In Ears and the ups and downs thereof

[paulears]

Another gig down, with IEMs - the first outing for the new Shures, and I'm very pleased with the sound - BUT - the isolation is throwing up yet another problem. Very small playing space so the keyboard player decides that he will do away with his amp, and just use his wedge with the keys DI'd. Trouble is, the sound check level wasn't high enough, so gradually he starts to send the for more and more level to get his keys up in the monitor, rather than ask or indicate to the foh mixer that he needs more keys. The ops, pretty good, and spots a point, then an up or down easily enough - but mid song, he'd just crank up his send level - and 3 songs in, I lose my bass in a wash of keys, and nothing I can do about it. So, buying decent in-ears has also meant I've had to order a P-16m personal mixer for the X32. He's promised to not do it again, but I can't risk it, and FOH, dropping the input gain as a solution wouldn't work because we'd get our original less keys mixes back, he still wouldn't have enough volume. At least with his own amp he can up his own level without changing the monitor mixes.

 

I played the second half with one in and one out, which worked, but I don't want to do this - my open ear was whistling afterwards, and this is what I want to stop.

 

I've seen loads of people with totally quiet stages, and they're great - I'd just not considered how difficult it would actually be to do a half-way conversion. All in-ears, or no in-ears would be simple. In the small space last night, surrounded by speakers, drums and amps, it was mad. I'm hoping theatre size stages (two next week) will cut down the problem because of the distance between us - and I'll have the personal mixer by then too. My next question is going to be about stereo - as the gizmo can do panning, and the IEMs have stereo capability, then maybe I can pan troublesome things apart?

 

Anybody compared mono to stereo IEMs.

 

There is another topic on the Personal Mixers here - but it's looking just at the kit if anyone hasn't seen it.

 

 

 

EDIT

 

Bigyin, at the top of the topic asked about the on stage volume for the guitar feedback. I've not tried it, but would a small, compact but loud speaker on a mic stand facing you, that you could get right up to, work for the guitar feedback/sustain requirement. I was just thinking that cranking an amp up to do it across a wide distance facing the audience means LOUD, while a small speaker close to the guitar could do the same thing (or could it? I've never tried it) That could be maybe just wired in with a foot switch, or a dedicated send?

[BigYinUK]

@paulears

 

Hi. Most of the time I'm planning on using just my 1 x 12 extension speaker mic'd up in a back room. I'll have the combo (to which the extension speaker is connected) on the floor in front of me and facing back up at me. I'll then either just reconnect the internal speaker for the 2 encore numbers and live with the volume level or I'll connect the internal speaker up via a THD hotplate, the one with the volume control, so that I can set just the right level for feedback without blasting myself and the band off the stage. The idea here is that the level of the mic'd up speaker then won't change when I reconnect the internal 1 x 12.

 

BTW The band has more or less decided to buy a P16i plus P16M's for each band member.

 

I'm with you, all IEMs or no IEMs but some and some probably is a nightmare scenario.

 

BTW I'm sure I read somewhere that mono IEMs is preferable for some reason. I'd imagine because its less mental effort to listen to when you're playing?

 

Jon

[timsabre]

I find the pan on the p16m really useful for separating things out in our church band particularly for multiple guitars or vocals. I'm not sure why mono would be better? My brain works the stereo out quite successfully.

[paulears]

I've just seen some video from last night, and the video from the rear, near the sound mixer has a really nice balance between main melody, and the harmony vocals - but somebody else took some from right in front, and all you can hear is me! Coming through the keyboard monitor at belting volume - and totally NOT what the audience should have heard.

 

Will you let us know how it goes - it's nice to hear somebody else on the same 'journey'

[BigYinUK]

@Paulears - I have pm'd you a question. Regards

[S&L]

re the keyboard level fluctuating above - keyboard players are buggers for this. in two cases I take their L & R's of keys to front of house and their headphone out to a baby behri mixer. I also add a monitor send from FOH to that mixer so they have keyboard channels and a FOH monitor send free of keys. I put the baby mixer on a music stand next to them and then take the out to the input of a powered monitor. it allows them to lift or lower their keys level at will - for some reason either their myriad of patches aren't balanced or their requirements change part way thro the gig but whichever it is, they like to hear lots of themselves without much else and this solution allows them to play with their levels. not as good as a p16m I will grant you but it works.

[paulears]

I've been thinking about it, and I'm getting convinced the real problem is that the problem is DI'ing, and then having the monitor as the only source of the keys audio to the player. The keyboard level needs to be controlled by the player - that's pretty important, but having the rest of the mix in there too means two ears won't help. When playing he can lean towards a dedicated keyboard amp, and have voices in the other monitor - so just a bit of head movement works better than trying to push the fader. Yet - in an IEM mix, he'd be in the same position? However it wouldn't annoy anyone else?

[S&L]

I've been thinking about it, and I'm getting convinced the real problem is that the problem is DI'ing, and then having the monitor as the only source of the keys audio to the player. The keyboard level needs to be controlled by the player - that's pretty important, but having the rest of the mix in there too means two ears won't help. When playing he can lean towards a dedicated keyboard amp, and have voices in the other monitor - so just a bit of head movement works better than trying to push the fader. Yet - in an IEM mix, he'd be in the same position? However it wouldn't annoy anyone else?

 

I also work with one touring band occasionally and the keys player gets a monitor mix (x32 but no p16m) to a headphone amp and does much the same thing as I described above but with a pair of 20 quid iem's - he has a different gig to everyone else in the band but is very happy in his little keyboard world.

[BigYinUK]

For those that may be interested we are about to buy our IEM setup.

 

As well as the P16 stuff, we're also putting in the rack an 8 way DI and a 8 way passive XLR splitter plus our "old" Yamaha MG166 - this will be used to convert mic level signals to line level for the P16i and to add reverb and delay to the vocals for whoever wants it. Each MG166 input will send individual outputs to the P16 using either; mainouts L&R, aux outs 1&2 and the inserts wired for direct out. We are doing this rather painful procedure so that we can be totally (as near as damn it) independent from the house PA as we never know what we are going to have to contend with and we need this to work at all venues without tweaking the config. IOW all mic inputs except drums, and all line level inputs will come to our rack first then go out again to the FOH stagebox(es).

[Wilflet]

For those that may be interested we are about to buy our IEM setup.

 

. We are doing this rather painful procedure so that we can be totally (as near as damn it) independent from the house PA as we never know what we are going to have to contend with and we need this to work at all venues without tweaking the config. IOW all mic inputs except drums, and all line level inputs will come to our rack first then go out again to the FOH stagebox(es).

 

I cant help but feel the combination of this and certain stage box set ups (im thinking multipin satalites) could be really really annoying for the house guy.

[paulears]

Why's that then? Do they really care if the cables they plug into their stage box come from the mics, or the splitter? Can't see any reason to worry?

[Wilflet]

Why's that then? Do they really care if the cables they plug into their stage box come from the mics, or the splitter? Can't see any reason to worry?

 

Paul- if the band are self contained (ie the first bit the house see is a loom coming out of the band rack) then brilliant, its just like when a band bring their own monitor desk and line system in on a festival.

 

 

If (as I interpret it) its house mics and cable;

 

Situation a) its either a really small stage and thus no satellites or your using the type of sat boxes that have the tails built into them- can all go into the bands rack fine the only difference is the venue now provide 16 extra XLR leads (between bands rack and their stage rack) not a huge problem, I know some venues and pa companys that wouldnt routinely have that many spare on a show, but their the ones I try not to work for too often.

 

Situation b) House Stagebox has several multipin ins for sat boxes and the tails are panel mounted- they probably wont reach the bands rack and so need another 16 XLRs to extend to the bands rack- you've now got 32 extra XLR in patching around your rack (the point where Im thinking most house guys are getting a bit annoyed, especially if this isnt made clear in advance)

 

Situation c) Im thinking of one stagebox in particular here but I presume similar exist- its a 40/12 edac box, with satellites on 12 channel edac - the first one is hard wired channels 1-10 with channels 11 and 12 of the sat coming up on the stage box as "spare" and you can patch them to any channel, sat 2 is hard wired to channels 11-20 with 2 spares etc. With this set up because there is no sat tails theres no way for the sats to go to the band rack first, the line system gets largely abandoned and every mic becomes a home run (whilst still needing 16 to go between racks)

 

 

 

 

 

[BigYinUK]

We have thought about that situation.

 

1. We will make all this clear on our rider so that forewarned is forearmed.

 

2. We are providing a 6m snake so that house cables can plug into our rack then the snake takes the signals back to their stageboxes.

 

3. We also have an assortment of cables including XLR leads that we take with us regardless.

 

Hopefully that will solve the problems.

[BigYinUK]

An update if anyone is interested.....

 

I now put my guitar amp's speaker cab backstage somewhere with an SM57 miking it up and the whole thing is covered in blankets etc to stop reflections affecting the sound. So far it seems to work really well. The only instrument on stage making any noise then is the drums. Bass is Di'd.

 

Regards

[dbuckley]

Cool. How powerful an amp do you use?