IEMs... Please edjumicate me.

[Joe Nerve]

The search engine is your friend. This has been discussed in great detail many times.

And I'm getting precisely what I need here from the people who are willing to help with my specific questions- without the need to search and then dig through tons of other peoples questions and answers.

Thanks though for the helpful input.

I mean really... was your comment necessary? :/ I'm not a new guy.

 

[Joe Nerve]

How would you value your hearing? Priceless?

Then consider strongly some of the advice above and get ear molds and the highest quality customs that you can afford for noise isolation and sound quality. Sell a bass if you have to.

I know, it's easy for me to spend someone else's money. But you are going to be doing a lot of gigs.
I really hope this works out for you, safe travels!

Im not opposed to spending money. I just don't want to be throwing it away if this band doesn't work out. I currently have no other situations where I'd be using them. As stated in my OP, my main concerns right now are blocking out anything that might trigger my tinnitus. I'm most concerned about the drums. Once I get an idea of what this is all about, and check out some of the less costly options - if the band works out for me I'll have no issues investing in whatever will work best. I'm not the type to skimp on gear. I am the type to not needlessly throw away money though.

 

[Dave Hill]

I have a set of P450s and the fit and sound great. They are priced quite reasonably and even more so with this sale:

https://m.facebook.com/#~!/profile.php?id=146934066618&tsid=0.7606997857898502&source=typeahead

 

[JPaulGeddy]

+1 for InEarz. They're very reasonable and work great. The other expense is getting the signal to your ears... if you insist on wireless, not much for cheap/good options. If you're not planning on running around on stage a lot, plenty of wired solutions for $50-100 (on top of the IEMs, of course).

And overall, I can't recommend IEMs enough. As mentioned above, mine are set so that when I take them off, the din of the club is loud. They are/can be/should be that quiet. I'm seriously pondering buying a set for my brother, the drummer.

Hopefully your BL has a digital mixer so you can connect with your iPhone and set your own monitor mix too, especially with your hearing condition.

 

[Plutonium244]

I am not an IEM user nor am I likely to be soon, but this has been a very educational thread. Thanks for the excellent information.

And, I am of the opinion that, for those that think the OP should "do some research", well, posting a thread with the pertinent questions and then harvesting the feedback IS doing research... at one of the best sources of information I know of. You can ask a question here and get the answers you need quickly, with the ability to ask follow-ups. Beats the hell out of spending many hours slogging through web info, the accuracy of which may be dubious, and its relevance to you questionable, or thinking that what people asked and said about a topic in TB three years ago, which might not address the specific aspect one has in mind, is the final word on the subject, forever.

So, kudos and thanks to those who help out their fellow TBers instead of posting "here, let me google this for you" links and the like.

 

[s0c9]

Hard custom molds often move in the ear when singing, breaking the seal, but these do not.

If they do this, then either your impressions were not done properly (open mouth with bite block), or your vendors customs shells were not made to match the impressions you sent!
Acrylic shells should NOT move in your ear and break the seal while singing.. they are specifically designed NOT to do that!!
Maybe if you're sweating real hard, or jumping off speaker stacks and so on, you might have that happen.. but if you are losing seal while opening your mouth to sing, there's a problem with the fit of your customs.

 

[s0c9]

Joe,
lots of good IEM info in this thread.. the info I quoted below fits my being 5+ yrs exclusively on IEM's almost exactly..
Single driver buds work.. but you'll reach their limits, especially if you get a mono mix.
My last 2 sets of customs have been 1964's - Qi's (used for 2.5yrs) and A8's (since Feb).. and I gig frequently.
The 4 LF drivers in the A8's really bring distinction and definition to the low end, and I can hear things with them that I couldn't with the Qi's.
Yes, my band is 1964 artists, but I used them before that happened. One of us uses UE7's and he likes them too.
I'll repeat what I've posted here before.. if you are going IEM, DON'T CHEAP OUT ON THE BUDS!!
Get the best you can afford... I've seen too many folks end up not going IEM because they think iPhone buds will do the job.. then blame IEM's when they are not happy..

Unlike my cover band members, I have been using IEMs for about 4 years playing for a large worship band. We have high quality IEM systems due to the fact that the venues (2500 plus seats) like to minimize stage volume so that they can better control the mix. Some of our amps are backstage or under trap doors in the floor. We all use IEMs. I started out with cheap Shure 215s. They work OK initially but you may soon reach their limits. Too many signals will cause distortion and you won't "feel" the bass as much as you would probably like. They also don't fit perfect. I moved on to Ultimate Ears Triple-Fi because they had an additional driver that allowed me to further separate bass from the higher frequency vocals and guitars. Eventually we all moved to custom molds from 1964 Audio (1964 EARS In-Ear Monitor Design). I purchased the quad drivers which were designed specifically for bass players and drummers. I can not stress enough how much better these are than any universal IEMs. They block out ambient noise and allow me to control exactly what I want to hear. They have so much headroom, I could probably literally melt my brain before they start distorting. The bass is THICK if you want it to be. I only use my amp enough to create some vibrations to accompany the more-than-adeqate audio in my IEMs. These are just headphones by the way. They will plug into any wireless (or wired) IEM system that bands use. It is the headphones that come with the IEM systems that are low quality. This is what I'm trying to convey to my cover band guys. They can't get enough volume in certain frequencies without distortion. Just not going to happen with single-driver in-ear headpones. Vocalists can and do get away with lesser IEM headphones because they have the drums and bass frequencies much lower than their own etc., etc.

Anyway, I hope this helps. I just saw that 1964 Audio and other have some Black Friday deals going on. Good luck man. Rock on.

Brandon

 

[aprod]

My concern is relying on soundmen to give me a proper feed without spikes that could permanently damage my hearing. I saw Los Lobos recently and 2 of the guys had IEM and there was some kind of feedback distortion for a couple of seconds. The drummer ripped them out of his ears and had to leave the stage for 3 or 4 songs. And those are the professionals. I am not willing to put my hearing on the line with the so called soundmen with which I have to work.

 

[bikeplate]

Get custom molds made. You should be set

 

[Plutonium244]

"Don't play so loud" is my main defense of my hearing, but I do have a tetch of the tinnitus. It came on when I was playing in loud bands years ago, but hasn't gotten any worse since I quit doing that, since I am conscious of volume and don't play with rippers unless I have ear plugs.

 

[CryingBass]

For you guys with tons more experience than me with IEM's in actual use ( like, everyone on this thread Why doesn't an IEM manufacturer provide a selectable max-db/max-vol switch/setting to avoid damage to the ears? Or do they? That could help a lot with the "soundman" issue, right?

 

[cheapimitation]

If they do this, then either your impressions were not done properly (open mouth with bite block), or your vendors customs shells were not made to match the impressions you sent!
Acrylic shells should NOT move in your ear and break the seal while singing.. they are specifically designed NOT to do that!!
Maybe if you're sweating real hard, or jumping off speaker stacks and so on, you might have that happen.. but if you are losing seal while opening your mouth to sing, there's a problem with the fit of your customs.

I understand that many people have good luck with hard custom molds, but I had mine done twice by an audiologist using the bite block and still had problems. Whatever type the OP ends up with, it does seem to me that a good seal is the most important thing; without that any high-end multiple driver units are ineffective.

 

[s0c9]

My concern is relying on soundmen to give me a proper feed without spikes that could permanently damage my hearing. I saw Los Lobos recently and 2 of the guys had IEM and there was some kind of feedback distortion for a couple of seconds. The drummer ripped them out of his ears and had to leave the stage for 3 or 4 songs. And those are the professionals. I am not willing to put my hearing on the line with the so called soundmen with which I have to work.

That's why YOU need to have full control of your IEM mix and not leave it to the house sound guy - unless you are a touring band with their own monitor and FOH folks - like we opened for last night. ALL IEM mixes - especially wired - should have brick wall limiters inline to prevent what you saw from happening.

In our case, we use Senn G3 wireless units, which have adjustable limiters, and our digital console also has the ability to put a brick wall limiter on the output buss feeds going to the wireless units. We run that config at ALL our gigs - 90% of which have house PA and sound men. THEY run FOH, we run our IEM mixes ourselves. It's one step down from have a monitor engineer. We've done about 250 gigs with that setup without incident.

Last night the headlining band had one of their IEM mixes on the same channel as our singers wireless mic, so it was popping-farting and whistling in our IEM mix big time. I put the mic on a "free" channel (autoscan is wonderful) not being used and all was good... But that's about the only issue we've had.

 

[TedH]

My concern is relying on soundmen to give me a proper feed without spikes that could permanently damage my hearing. I saw Los Lobos recently and 2 of the guys had IEM and there was some kind of feedback distortion for a couple of seconds. The drummer ripped them out of his ears and had to leave the stage for 3 or 4 songs. And those are the professionals. I am not willing to put my hearing on the line with the so called soundmen with which I have to work.

Limiters. I've dealt with feedback and the limiter works. You control the limiter on your ears; sound guy controls the sends to protect his equipment. You can use a suspenders and belt approach with the board having a limiter on your mix send (that you can also control digitally) on top of your personal limiter.

 

[walterw]

Do IEMs function like earplugs cancelling out outside noise, or do they blend with it? I'll be using ones they purchased as part of a system.

so they have the "system" part, the beltpack and the transmitter?

if so, you're just looking at the earbuds themselves. if the provided buds are the cheapie single drivers usually tossed in with purchased IEM systems then you can get by but it won't be that great. the cheapest you wanna go is dual-driver universals, $300 will get you something decent, maybe even triple driver.

yes, with the right tips even universals will block stage sound nicely, you'll be able to work with a much lower volume in your ears and still hear everybody easily.

is the PA a digital system? if so you want to find out what kind, and see if the control app exists for your phone; getting your own mix just right is a key detail here.

i had to score a cheap android tablet for use with my current band because our soundguy uses the behringer XR18, a nice little board that does not have an iphone control app. conversely, in my other band the regular guy uses a presonus studiolive which doesn't have an android app, so our android phone-using drummer borrows my ipad to do his monitors.

 

[lfmn16]

And I'm getting precisely what I need here from the people who are willing to help with my specific questions- without the need to search and then dig through tons of other peoples questions and answers.

Thanks though for the helpful input.

I mean really... was your comment necessary? :/ I'm not a new guy.

And I'm getting precisely what I need here from the people who are willing to help with my specific questions- without the need to search and then dig through tons of other peoples questions and answers.

Thanks though for the helpful input.

I mean really... was your comment necessary? :/ I'm not a new guy.

No reason you can't start a thread AND do a search. I just did a search on iems. It took a few seconds and came up with some good relevant threads. Sometimes people just don't think about doing a search.

 

[Geri O]

so they have the "system" part, the beltpack and the transmitter?

if so, you're just looking at the earbuds themselves. if the provided buds are the cheapie single drivers usually tossed in with purchased IEM systems then you can get by but it won't be that great. the cheapest you wanna go is dual-driver universals, $300 will get you something decent, maybe even triple driver.

yes, with the right tips even universals will block stage sound nicely, you'll be able to work with a much lower volume in your ears and still hear everybody easily.

is the PA a digital system? if so you want to find out what kind, and see if the control app exists for your phone; getting your own mix just right is a key detail here.

i had to score a cheap android tablet for use with my current band because our soundguy uses the behringer XR18, a nice little board that does not have an iphone control app. conversely, in my other band the regular guy uses a presonus studiolive which doesn't have an android app, so our android phone-using drummer borrows my ipad to do his monitors.

And I can't believe that after 4 years and thousands of users clamoring for both Behringer and Presonus to fix this, it's still the case and hasn't been fixed.

Sorry, some frustration coming out there. My X32 has an iPhone app, but not for my XR18.

 

[MrLenny1]

I hear you Joe,I think, lol . I have tinnitus in both ears.
It's a daily nightmare and gigs are killing me.
I have considered IEM but have been reluctant because I
wear hearing aids. I look forward to see how you're situation works out.
All the best with the new gig. Those type of gigs are rare and very hard to get.

 

[lgrankin]

Im not opposed to spending money. I just don't want to be throwing it away if this band doesn't work out. I currently have no other situations where I'd be using them. As stated in my OP, my main concerns right now are blocking out anything that might trigger my tinnitus. I'm most concerned about the drums. Once I get an idea of what this is all about, and check out some of the less costly options - if the band works out for me I'll have no issues investing in whatever will work best. I'm not the type to skimp on gear. I am the type to not needlessly throw away money though.

Hi @Joe Nerve, Probably a good idea to start by finding out exactly what kind IEM system they will providing. That way you can do a little bit of research and see what is available in terms of replacement "tips" for the earpieces. This way you can ensure a good fit and isolation from unwanted noise. If the band works out well for you, you can always look into getting some fancier/custom earpieces down the road.

Cheers,
LR

 

[Bullitt5135]

As stated in my OP, my main concerns right now are blocking out anything that might trigger my tinnitus. I'm most concerned about the drums.

Last weekend, I took a 4-hour train ride to Toronto. It was pretty noisy until I put in my InEarz P450 CIEMs. Complete isolation from the external noise. Very comfortable to wear and listen to for hours straight, with no fatigue. All in all, expensive, but worth it.

If you ultimately decide to go with Universal-Fit IEMs, check out the foam Comply® Foam Tips. They provided a better seal and isolation for me than the silicone and tri-flange tips. I have goofy, oval-shaped ear canals (I know, TMI), and I have a really hard time finding tips to fit properly besides the customs.