IEM EQ technique

O

olorin

Member
I just started using IEM’s and absolutely hated my tone coming through them. It was way too thin and sounded nothing like my FOH tone. I send my FM3 Left out to a QSC Touchmix and then send an aux mix to the IEM’s. So I thought to look up the frequency response curve of the IEM’s and try and use the PEQ in the FM3 to eq the guitar signal. My vocals and the other band instruments that are in my IEM aux mix sound fine. Being that my send has always only been the left out on the FM3 I routed the PEQ block to a higher row than my main signal blocks were on and routed it back to output 1 on the lower row. I then panned that PEQ row right and my main FOH signal left on the Output 1 block and voila, my left out goes FOH and my right out goes to another channel on the Touchmix that I only use to send the IEM aux feed. I hope this makes sense.

Basically I needed to EQ only my guitar signal that was being fed to the IEM’s (and not the entire aux send) and this did the trick.
 
It wasn’t low end. The mids were severely lacking, and the spl response graph really showed that. I boosted the mids and the tone was much better. And it’s strange that the other instruments and vocals sounded fine.
 
I do like the IEM’s because I can hear things so clearly. It was just that the guitar tone was so thin but this really helped. For me, the main tone I’m concerned with is FOH, so this seems like a good compromise.
 
olorin said:
I do like the IEM’s because I can hear things so clearly. It was just that the guitar tone was so thin but this really helped. For me, the main tone I’m concerned with is FOH, so this seems like a good compromise.
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I hear you, and there have been times where I picked a preset that sounded great over some sort of speaker, but then when i get around to trying it in my IEMs, it just doesnt cut through as much. I think the workaround should be to find what sounds good in your IEMs first, and then make it work for FOH.
 
Thank you, that thread is great. Yes, that fizzy sound was a bit overbearing, but you actually need those frequencies to cut through a live mix at FOH. So again, solution of having one eq from the FM3 signal for the IEM's and one without that EQ for FOH does the trick for me.

One other detail - I do the sound from the stage, so I don't have sound man out front who can make adjustments on the fly.
 
dépends on your mixer, but I use the app on the iPad to eq my in ear mix mainly high cuts and low cuts.

I don’t like iem either but it helps.
 
IEMs usually will require some dedicated EQ management, due to a wide variety of acoustic and physics factors. I've experimented with a number of options, including multi-driver custom-fit IEMs. Those are amazing for listening to recorded music, or for noisy environments where the tight isolation is a bonus. Onstage, I felt too isolated and even with a dedicated monitor engineer, the sound (while CD-quality and gorgeously perfect stereo) was too disconnected from my bandmates and the audience. I started using custom-fit IEMs with an ambient port, which has really improved my experience. I enjoy the benefit of IEMs, where I always can hear enough of my guitar and vocals (and can adjust it on the fly), along with the ambient sounds of the stage and audience. If I want to chat with a bandmate onstage, I can hear them quite well without taking out one of the IEM drivers, and when the audience interacts or applauds, I can hear them as well.

I know that IEMs are a personal-preference area, and some people never warm up to them. I love having my guitar at a consistent level when I roam the stage. My guitar cabs are behind me onstage. They are great when I stand more or less directly in front of them. Take a few steps to the side, and you're out of the pattern. That usually makes a guitarist play harder in order to be heard, which disrupts technique and dynamics. With IEMs, I can walk anywhere onstage and hear the ambient localized mix occurring acoustically, along with my guitar signal.
 
In the rooms where we play, we have left & right audience mics.
Those have their own channel that we can mix into our ears, so we don't feel disconnected.
It works great!
 
scottp said:
In the rooms where we play, we have left & right audience mics.
Those have their own channel that we can mix into our ears, so we don't feel disconnected.
It works great!
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What type of mics do you use? I tried a SM58 but that didn’t work very well.
 
I picked up ASI Audio 3DME IEMs with ambient mics in the earbuds. These have been a complete game changer as everything sounds normal to me with the IEMs. Plus, they have an EQ and a limiter. Hearing room sounds mixed in with the direct signal makes them sound much better. Added bonus, I can hear our band leader normally when he needs to talk to me on stage w/o yanking out an earbud. I've also been able to lower the overall volume in my ears (which is important as I have hearing issues and need to control the levels). I've tweaked the EQ of the IEMs to make the "thinness" go away....that was really only a slight adjustment to a couple of frequency bands. But, having some of my ambient sound in the mix is more of a factor in making what I hear sound right.
 
For me, I stand fairly close to the drums, so having the Comply memory foam tips really helps to isolate the ambient drum sound!
We have the drums on a channel, so I can add back in whatever I need. These help too with different drummers as they don't play with the same intensity.
 
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