Can I be 'selfish' with my IEM tone?

if your sound is well dialed in on your fractal and the PA is properly tuned, the FOH tech shouldn't have to do much to your sound, maybe a bit of high pass and low pass filtering that's it. You can have your cake and eat it too, but it means getting your sounds and levels right, that takes time and effort.

I may have an advantage in that I've made my living as a live sound engineer for a long time. My XLR outs feed the console, usually my Mackie DL32R and that feeds the FOH and my Sennheiser EW 300 g3 in ears, no custom earbuds and it sounds like my nearfields at home. Having good accurate monitors that you know and trust makes a huge difference.

The other thing that I've found in getting a good live sound is playing at stage volume if you using either amp and cabinet, wedges or an FRFR monitor. If you don't, you'll skew the frequency response because of the variations due to the levels your playing at ie. Fletcher Munson curves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher–Munson_curves.

But all that being said, you have to try till you find what works for you, your comrades on stage and the sound tech, not an easy feat
One problem I'm finding is that dialing in sounds that work for FOH and/or my FRFR monitors at gig levels don't translate well to my Audio Technica M3 + 1964ears V6s custom molds (also using DL32R)...

Mostly I suspect this is FM at work. I have recently added a frowny face EQ on my aux send master output on the DL32R, as well as a bit of extra reverb. That seems to help.
 
Companders can wreak havoc with frequency response of in ears. A typical 12” speakers response usually drops off drastically below 80 Hz and above 5000 Hz, so using low and high pass filter will clean up the muck and fizz in IEM’s.
 
My outs are echoed so I'll have the same to FOH and IEM

I have a 1u rack mixer from the axe fx to my IEM transmitter so I can eq on there simply enough. It helps if you invest in good buds though and custom moulds


Thanks for the advise.
 
if your sound is well dialed in on your fractal and the PA is properly tuned, the FOH tech shouldn't have to do much to your sound, maybe a bit of high pass and low pass filtering that's it. You can have your cake and eat it too, but it means getting your sounds and levels right, that takes time and effort.

I may have an advantage in that I've made my living as a live sound engineer for a long time. My XLR outs feed the console, usually my Mackie DL32R and that feeds the FOH and my Sennheiser EW 300 g3 in ears, no custom earbuds and it sounds like my nearfields at home. Having good accurate monitors that you know and trust makes a huge difference.

The other thing that I've found in getting a good live sound is playing at stage volume if you using either amp and cabinet, wedges or an FRFR monitor. If you don't, you'll skew the frequency response because of the variations due to the levels your playing at ie. Fletcher Munson curves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher–Munson_curves.

But all that being said, you have to try till you find what works for you, your comrades on stage and the sound tech, not an easy feat


Yep, will need to find a compromise. My 'selfish' idea is to get a good tone the i like to hear through my IEM...then 'worrying' about the FOH. I know it's never going to be perfect w/o trying.
 
I think it would be very useful to understand what exactly it is that you like about the tone you like to hear in your IEMs vs “good” FOH tone. Can you just record the two and see how they are different? They may be not as different as you think, you know.

IMO, most often, when people say they don’t like the sound in their IEMs, they miss some reverb, and guitar sounds too dry, harsh, present, whatever. If that’s the case, you definitely don’t want to add reverb to FOH sound, you’ll likely disappear from the mix, and FOH cannot undo that. They fight with venue reverberation enough without this extra problem. So just add some to your monitor sound.

Or, it could be that your earphones exaggerate an annoying frequency which you don’t notice in the mix or in a room where reverberation hides it. If that’s the case, both your monitor and FOH signals may benefit from a narrow PEQ cut here and there. But you need to be aware what they are.

Or maybe you just don’t like the hi and low cuts? This would be the safest thing as any FOH engineer will know how to deal with an unprocessed mic’ed cab signal - after all, people who play real amps on stage don’t apply filters to mics for FOH convenience. However, the more you leave at their discretion, the less control you have over the end result, which sort of defeats the purpose of using a processor, IMO. Also, if you yourself listen to exaggerated highs and lows, you might not know how well your “main” frequency band sounds. So they may cut the excess tails and be left with some crappy midrange. It would be useful to check your presets with hi and low cuts even if you won’t use them for monitoring. These cuts are also easy to do with a filter block.

I’m either case, learn why you prefer a different sound. And you also need to be aware if that’s a different sound or maybe your earphones are lying to you. After you know that for sure, you will decide what to do with your main question. Dialing in sounds via headphones is not recommended, but it doesn’t mean it cannot be done. Some things can be easily corrected by FOH, others not so much.
 
I always ask the board op at FOH after a gig if he had to alter my tone to sit better in the mix. I've got it to the point where the ones that know what they're doing don't have to touch it at all. I create my tones in my studio through Mackie MR8's, test through my EV ELX112p's, and try to get out in front to see how well they translated.

If I have any issues with my IEM mix, I tweak my guitar signal at our IEM board. We split the signal there so we have control of our ear mixes. I noticed for a while my tones were dark in general, mainly because I had made some adjustments to my amp eq while using my IEM's. Did not translate well to FOH. I also noticed that after some time my ears would adapt and change what I was perceiving.
 
I have the Shure PSM900(run in Mono) and Axe FX 2 XL+ in a rack. Output 2 from the XL+ to the input L on the PSM900 and input R receives a monitor mix from a Mackie 32R console. I turn my guitar sound coming from the 32R all the way down and only hear all the other instruments and use the volume on Output 2 on the XL+ to control the amount of guitar in my IEM mix.

The important bit here is that I can branch off from the main signal in the XL+ and use a parametric EQ before an FXL Block to tailor my IEM sound for my guitar. Your EQ for your IEM will not translate over to PA. For example, I am using a pair of custom molded 64 Audio A6's. The guitar sound can get really bassy with these. So much so I have the low cut on the PEQ for my IEM set to almost 300Hz. Where as whats going to FOH has only a 200Hz on a PEQ Block. Also more high end is in my IEM mix than what I am sending to FOH. It's great to have these options.

In case that sounds confusing, because I did a crappy job of translating, check out what my patch looks like at the end on my XL+.

-----------PEQ-----------Output 1 to FOH
\------PEQ----FXL Block--------Output 2 to IEM Transmitter
 
I have the Shure PSM900(run in Mono) and Axe FX 2 XL+ in a rack. Output 2 from the XL+ to the input L on the PSM900 and input R receives a monitor mix from a Mackie 32R console. I turn my guitar sound coming from the 32R all the way down and only hear all the other instruments and use the volume on Output 2 on the XL+ to control the amount of guitar in my IEM mix.

The important bit here is that I can branch off from the main signal in the XL+ and use a parametric EQ before an FXL Block to tailor my IEM sound for my guitar. Your EQ for your IEM will not translate over to PA. For example, I am using a pair of custom molded 64 Audio A6's. The guitar sound can get really bassy with these. So much so I have the low cut on the PEQ for my IEM set to almost 300Hz. Where as whats going to FOH has only a 200Hz on a PEQ Block. Also more high end is in my IEM mix than what I am sending to FOH. It's great to have these options.

In case that sounds confusing, because I did a crappy job of translating, check out what my patch looks like at the end on my XL+.

-----------PEQ-----------Output 1 to FOH
\------PEQ----FXL Block--------Output 2 to IEM Transmitter
Doesn't that limit you to a fairly mono mix? It also treats your bandmates to a crappy version of your guitar while you get a good one.

Whereas you could use your Output 2 Global EQ or use an EQ on your whole IEM mix (assuming your mixer allows that) to compensate for your IEMs.
 
Doesn't that limit you to a fairly mono mix? It also treats your bandmates to a crappy version of your guitar while you get a good one.

Whereas you could use your Output 2 Global EQ or use an EQ on your whole IEM mix (assuming your mixer allows that) to compensate for your IEMs.

I always have run mine in mono, so it doesn't matter. They do not get a crappy version. They get the version that they were happy with in their IEM and I was not in mine. My mix then became way too bassy and was not cutting in my ears.but it sounded great out front. haha Hence the reason for moving to this particular setup.

I am sure there are other, maybe simpler ways and I don't claim that this is the be all, end all solution, but it works perfect for me.
 
I always have run mine in mono, so it doesn't matter. They do not get a crappy version. They get the version that they were happy with in their IEM and I was not in mine. My mix then became way too bassy and was not cutting in my ears.but it sounded great out front. haha Hence the reason for moving to this particular setup.

I am sure there are other, maybe simpler ways and I don't claim that this is the be all, end all solution, but it works perfect for me.
Ok, fair enough. I recognize we all have different requirements... One of mine is a stereo IEM mix :)

Just curious - did you give them opportunity to compare what your mix is versus what theirs is?
 
Just curious - did you give them opportunity to compare what your mix is versus what theirs is?

I honestly don’t care too much what the other guitar sounds like in my monitor mix as long as I can hear what it’s playing, and it doesn’t distract me. :)

Our vocalist needs to hear everybody and have a great mix with reverbs and all that stuff. Everyone else including me - we are fine with anything as long as we hear the rhythm well, and the lyrics to change sections appropriately.

I could never get all the fuss about these mixes. And yes, I did hear them in stereo and carefully made.
 
I honestly don’t care too much what the other guitar sounds like in my monitor mix as long as I can hear what it’s playing, and it doesn’t distract me. :)

Our vocalist needs to hear everybody and have a great mix with reverbs and all that stuff. Everyone else including me - we are fine with anything as long as we hear the rhythm well, and the lyrics to change sections appropriately.

I could never get all the fuss about these mixes. And yes, I did hear them in stereo and carefully made.

As already mentioned:

I recognize we all have different requirements...

:)
 
Ok, fair enough. I recognize we all have different requirements... One of mine is a stereo IEM mix :)

Just curious - did you give them opportunity to compare what your mix is versus what theirs is?

I have not. I don’t really want to jam their IEM in my ears. Lol And my IEM are custom molded while theres are not. Custom moles tend to have much more bass frequencies.
 
I have not. I don’t really want to jam their IEM in my ears. Lol And my IEM are custom molded while theres are not. Custom moles tend to have much more bass frequencies.
I'm talking about letting them hear the signal going to your receiver... Through their own IEMs.

Also, I wouldn't say custom molds have "much more bass". I would say custom molds have a much more accurate frequency response. And conversely, universal buds are less accurate.

Anyway, do what works best for you.
 
I have the Shure PSM900(run in Mono) and Axe FX 2 XL+ in a rack. Output 2 from the XL+ to the input L on the PSM900 and input R receives a monitor mix from a Mackie 32R console. I turn my guitar sound coming from the 32R all the way down and only hear all the other instruments and use the volume on Output 2 on the XL+ to control the amount of guitar in my IEM mix.

The important bit here is that I can branch off from the main signal in the XL+ and use a parametric EQ before an FXL Block to tailor my IEM sound for my guitar. Your EQ for your IEM will not translate over to PA. For example, I am using a pair of custom molded 64 Audio A6's. The guitar sound can get really bassy with these. So much so I have the low cut on the PEQ for my IEM set to almost 300Hz. Where as whats going to FOH has only a 200Hz on a PEQ Block. Also more high end is in my IEM mix than what I am sending to FOH. It's great to have these options.

In case that sounds confusing, because I did a crappy job of translating, check out what my patch looks like at the end on my XL+.

-----------PEQ-----------Output 1 to FOH
\------PEQ----FXL Block--------Output 2 to IEM Transmitter


Thanks @Satch4u3... I was reading through all the replies agian. Why do you need a FX block? I'm not familiar with it and never use one. Any advise is very much appreciated.
 
Thanks @Satch4u3... I was reading through all the replies agian. Why do you need a FX block? I'm not familiar with it and never use one. Any advise is very much appreciated.

I use the FX Block to send a signal to my IEM transmitter from Output 2 with a PEQ before it. That way I can use different EQing from my main signal to FOH. Once I have a good sound there, I can use that PEQ block before the FX Block to tweak my IEM mix if I am not digging it in my ears. Hope that helps!
 
I use the FX Block to send a signal to my IEM transmitter from Output 2 with a PEQ before it. That way I can use different EQing from my main signal to FOH. Once I have a good sound there, I can use that PEQ block before the FX Block to tweak my IEM mix if I am not digging it in my ears. Hope that helps!

Thanks mate, need to try this!
 
Back
Top Bottom