In-Ear Monitors

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Aequitas123
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In-Ear Monitors

Post by Aequitas123 » Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:08 pm

Does anyone use in-ear monitors for gigging? Would you recommend it? Any pros and cons?

Thanks

chalkline
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Post by chalkline » Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:59 pm

We just been using IEM's on Scott Walkers Drifting and Tilting gigs last week, and they are fine, if set up properly.
They are not cheap, we were using a sennheiser system, that had four aerials, and they really do need setting up properly, otherwise you end up getting a lot of frequency dropout. The sound quality was great, but depends what system you want to use. You get what you pay for, we had about 23 sets running, and had no problems at all!
You have to decide wether you want mono or stereo sets, I would stick with mono though, as you will soon run out of channels on a monitor desk with stereo sets. And I really don't see the reason for stereo when dealing with monitors!
Probably not much help really!

SubFunk
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Post by SubFunk » Mon Nov 17, 2008 8:17 pm

chalkline wrote:We just been using IEM's on Scott Walkers Drifting and Tilting gigs last week, and they are fine, if set up properly.
They are not cheap, we were using a sennheiser system, that had four aerials, and they really do need setting up properly, otherwise you end up getting a lot of frequency dropout. The sound quality was great, but depends what system you want to use. You get what you pay for, we had about 23 sets running, and had no problems at all!
You have to decide wether you want mono or stereo sets, I would stick with mono though, as you will soon run out of channels on a monitor desk with stereo sets. And I really don't see the reason for stereo when dealing with monitors!
Probably not much help really!
i am probably not much help either, as we deal in our company with professional IEM only, sennheiser and shure on offer (all other systems are toys!)... the shure do sound better (a better compander system), but the sennheisers have a much better reception/transmission stability. so it's a 50/50 what to use and why...

most has been said here already... it's very, very expensive if you want a good system... the cheap ones suck big time and are not worth to even consider in the slightest.

on top is that for a decent IEM you need to use very good in ear headphones...
otherwise you basically miss the point of IEM and you are better of using traditional monitor wedges.

which again costs some really serious money.

meaning it only makes really sense for serious professional applications with high budgets.
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posssu
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Post by posssu » Mon Nov 17, 2008 8:27 pm

pros:
-very good sound quality (good if your band sounds good)
-you will hear what you want to hear
-if everyone uses these, you save lots of space by not bringing your stage monitors on the gig

cons:
-you ONLY hear what comes from the monitors
-the sound might be too hifi to get into the feeling, since you won't get the "loudness" that comes from the speakers and monitors on the stage. i don't know if this is a con, but... if you play rock, then it might be. :)
-i don't have experience on this, but i'd be afraid of a sudden peaks, since it doesn't take much to pop your ears. some transmitters send some peak signal when they run out of battery, hopefully not these
-hassle of setting up the transmitters
-constant worry over batteries

Ok that doesn't look too positive. But anyway, they are very hifi and you get really good sound on stage, if this is what you want. I personally prefer standard monitoring, since it's much quicker and has more "feeling" into it, but I haven't used in-ear monitors myself (just in-ear earplugs), so what am I to say. Our guitarist tried them on one gig and really enjoyed it.
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SubFunk
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Post by SubFunk » Mon Nov 17, 2008 8:36 pm

posssu wrote:
-i don't have experience on this, but i'd be afraid of a sudden peaks, since it doesn't take much to pop your ears. some transmitters send some peak signal when they run out of battery, hopefully not these
-hassle of setting up the transmitters
-constant worry over batteries
yup, those are worries you need to have with non top level pro systems setup by non professionals / specialists...

that is why a decent functioning IEM system costs really serious money, but then you get a top working IEM.
LOL about the battery worry... of course if they use batteries from a shop. LOL

p.s. the batteries you use (should) use you can't buy in any normal shop...!!!
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Atomikat
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Post by Atomikat » Mon Nov 17, 2008 9:40 pm

I use the Shure's on stage, they work great and my ears thank me for this... :wink:

chalkline
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Post by chalkline » Mon Nov 17, 2008 9:49 pm

Also meant to add licensing costs, think that can be quite expensive, not sure if budget systems come with a license or free frequencies, but if not licensed then you could end up picking all sorts of rubbish up on them, as well as clashing with radio mics! They headphones are really expensive and you need to buy industrial strength batteries, which you will probably get about 4 hours life from! I see some session musicians using dt100's on stage, but then if you are a rock band they can look a little daft!

SubFunk
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Post by SubFunk » Mon Nov 17, 2008 10:17 pm

chalkline wrote:Also meant to add licensing costs, think that can be quite expensive, not sure if budget systems come with a license or free frequencies, but if not licensed then you could end up picking all sorts of rubbish up on them, as well as clashing with radio mics! They headphones are really expensive and you need to buy industrial strength batteries, which you will probably get about 4 hours life from! I see some session musicians using dt100's on stage, but then if you are a rock band they can look a little daft!
yo yo yo, forgot about the possible interference issues if you don't know what you are doing...

licensing frequencies is also an issue, of course...

if you need to be on the save side you don't run in the free bands :wink:
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SubFunk
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Post by SubFunk » Mon Nov 17, 2008 10:22 pm

Atomikat wrote:I use the Shure's on stage, they work great and my ears thank me for this... :wink:
you mean headphones or the whole PSM 700 system?

http://www.shure.com/proaudio/products/ ... 00_content

i personally think even the senny's are more stable in terms of reception / transmission that the PSM 700 have the best sounding compander system by far...

therefore they are more popular with musicians, TV moderators, Theater and the like use more senny's
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SubFunk
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Post by SubFunk » Mon Nov 17, 2008 10:22 pm

chalkline wrote:
and you need to buy industrial strength batteries, which you will probably get about 4 hours life from!
the ones we use, and those are the most powerful batteries on the planet will give you a guarantee of 4 hours straight under the worst conditions, with both the sennheiser and the shure systems.

p.s. and sennheiser has the better "quick change" battery pack system.

then again, if you can afford / work with such a system, you have an engineer on your back which can monitor your battery status via the receiver... and will take care of it, so you can play a new guiness book of world records set without worries.




:lol:
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Atomikat
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Post by Atomikat » Tue Nov 18, 2008 7:47 am

SubFunk wrote:you mean headphones or the whole PSM 700 system?
Just the earphones, I'm broke :( no money to spend on the whole system. I play electronic music (Live acts) and I just plug them on my soundcard(RME) or the mixer (Allen & Heath ZED14) and don't need the noisy big monitors from the clubs :wink:

cubehog
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cheap solution?

Post by cubehog » Tue Nov 18, 2008 8:32 am

We use a very cheap solution.

Maike and I bought a pair of cheap koss earplugs. It is IEM in fact but very, very low budget.

We use cable extensions for a greater range on stage. We set it up with a 828mkii utilizing two seperate stereoouts, so each of us can mix his own monitorsound.
Then we run the stereopars through two presonus hp4.

The big, big drawback is the mess with the cables.

But this method is very, very earfriendly. It is good for intonation and playing accuracy.
We both are independent of bad monitor wedges and we always can reproduce a quite acceptable "stage sound". It is very quick to set up, too.

Maybe that´s what you are looking for. It is so far away from a being a professional solution but it works very well. At least for us.

Coming from the diy/hc-scene that´s quite a leap forward. Most of the time we didn´t have monitors at all. Maybe that´s why I am so excited about this solution.

der ivo
Last edited by cubehog on Tue Nov 18, 2008 8:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

last man on earth
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Post by last man on earth » Tue Nov 18, 2008 8:37 am

If you can spring for them, the M-Audio IE series are pretty good -

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=pro ... =Earphones

The nice things about them are that they use Ultimate Ears technology (pretty good for the money), and the cables are user replaceable, unlike most headphone or any of the Shure in-ears.

Replacement cables:

http://store.m-audio.com/us/index.cfm?p ... egoryid=17

only $20, and they work on all of the M-Audio in-ears - I know lots of people who have ripped a cable out of an in-ear, had a cable issue due to improper storage, or getting a cable chewed on by pets who have had to replace the entire set, which is just ridiculous when you look at the M-Audio setup.

Crash
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Post by Crash » Tue Nov 18, 2008 8:56 am

Did anyone mention feedback yet? This is one of the most important reasons for any vocalist to use IEM. Since the monitoring sound doesn't play out loud back into the microphone you have alot less hassle dealing with feedback. Plus you can modify the volume yourself via the Receiver instead of having your ears blown out by loud stage-monitors.

One reason for a Stereo system is the ability to put the mix to one side and your own sound to the other side of the phones.

I used Sennheiser IEM in the past, but after one gig we lost my guitarbag (including the IEM Receiver and the guitar). Since then I didn't find a cheap solo Receiver fitting to my IEM Station, at least not one that doesn't costs just as much as I paid for the whole system.
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Post by Crash » Tue Nov 18, 2008 9:03 am

You can go the inexpensive way by simply putting a small mixer beside your stage-position and putting headphones on. Just make sure they look stylish enough to fit your show appearance. I call it OnEarMonitoring. ;) 8)

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