Please school me in IEMs

Dpoirier

Dpoirier

Fractal Fanatic
I've never used in-ear-monitor systems before, and my cover band wants to explore the idea. I volunteered to do a bit of homework, and learn about IEM systems and come up with a recommendation. It would be great if experienced IEM users could provide some starting points as well as recommendations for actual makes and models (we have a very low budget). Thanks in advance!
 
Budget will dictate a lot of what you can do. Maybe if you can give a dollar amount (per player, or for the whole band), a little info on your setup, and if you plan on going with wired or wireless IEMs, it will help narrow the responses to what will best fit your situation. How many players, how many mixes (auxes) do you plan on sending out, what mixer do you have (some mixers, such as the Presonus StudioLive, widen options a lot)? That sort of thing.

We'd be glad to help.
 
The first thing you need is a board with enough auxiliary outs.

For places with a built in PA I've seen bands that use a mic splitter to send signals to both the FOH and to a separate monitor mixer. Basically you end up with a separate rig for your IEMs with your mixer on stage for monitors, and the FOH for the crowd.

The good mic splitters use transformers to isolate the two signals from each other. They can be quite expensive.

Wireless is probably the ideal way to connect to your mixer, but is expensive. If you go wired you'll need headphone amps.

The IEMs themselves can cost whatever you want them too. I've used a pair of cheap $18 Sony earphones that did the job.

I'd like to get these someday:

AlienEars. Custom Molded In Ear Monitors
 
More aux's = more separate mixes... possibly stereo mixes (need 2 aux's). most of the decent wireless's are the same, it comes down to your ear buds (dont skip if you can help it here), and the seal.

Some people hate them, feeling of disconnection etc. I personally think the benefits of not going deaf and being able to hear everything anywhere on a stage outweigh the negatives.

Can start with a headphone amp and some buds and extension cables at practice, with some decent buds (shure has some for around 100 bux that would be a good start). See if you like it before going all out on wireless and all that.
 
1. Use your own board on stage with enough auxes to give everyone their own mix. Crest makes a great monitor board with plenty of stereo mixes and a splitter to go to the house board. I chose to go with the Allen and Heath mix wiz board and had to buy a separate xlr splitter in order to separate the signals between our board and the house board.
2. Run stereo In ear systems if budget allows. Makes a huge difference when attempting to get a clear solid mix. I use sennheiser ew300. Shure makes good units as well.
3. Get high quality custom molded ear buds. Jh audio, west ones, ultimate ears. More drivers the better.
4. Keep stage volume low to minimize bleed into vocal mics
5. Have onboard effects like reverb to limit the dryness of the mix
6. Use an ambient mic on stage near the front to limit isolation
7. Try to use the same mics every show. This will allow you to dial in the board for that mic and never have to touch it again.


This of course depends on your budget. The aviom units look awesome too but ive never used them and they seem pretty expensive.

Using the jamhub during practice would be a good way to try in ears and get a general idea of what they will sound and feel like.
 
STEREO IS AWESOME! A cheaper in ear system that i use is made by MiPro around 500 or so on ebay. I've used it for almost 2 years with no problems and not a single drop out. It has two antennas which helps with the no drop outs. I will say though that I've compared it side by side with a Shure PSM 900 (same in ear mixer) and the Shure sounded a bit better.

^^Anthony summed everything else up pretty well. It took me a bit to get comfortable with them but once you have a good system running, you can't beat them. The band is tighter because you can hear everyone so clearly.
 
I didn't go all out at once with the system I described. I slowly upgraded. Had a shure psm200 them went to sennheiser ew300.
Had iphone buds, then went to live wire triple drivers, then jh audio 16's.
I started by sharing a mono mix controlled by the sound guy with the other singer and then went to my own system. Then eventually I got the whole band on board and we bought the mixing board and tossed all the wedges. Best choice we ever made. I went for the jh16's mainly because I wanted an awesome guitar tone in my ears. Cheap buds were always lacking. The biggest quality issue I found with cheap buds is that the mold doesn't fit as well and this causes low end to leak out and makes the sound very thin.
 
The presonus board mention above by rick is an awesome board. If you can swing the cost that would be an awesome route to go. Can record your gigs as well with that.
 
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