Anybody who uses Axe FX II with in-ear?

Hansen

Experienced
My band is considering in-ear as a live solution. I am using Axe FX II and running directly to the FOH. Sometimes I have experienced that people at the first rows cannot hear my guitar from the FOH because they basically only have stage sound. This obviously differs from venue to venue.. For that reason, all my presets are wired with one route to FOH and one to an amp. However, with in-ear the idea is to have no sound on stage. So my question is, how do you guys who use in-ear solve the issue that people on the first rows mainly hear stage sound and not the sound from FOH?
 
I wouldn't say it's to have "no sound on stage" more like "less sound on stage".. I also use a monitor for this very reason. People up close get blasted by the drums and don't hear the mains. I would use what you have and just get your stage volume up where it can compete with the drums some for the front people. Lots of big bands have those filler speakers across the stage that point out so it fills in this gap.
 
I once experienced the same phenomenon where I was standing in the middle of the stage, in front of the singer who played guitar, and I couldn't hear him, because his guitar signal went straight to FOH. Did I think he should have used a cab as well? I think its not the job of a musician to make up for the deficiencies of a venue to provide for proper amplification throughout the venue. Especially since (I was there as a monitor tech of the support band) I knew said venue had boasted to us on how good their PA system was. Well, the mixing desks at least were pretty sweet.
 
Using a cab probably won't sound to great for a lot of people on the front row do to the beaming effect guitar cabs have. Some people will get a very bassy sound and some will get ice pick highs.
 
Hi Hansen! Our band had the EXACT issue you just described. Here's how we tackled the problem:

We have an IEM rack that we built and all pitched in $$ for. In the rack, there is a splitter. The splitter takes the inputs, duplicates the signal, and splits them to two snake tails. One of the tails goes into our own mixer that we use to control our IEM mixes. The other tail goes straight to FOH.

For the guitars: I use an Axe FX and my other guitarist uses a Kemper (surprisingly, no arguments!). For my Axe, I have a patch that sends Output 1 (WITH cabinet emulation) to our splitter (which goes to FOH and IEMs) and Output 2 (WITHOUT cab emulation) to a real Marshall cab on stage. We do NOT mic up our cabs. They are purely for filling up the stage sound and blasting out eardrums in the front row. Since we've moved to this setup, we get compliments for our sound after every show, from the FOH crew and audience members.

I highly recommend getting custom molds for IEMs. They do a much better job blocking out the on-stage volume and letting you hear the mix in your ears. If you're not used to jamming with people over headphones, it may be a strange sensation for a little bit, but it is sooo much better than wearing earplugs and cranking on-stage monitors, in my opinion.
 
If you're sending the band mix to a rather robust mixer like the x32 before FOH, you could maybe pass off the majority of the signal to the on stage monitors (minus click if applicable).
 
We have an IEM rack that we built and all pitched in $$ for. In the rack, there is a splitter. The splitter takes the inputs, duplicates the signal, and splits them to two snake tails. One of the tails goes into our own mixer that we use to control our IEM mixes. The other tail goes straight to FOH.

For the guitars: I use an Axe FX and my other guitarist uses a Kemper (surprisingly, no arguments!). For my Axe, I have a patch that sends Output 1 (WITH cabinet emulation) to our splitter (which goes to FOH and IEMs) and Output 2 (WITHOUT cab emulation) to a real Marshall cab on stage. We do NOT mic up our cabs. They are purely for filling up the stage sound and blasting out eardrums in the front row. Since we've moved to this setup, we get compliments for our sound after every show, from the FOH crew and audience members.

I highly recommend getting custom molds for IEMs. They do a much better job blocking out the on-stage volume and letting you hear the mix in your ears. If you're not used to jamming with people over headphones, it may be a strange sensation for a little bit, but it is sooo much better than wearing earplugs and cranking on-stage monitors, in my opinion.
This is a similar solution to what I have done. When I have sent my signal to a cab on stage I have not mic’ed that up either. It is just for stage sound and for people in the front. So you are using in-ear on stage, but also cabinets that are on for stage sound? Will not that ruin your hearing in the in-ear and is not the whole point of in-ear that there should be less/no stage sound, so it is easier for the mixer to mix properly?

Anyway, this is only an issue with certain venues. If the venue is bigger and the crowd is further back, there is no need to connect to an amp on stage in my opinion and then the In-ear will also work better.
 
When I started with in-ears again I had the same worries: How do they still hear me?
So I brought monitors with me to gigs, at least at first.

I could tell you a long story how the learning curve of my band was a bit flat at first and what it needed....but long story short: When they need to hear you and how they need it, it is their problem, not yours.
They first need to notice that problem theirselves and maybe some songs on some gigs get massled when they miss some guitar, but finally they will start to understand what is all about.
And you don't need to bring any monitors or cabs.
 
This is a similar solution to what I have done. When I have sent my signal to a cab on stage I have not mic’ed that up either. It is just for stage sound and for people in the front. So you are using in-ear on stage, but also cabinets that are on for stage sound? Will not that ruin your hearing in the in-ear and is not the whole point of in-ear that there should be less/no stage sound, so it is easier for the mixer to mix properly?

Anyway, this is only an issue with certain venues. If the venue is bigger and the crowd is further back, there is no need to connect to an amp on stage in my opinion and then the In-ear will also work better.

If you get good in-ear monitors with good sound isolation (i.e., custom ear molds), the cabs on stage won't make a difference. The goal is to isolate yourself from the outside sound as much as possible and rely on what's coming through your ears. I never rely on my on-stage cabs to hear myself. It's there purely for the audience in the front row or if I want to get feedback. I turn my cab up just enough to get over the volume of the drumset, but not so much that it's overpowering what's going to my ears. Regarding the FOH guy mixing, he's probably 90% focused on the sound that I've sent to FOH than what's coming off the stage. For some sound checks, I even turn my power amp off so the cab isn't on at all.
 
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When I started with in-ears again I had the same worries: How do they still hear me?
So I brought monitors with me to gigs, at least at first.

I could tell you a long story how the learning curve of my band was a bit flat at first and what it needed....but long story short: When they need to hear you and how they need it, it is their problem, not yours.
They first need to notice that problem theirselves and maybe some songs on some gigs get massled when they miss some guitar, but finally they will start to understand what is all about.
And you don't need to bring any monitors or cabs.

Kind of defeats the purpose of using IEM if you still have to bring cabs along for stage sound. In which case you might as well stick with the traditional cabs and wedges for stage sound. To me the whole point of IEM is to eliminate the whole stage sound setup. Less crap to haul around gig after gig, better for my back as well.
 
Kind of defeats the purpose of using IEM if you still have to bring cabs along for stage sound. In which case you might as well stick with the traditional cabs and wedges for stage sound. To me the whole point of IEM is to eliminate the whole stage sound setup. Less crap to haul around gig after gig, better for my back as well.

I disagree with this slightly, but it stems from the purpose of using IEM's to me being different than yours. I both sing (lead) and play guitar and IEM's help me hear myself so much more clearly and at healthy volumes. My voice is so much more healthy for it. Sometimes I bring a 1x12 with a celestion neo speaker in there for feedback. My matrix is in my rack already so it just requires a 15ish pound cab. IEM's are still very worth it to me.
 
+1 on the front fills, besides your guitars, they are not hearing vocals, bass, keys, only drums, and more drums.....
its an easy answer
 
If you're worried about the people right at the front not hearing you simply bring a small powered monitor for side fill. Note I said side fill, not against the back wall facing straight out towards the audience.

However it's been my experience that unless you are playing a Big Venue where you've actually sold a bunch of tickets for people to specifically see you and hear you then it doesn't really matter. I played the bars and when I went in ears and stopped bringing monitors nobody noticed the difference at all.

As for the whole guitar interaction with the speaker thing because I'm Direct, believe it or not I had no problem getting feedback and interaction from the FoH and no we weren't even really that loud as we were playing small little rooms 300 people capacity.

Anyways, just my experience but after going to in ears there is no going back to being blasted by monitors requiring ear plugs. The sound quality is DVD or better. The mix is personal and perfect. Clarity and definition is like being right in the middle of the mix while listening to your high-end stereo at home. Most importantly a non-damaging volume makes performing a pleasure, and in between and when you're done no ringing in your ears yay!
 
For me it really depends on the venue. When I play small bars I'll just go direct and let our sound guy work his magic. My guitar sound bounces off enough walls that it doesn't matter that I don't have anything on stage. Larger indoor venues (House of Blues) I've also never had a real issue with either. It's only the big outdoor events that I start bringing 2 EV ELX112P's for stage reinforcement. My drummer has a pretty funny video of me playing on a huge stage with my fake cabs, and his buddy is in front pantomiming guitar then pointing to his ear and shaking his head. The venue had center fills up front, but apparently my guitar was not in them. The sound out by the FOH board was killer though.
 
If you get good in-ear monitors with good sound isolation (i.e., custom ear molds), the cabs on stage won't make a difference. The goal is to isolate yourself from the outside sound as much as possible and rely on what's coming through your ears. I never rely on my on-stage cabs to hear myself. It's there purely for the audience in the front row or if I want to get feedback. I turn my cab up just enough to get over the volume of the drumset, but not so much that it's overpowering what's going to my ears. Regarding the FOH guy mixing, he's probably 90% focused on the sound that I've sent to FOH than what's coming off the stage. Some shows, I even turn my power amp off so the cab isn't on at all.

I agree. But as I wrote, in-ear is not only for monitoring, but also to give the audience the best possible sound. The FOH guy will have a much easier job, the less stage sound there is. So if you guys use in-ear, but still have lots of stage sound you are kind of missing 50% of the reason to use in-ear I guess?
 
I agree. But as I wrote, in-ear is not only for monitoring, but also to give the audience the best possible sound. The FOH guy will have a much easier job, the less stage sound there is. So if you guys use in-ear, but still have lots of stage sound you are kind of missing 50% of the reason to use in-ear I guess?
There are a ton of bands that play with cabs on stage and also use in-ear monitors. When I talk to the FOH crew and give them the tails from our IEM rack, they're listening to that audio coming out of the FOH speakers, which is 100% direct Axe FX sound (cab impulses). When we're doing a sound check and everything is playing, the cabs on stage are non-existent to the sound guy as they are overpowered by the array of FOH speakers in the venue. When I have my IEMs in, I don't hear my cab either. Like I said, we make our cabs just loud enough to get over the drumset. They are not blaring and trying to reach the people in the back row. The goal here is to give the people standing in front of the stage a clear sound as they are generally standing behind the FOH speakers.
 
I disagree with this slightly, but it stems from the purpose of using IEM's to me being different than yours. I both sing (lead) and play guitar and IEM's help me hear myself so much more clearly and at healthy volumes. My voice is so much more healthy for it. Sometimes I bring a 1x12 with a celestion neo speaker in there for feedback. My matrix is in my rack already so it just requires a 15ish pound cab. IEM's are still very worth it to me.

Obviously the first point of IEM is to hear yourself. I thought that goes without saying. But if I can hear myself perfectly, why break my back hauling stuff around I no longer need, just for stage sound? Not my problem to fix.

There are a ton of bands that play with cabs on stage and also use in-ear monitors. When I talk to the FOH crew and give them the tails from our IEM rack, they're listening to that audio coming out of the FOH speakers, which is 100% direct Axe FX sound (cab impulses). When we're doing a sound check and everything is playing, the cabs on stage are non-existent to the sound guy as they are overpowered by the array of FOH speakers in the venue. When I have my IEMs in, I don't hear my cab either. Like I said, we make our cabs just loud enough to get over the drumset. They are not blaring and trying to reach the people in the back row. The goal here is to give the people standing in front of the stage a clear sound as they are generally standing behind the FOH speakers.

Again, why is that your problem to fix? It should be up to the venue to make sure everybody has a good sonic experience wherever they are. Not for the band to make up the venue's deficiencies.
 
Kind of defeats the purpose of using IEM if you still have to bring cabs along for stage sound. In which case you might as well stick with the traditional cabs and wedges for stage sound. To me the whole point of IEM is to eliminate the whole stage sound setup. Less crap to haul around gig after gig, better for my back as well.

I disagree as well. I use iems for hearing protection, and so I can hear myself anywhere on stage. I also sing better when I have them.
 
Again, why is that your problem to fix? It should be up to the venue to make sure everybody has a good sonic experience wherever they are. Not for the band to make up the venue's deficiencies.
That's a great question. And you're right that it's not our problem. However, we're never sure what the venue setup is going to be like until we get there. We bring cabs as an insurance in case the venue can't deliver the sound we want. We only play shows once or twice a month so it's not a big deal for us.
 
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