Tips and tricks for using Axe Fx with IEMs

I tried out the A6 and A3 64Audio IEMs last week. Very nice!

Then I auditioned for a band that uses (gulp) Bose L1 Model 2s for gigs and rehearsal, positioned behind the whole band. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and SPL. Beside the point, I guess...

I would love to love IEMs, since they'd be more versatile for multiple venues. But I've never liked the discomfort, even with custom molds.
 
count_chocolat said:
I've been thinking about going back to IEM's but I am very hesitant.

I've played around with IEM's for a long time, it's a love hate relationship. They are very convenient, space saving and I absolutely love them for Vocals. As much as I love them for vocals it's the polar opposite for guitar, I hate IEM for guitar. It never feels and sounds right on guitar.

Good luck on your quest.
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I tried sending my guitar direct, and didn't like the guitar sound in my In Ears either. But I love them for vocals. No more straining to hear yourself, if the monitor gets buried with stage volume. My guitar sounded different and a little lifeless, until I went back to micing my 4 12 cab to FOH and then getting a mixed send to the in ears. I've got my 4 12 behind me for air movement and my guitar now sounds perfect in my in ears.
 
I have a Rolls MX28 incorporated into my rig. I run Output 2 1/4" to the Rolls. Then whether the monitor mix is coming mono from the house or stereo from an Aviom, P-16 or whatever I run that to the MX28 also.
Then I jack my IEMs or headphones into the MX28. I can EQ Output 1 for the house and Output 2 for my ears. My guitar is always stereo on top of whatever the mix is (which is the only way to go in my opinion). I have 2 volumes plus pan on the MX28 to adjust my guitar level and placement against the monitor mix as needed. Works really well and the MX28 is less than $100, sounds great and is rock solid.

The only caveat is that your guitar is going to sound good to you....period, so it becomes very easy to overlook how it sounds in the house.
 
Tsunamijuan said:
I like to split snake stuff when it comes to running monitor and foh mixes. If you have a mixer that is on stage with you to handle nothing but in ears for yourself and band, that is likely one of the best ways to insure you get what you want, short of having a dedicated sound guy that knows what you want and is use to working with you.

If you need to alter the eq's for your in ears, do it from the monitor mixer, with the split snake it will be independent of what your sending to foh or even to FRFR if you are using those as well. I highly recommend a digital mixer in this case to handle the monitor mixes. Since your mixes will likely not change much night to night. Being able to recall settings from a backup is great. Not to mention no chance of knobs getting turned during transport.

just my 2cents though.
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Yes...that's what we are doing. Same setup for rehearsal and performances.
 
unix-guy said:
Exactly!

Everyone has different needs... My bassist doesn't care about the sound quality at all. For him, this is just a tool to be able to hear everything at the appropriate levels.

For me, as a tone freak, i want a great sound.

I've got $3k in the Axe Fx and MFC, I've got $1500 in IEMs and wireless, and $2k+ in mixer and peripheral stuff. This shit should sound fantastic! Not just passable, not "meh"...
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I feel this is directed at my comment and so I also feel you are missing my point, but that is fine. I never implied "passable, meh," or otherwise.

Good luck on your journey.
 
unix-guy said:
I think that depends on the person. Personally, I didn't spend $4-5k on gear to not worry about my sound. I play music first and foremost for MY enjoyment... If I didn't care, I'd just use a Zoom and some crappy ear buds!
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Then maybe IEM's are just not for you? I go back and forth on wireless for my guitar and have mostly settled on using a guitar cable instead of the wireless system I got as there is just something that feels better with a cable. Our keyboard player and some of our backup singers just cannot get used to using IEMs and so we have speakers for them. For me IEMs are brilliant but can appreciate that it is not for everyone.
 
I hear many excellent points and certainly IEM take a little getting used to and adjuatment.
The question I have is why wouldn't you simply run your IEM off an Aux send of the board?? Then you mix it in ANY way you like and get the same guitar tone that FOH is getting, whether you're mic'd or direct.
Plus, you can add in anything else right from the board that is ALSO exactly what the FOH is getting. Obviously you might like YOUR vocal a bit louder in YOUR mix, yet that's super easy. Your guitar level can be raised a bit as well without any tonal variation. With today's digital mixers you can have almost unlimited options. Just curious.
Great thread...
 
barhrecords said:
@Severed point taken.

This is the stuff you sweat before the show.

Once the show starts... then its all about the music and the delivery.
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Yes... This is it. The comment was in reference to the post from @Severed, but you nailed it here. I'm trying to get the IEM sound dialed in NOW so at the gigs we are ready to rock without needing to worry about that.

And again, everyone has their own needs. I'm not saying anyone else's are wrong... Just that they may not fit with mine.
 
Swan1 said:
Then maybe IEM's are just not for you? I go back and forth on wireless for my guitar and have mostly settled on using a guitar cable instead of the wireless system I got as there is just something that feels better with a cable. Our keyboard player and some of our backup singers just cannot get used to using IEMs and so we have speakers for them. For me IEMs are brilliant but can appreciate that it is not for everyone.
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Agreed... And you may be right, but as we are trying for a "silent stage" approach, and the whole band is heavily invested in this, I've got to try and make it work.

I may end up using my Xitones to monitor the mix and leave the others to the IEMs... But I'm going to do my best to dial things in.
 
GtarLover said:
I hear many excellent points and certainly IEM take a little getting used to and adjuatment.
The question I have is why wouldn't you simply run your IEM off an Aux send of the board?? Then you mix it in ANY way you like and get the same guitar tone that FOH is getting, whether you're mic'd or direct.
Plus, you can add in anything else right from the board that is ALSO exactly what the FOH is getting. Obviously you might like YOUR vocal a bit louder in YOUR mix, yet that's super easy. Your guitar level can be raised a bit as well without any tonal variation. With today's digital mixers you can have almost unlimited options. Just curious.
Great thread...
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This is exactly what we are doing... But if you think the sound in an IEM is the same as what FOH is hearing, it isn't. The sound directly to your ears is different than coming out of a speaker.
 
unix-guy said:
This is exactly what we are doing... But if you think the sound in an IEM is the same as what FOH is hearing, it isn't. The sound directly to your ears is different than coming out of a speaker.
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OK, did I misunderstand?? I thought you wanted to get "the same" as what's going to FOH. If that's not the goal, then cool...of course as soon as you amplify a sound and run it through a speaker of ANY kind, it's character will be slightly altered.
Personally, I like to hear what I'm "sending" to the FOH, so I know it is a tone I'm happy with. That was my point. Different PA systems, power amps, and PA speakers will add or subtract from that tone, yet for me, as long as the base tone is consistently good (in my opinion) I have the best chance of presenting a decent tone to the audience. That's all we can hope for, unless we are running our OWN system, with our own engineer EVERY time. Then still, different rooms will effect FOH differently. I simply try to present the "best" tone I can and that's what I want to hear in my ears as well.

As I said, great thread and lots of interesting ideas/options being presented.
Thanks
 
I run my own monitor board with just my guitar and vocal, plus a couple ambient mics for stage sound. Sometimes I can barely hear the drums so I run a channel from house monitors to give me a little extra stage sound. I have my guitar panned stereo and it sounds really good with my monitor eq's straight up at noon. The whole reason I went to iem's is a gig we did on a loud boomy stage that was terrible. It was so bad that it was just a big wash of sound and I was on the wrong chord and didn't even know it, and forget about trying to sing on key. It was bad, so I ordered in ears immediately. It took a couple practices and a couple gigs and I was use to them, and loving it.
 
GtarLover said:
OK, did I misunderstand?? I thought you wanted to get "the same" as what's going to FOH. If that's not the goal, then cool...of course as soon as you amplify a sound and run it through a speaker of ANY kind, it's character will be slightly altered.
Personally, I like to hear what I'm "sending" to the FOH, so I know it is a tone I'm happy with. That was my point. Different PA systems, power amps, and PA speakers will add or subtract from that tone, yet for me, as long as the base tone is consistently good (in my opinion) I have the best chance of presenting a decent tone to the audience. That's all we can hope for, unless we are running our OWN system, with our own engineer EVERY time. Then still, different rooms will effect FOH differently. I simply try to present the "best" tone I can and that's what I want to hear in my ears as well.

As I said, great thread and lots of interesting ideas/options being presented.
Thanks
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No, you didn't really misunderstand what I want to achieve... And right now I would be sending the exact signal to IEMs and FOH except for Reverb I have on in the IEM.

But "sending" the same signal and "hearing" the same sound are two different things. IEMs are very direct and a FOH PA is not. SPL in the IEM is very different, too, which means Fletcher and Munson (those bastards!) are also at play.

Anyway, appreciate the input.
 
I have been running in-ears for years now. It has taken some getting used to, but it works for me now. We have also been doing the 'silent stage' (except for drums and singers) for a few years now.

For me, two things have been major: 1) We are running the Mackie DL series boards where every band member has their own iPad and controls their own monitor mix, and everybody has stereo sends for their monitors. If you set up a good mix, the experience of the whole band is sooo much better and more accurate than I ever got with stage monitors. 2) Wireless in-ear. For a long time, I was running a cabled in-ear, and even with a cheap $60 rolls headphone amplifier, the sound is endlessly better than with my $1000 shure wireless IEM system. The wireless system has less dynamic, more noise and it is less loud than the cabled connection. Fortunately, our DL32r allows me to apply some EQ and Limiting on the sends that goes to my in-ears. Working with those, I now have acceptable wireless sounds, but the wired setup still sounded better.

I have always had the same guitar sound in my in-ears and FOH. I think getting good in-ear guitar tones gets down to getting used to not having the aerial sense of the sound - I don't think, you can convincingly fake it - and getting earbuds that make your guitar sound great.
 
Smittefar said:
I have been running in-ears for years now. It has taken some getting used to, but it works for me now. We have also been doing the 'silent stage' (except for drums and singers) for a few years now.

For me, two things have been major: 1) We are running the Mackie DL series boards where every band member has their own iPad and controls their own monitor mix, and everybody has stereo sends for their monitors. If you set up a good mix, the experience of the whole band is sooo much better and more accurate than I ever got with stage monitors. 2) Wireless in-ear. For a long time, I was running a cabled in-ear, and even with a cheap $60 rolls headphone amplifier, the sound is endlessly better than with my $1000 shure wireless IEM system. The wireless system has less dynamic, more noise and it is less loud than the cabled connection. Fortunately, our DL32r allows me to apply some EQ and Limiting on the sends that goes to my in-ears. Working with those, I now have acceptable wireless sounds, but the wired setup still sounded better.

I have always had the same guitar sound in my in-ears and FOH. I think getting good in-ear guitar tones gets down to getting used to not having the aerial sense of the sound - I don't think, you can convincingly fake it - and getting earbuds that make your guitar sound great.
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Thanks for the input. We are also running the DL32R... but our drums are fully electronic, too. Only the singer has any really noticeable stage volume.

It is getting better each week, so that is good. Part of the challenge is that nobody in the band is really a sound engineer, so fine tuning the mix is a bit challenging. I am going to try and get our audio engineer buddy to come by one night and do some adjustments while we play.

I think the wired/wireless point is good. Even after validitang (and adjusting) my gain staging, I still find that the IEM ear buds plugged directly into the Axe Fx headphone out sound better than coming out of the wireless.
 
I think in the end IEMS draw the same parallel with modelers. Some guys hate modelers, refuse to change, good with tubes. Same thing with IEMS/Wedges. I think either you like it or you don't. I personally don't understand how someone cant get used to hearing everything better, without cymbals destroying their ears, and volume wars. I spent a week, tweaking drum sounds, and worked on panning things, now all we do is roll in, drop our splitter snake, pop in ears, and roll.

I have the first 16 channels on the x32 reserved for FOH if we run our own sound, and 17-32 is mirrored, from 1-16, and we can then mix our ears differently from FOH.
 
The lack of acoustic feedback between wedges / room / guitar takes some vibe off of the guitar for me.

It tames down the excitement.

I don't play with a hella loud wedge either. But just having the guitar sound hitting the guitar itself definitely adds for me.

In ears are way better for singing for me though.
 
Adding my 2 cents here. I play in a few bands, one of which uses in ears and I go direct to FOH with my AX8. No amp on stage. It's not really a great experience for me I have to admit. Nothing can compare to the sound of an amplifier (pushing air, sound) and I've been working with our sound guy to get a "true" guitar tone through the in ear system. It's improved over time, but not quite there yet. I find that MOST of the presets I've created using the return loop of my amp (and sound killer), don't sound authentic at all through the in ears. Gain settings aren't very good (they sound thin and piercing) and I have to fix the EQ on most presets to get something I can work with through the in ears. So it then begs the question, does the tone coming through FOH sound worse or better after I make adjustments to suit the in ear sound? We get the usual nice feedback "sounds great" and so other than some phone recordings I don't have a reference to answer that question. Our sound guy is excellent, but that doesn't mean he cares what the guitar really "sounds" like other than balanced in the mix.

So, while I'm pretty new to using IEMs and see the benefit, as a guitar player there is a lot lacking. I know running stereo and using dual driver in ears has improved things for me a great deal (I use Shure 425s). But I'm really hoping I can eventually have a better experience now that I've made the investment. I plan to get custom molds eventually as well, but don't know if that will actually solve my issue of not hearing an authentic tone through them.

Any thoughts????
 
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