FM3 Live setup with in ears

Devilgear

Member
Hi everyone. My FM3 should be here soon and I have a setup question. I plan to use it as my live center piece eventually and just use in ears and no amp. Any advice that could be given about this kind of setup would be great. I play in a rock cover band if that helps? I want to have a more consistent rig and easy set up and tear down so this seems the way to go. Thank
 
My whole band is going to be using them now. We have the setup for it, but will have to work it all out soon. I want to be able to hear everyone
 
Cool, it sounds like you'll have the logistics of individual mixes figured out if the whole band is using them, which is definitely the hardest part.

As far as specific advice for the FM3, I would say to make sure you're dialing in and tweaking your tones at a nice, loud gig volume, either through powered PA speakers or good studio monitors. If you set up your patches relative to your IEMs, they may not translate as well out front to the audience.
 
Well, that's where it really depends on the setup your band is using. If you want to be able to hear the whole band in your IEMs, you'll need a way to send mixes to your transmitters. Depending on the venue, the engineer may be able to send individual mixes back to you just like they would for normal monitors, so all you would need in that instance is to send your main LR to them and then go through the normal process of "a little more of this, a little less of that," et cetera.

The way my setup works, we have our transmitters mounted in a rack case along with a digital mixer (Behringer XR16) and two ART S8 mic splitters. We run all of the instruments and microphones to our rack first, then the signals get split by the S8 units, and we can control individual mixes on the AUX outputs from iPads while sending unaffected signals to the FOH. This gives us two huge advantages: each person can easily control and adjust their own mix (which makes the FOH engineer very happy, as it's way less work for them), and the signal sent to the main board is completely independent of whatever we do in our ears. For example, if we want to add a slight reverb to our vocals (which can be helpful for singers getting used to IEMs), the engineer still gets a dry signal and can add his own effects that are appropriate for the venue.

Do you know how your band plans to tackle the IEM setup? Is each member going to have an individual transmitter and receiver? Will you be sharing mixes? If you're doing it the way I do, it's a serious rabbit hole to go down, as you're essentially becoming your own monitor engineers; however, it's super worth the time and investment in my opinion.
 
That sounds exactly what we want to do. We have almost all the gear to do that soon, so sounds like that will be awesome. I want to avoid having the sound guy mix my monitor. They always seem to get it worng
 
Yup, it's SO nice having complete control of your own IEM mix. Sound guys usually love it, too, because it's just one less thing they have to deal with. In my experience, they also love a band with no amps on stage, although you might run into an "old school" guy here and there who doesn't like modelers (hasn't happened to me yet but apparently they exist).

To answer your previous question, if you're using a setup like I described above, you would simply run your main LR from your FM3 into your splitter. The splitter would be wired up to your digital mixer, which would feed your IEM transmitters through stereo or mono outputs, depending on how many AUX outs and mix busses you have available.

Good luck! I know it sounds like a lot to keep track of, but once you get everything wired properly and set up to your liking, you'll rarely have to make more than minor adjustments from gig to gig. Just be careful not to crank your IEMs too loud; tinnitus sucks!
 
Thank you everyone. I'm starting to get a better picture now of it all. Can't wait to get the FM3 in and dialed.
 
It depends if your IEM is mono, stereo or "dual mono". I had a dual mono system and I put all the vocals on one of the channels and a full mix on the other channel. We used the panning function on the receivers to dictate how much of each signal we got. This was a Galaxy Audio AS1100.

If you are going mono or stereo the only way to get independent mixes is to have separate transmitters for each mix. The receivers would have to tune to the frequency of the mix they want.

Dual mono would give you 2 mixes but everyone gets the same two mixes. Every receiver is on the same frequency. I liked this setup because it was cheaper and each musician could change the level of the vocals on their beltpack.
 
I have noticed IEM’s tend to make everything sound a little trebly...don’t adjust your sounds based on that.
That really depends on the drivers you use... good drivers will give you much better sound.... A good seal too... shave up those ear hairs! LOL
 
That really depends on the drivers you use... good drivers will give you much better sound.... A good seal too... shave up those ear hairs! LOL

Yeah I know those are factors as well...it’s not so much quality of sound I noticed...but more of a perception of sounds. I use the Carvin IEM’s so they are a decent mid grade unit.
 
That really depends on the drivers you use... good drivers will give you much better sound.... A good seal too... shave up those ear hairs! LOL
This. If your earphones aren’t sealed perfectly, the low end is the first thing to go.
 
If you pan instruments off center, you can create a stereo image that helps your brain differentiate between different instruments. This is especially helpful with instruments in the same frequency spectrum. For example, pan the keyboards around 70/30 to the left side, and the rhythm guitar 30/70 to the right side side. Because of the stereo image you are creating, the brain will interpret the keyboards as sitting off to your left and the guitar to your right. The brain can then separate them from each other. The odd thing though is that as you turn your head, the instruments move as if they are rotating with you, so that can be a bit confusing at first.
 
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