is that defeating the purpose? As a last resort I suppose setting up a few mic's and using a mix that doesn't go to the main PA would be a solution? Are the systems typically one transmitter and multiple recievers / or one transmitter + one receiver per person? I looked around on the web and I couldn't find any specific details. Lastly, I saw on one site that NADY has a system .... that seems to be pretty reasonably priced. Does anyone have any experience with them? Thanks!

 

 

 

You would be throwing your money away on Nady

 

As far as bleed through the vocal mics goes... no way is it enough. Plus the part of the reason for IEM is to REDUCE your STAGE VOLUME!!!! If you need to have the guitars on 10 just to get enough bleed through the vocal mics you are defeating part of the purpose.

 

You could go 1 transmitter to 5 people. But again I think that is sort of defeating the purpose as well. In my band we got 4 people, 4 transmitters, 4 mixes. Once you start going In Ear everyone is going to want their own mix.....

 

I am not a big fan of the transmixer or (more me) thing either. Its really the ghetto way of doing things I think. Do you really want the band coming through on the left ear and you blaring away on the right? Besides what if you want more of you singing AND more of your guitar.... cant do that... you can only do 1 more of you. So if you are the lead guitarists/ back up singer you are SOL

 

Forget the transmixer business save that money and get a real mixer. Everyone should have a good kick ass mixer anyway. Go get a used Allen & Heath GL2200... 6 Pre Fader AUX sends and do it right

[IanHey]

 

Originally posted by madjack That said; a better solution would be to pick up the Shure PSM200 system with the ambience pack. This system includes a lavalier mic which plugs into the wired port so that one can use both earbuds, and still hear the stage and audience sound.

 

 

Would this be a solution to hear the whole band? Any idea how much I'm looking at for a system for 5 people. Whats the primary differences between the 200, 400 and 600 systems?

 

Tx.

[Zeromus-X]

The ambience thing sounds really cool, but I can't find much info about it, and it appears to ONLY be for the PSM200. Not cool!

[MrKnobs]

 

Originally posted by Zeromus-X The ambience thing sounds really cool, but I can't find much info about it, and it appears to ONLY be for the PSM200. Not cool!

 

 

OK, let's go through the ABCs of these things again. I'm intimately familiar with the PSM400 and PSM200 systems, gigged many times with each of them.

 

Some key points:

 

 

 

Hope this helps!

 

Terry D.

[Ponch_A_Rella]

I guess I am wrong about the transmixer left and right thing.... I have never used them I just looked at the picture on the internet and it seemed like the way it would be.

 

 

Maybe I am also wrong about the only 1 (more me) feature.

 

But if you run a full program mix from the board into the PSM200 then plug your vocal mic into the 200 and go from there to the board I still dont see how you could get more of your vocals AND your guitar.

 

I dont provide IEM's for my clients we just used them for my own band since everyone bought their own system. I just cant drop 6k on IEM's right now and I dont want to deal with drunk musicians breaking ear buds all the time.

 

All I know is in my bands monitor rack we have 4 PSM600 Transmitters, 4 PSM600 Ricevers, 4 channels of compression, 4 channels of EQ.. and it run from 4 AUX sends at FOH or Monitor Land..... oh..... and it kicks ass:cool:

 

We got the 600's over the 200 and 400 because they both felt cheap and plastic compared to the 600, the 600 sounded a little better and were quieter when I demoed them, plus we had no use for the transmixer feature however it works cause I guess I dont understand it... because my A&H GL2200 has 6 AUX send and my Soundcraft Series 2 has 8.

 

However, the Ultimate Ears UE7 Pro are so far above the Shure E1's E2's and E5's (I have tried them all. I started with E5;s and the other guys in my band had the E1's and 2's) that its like going from $10 dollar WalkMan headphones to $1000 recording studio headphones.

 

[MrKnobs]

 

Originally posted by Ponch_A_Rella I guess I am wrong about the transmixer left and right thing.... I have never used them I just looked at the picture on the internet and it seemed like the way it would be. Yep. Maybe I am also wrong about the only 1 (more me) feature. But if you run a full program mix from the board into the PSM200 then plug your vocal mic into the 200 and go from there to the board I still dont see how you could get more of your vocals AND your guitar. No, you're right about that.

 

 

Terry D.

[Kennykeys]

Originally posted by Ponch_A_Rella I guess I am wrong about the transmixer left and right thing.... I have never used them I just looked at the picture on the internet and it seemed like the way it would be.

OT, it seems that quite a few "answers" here at HC are given this way.

.

But, very good hands-on insight about the Ultimate Ears triple driver phones, Ponch.

.

And, IMO, everyone should give a hearty thanks to Mr. Knobs for re-stating all this info.... yet again! (Terry, maybe you should cut and save your post for NEXT month.) I realize the search function here isn't the greatest, but these IEM basics are discussed constantly.

.

As someone listed just a few weeks ago, check The Earplug Store at;

http://store.yahoo.com/earplugstore/index.html?ESCOM+Forward

Good basic info, good prices, and an inexpensive custom mold with an "at home" impression kit for those of us that are far from an audiologist. BTW, he says that custom molds can be retrofitted onto the E2 phone.....a few months ago I read here that that wasn't possible. Makes the $77 E2 look very attractive.

.

OF course, the usual suspects:

www.filimentaudio.com

www.springtree.net

[tremendo]

 

Originally posted by Kennykeys BTW, he says that custom molds can be retrofitted onto the E2 phone.....a few months ago I read here that that wasn't possible. Makes the $77 E2 look very attractive.

 

 

 

I wonder if anyone here has tried this. I would think that the E2s are big and their shape would make them stick out of your head almost too much, with custom molds. I played around to see how they worked with my Custom ear PLUGS and I fit them in, but there was way to much sticking out.

[OneEng]

I use the E2's (because of their price and the fact that some have stated they have better bass response than E1's). They are fairly comfortable, but do show in your ear if people are close to the stage. You can't see them from more than 10 ft back though.

 

I think that future wireless systems will allow multiple independent channel transmission and on-stage mixing by each artist. This feature is already done in wired systems like the one I use from Furman. I suspect that when Shure includes such a system in the PSM I will go wireless as well. Right now, I just can't handle not having my independent mixer and can't afford a seperate monitor sound man at the gig

[J the D]

 

Originally posted by OneEng Right now, I just can't handle not having my independent mixer ...

 

 

We're using the Aviom ethernet monitor system with 16 channels to work with. I can get more, or less, anyone or anything. Right now.