Questions about IEM system

You can use as many different mono/stereo wireless senders and receivers as you have mono/stereo auxes out from your mixer.

 

As replied as many as you have aux outs. My DL1608 has 6 aux outs. I paired up two for myself for a stereo mix and the other 4 band members went mono mix. So far they are all wired and I am wireless.

 

IMO (and im probably going to get hate in sayin this) but stereo mixes are a waste of time. unless you really must have click in one ear, and music in the other...having and using stereo FX in your ears can get very fatiguing and can do messed up things to your head. mostly because our brains like order and balance lol. so if you are going to get IEM's don't get hung up on having stereo.

now in saying that i have stereos IEM's but are run in mono. i don't see the benifit it running the same signal to both ears, which is essentially mono

to answer the OP questing. yup, you can have as many as you can fit. you can also have as many receivers you want to the transmitter, so essentially sharing the mix. this i don't recommend, as there will be fights to hear certain things, but it is possible.

 

Well - we've shifted to using IEMs, with the Behringer system as we have an X32, and the stereo system is amazing handy (sorry Big_Daws), I have my voice and bass panned ¾ right, and the rest ¾ left, and it lets me really hear myself, without losing the others. You start to get very picky with what you have in your ears.

However - if for some reason we cannot mix ourselves, the IEMs can be hopeless. If you have wedges, and everyone has their own mix, then if your's isn't right, you can probably hear some from other people's and get to the end of the gig, but if some idiot adjusts the gain on a channel up or down, then it either zaps your ear or it just vanishes from the mix, and there's little you can do, apart from pull them out! I tried one ear, but it didn't work for me at all. So if you have control, they are simply brilliant. unplugging the feed to the monitor and shoving that into in-ears doesn't really work - the mix needs to be perfect. You suddenly lose every bit of direct sound - like the drummer, or the screaming guitarist, and if they're not in your mix, tough!

It's a big jump - and one of our band can't do it. He's not really given it a proper try - he's trying to think like he did before, and is just not happy. The rest of us at the sound check now just adjust the previous mix a tiny bit, rather than starting from scratch almost. My ears are much happier, my tinnitus doesn't kick off, and I think I play better - or at least, hear more things I don't like!

 

Sound engineers are by no means all in agreement on the stereo vs. mono issue. I always run stereo, especially for IEMs.

 

Yeah, I don't get the guys saying that stereo is a waste of time.

It might be a waste of time for YOU. But don't declare that to be the case for everyone else.

I like the sense of space that I get with the IEMs in stereo. I don't go crazy with the panning. With 2 guitars, I pan one slightly left and one slightly right.

I've seen some crazy IEM panning stuff during my pro audio days. A certain band with a need for a lot of cowbell has a principle member that has his own voice and guitar on one ear only and the rest of the band in the other. The production rider states that there must be a monitor desk with enough outputs for 5 band members to have stereo ears and that this situation is non-negotioable (that means that they can refuse to do the show if this condition isn't met. It's not a difficult requirement for any production house worth their salt to provide). I just can't imagine dealing with that! But again, it works for him. I know some folks will say that this is akin to being a primma donna. But I promise you, this was stupid easy to accommodate.

If we have to run mono, that's fine, too. Doesn't bother me a bit to go either stereo or mono.

 

Yes and I believe you can share the unit and run two different mono mixes if the other user has their own receiver.

 

Agree for me stereo is essential. I keep my voice and bass center and pan everybody else a bit left and right. When possible I even pan them in ralation to where they stand on stage to me. I also pan the drums which really makes things clear and I can pickout the different instruments much better.

 

Carvin em900 has two inputs with a balance control. you can run two inputs into a mono mix to have a more me knob. Or run two separate auxes and do stereo.
I've always run mine with a single mono aux feed from the board, we are low on aux sends. Toimescwhen we have someone else running sound I dont want to bug them with setting up stereo.
Oops one time I did run a main mix in to the second channel just to experiment. That didn't work very well as I couldn't adjust what was coming that ear and I found it distracting.

 

That's recursive. "Better" is a personal preference.

 

That's the key thing - IEMs are personal monitor system, so you do what you find best for you. In mono, I often find what I am playing is very similar, but different to the keyboard players left hand in some songs, and I need to hear my bass and his left hand as separate things. With wedges, sometimes I'd think I was playing the wrong note, and change to discover I was quieter buried in the mix and the wrong note wasn't me at all! You know the song that has the nasty key change at an awkward moment, and you weren't really paying attention to how many choruses you'd played - and think Oh No, I missed it. Panning these apart gives you the ability to distinguish between them - same with vocals. We sing, for the main part 4 part harmonies and hearing your voice on one side and the others on the other really helps pitching - especially as some songs have two on the same note that then split apart. It isn't right for everyone, but I hate going back to a wedge now.

 

You should tie your keyboardist's left hand behind his back.

 

Absolutely.. we let go a keys player who refused to accept that he wasn't a concert pianist and every song was not a symphony that required left hand work in the -3 to -4 register range. Stepping all over the bass should be an instant ***? !!

 

I have to disagree again with all the stereo no Sayers. If you can control your own mix you are going to have the best experience you can imagine. Just by panning slightly gives you the separation of field that is amazing. As mentioned earlier of you have two guitars or a guitar and a key pan them both to left and right a point or two and suddenly you can hear them really clear and defined. I always leave my voice and bass dead center. This helps for mixed vox as well. i pan people to the left or right in varying degrees which helps me think I hear them from their part of the stage as well.

You can't do that with a single wedge.

 

IME - It's one of those debatable things.. with a lot of "it depends".
I have used both stereo and mono mixes extensively [over the last 7+ yrs] both with single and multi-driver buds, universal fit as well as customs.

From my experience - If there are only ONE of every instrument, there's a slight benefit to being able to pan that single guitar (or keys, acoustic, fiddle, pedal steel, etc.] to the same side as they are physically located on the stage - especially if you are fully wireless and move around on stage.

If there are 2 electrics, 2 acoustics or 2 sets of keys (or any combination thereof) like there are often in a church setting, I have found it helpful to REMOVE those I don't need to hear, or don't trigger song segments or parts that I need to play. In other words.. get RID of the filler stuff.. You don't NEED to hear it to do your job.
Being able to filter OUT what you don't NEED to hear, then panning (stereo) the remainder in your mix is a [REAL] added benefit. Remember, you ARE monitoring a LIVE performance, it's not supposed to be a STUDIO quality CD mix, and to reduce ear fatigue, you should really cut what you don't need to hear. That may not matter much for 4 or 5 songs on Sunday, but for 4 or 5 hr club/bar gigs, you'll be glad you did.

For example - I only ever put hat, snare and kick in my mix.. I do NOT need to hear ANY tom's, O/H's (including cymbals) or other "drum" stuff in my mix.. it's CLUTTER, noise!!, and I can mostly hear those thru ambient noise anyway.

In all of this.. MULTIPLE driver buds - that split frequency ranges into separate drivers - will HELP greatly.
With those, the mono vs stereo impact is less noticeable. Far better than trying to cram multiple instruments and the ENTIRE sonic spectrum into a single driver in each ear. Stereo will also help that.. but not as much.

Experiment.. YMMV