In-ear wannabe

[Panhandle Paul]

I really want to try the in-ear situation; here are my issues, almost everywhere I play there is a new FOH and Monitor person, almost all have different digital mixers, sound checks are usually allotted about an hour, there are 8-10 people in the band (on stage), and I am a bass player.
I can provide my own in-ears, transmitter, receiver, and preamp, even a monitor if necessary. BUT, the sound guy will have to mix my in-ears if I don't already have their software giving me that ability.
Any serious suggestions would help, thank you.

 

[Jason Stock]

Most of my shows, are with my PA and stuff so I can control, but I have done several shows the last year where the club provides FOH and a Sound Tech. I bring my stuff, I communicate with him as to what I want and only once have I had an issue. If you have time to sound cheque, it should not be an issue, providing the tech knows what they are doing.
NOTE - if you have not done rehearsals with IEMs do not go live with them first.

 

[aglide]

Make sure you have some sort of hard limiter between the mixer and your ears, especially if a venue engineer is mixing them for you on equipment that isn't yours.

 

[s0c9]

I really want to try the in-ear situation; here are my issues, almost everywhere I play there is a new FOH and Monitor person, almost all have different digital mixers, sound checks are usually allotted about an hour, there are 8-10 people in the band (on stage), and I am a bass player.
I can provide my own in-ears, transmitter, receiver, and preamp, even a monitor if necessary. BUT, the sound guy will have to mix my in-ears if I don't already have their software giving me that ability.
Any serious suggestions would help, thank you.

you could get a rolls (PM series) like many do, and run your bass into one side then out to PA, then get a "house" mix from the PA into the other side of the rolls.
Blend to taste?

FWIW - my bands have X32R IEM systems patched to (with splitter) or from the House.
Not your scenario, but.. relieves FOH of all monitor duties.

 

[Mike Caldwell]

Almost every digital mixer has a monitor mix app for it. Communicate ahead of time with the venue's sound person about getting a mix to your IEM transmitter.

I am more than happy to provide mix feeds for a bands IEM's and get them connected to my WIFI so they can mix their own IEM's.
If there carrying their own IEM mix system I can give them a split, take their split or some combination of.

If I don't need to worry about a monitor mix I all in on making that happen!!

If you do carry some form of an IEM system make sure you do know how to trouble shoot it.
I've had a few times where a band has a decent split monitor mix IEM system, that someone has set up but no one in the band really knows what to do when something doesn't work, sometimes I have the time to help, other times maybe not.

 

[s0c9]

If you do carry some form of an IEM system make sure you do know how to trouble shoot it.
I've had a few times where a band has a decent split monitor mix IEM system, that someone has set up but no one in the band really knows what to do when something doesn't work, sometimes I have the time to help, other times maybe not.

Funny you should say that.. I did about 5 sub-gigs with a band about 2 yrs ago while they found a permanent guy..
It was a trio and they were IEM, running off a Mackie DL16S.
1st gig was a 2-night stint at a venue that provided FOH (and monitors) but we didn't need the monitor mixes, so got a house split to the Mackie.
During sound check I couldn't hear squat in my buds.. all, dull muddy, and indistinct.
At the time they had no idea I have run FOH for many years but I asked if they minded if I tweaked my IEM mix some.
They agreed, but asked if knew what I was doing. Of course, I said yes!
After tweaking the bass, guitar, drums (badly needed) and adding some 'verb to the cleaned up vocal mix.. we ran a song.
Drummer yanks out his buds at end of it and questions "What the hell did you do to the IEM mix?"
I [sheepishly] said I tweaked the EQ a little ...
He says "OMG., I can freakin' hear EVERYTHING in my mix now. It's totally awesome. Make sure you save the scene for future gigs!"..

So yeah. bands often don't know how to run their own IEM mix..

 

[kittywithabanjo]

In the 2 bands I sound for the Bass player has 2 X32s himself, I recently suggested we add a split to one, for the gigs that there is a house soundman as 4 of 5 band members are on in ears.

That seems to be the best method albeit not cheap, and the test we ran it worked very well.

 

[turcmic]

From my experience, if you cannot control your own mix during the show, forget IEM. I had a couple times to deal with strange soundmen that change the gain structure during a song that completely screwed what I had in my ears. Not cool.

If you can control your mix with an iPad or else, it's heaven lol

 

[Mike Caldwell]

From my experience, if you cannot control your own mix during the show, forget IEM. I had a couple times to deal with strange soundmen that change the gain structure during a song that completely screwed what I had in my ears. Not cool.

If you can control your mix with an iPad or else, it's heaven lol

Sometimes levels start getting hot and a tweak of the channel trim is needed, maybe some people were holding back during sound check.

When I have to do that I do try compensate the aux send levels. Some of the bigger boy mixers have a gain compensation option.

 

[Mike Caldwell]

In the 2 bands I sound for the Bass player has 2 X32s himself, I recently suggested we add a split to one, for the gigs that there is a house soundman as 4 of 5 band members are on in ears.

That seems to be the best method albeit not cheap, and the test we ran it worked very well.

The will work though an X32 style mixer is kind of hard to packed in a compact IEM split mixer rack.

 

[s0c9]

The will work though an X32 style mixer is kind of hard to packed in a compact IEM split mixer rack.

I have my X32 Rack, an SD8 mounted in back (giving me 24 in, 16 out) and [normally] have my IEM xmitter and wireless mic receiver mounted in the case also.
I have a 16ch splitter I bring when needed, or patch into the X32/SD8 from House!
Works for every setup including having to run FOH if needed!

 

[turcmic]

Sometimes levels start getting hot and a tweak of the channel trim is needed, maybe some people were holding back during sound check.

When I have to do that I do try compensate the aux send levels. Some of the bigger boy mixers have a gain compensation option.

If all soundmen acted like you, our lives would be much better but that's not always the case unfortunately.

 

[kittywithabanjo]

We put a separate split rack together, he had all the cases already. So it's an easy add in but a bunch of connections to do.