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First gig using In Ears. What's your advice?

#4
Move while practicing at home instead of just staying on your chair. It’s a strange feeling at the beginning to hear everything the same way when you’re moving, especially if you have custom IEM because the sound reference is what’s coming from the buds, not from the environment. You know, when the guitarist is at your right when facing the crowd, you hear him from your right but if you turn around to fire the drummer, the guitar will come from your left.

Make sure the headphone amp has a limiter if you provide yours or make sure there’s a limiter in the food chain if you use what’s provided. I have my own wired amp that is velcroed to my pedalboard. My bass is not wireless anyway. If you do your own sound, you can also prepare the gig by doing your own mix in advance if you use a digital board.

A professional sound guy will prepare your mix before you soundcheck the whole band. Make sure you have a little bit of everything in your mix and adjust to taste.

Keep the volume as low as you can. You’ll feel the bass from the PA anyway.

Enjoy!
 
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#5
Takes a bit of imagination at start, pretending that everything is normal. Well, it is but it doesn’t ‘feel’ like it. Keep doing what you do every time. Don’t adjust volume or tone or between songs asking for more this or that. Trust that it is working and keep on. It weird but it works.
 
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#6
T-C-Bass said:
Any mistakes to avoid?
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The only one I can think of is this.. you practice at home using buds. Great!! I assume you listen to the full version of the songs on Spotify while doing so?

You will PROBABLY NOT get an equally polished/finished mix in your IEM's at the gig. It's LIVE after all.

It can be a VERY different experience when that happens first time at a gig. Don't let it freak you out if it happens. Your ears will adjust..
 
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#8
Do you not do band rehearsals with IEMs? That's the only way to get truly comfortable with them.

In the event you're not getting an individualized mix, make sure you practice that way, too. That is, if everybody is basically getting an FOH mix in their ears, you have to be able to hear your parts in the mix, not on top of the mix like if you're standing right in front of your bass amp.

IMO this is a good listening skill to master with or without IEMs. Even if you get an individualized mix, putting your bass at a mixed level and not on top is good practice. When you're playing along with Spotify, my guess is your bass is on top. Try turning it down until you can also hear the recorded bass, or even until the recorded bass is slightly louder. Learn to not overplay in this scenario.
 
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#9
Make sure the IEMs are well seated in your ears to get a good seal. If not, any low end drops off quickly. Sometimes I open my mouth wide when inserting the buds. Then as I close my mouth, the way the jaw moves closes things up. Even more important if you’re singing.

If you find you’re taking out one bud to hear what’s going on when playing, you’ve got some refining to do - either levels or mix or the equipment itself. I haven’t experienced negative impacts but some say you can mess up your hearing when using only one bud.

Don’t expect perfection first time out - takes a bit of time to dial things in. And don’t quit on using them if it doesn’t work out the first time. See previous sentence.
 
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#11
I've been doing in ear gigs for quite a long time - there is a learning curve, but once you get past that, you'll realize that with a decent mix, you ear yourself much better. My toughest challenge is when someone is mixing monitors - I have a harder time getting a good mix that way than I do when I have a mixer and can control my own mix.

I do church gigs - we typically do rehearsal, then a run through, and then play 2 services. During rehearsal, I will play simpler parts when I need to adjust my mix - getting me to my happy place mix wise is more important than playing the perfect part at that point. Run through, I'm usually set enough that I don't need to adjust things, but sometimes I need to tweak a bit. The services I just play.

Cues from that process: It often takes me (who's done this many hundreds of times) 15 to 30 minutes to get things dialed in - granted, every gig I'm starting from ground zero in terms of a a mix, but if you expect to walk in your first gig without ever having done this before, and dial things in in a song or two, you're likely to be frustrated. Arrive early. Expect it to take a while to get things sorted.
 
#12
T-C-Bass said:
I live in a flat with my partner so I always play through them so as not to disturb her or the neighbors; usually along with spotify. Would this be enough?
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Good, but not good enough. How will you be controlling your in ear mix? Is the whole band using iem or just you?

There really is no substitution for IEM practice with the full band. I would highly advise against making your first time using them with a band being in a live performance.

edit to add: my main advice would be to run your IEM at absolutely the lowest volume level possible. It may feel weird at first, but you’ll get used to it in a matter of seconds/minutes.
 
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#14
Just curious about the EMF, which in general doesn't seem to be a concern these days, though there's even more devices in people's lives. I only ask because the giant "phone" (Samsung Note-5?) I used for work before leaving had 5G capabilities and my hand would ache after only a few minutes of use. As a resultI grabbed a tri-metre and started measuring everything including the electric toothbrush, and found EMF at nasty levels from plenty of things, which really does add up.
Wondering if anyone has measured these things?....I'm guessing it can't be much different than holding a cell phone to your head for the whole gig. (5 days a week adds up). Genuine question, no fear mongering intended.

All the best with your Gig!
 
#15
funkifiedsoul said:
Just curious about the EMF, which in general doesn't seem to be a concern these days, though there's even more devices in people's lives. I only ask because the giant "phone" (Samsung Note-5?) I used for work before leaving had 5G capabilities and my hand would ache after only a few minutes of use. As a resultI grabbed a tri-metre and started measuring everything including the electric toothbrush, and found EMF at nasty levels from plenty of things, which really does add up.
Wondering if anyone has measured these things?....I'm guessing it can't be much different than holding a cell phone to your head for the whole gig. (5 days a week adds up). Genuine question, no fear mongering intended.

All the best with your Gig!
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I mean, you aren't holding the pack to your head so I don't really see the correlation.
 
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#17
Plan for a little more time at sound check and definitely try to use them at rehearsal first. I know some bands hate fiddling with this stuff at rehearsal, but there just never seems to be enough time at sound check to deal with the little stuff.

Be prepared to remove one ear during the show - it takes some time to get used to not hearing the stage. Once you get used to it, silent stage is awesome.
 
#18
Finding the proper tips is important as well - what works for you sitting listening to music may not hold the IEMs in your ears while playing on stage. Having your IEM fall out in the middle of a song is a distraction you don't want or need - you're now standing next to the drum kit and it's a full volume, but you don't have any volume for what you and the rest of the band are doing.
 
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#19
One thing that bugs me using them is having to remove a otherwise sealed IEM just to hear a band member ask a question, usually it's the drummer asking what's the next song or the tempo!!

To me, IEM's and a good TalkBack system should be used. Until the church I'm playing for moves toward a TB system, I'm inclined to find a good pair of headphones that will do a good job at sealing outside noise and allowing line input from the house board via a mixer.
 
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#20
do not have yourself too loud
I find that I tend to hold back if the bass is too loud in my ears with IEM
since all the finger noises and every little fret rattle and such is more noticeable in the IEM
and the highs are much more accented so I turn down so I don't notice all that stuff and it makes me play more freely like I would if I was on a stage with amps and drums and loud band
you certainly do not want to change what you know is a good EQ so you sound good in the IEM
just my experience
 

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