Adding "space" to you IEM sound

[walterw]

For me compressing/limiting the IEM signal is key. You will hear the audience in the gaps between songs better, solely through the audio picked up by vocal and drum mics (providing you have those in your mix). The signal when you are playing will also sound warmer and more natural.

very bad idea if you're singing. compressed monitors lead to pushing too hard and blowing your voice out. (FWIW they also lead to feeding back monitor wedges.)

i do find that some compression on my bass made for a better IEM sound, but i did that on the bass signal itself, not my IEM mix (i sing backups).

this is quite different than a safety brick wall limiter on your IEMs; that's a good idea, but only if it's set to not kick in at normal levels.

 

[SteveC]

demand it! whatever it takes!

i don't want to go back to mono; i tried ambient mics for a while, and that was OK, but once i went stereo i kinda forgot about them, the soundguy stopped bothering and didn't miss them. i might try to talk my soundguy into throwing one back up again, but who knows...

the idea is not to recreate some kind of spatial representation of the band layout, but rather to just nudge everybody who isn't you over to one side or the other a little (not hard panned); this makes it easier to hear yourself without having to be way louder than everybody else in the mix.

I had stereo today. Loved it. Still working on how I want to pan. Tried a fairly hard pan today. May try more of a stereo thing - not so much stage representation but panning the drums like you'd hear them if you were playing, that kind of thing.

 

[walterw]

I had stereo today. Loved it. Still working on how I want to pan. Tried a fairly hard pan today.

nice!

i didn't like hard-panning, i ended up having to turn up the hard-panned inputs too much in order to hear them, raising my overall level and defeating the purpose.

i found that just nudging everybody but me off-center about 30-40% did the trick.

 

[s0c9]

nice!

i didn't like hard-panning, i ended up having to turn up the hard-panned inputs too much in order to hear them, raising my overall level and defeating the purpose.

i found that just nudging everybody but me off-center about 30-40% did the trick.

It was trial and error for me.. I usually pan right between 10 and 11 and left between 1 and 2 (on the clock). Much further in either direction makes them too "out there" and distracting.
I also leave out tracks I don't need to hear.. such as toms and OH's, or (at church) 2nd electric, 2nd acoustic, 2nd keys or the "choir" - depending on the service and what they are doing.
And dare I say it - the quality of your buds has a huge impact on the overall mix.

 

[Silas Stingy]

very bad idea if you're singing. compressed monitors lead to pushing too hard and blowing your voice out. (FWIW they also lead to feeding back monitor wedges.)

i do find that some compression on my bass made for a better IEM sound, but i did that on the bass signal itself, not my IEM mix (i sing backups).

this is quite different than a safety brick wall limiter on your IEMs; that's a good idea, but only if it's set to not kick in at normal levels.

I said 'for me'. I've done it this way singing lead vocals for over 10 years.

 

[musicman7722]

Panning a bit really helps separate out dual guitar parts as well as singers.

 

[SteveC]

I loved the way it sounded to me - the same no matter where on stage I was - and my ears didn't ring at the end of the gig.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Two of the best things about IEM's.


I am now stereo.
We have ambient mic's.
I will experiment with panning again on Sunday.

 

[walterw]

I am now stereo.
We have ambient mic's.
I will experiment with panning again on Sunday.

are the ambients spread out left and right?

maybe 100% hard-pan those, but be more gentle with panning the music inputs.

 

[SteveC]

Just one ambient. I think I'm the only one that uses it. Not sure if we have the channels - or another mic - to do another. I'll ask.

Last week I did a "how we stand on stage" pan. It didn't really make use of the stereo feed. I mean it does but...

I may try to just pan stuff stereo this week. Keys are set that way now. I may pan the drums as if I were siting behind them like I were the drummer. Run voices with just a slight pan as they are on stage.

 

[walterw]

Just one ambient. I think I'm the only one that uses it.

might as well center it then; also, you totally need to convince the other players to start using it too so it's justified and the soundguy doesn't take it away!

in my usual situation i'm stereo but the other two front idiots just use one earpiece in (yes i warned them) while our unfrozen caveman drummer uses a monitor wedge on top of a sub, so nobody could benefit from the ambient mic but me, meaning i couldn't bitch too much about it not making it out of the trailer when i'm already doing stereo in-ears.

Last week I did a "how we stand on stage" pan.

the problem with that is unless you're the star of the show and standing center stage most of the band will be in one ear!

also, as soon as you turn around to look at the drummer the logic of that layout goes right out the window.

the idea that makes the most sense to me is to just sort of "distribute" the other channels between "nudged left" and "nudged right" so that you get a reasonably equal amount of volume in both ears even if the layout doesn't follow a certain stage plot.

i will try to put another player's voice and instrument on the same side as each other, even if it isn't on the side that the player himself is standing.

(again, keep yourself centered so you can hear yourself better without having to be way louder than the other players.)

 

[EastCoastThump]

the problem with that is unless you're the star of the show and standing center stage most of the band will be in one ear! also, as soon as you turn around to look at the drummer the logic of that layout goes right out the window.

One day, I expect there will be something like a Waves NX-mix room technology for stage IEM mixes. Just w/ a blend of constant mix + "spatialized" mix.

 

[walterw]

One day, I expect there will be something like a Waves NX-mix room technology for stage IEM mixes. Just w/ a blend of constant mix + "spatialized" mix.

Oh, they have that now but it's pretty exotic.
3D In-Ear Monitoring - KLANG:technologies - Spatial And Transparent Monitoring For Studio And Stage

A less computer-intensive idea (but still not cheap) comes from sensaphonics, where they put lavalier mics right on the in-ears themselves, piped into your mix, so you get the natural ambient stage sound in the correct spatial orientation however you turn your head. Break out your credit card for that one!

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Audio-technica has a less extravagant version where you hang a little lavalier mic on your shirt or whatever and pipe it into your iem pack, so the ambient sound is at least sort of following where you stand on stage:
Invalid Link Removed

 

[EastCoastThump]

Yes, the Klang fabrik looks killer; didn't realize they'd released a head-tracker version yet—thought it was still in development. What I have in mind is closer to the Klang system, in that what the stage musicians hears is the produced soundstage in 3-D rather than the raw stage sound and the mix changes as you turn your head or otherwise move in space.

But you'd be able to dial in how various sources in a player's IEM mix would change in response to the player's motions on particular axes. For example, if the bassist turns and takes five steps toward the cross-stage keyboard player's zone, he'd hear some percentage more of the keys, and the keys' panning would shift in the bassist's 3D IEM soundstage. But even though the bassist's motion carried him much closer to the drumset, in the bassist's IEM mix the drums could be assigned to stay anchored in terms of volume and panning—or to change in volume and/or panning at lower ratios than the keys respond to the bassist's motions.

IOW, some spatial cues would be available in the IEM mix, so it would no longer be static. But those spatial cues would use the processed/mixed versions of the stage sources, and how and how much the sources respond could be driven by assignable zones and response curves.

 

[s0c9]

I think there's 2 fundamentals at work here.. do you want a CD quality mix in your ears for listening pleasure, or enough to be able to do your job while on stage? To me, the latter is essential, the former - a nice to have.
At my gig last night, the batts in my IEM's died about 4 songs from the end of a set (yes, I check them every set, but being 2800 mAh NiMh, the level indicators are misleading). I only run a pedalboard (DI) and no amp, so pulling out an ear to try and listen to the subs (we're all IEM except for one guitar player) was INCREDIBLY hard. I didn't have time between songs to put a fresh set in. Made me REALLY APPRECIATE how much I rely on my IEM mix.
In that mix (I think I've mentioned before) I have kick, snare and hat. Nothing else from drums.. all CENTERED.
I keep lead vox and mine centered, levels adjusted so I can hear the blended harmonies (like you would at FOH) and 3rd vox are panned slightly left and MUCH lower so I don't hear them when I sing (throws me off) but can hear him talk when band isn't playing.
We don't use ambient mics - there's plenty of bleed thru the vocal mics for us.

I also use 1964 A8'a as buds. The ADEL tech in them has a pressure equalization diaphragm in each ear. That gives me [slightly] less isolation but also allows me to get [hear?] some ambient noise when we are not playing.

It works for me.. and as I stated above.. This end point has been reached over 4 yrs of being exclusively IEM.
YMMV

 

[SteveC]

Today I did a "cd/foh type mix but with some stage pan.

Myself centered.
Kick centered.
I did a slight pan of drums left to right as if I were sitting there. I did a slight pan of vocals to get them off center and to where they are on stage.
Keys are stereo and I did a soft pan on them - again just for some space.

Sounded good. Has a "stereo" sound similar to listening to music but with some "stage placement" of vocals.

The experiment continues.....

 

[pickles]

I've done exactly one gig with IEMs so not an expert. We had a low but kind of normal stage sound, so I just brought up the IEM levels to where I could hear the attacks of the various instruments. Like the snap of the kick and snare and my fingers hitting my strings. Then plenty of vocals and enough guitars to hear the cues. I thought it was pretty amazing. It was a supplement, not a total replacement for stage sound.

 

[walterw]

It was a supplement, not a total replacement for stage sound.

you mean you were still hearing a bunch of stage bleed through?

that's bad, because it means you'll tend to turn up your in ears to get over it.

you should have a good enough seal that whatever isn't in your mix you don't really hear.

(OK, with loud bands on small stages i find i don't need any drums in my mix; i'm just using universals, i suppose with custom molds i might.)

 

[pickles]

Yeah they were like earplugs that reduce the stage sound quite a bit but it was still there, especially the lows.

 

[s0c9]

Yeah they were like earplugs that reduce the stage sound quite a bit but it was still there, especially the lows.

What kind of buds were you using? Universals?
If so, that is normal. Isolation is far better using customs.

 

[pickles]

They were universal. It was whatever they handed me!