Dealing with In-Ear Monitors?

[lonotes]

Just goes to show ya that for all of the back-slappin we do about how bass players are so much more receptive to new tech than guitar players, in some ways were just as stuck in the old. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go clap my hands over my ears and yell LA-LA-LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!

 

[Hawkeye]

Quite a persuasive arguement, except that for every IEM "work around" I've seen, there are just as many problems to work around for traditional bass amps:-
* 10's, 12's or 15's, how many of each,
* speaker positioning issues
* impedance matching
* wattage Vs efficiency Vs frequency response
* tweeter or not
* ferrite Vs Neo,
* folded horn Vs sealed Vs ported,
* couple with the floor or lift it closer to your ears.
* Hi-Fi Vs Coloured sound.

That's just off the top of my head. And that's with 40+ years of experimenting, and an army of soldiers who have a high pitched sound in their ears to accompany them wherever they go. IEM hasn't been around nearly as long and in time these teething issues will sort themselves out with discussions like this one.

Personally I believe that if I'd discovered IEM 15 years ago, I wouldn't have any hearing problems at all now. Not that my tinnitus is bad, but it's there and I'm just glad it hasn't been getting any worse since I did something about it. That's the kicker really. IEM, done correctly, can greatly reduce the SPL hitting your ear drums. Unlike earplugs, it can do it without sacrificing clarity.

Most of what you've said has to do with tone, not sucking out the groove. Hey, even my Peavey TKO 115 could kick out the groove.

I can see what you're saying about SPL's though and it seems like that might be the big potential benefit of IEM's for musicians. It depends on your situation though. I play in church and in a jazz quintet, neither of which have high volume levels like some rock bands.

 

[Petebass]

I play in church and in a jazz quintet, neither of which have high volume levels like some rock bands.

Absolutely! If all my gigs were at low-medium SPL levels, I wouldn't have even considered IEM.

Your point about groove is taken but personally, I play better with IEM because I can hear mysalf AND everyone else better. High SPL has a way of masking thinks sonically. Bring the volume down a little and you and actually hear and play the groove better (which is why I can never understand bands that rehearse at 130dB, but that's another thread).

 

[lonotes]

Okay, a little condescending from your lofty perch, me thinks.

Well, it was meant to be a lot condescending. If you read the threads regarding IEM's carefully, you'll see that the majority of the detractors have never tried them. There are a few who have tried, and don't like them. Many of the reasons those people give have simple solutions. Some try those solutions, and still don't like them. Fair enough. But by and large, in most of these threads, the people who don't like them, have never used them. Or they have used them improperly. And yet they present themselves as being well informed. Those are the people that my remarks were directed at. If you have tried them, and don't like them, that's fine by me. I wouldn't expect you to use the same bass or amp as I do, unless you tried them and liked them. But if you've never used the gear that I do, how can you possibly give advice regarding the specifics of that gear. Especially in the more subjective qualities. And yet it happens time and time again in IEM threads.



EDIT: Okay, where did Hawkeyes post go? Get me to come all the way down from my perch, get my panties in a bunch, and now I've got to climb all the way back up there. grumble, grumble. Do you have any idea how hard it is to climb with bunched up panties?



no prob, it's all good

 

[Vic]

I play better with IEM because I can hear mysalf AND everyone else better. High SPL has a way of masking thinks sonically.

I completely agree.

Aside from the fact that my tinitis is bad enough, and despite the fact that I just don't like to have wires hanging off my head and things stuck in my ears (I tend to move around a lot), the above is very very true at least for me.

Don't get me wrong, I still have to really feel my bass, so at least for me personally, I'm always going to have a rig... and also, as I've posted before, I'd need one anyway for our gigs, because we have to sound like a band on stage for the folks up front between the mains.

So for me, it's "both", but really I must say Petebass makes a very important point... at least IME... I groove way harder when I don't have to work to hear things in a mix that's so loud it's literally distorting in my ears.... when I can hear everything easily and pain-free.

 

[Hawkeye]

no prob, it's all good[/I]

Yer right. 99.74% of the groove is in your fingers anyway.

 

[lonotes]

Don't get me wrong, I still have to really feel my bass, so at least for me personally, I'm always going to have a rig...

What I don't get, is why people seem to think that IEM's mean that you have to give up your rig. The option of DI only is available, but not required. I have no intention of going ampless. I set my rig to a volume that is appropriate for the room and the rest of the mix. If I need to hear myself better, I turn me up in my ears, not the room. But now I get to hear the entire band, including the guitarist on the other side of the drummer. And all at a lower volume.

 

[lonotes]

Yer right. 99.74% of the groove is in your fingers anyway.

No way! it's 99.75%

 

[Petebass]

What I don't get, is why people seem to think that IEM's mean that you have to give up your rig.

Exactly. The rest of the band still need to hear you somehow.

But never assume they want to hear you as well as you'd like to hear yourself.

IEM with an Amp is a brilliant way of hearing yourself perfectly without murdering the band, the crowd, and the sound guy with volume from your amp. They compliment each other beautifully. And the amp provides the rumble/feel that's missing from the IEM's. The difference is I now run my amp at about 70% of where I used to, and the benefits of that flow through to everybody!

 

[lonotes]

...without murdering the band,

Although there are nights where that's a perfectly acceptable option. But that's a different thread.

 

[Vic]

What I don't get, is why people seem to think that IEM's mean that you have to give up your rig.

Exactly. The rest of the band still need to hear you somehow.

Maybe I can shed a little light on this...

Here's the deal... sounds like most of us in this thread are all about the usual "workin' man's" venues and gigs (including me). Nice and intimate. Here, we can get away with, and maybe even prefer the "hybrid" solution.

However, when you get into bigger productions and larger stages, a "point source" like a standard bass rig for a stage monitor just isn't practical unless you plan on parkin' your butt on the back line and watchin' everybody else have all the fun moving around stage.

So the way "the rest of the band" hears you, is they ALL have IEM's as well. The drummer might have a traditional monitor, but usually in those sitch's, especially if they're singers, once they get addicted to being able to hear themselves that well, there's no turning back, and with a great quality set of phones, it works very well.

For the "feel", well, they get that from those uber-expensive and ultra-cool stage monitoring systems, which is really just a secondary PA pumping audio on stage for that reason, and for those who still don't need/want IEM's.

So, IMHO, for most of us workin' class players, it's NOT an either/or, and in fact, it almost always has to be both with very few exceptions... like MAYBE someone getting away with one of those Bose PAS systems.

In short, I've found some of the bickering here to be kinda' silly, regarding an invalid case, so I've stayed out of it.

 

[Petebass]

Here's the deal... sounds like most of us in this thread are all about the usual "workin' man's" venues and gigs (including me). Nice and intimate. Here, we can get away with, and maybe even prefer the "hybrid" solution..............

However, when you get into bigger productions and larger stages, a "point source" like a standard bass rig for a stage monitor just isn't practical unless you plan on parkin' your butt on the back line and watchin' everybody else have all the fun moving around stage.

And that's exactly how I came to trying the UM2's, hoping I could get more lows out of them on those bigger stages where I'm not standing anywhere near my amp.

I've decided to give them another try based on so many happy campers in this thread.

 

[fishdds]

My church uses the Aviom system for the whole band. I started out with E3s, and the little rubber tips that come with them. Tone was bad, no low end, and the stupid things wouldn't stay in my ears. Then I got custom molds. Big difference, much more low end, and they were snug. They also blocked out almost all of the ambient room noise (which is great if you ever use them on an airplane with an mp3 player) But the tone still wasn't great. Then I got E5s. One previous poster said you couldn't use the same molds with E5s as with E3s, but this is not true. My custom molds fit the E5s just fine. Big difference in tone here. More low end, and the tone of the bass is there. I use an Aguilar AG500 and just run direct out. No stage volume at all. I can do this because there is a buttkicker mounted underneath the platform I'm standing on, which picks up the kick drum and the lower frequencies of the bass nicely, for that "feeling it" effect. The drummer also has a buttkicker mounted underneath his throne with his kick and my bass in it. I've tried using my GS410 in addition to this setup, and honestly, I can't tell any difference with the E5s in and the buttkicker on. So, that's 97lbs. less I have to carry around. I just put the head on a plywood stand I made, and it's all good. In summary; dual drivers are good for getting your bass tone in your ears, custom molds are a necessity for low bass extension and getting the things to stay in your ears, and if you have a buttkicker, you can pretty much go without the cab. And the Aviom is great for getting your own mix. It does make mistakes and timing issues much more obvious, but leads to a tighter band as a result.

 

[lonotes]

When I had my molds made for my UM-2's, my audiologist told me that they would fit UM-1's, as well as the complete Shure line. She said that ,basically, they should fit any of the units that use the replaceable foamies.

Oh wait, I just checked the Westone site. They say:While the included compressible foam tips are a great fit for anyone, you can improve the fit of your universal fit monitors with a pair of Westone Style #56 canal style custom earmolds. These earmolds are comparable in size to the foam tips but ensure custom comfort.

The Style #56 also fits the Shure E1 and E5 generic monitors and supersedes the Style #57 and Style #58 as mentioned in Shure's monitor manuals. A modified version of the UM56 is also available to fit the Shure E2 generic monitors.

 

[swpyne]

I started out about 6 years ago using Shure E1s and an old Garwood transmitter/receiver. It became clear very quickly that I needed something that would actually reproduce the bass frequencies in my ears.

I finally spent the big bucks and had a set of Ultimate Ears UE7 Pros made from molds of my ears. What an amazing difference these fitted ear pieces made.

I use these with a Sennheiser IE300 transmitter/receiver that is coupled to a Symetrix 501 compressor and a stereo EQ.

I use one half of the EQ as a notch filter to tell the compresser which frequencies to compress. This is done by inserting the left half of the EQ into the "side chain" of the compressor. Then I take the ouput of the compressor and run it back through the right side of the EQ so I can adjust the overall signal's EQ after the low end has been compressed.

This approach was suggested by our sound man and it has worked wonders with the bass sound in my ears. Now I can compress just the lower bass frequencies which were originally overdriving my ears without compressing the whole frequency range.

It's very cool and it works quite well.

 

[lonotes]

I use one half of the EQ as a notch filter to tell the compresser which frequencies to compress. This is done by inserting the left half of the EQ into the "side chain" of the compressor. Then I take the ouput of the compressor and run it back through the right side of the EQ so I can adjust the overall signal's EQ after the low end has been compressed.

Can you elaborate, for the more clueless, like me? What do your EQ settings look like on the left side?

 

[Emprov]

Haven't read the entire thread but I'm yet another huge proponent of IEM's. I use them at church along with an Aviom system and they work pretty well. I'll be starting another project hopefully in September and we'll be running entirely with IEM's. Like others have said, the "not feeling" the bass takes a bit of getting used to but, once you do, it's like playing with studio quality sound. I'm completely sold.

 

[Petebass]

If you are not getting enough bass out of the UM2's you definitely have something amiss in your signal/setup......

......UM2's, I've decided to give them another try based on so many happy campers in this thread.

I was presented with an opportunity to get a set of UM2's at a good price, so I took it. I've just spent an hour playing with them, doing everything possible to get a good ear canal seal and I'm afraid my initial impressions stand. Don't get me wrong, they're good earphones - they just don't have the lows that I've been led to believe they would.

For more detail on my first impressions, have a look at post No 44 in this thread:-

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=286131&page=3

.

 

[Vic]

I was presented with an opportunity to get a set of UM2's at a good price, so I took it. I've just spent an hour playing with them, doing everything possible to get a good ear canal seal and I'm afraid my initial impressions stand. Don't get me wrong, they're good earphones - they just don't have the lows that I've been led to believe they would.

Is the problem that the UM2's just don't fit as well in your particular ears (which would make ALL the diff in the world!), or is it the phones themselves?

 

[Petebass]

Is the problem that the UM2's just don't fit as well in your particular ears (which would make ALL the diff in the world!), or is it the phones themselves?

Ok I realise I'm going against the grain, which isn't an easy thing to do, but lets get this straight - There's nothing wrong or wierd about my ears! Some people have trouble with earphones, earplugs etc, but I've never had these problems before.

The easiest way to know for sure is is someone who owns WM2's to go buy some CX-300 and do the same back to back comparisons I did. Any takers?