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Need In-Ear Monitors

also, make this wireless and it would be amazing!

Amen to that. You'd need both a transmitter and receiver in each unit though. Could get pricey.

One nice thing about the wired solution is that you can get a headphone amp for under $200 with up to six outputs, and each person gets to set their own mix from two sources plus their own third input. Much cheaper.

I put the main vocal in one input (left), backup vocals in the second (right), then have bass + more of my own vocals running out of one of the group outs on the mixer into my aux input on my channel of the headphone amp. Then I adjust the mix for my channel during the gig.
 
So here's what I've rigged up.

I have Etynomics ER-4s which I bought for airplane travel. Great sound attenuation even with the stock rubber flange earpieces. And great quality.

Rolls PM351 headphone amp/mixer. Takes three inputs: your mic, your instrument and a monitor mix. Your mic and instrument can then be passed thru to the sound system.

Line 6 X2 XDS95 wireless instrument setup.

A bunch of cables.

So I can make my own mix from the monitor mix, adding the appropriate levels of my instrument and/or mic.

My guitar is wireless.

I run a headphone cable from my pedalboard, where the PM351 and the XDS95 are mounted. It's a pretty thin wire, much thinner than an instrument cable. No instrument cable, since that's wireless thru the XDS95 beltpack.

I had the earbuds, the two boxes were abut $215 total. Cables were more, but that depends on what's in your toolbox.

Sound is good, attenuation is good. Here myself clearly and my head no longer buzzes for hours after playing. I'm looking at the the RockOn Audio box since it's got a limiter, which I'm missing right now.
 
We're very close to the same.. I have a few more boxes on mine.. I can go 100% wireless.. plug in a 2nd bass.. then use a phantom killing DI box if necessary.

Mine all fits in an anvil case...

Strange --- it took me about a year of researching to come up with close to the same outcome.

Bummer about wireless is the interenet is filled with goofballs who "love my" and haven't tried anything else.

Tim


So here's what I've rigged up.

I have Etynomics ER-4s which I bought for airplane travel. Great sound attenuation even with the stock rubber flange earpieces. And great quality.

Rolls PM351 headphone amp/mixer. Takes three inputs: your mic, your instrument and a monitor mix. Your mic and instrument can then be passed thru to the sound system.

Line 6 X2 XDS95 wireless instrument setup.

A bunch of cables.

So I can make my own mix from the monitor mix, adding the appropriate levels of my instrument and/or mic.

My guitar is wireless.

I run a headphone cable from my pedalboard, where the PM351 and the XDS95 are mounted. It's a pretty thin wire, much thinner than an instrument cable. No instrument cable, since that's wireless thru the XDS95 beltpack.

I had the earbuds, the two boxes were abut $215 total. Cables were more, but that depends on what's in your toolbox.

Sound is good, attenuation is good. Here myself clearly and my head no longer buzzes for hours after playing. I'm looking at the the RockOn Audio box since it's got a limiter, which I'm missing right now.
 
A significant part of IEM cost is the earbuds. So let me suggest Radius Atomic Bass earbuds. They go for around $30-$40. I use them for listening to MP3 player, but they worked well when I cobbled together a makeshift wired IEM last week at a gig. I can practice with them and the bass sounds good through them.

My Audio Technica M2 came in the mail yesterday, they come with EP3's around $100. I tried listening to them with my mp3 today, there's not much bass at all. The Atomic Bass buds blow them away on the bass response.

The EP3's had more treble (or maybe they simply were lacking bass), so I'll have to wait until the gig saturday to see if the Atomic Bass have enough treble to make them useful for vocals as well as bass. They sound good on MP3s so I'm not worried, but they could stand to have more treble to be a truly balanced response.

The EP3's are clearly only good for vocalists/guitarists, they won't handle bass in the IEMs for a bass player. They might be fine for that.

Hoping I don't have to go to real expensive buds to get good enough bass AND treble to work well on both bass and vocals.

Will probably try the Ultimate Ears TripleFi Pros if the Atomic Bass aren't good enough.

Randy
 
Tim:

I've been working on this for maybe two months; most of the time doing research and the last several weeks assembling components.

Before the PM351, I tried a Mackie 402-VLZ3 mixer. Which worked, had a better sound quality, and took a much bigger footprint on my pedalboard. Also, it has lots of dials and knobs I don't need, and lots of chances to have it set wrong and get feedback or some other bad outcome. The PM351 is a bit noisy but dead-simple to use.

Both the PM351 and the transmitter for the XDS95 run 9V, and the 1-Spot has enough juice for them and a couple of Boss pedals.
 
Latest update:

I wanted a wireless IEM setup also. Since the normal transmitters are big$$, I decided to try reversing the XDS95.

So the phones output from the PM-351 goes to the input on the XDS95 transmitter box. Even though the phones out is stereo / phones level and 95 input is mono / HiZ, no problem.

Instrument out of the XDS95 is HiZ and very low level, so I plugged a Vox Amplug into it, and take the earbuds out of that.

This all works. I'll try it at rehearsal this week.
 
Latest update:

I wanted a wireless IEM setup also. Since the normal transmitters are big$$, I decided to try reversing the XDS95.

So the phones output from the PM-351 goes to the input on the XDS95 transmitter box. Even though the phones out is stereo / phones level and 95 input is mono / HiZ, no problem.

Instrument out of the XDS95 is HiZ and very low level, so I plugged a Vox Amplug into it, and take the earbuds out of that.

This all works. I'll try it at rehearsal this week.
DO NOT DO THIS!!!!
Real IEMs have a limiter to prevent hearing damage due to extremely loud volume spikes, such as feedback. You are making a HUGE mistake trying to do this. You could try putting a limiter in the signal path, BUT you can still damage your hearing if you do not set the limiter correctly.

If you're just putting bass through the IEMs and no vocals, that's ok. Once you put vocal mics through, you can't eliminate the risk of feedback, even if you all have IEMs (mains could still feed back), and especially likely if some of the guys are still using floor wedges, and doubly so if you are not micing instruments, because they'll be too loud on stage, forcing the the monitor mix to be louder and therefore closer to the threshold of feedback.

Randy
 
Hi, I am thinking of getting a Jump Audio IXM, but I also found the Fischer Amps Guitar-InEar-Cable II which is half the price and seems to do the same thing. What are the differences between them that justify the price difference?

I really like the Jump Audio, seems more robust and overall better, but was wondering if someone had any experience with the Fischer.

The plan is to plug the bass into a DI and to one of the mixer's channels, and get the band monitoring (except bass) in another channel, so I can control the two volumes.

Thanks!