Is there a solution for wireless instrument AND IEM in one box?

[kcducttaper]

For my bass, I have a Sennheiser G4 that lives on my pedal board (for ease of transportation), is super solid, and has never so much as had a single drop out. For ears, I don't have a personal wireless solution and some of the places I play have wireless ears and some don't. I got to wondering if there is a wireless solution for both the instrument AND IEM's in one 'box' that I could replace my G4 with? It would need to have a transmitter and receiver in the same housing (preferably "pedal style" like the Sure GLXD16+, but rack mount is fine as long as it's not simply double the size of my G4 receiver) as well as matching TX and RX packs. Is there a solution like this out there somewhere that would simply let me go wireless with my ears and instrument in one 'box'?

 

[drpepper]

The short answer is, "No." The longer answer is there are none intended for other than major event, touring and broadcast use. The Sennheiser Spectera system can do this (I believe the only one). Each beltpack transceiver is $2K and the base station (which supports up to 32 bidirectional channels) is $10K...which is actually super cheap compared to 32 transmitters and 32 receivers. I don't know what all of the necessary accessories (all 4 antennas required???) and potential activation costs add up to, but I'd imagine in the extremely unlikely and ill-fitting scenario where someone decided to use this for a personal system just because that's how they roll, they'd be looking at something north of $15K.

 

[klattman]

None that I have ever found that I’m willing to she’ll out for. I just have two separate systems on my board when needed, or I stick to both bass and ears being wired.

 

[mcnach]

For my bass, I have a Sennheiser G4 that lives on my pedal board (for ease of transportation), is super solid, and has never so much as had a single drop out. For ears, I don't have a personal wireless solution and some of the places I play have wireless ears and some don't. I got to wondering if there is a wireless solution for both the instrument AND IEM's in one 'box' that I could replace my G4 with? It would need to have a transmitter and receiver in the same housing (preferably "pedal style" like the Sure GLXD16+, but rack mount is fine as long as it's not simply double the size of my G4 receiver) as well as matching TX and RX packs. Is there a solution like this out there somewhere that would simply let me go wireless with my ears and instrument in one 'box'?

Given your username, I'm slightly disappointed you didn't use this:

 

[sawzalot]

Sennheiser spectera will do that but it’s eye-wateringly expensive and designed for live broadcast. I just put the transmitter in one back pocket and the receiver in the other.

 

[Bar Band Bassman]

One issue is intermodulation distortion, IIRC. Multiple transmitters and/or receivers side by side can "bump heads" and compete for bandwidth, even on different channels. I saw a pic of a violinist who had a wireless xmtr for vox, one for violin, and a rcvr for IEMs. They were spaced one on each hip and one at the small of her back, which was mounted with the antenna pointing down to provide as much separation as possible. Others here are far more knowledgeable and experienced. That's just what I learned from my Sennheiser training several years ago.

BBB

 

[drpepper]

One issue is intermodulation distortion, IIRC. Multiple transmitters and/or receivers side by side can "bump heads" and compete for bandwidth, even on different channels. I saw a pic of a violinist who had a wireless xmtr for vox, one for violin, and a rcvr for IEMs. They were spaced one on each hip and one at the small of her back, which was mounted with the antenna pointing down to provide as much separation as possible. Others here are far more knowledgeable and experienced. That's just what I learned from my Sennheiser training several years ago.

BBB

Yes, with analog transmission, each transmitter/receiver pair effectively uses three frequencies: the main carrier frequency, plus one above and one below it (though I don’t know the exact formula for calculating those side frequencies). This is why, when you're using multiple systems with the same analog architecture, group/channel matrix presets are important—they're designed to spread out the frequencies within each group in a way that best avoids intermodulation. If you're manually selecting frequencies, group/channel selections shouldn't just be made willy-nilly.

With digital transmission, you're dealing with a different set of design and engineering challenges, but intermodulation isn’t really one of them, which is an advantage.

 

[whitelines]

Agree that it would be nice to have a single belt pack for both.

 

[Bar Band Bassman]

Yes, with analog transmission, each transmitter/receiver pair effectively uses three frequencies: the main carrier frequency, plus one above and one below it (though I don’t know the exact formula for calculating those side frequencies). This is why, when you're using multiple systems with the same analog architecture, group/channel matrix presets are important—they're designed to spread out the frequencies within each group in a way that best avoids intermodulation. If you're manually selecting frequencies, group/channel selections shouldn't just be made willy-nilly.

With digital transmission, you're dealing with a different set of design and engineering challenges, but intermodulation isn’t really one of them, which is an advantage.

When I was working in commercial pro audio (I retired 10 years ago) GHz digital stuff was still fairly new so mostly we were dealing UHF. In the DC Metro area that was a nightmare, especially when the FCC started selling off frequency groups. We weren't authorized to sell the high end Sennheiser theater grade stuff. Most of our customers would have blown a gasket at the price, anyway. At the end I was often calling Sennheiser, Shure, etc. to get advice on frequency coordination for specific zip codes. I got a request for frequency coordination for 48 wireless from a theater in San Diego, IIRC. Called Shure with the zip code and the service rep just laughed.

BBB

 

[drpepper]

@Bar Band Bassman hey DC area

I like Sennheiser's frequency finder best...I was using it when I wasn't using their gear

In case anyone needs it Sennheiser Frequency Finder (US)

 

[74hc]

I put my AT IEM transmitter and Shure receiver on a Temple Audio board. Using the TA modules, it is like one box.

The Shure transmitter is on my bass strap. AT receiver is on my belt. Not bothersome at all.

Of course if you have Zuckerberg type money, you can buy the crazy expensive Shure Spectera.

 

[Topkat13]

Put them in here…

 

[bass.slinger]

My hope is that the Spectra technology trickles down in the next year or two into a combo instrument and IEM unit - either a single instrument and IEM in a box or a system for a band with four channels of each - single rack unit with four belt packs.

 

[waveman]

I gave this a lot of thought recently and came to the conclusion you would need your own mixer of some sort to address all situations in the ways that you are and I was. Then, I started thinking about when do I really need in-ear... Well, we have the XVive in-ear system for our band, but we don't use them if monitors are provided. So it really comes down to two situations for me:

1. All band in-ear: These are gigs we provided the sound and I don't need separate bass and board mix, I just need board mix out to wireless IEM
2. Monitor gigs: Instead of taking IEM signal from the board, I use the 1/4" out from my DI with a 1/" XLR cable to an XVive wireless transmitter. This way , I use IEM to hear as much bass as I need, and use the IEM's to filter out stage volume.

That pretty much covers every scenario for me for now. But yeah, it would be cool if there was a wireless receiver that could accept two signals at once from two types of sources and have you mix the levels on the receiver for the IEM

 

[drpepper]

...it would be cool if there was a wireless receiver that could accept two signals at once from two types of sources and have you mix the levels on the receiver for the IEM

Just talking about receiving, there are systems that can do this. Stereo IEM systems that have a "mixed mono" mode (some might call it something different, focus on it allowing two receivers with one transmitter or not highlight that functionality at all) let the pan or balance control blend the two input channels. Instead of panning left and right, it effectively becomes a level control between the two sources in mono.

I'm not sure how well it works when one of the inputs is a DI because I haven't tried it personally, but in theory, it should be fine.

 

[s0c9]

@Bar Band Bassman hey DC area

I like Sennheiser's frequency finder best...I was using it when I wasn't using their gear

In case anyone needs it Sennheiser Frequency Finder (US)

I have had both Senn and Shure links in my sig for years now.
It’s incredibly important that folks who go buy wireless systems (or IEM’s) buy devices that work “best” for their zip code - assuming UHF/VHF - and not ISM such as 2.4G (DO NOT USE), 5.8G or 900 MHz ranges.

Best means choosing the frequency range that has the FCC has determined has the most open (unused/unallocated) frequencies in which that device operates.
If not, dropouts, noise and other artifacts can occur and the user will blame the equipment, not user error!

 

[kiat]

Not the prefect one box solution looked for, but if the actual goal is to get wireless bass and IEM onto one pedal board, it's possible even with a rackmount IEM unit.

Here's my board with a "the t.bone Giga Set Pro" wireless bass receiver and a "the t.bone IEM75" wireless IEM transmitter, both within my limited budget and non-professional needs.

 

[micguy]

We had an opening for a church service where a singer went out / part of the intro was sung, part was spoken word.

The policy was to double mic for spoken stuff (lavs/headworn mics can move too easily. So, he had a handheld for the sung part, two body packs for the lav/headworn mics, and an in ear pack - he had 4 RF devices on him. Everything worked fine, but I did wonder if there would be some way to simplify all that.

The challenge with combined units is that there are so many possible combinations that it would be a sku nightmare in manufacturing.