Weird problem re: IEM's - tone not matching PA, losing trails?

fromthebark

fromthebark

Experienced
So i've been playing through my AFXII for church services, and I'm having a bizarre issue.. my tone sounds beautiful coming through the PA, but sometimes through my IEM's, more often than not.. it sounds almost direct, as if I have the cab block turned off, or the tone will be OK, but I completely lose any delay trails.

This doesn't make sense to me because the same signal is just being routed to two places - the PA and my IEM's. I had them check the board (X32, and/or MIDAS depending on the location) to make sure there isn't a gate on my channel that would cut the trails off.. nothing, no EQ no compression, no gate.

What in gods name could be causing this. Maybe someone who knows an X32 could chime in, is it in the board itself or is something set wrong in my delay blocks? I really don't think it's me. Makes it hard to play things right when you can't hear the whole picture. Half the time I have to take an ear out and try to listen to the PA to make sure my tap tempo is right.

:mad:
 
If it sounds the way it should in the PA I agree, unless you're running stereo, the issue really couldn't be on your end. We use 2 Midas M32 boards, one for FOH and another for our monitor system. I've run both mono and stereo haven't had any issues with hearing all aspects of my tone in the house and in my monitor mix. I have also been in a venue with the X32 and didn't have issues with it either. Guess I'm more confirming your suspicion rather than offering any assistance.
 
fromthebark said:
So i've been playing through my AFXII for church services, and I'm having a bizarre issue.. my tone sounds beautiful coming through the PA, but sometimes through my IEM's, more often than not.. it sounds almost direct, as if I have the cab block turned off, or the tone will be OK, but I completely lose any delay trails.

This doesn't make sense to me because the same signal is just being routed to two places - the PA and my IEM's. I had them check the board (X32, and/or MIDAS depending on the location) to make sure there isn't a gate on my channel that would cut the trails off.. nothing, no EQ no compression, no gate.

What in gods name could be causing this. Maybe someone who knows an X32 could chime in, is it in the board itself or is something set wrong in my delay blocks? I really don't think it's me. Makes it hard to play things right when you can't hear the whole picture. Half the time I have to take an ear out and try to listen to the PA to make sure my tap tempo is right.

:mad:
Click to expand...
explain exactly how it's routed.
 
I recently had a really odd experience with my IEMs: I was hearing everything with what sounded like a ton of reverb, and then while we were all playing my guitar signal was kind of "pulsing" - the volume was fluctuating up and down.

I killed all reverb on the mixer and in my Axe Fx and it still sounded buried.

I tried listening through one of the other guy's wireless and it sounded fine, and he said using my wireless sounded fine to him.

We swap back and it sounds like shit again.

They are starting to think I'm crazy... I'm starting to think I'm crazy.

I plug my in-ears into the headphone out from the wireless transmitter, sounds great.

So... I decide to just run wired as this is in the middle of auditioning a new drummer and I felt less than professional.

As I look down to power off the wireless receiver, I notice the channel group number looks odd... I double check the transmitter and, yes, they don't match.

What the hell? I never changed the channel group or any other setting...

Change it back and BAM! Everything sounds as it should.

Long story to illustrate the point: check everything in the signal chain. Don't assume anything is NOT the problem. Eliminate items from the chain one at a time if you can...
 
You get the whole bands signal from the mixing console and you get your own guitar directly from the axe-fx, right?

If so, you can run into phase issues when you get your guitar as part of the band mix from the mixing console and it's time is shifted in relation to your direct signal. Same can happen when you get too much of your guitar from one loud mic on stage. And it's impact changes when you play louder/lower or when knobs/sliders get moved on the console.

What can you do? Pan band and guitar left/right a bit in your in-ear, change phase in the output menu, use your direct signal only and cut off your own guitar in your in-ear feed from the console.
 
fromthebark said:
So i've been playing through my AFXII for church services, and I'm having a bizarre issue.. my tone sounds beautiful coming through the PA, but sometimes through my IEM's, more often than not.. it sounds almost direct, as if I have the cab block turned off, or the tone will be OK, but I completely lose any delay trails.

This doesn't make sense to me because the same signal is just being routed to two places - the PA and my IEM's. I had them check the board (X32, and/or MIDAS depending on the location) to make sure there isn't a gate on my channel that would cut the trails off.. nothing, no EQ no compression, no gate.

What in gods name could be causing this. Maybe someone who knows an X32 could chime in, is it in the board itself or is something set wrong in my delay blocks? I really don't think it's me. Makes it hard to play things right when you can't hear the whole picture. Half the time I have to take an ear out and try to listen to the PA to make sure my tap tempo is right.

:mad:
Click to expand...

Are you running IEM in stereo or mono?
 
The more complicated the setup, the bigger the chance of it going wrong somewhere. And the more frustrating it is when it is something so easy to fix and overlooked. But because we're used to running a complicated setup we become used to think it will be complicated.

At my sportscenter I often book a room to do my thing, and as usual I wanted to hook in my laptop to run my music. I never had any problems but this time, no sound. Which was weird because an hour earlier I had had a class in that same room and the audio worked fine. Whatever I tried I couldn't get it to work. I tried different cables (I always carry a lot, another lesson learned the hard way), nothing worked. But I noticed that it wasn't just my laptop, there was no sound coming from the CD player and the other systems as well. Finally I gave up, went to the front desk and one of the girls there came back with me. She just turned the power off and on, and wham! Sound again. Damn! Resetting should have been one of the first things I should have thought about, but I was so fixated on other things it just never occurred to me.
 
i'll check all this and get back. I used to be really involved with setting up the whole system but I backed away and am just playing now, so I don't know what the new setup is looking like. This is all good stuff to look into thanks
 
Guys for your information, because I’m sure you were waiting with bated breath.. I figured it out.
I’m running stereo out of the board into a splitter which our iems are hard wired to (moving between two wireless units). The cable my headphones plug into is turning stereo into mono, thus causing a major phase problem. We did some soldering and switched some wires and voila.

That was driving me crazy, but someone mentioned phase and it made me think, so thanks y’all
 
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