Anyone using In-Ears as your main stage monitor?

T

TSURocks

Member
I'm a recent owner of the AXE II XL and finally have it performance ready. I've ditched my amp and pedalboard and was hoping to go without a stage monitor for ease of ongoing setup and controlling stage noise. We're all using in-ear monitors so other than amps there was no stage noise. I tried it for the first time this last weekend and for the most part the guitar just sounded pretty thin in my ears. Just wondering if anyone has gone the in-ear route effectively and how/what are you using?

To be clear, I have a dual driver Ultimate Ear custom in-ears and a Shure PSM-400 wireless system. I'm considering upgrading my in-ears to 4 or 6 drivers to hopefully get more body but wondering if this journey is fruitless and going to ultimately end with me investing in a stage monitor for the Axe.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Rony
 
Same situation except I plugged into the board in stereo.
I have pretty low end Shure In-ears but its sounds great.
 
I've been using IEMs as my *only* stage monitor for 4-5 years now. I can't imagine going back.
Good fit is the first crucial piece. Second is a good IEM. If you're unsure if the ones you want are "for you", definitely find a way to check them out before buying. Dropping $800 on a pretty good set isn't something I'd want to take a chance on. Just like with cabs, IEMs are all different, and even among the 4 driver models will sound drastically different.
 
Thanks. The pair of dual drivers from UE I have now are not cheap, I paid about $700 and they're custom fit so that's not the issue. Just wondering if upgrading to more drivers would solve my problem with the thin sounding guitar and if there are recommendations of custom in-ear brands over others. I was considering the UE 18 (6 drivers) but there are a lot of other good brands including JHAudio. Hoping this would cut it and I don't have to use a monitor on stage.

Thanks,
Rony
 
We are primarily a studio band gone live. We record our drums, bass and supplemental FX tracks in Logic, render a stereo track to Showbuddy, then play 2 live guitars and vocals blended to this backing track essentially creating a 5 or 6 piece band out of 3 members. We all monitor totally thru buds. We don't even crank on the PA except for gigs. For my part I utilize Westone 4R ear buds fed from a Sennheiser EW 300 and play a couple of electrics, acoustic and bass thru the Axe Ultra. Couldn't be happier. Obviously the bass guitar has a shallow dynamic via buds but my guitar sounds are rich. My Marshall gathers dust at home.

I only mention our entire concept because if you are using live drummers, other amplification in a more conventional setup you might have different results.
 
how did you dial in your tones through? If you dialed it in using a power amp and cab and switched to IEM that prob would not sound good
 
It somewhat depends on the type of music you play. I've played some fill-in gigs with a country cover band and only used my in-ears but when I play with my prog-new metal cover band I find that I need a floor wedge so that I can get feedback and the sonic interaction you only get fom having a loud cab blastly at your pickups.
 
Yep - have used only in-ears for the last 18 months... but have actually worked exclusively with the 'full band mix' for over a decade and a half - no personal amps or backline, just DI'd into desk and FOH mix fed back to monitors.

Not that bothered about the feedback interaction etc, so the addition of in-ears was the final piece of the puzzle.

We do work entirely self-contained though - same rig every night. Four individual, glorious stereo mixes with the digital mixer too - has never sounded thin to me... just nicely ' sat in the mix'. Perfect
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Thanks guys. To answer some of the questions, we have a drummer using electronic drums so really stage noise besides our horn section is practically non-existent. I dialed in my Axe using one of our powered speakers at home, same one we use in the live PA. Of course didn't go through our mixer to do that but at least used the same speaker. Now understand this was my very first time using my axe live so there's probably still some dialing in I need to do but was concerned about how thin it sounded through my ears. We play top 40 dance music, everything from the old stuff to the stuff on the charts today.
 
I keep loosing my in ears and/or sometimes they dangle and I step on them, so I purchased these $10.00 from Walmart and actually like them better than my Sure SE215's! I'm not kidding. Try it. For $10.00 you can't really go wrong and they work as a backup if you don't like them. They have them at your local store.

IFROGZ headphones - Walmart.com

The key to good sound with them is to make sure they fit your ears tightly so try the different size silicone buds. I get good low end with them and the top isn't too harsh or brittle.

I also own a fairly inexpensive Tech 21 FRFR cab (forget the model) that gives a little sound back to the guitar so I can get some natural string resonance and feedback if I need. I don't need it cranked but the system works great for me.
 
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TSURocks said:
Thanks guys. To answer some of the questions, we have a drummer using electronic drums so really stage noise besides our horn section is practically non-existent. I dialed in my Axe using one of our powered speakers at home, same one we use in the live PA. Of course didn't go through our mixer to do that but at least used the same speaker. Now understand this was my very first time using my axe live so there's probably still some dialing in I need to do but was concerned about how thin it sounded through my ears. We play top 40 dance music, everything from the old stuff to the stuff on the charts today.
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We are similar setup. We use an Allen & Heath GLD board. The IEM sound is pristine. However, we used to use a Presonus Studiolive board and our IEM's sounded like crap. What kind of board are you using?
 
My In-ear rig looked VERY similar to that...It's REALLY heavy, isn't it?!

UnsungHeroGuitars said:
Yep - have used only in-ears for the last 18 months... but have actually worked exclusively with the 'full band mix' for over a decade and a half - no personal amps or backline, just DI'd into desk and FOH mix fed back to monitors.

Not that bothered about the feedback interaction etc, so the addition of in-ears was the final piece of the puzzle.

We do work entirely self-contained though - same rig every night. Four individual, glorious stereo mixes with the digital mixer too - has never sounded thin to me... just nicely ' sat in the mix'. Perfect
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Coverd-Rack.jpg
Click to expand...
 
AndyOrr said:
We are similar setup. We use an Allen & Heath GLD board. The IEM sound is pristine. However, we used to use a Presonus Studiolive board and our IEM's sounded like crap. What kind of board are you using?
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Presonus Studiolive :eek:). I don't think it's the board. We setup tonight for a gig tomorrow night and spent a bit of time making some adjustments and I think I'm good, its sounds incredible during sound check at least. I'll see if I have any issues tomorrow during the gig but I think I've got it. I'll report back but thanks for the feedback.
 
Using Shure Se535 and Sennheiser IEM G3 system here and a little cheap mixer to have it stereo and to getting able to pan the band a bit left and my guitar a bit right...by far the best monitoring I ever had.
Some things:
You can't hear volumes that good using in-ears, audition your patches in the rehearse with usual monitors to balance them right.
The eqing from the FOH is made for the PA. If the PA is far away from a FRFR sound, the eqing can be wrong for your monitoring.
 
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guitartripp said:
My In-ear rig looked VERY similar to that...It's REALLY heavy, isn't it?!
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Definitely a two man job!
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Except for the times when I want to tweak the AxeFX and no one is around to help lift...


666was999 said:
You can't hear volumes that good using in-ears, audition your patches in the rehearse with usual monitors to balance them right.
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Important point that
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Every guitar, drum, bass, vocal sound I build gets built using the FOH PA. That's the important part and as mentioned, it probably wouldn't work well building an overall sound using just in-ears and hitting the FOH master hoping it'll sound good!

That said, once the FOH sounds and mix are sorted, that translates perfectly to my in-ears with no 'special' mixes or different monitoring compensations / set ups needed.

I do just EQ the overall in-ear feeds to make the buds sound sweeter (a little less low end and a touch of brightening across the whole mix in my case), add a little more vocal to compensate for the 'head voice' when singing, but beyond that, the guitars and overall mix stays exactly as the full stereo FOH - perfect
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