What you play in your IEM doesn't sound as good or the same for what the audience hears.

[DuckSoup]

So I've been playing to a pretty large crowd for less than a year now. This is a Church setup, with a pretty loud stage.

At times I will receive various kinds of music, and cover songs in the rock\pop genre.

What I've found is that, when playing with the band, what I hear in my IEM's sounds way different that what the audience hears. Typically the bass, and drums are a bit boosted, and everything else in my mix (Vocals, EG, Keyboard) sits a bit lower. (I can control my own mix btw.)

What happens is that I'll lock in, play what sounds good in my ears, trying to keep the original artists arrangement in mind, but when I listen to the recording after they upload it to Youtube....I frequently find moments where I'm like "Huh...That didn't sound right..." or "Man, I would have played that WAY differently"

So I guess my question is, how can you get a better sense of how you sound to the arena\auditorium vs what you hear in your little isolated IEM mix. Is it just a matter of matching the IEM mix to the live sound? But even that's hard because then I'd have trouble hearing what I'm playing.

 

[mikewalker]

First off - it's the FOH person's job to make the house mix. Your in-ears are JUST FOR YOU. Secondly, youtube videos are not likely to represent the real sound "in the house" ( which generally varies around the room, anyway...)

 

[DuckSoup]

First off - it's the FOH person's job to make the house mix. Your in-ears are JUST FOR YOU.

Oh yeah I get that, sorry maybe I didn't explain that part as well as I could have.

Secondly, youtube videos are not likely to represent the real sound "in the house" ( which generally varies around the room, anyway...)

Oh yeah I understand, but it's not like the tone or anything, but more the groove itself. It's like I feel the groove differently through my mix than I do through (In this case) the Youtube video. But as you said, that may not be the best representation of what the audience hears.

 

[RoketRdr]

First off - it's the FOH person's job to make the house mix. Your in-ears are JUST FOR YOU. Secondly, youtube videos are not likely to represent the real sound "in the house" ( which generally varies around the room, anyway...)

What he said. And you have NO idea what the audience is hearing. YT uses a ton of compression which distorts what the actual track sounds like not to mention the method you’re using to listen to it. Watching a YT vid on your computer or laptop doesn’t even closely represent what was actually heard.

 

[walterw]

This is a Church setup, with a pretty loud stage.

when I listen to the recording after they upload it to Youtube...

by "loud stage" you mean there are live drums and real amps up there? maybe monitor wedges for some people that have yet to be converted to IEMs?

how is the recording done? if it's just a board mix of some sort then that is not gonna represent what the crowd hears anyway, because that mix is balancing out stage volume. that usually means lots of kick and acoustic and lead vocal and the rest kind of weak.

 

[fauxtoe]

What I've found is that, when playing with the band, what I hear in my IEM's sounds way different that what the audience hears...

I certainly hope so, and that's the way it's supposed to work. FOH and monitor mix are separate and the only thing they have in common is the signal being sent to them. Everyone is going to have a different idea of what they need to hear. My bass is always on top, followed by a mixture of drums, then it varies with keys, vocals, and guitar (usually in that order) depending on who is leading. I usually have to lock in with the keys more often than not and it will be up in the mix over vocals and guitar. If the FOH had my mix you'd barely hear any of the vocalists.

 

[DuckSoup]

by "loud stage" you mean there are live drums and real amps up there? maybe monitor wedges for some people that have yet to be converted to IEMs?

how is the recording done? if it's just a board mix of some sort then that is not gonna represent what the crowd hears anyway, because that mix is balancing out stage volume. that usually means lots of kick and acoustic and lead vocal and the rest kind of weak.

Yeah, full drum kit, giant speakers. Amps in the back. No stage monitors.

I agree, using Youtube to combare the sound is not a good idea. I think I'm just doing a poor job of explaining what I mean.

Like...What I hear through my ears isn't everything equally. The Acoustic guitar sits super low, the backup vocals are low, the lead vocals are high, etc.

But in context, and by that I mean, everything played together where the sounds are balanced out properly (Which is what I meant when I was referring to Youtube) is where I noticed that my choice in notes, or the kinds of notes I play sometimes don't fit.

It's like when the whole thing is brought together. I just wish I had a better sense of that when playing on stage. IEM's have a unique way of isolating specific sounds where I don't get the full picture.

Not sure if that helps. :-D

 

[buldog5151bass]

First off - it's the FOH person's job to make the house mix. Your in-ears are JUST FOR YOU. Secondly, youtube videos are not likely to represent the real sound "in the house" ( which generally varies around the room, anyway...)

This. You need to hear what held keep your playing in the pocket - not necessarily what you would want to hear as the audience.

 

[juggahnaught]

Yeah, full drum kit, giant speakers. Amps in the back. No stage monitors.

I agree, using Youtube to combare the sound is not a good idea. I think I'm just doing a poor job of explaining what I mean.

Like...What I hear through my ears isn't everything equally. The Acoustic guitar sits super low, the backup vocals are low, the lead vocals are high, etc.

But in context, and by that I mean, everything played together where the sounds are balanced out properly (Which is what I meant when I was referring to Youtube) is where I noticed that my choice in notes, or the kinds of notes I play sometimes don't fit.

It's like when the whole thing is brought together. I just wish I had a better sense of that when playing on stage. IEM's have a unique way of isolating specific sounds where I don't get the full picture.

Not sure if that helps. :-D

I understand.

I think the only thing in this case is to be able to hear everyone. Your note choice may take into account the voicing that the keyboard player is using - maybe you're playing a fifth as a passing tone or something - but if your guitar player is strumming a fat six-string barre chord at that moment, yeah, it might not work out the same way in the full mix. I totally understand.

For what it's worth, if you're mainly experiencing this problem with acoustic guitar, it may be (it may not be - I don't know your guitarist, so this is just one possibility based on speculation) that your acoustic guitar player is playing big block chords or something similar (maybe power chords on electric guitar or something similar). If he or she is always playing chord voicings with the root on the E or A string, and playing all the notes, that tends to kind of lock you into a specific place, which is unfortunate. One way to mitigate this might be for the guitarist to try fingerpicking the chords, using rootless voicings, or playing rhythmic one- or two-note riffs in a tasteful way over the song. (Think of African-style fingerpicking guitar, or even James Brown funk stuff.)

Perhaps you can hard pan some guitar to the left or right and highpass it so it's still audible, but doesn't interfere with your core mix?

But yes, I understand your problem. If you're doing anything remotely improvisational (as in, you aren't reading from set music, but you're playing from a chart) it can be hard to do that without being able to hear everyone adequately. Unfortunately, this means that you might have to alter your monitor mix to get a bit more of the elements that you don't currently have.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

 

[WebJunk]

What I've found is that, when playing with the band, what I hear in my IEM's sounds way different that what the audience hears. Typically the bass, and drums are a bit boosted, and everything else in my mix (Vocals, EG, Keyboard) sits a bit lower. (I can control my own mix btw.)

What happens is that I'll lock in, play what sounds good in my ears, trying to keep the original artists arrangement in mind, but when I listen to the recording after they upload it to Youtube....I frequently find moments where I'm like "Huh...That didn't sound right..." or "Man, I would have played that WAY differently"

So I guess my question is, how can you get a better sense of how you sound to the arena\auditorium vs what you hear in your little isolated IEM mix. Is it just a matter of matching the IEM mix to the live sound? But even that's hard because then I'd have trouble hearing what I'm playing.

You really should never worry about what the audience hears. There are so many variables including where each audience member is sitting/standing that you would have to then decide which audience member do you want to duplicate. Additionally, setting up your IEMs for whats at the FOH is rarely helpful for musicians on stage. I've had monitor mixes that were just rerouted FOH and it was absolutely awful to play from. Not hearing myself adequately. Not hearing specific instruments the way I like. And I prefer to have my IEMs with no reverb including room reverb, which is why I hate ambiance mics.

I agree what others said about not going by what sounds on YouTube. Tho it is not uncommon to listen to concert recordings after and think about how you might play differently. Your brain is processing all the instruments differently hearing a performance than when you were playing on stage. Its like if you ever did recording, you process individual tracking differently than mixing, different still when mastering.

I think you should worry less about hearing what the audience hears on stage. I'm not even sure there is anything wrong with your playing (even tho I've never heard you play) but a lot of us are never completely satisfied with what we played. Have you had any negative (or positive) feedback from the audience that gives you concern?

 

[SLO Surfer]

You have too much of yourself and not enough of the rest of the band in your iem. If you’ve got everything below your bass in your ears, you won’t hear how your bass jives with all those other quiet things. Turn your bass down in your mix and listen to the rest of the band!

 

[Zbysek]

You have too much of yourself and not enough of the rest of the band in your iem. If you’ve got everything below your bass in your ears, you won’t hear how your bass jives with all those other quiet things. Turn your bass down in your mix and listen to the rest of the band!

+1

 

[David Jayne]

What Slo said. If you don't hear the other instruments (and voices) well you can't lock in to them. It's nice to hear your bass pounding away in your ears. But it may be counter-productive.

 

[Samatza]

What Slo said. If you don't hear the other instruments (and voices) well you can't lock in to them. It's nice to hear your bass pounding away in your ears. But it may be counter-productive.

This!

I have been using IEM for many years and I've learnt to set my mix like I would FOH as far as balance, that way I'm hearing the bass in context and it's much easier to lock with the drummer and play what fits nicely with the ensemble.

 

[Nevada Pete]

It seems like your getting a lot of advise regarding the technical qualities of the mix in your IEM's or the FOH mix, when what you are actually talking about is that your playing does not satisfy you when you listen back to a recording of the performance. It means to me you are on the road to bass greatness! Follow your inner bass!

If I read you right, my guess is that the IEM's are giving you a highly clarified sound field where you can hear your bass with a super high degree of accuracy. This may lead you play more complex bass lines that just don't seem to groove or jell with the tune when you hear a recording made from out in the audience (no matter how the recording was made). You may need to alter the blend of what you hear in your IEM's some to focus on your role in the rhythm section. Remember the picture of Atlas holding the world on his shoulders? That's you! You are the foundation of everything your worship team / performing group does. What does a foundation have to be?

If you can, when you play back recordings of your performances, reduce the bass on your playback and see if you can imagine what a good bass line would be for the tune your listening to. Can you rig up something so you can imagine bass lines and play along with your recorded performances without hearing what you played live when the recording was made? It's just a guess, but my guess is if you simplify your bass lines some they will groove better. There is a school of thought that says a good bass line is hypnotic and repetitive, capturing the fundamental rhythm and harmonic progression of the tune. Remember in math how you reduce a fraction to it's lowest common denominator? Bass lines are like that (if you subscribe to the aforementioned school of thought, that is). Reduce your bass line to the fundamental form that conforms to the rhythmic and chord progression of the tune, add a little diversity to keep it interesting (but still subliminal) and hammer it into the audience over and over again with authority. The audience won't know why, but you'll have them rocking out! Totally. Bass is very powerful!

 

[micguy]

So I've been playing to a pretty large crowd for less than a year now. This is a Church setup, with a pretty loud stage.

At times I will receive various kinds of music, and cover songs in the rock\pop genre.

What I've found is that, when playing with the band, what I hear in my IEM's sounds way different that what the audience hears.

Yes - that's perfectly OK. You don't want to hear exactly what the audience hears. Even on a "normal" stage with amps, you're the closest one to your amp - you hear more of yourself than the audience does.

Bass is the hardest instrument to hear well - the frequencies we need to hear to determine our pitch (make sure we're on the right note) are smack dab in the middle of where lots of other instruments live - guitars, keys, vocals, they're all in that middle ground where we get our pitch from. On top of that, we have a lot of low end going one. So, in your ears, you should be relatively loud.

I play church gigs that are a lot like what you are doing - have been doing them for quite a while. My mix has me the loudest, the drums and the singers that are leading songs are next in loudness, and guitars and keys are down a bit more than them. Singers that aren't leading songs are typically off to start with - if everything goes well, sometimes I sneak a bit of them in my ears, but not too often. You need timing and pitch cues to do your job well. The drums are the primary timing cues, the lead vocalist(s) is/are your main pitch cues.

My mix also contains a different version of my sound that FOH. My ears are a mix of everyone else from the board, but I take a feed off my pedalboard straight into a little mixer that mixes everyone else's FOH sound with the sound that I'm sending to FOH. That way, I can have a fair amount of mids and articulation in my ears, and the FOH person can dial up whatever works in the house mix. Without that bypass, you end up negotiating something that isn't ideal for either purpose.

One of the key things about the level in your ears is, while it should be louder than everyone else, it shouldn't be too loud. If you find yourself playing hard, even when the tune doesn't call for it, you should turn yourself up in your ears. If you find yourself holding back when the tunes is at full roar, you need to turn yourself down. Your in ear mix should help you hear what you're doing, not change it a lot.

 

[logicman69]

Do you have the ability to mix yourself for your ears? My band runs all in-ears and we each mix ourselves (Behringer X-Air18, and I mix right from my smartphone). I start with setting the mix identical to the FOH mix, and then from there I make small tweaks as the show progresses. This gives me the best results from what I have heard.

If you can't mix yourself, then just tell the sound person to set your mix identical to the FOH mix. That should be easy enough.

 

[Bassmunnky]

My IEMS are for me to hear what I'm doing with the drums..the click...cues...etc...While I have JH AUDIO Pricey things...They NEVER EVER EVER gonna sound like FOH...So ..yeah...But I do love IEMS and NEVER ever want to go back to the old days

 

[bobbybass85]

Hey Duck! You knew I’d chime in on this, haha.

As you learn the song, focus on the groove and how notes blend together, especially if your going off the root. For example, in certain areas I like playing the 4th when a Sus chord is be played (Playing a C under Gsus). However, depending on the other harmonic textures coming from the vocals and keys etc it’ll sound bad. I usually try that sort of stuff out in rehearsal, and if I get a good feeling about it then I’ll keep it, otherwise I’ll go back to the root/groove and keep it simple.

One thing I learned over my years there is that when practicing to MP3s or YouTube videos, subconsciously I end up finding some ancillary part buried DEEEP in the mix that I que off of, but when I play live I get lost not having that there. It’s something as you spend more time there it’ll get more comfortable.

When it comes to tone, Bryce or FOH will help you dial stuff when needed if you ask. When it comes to groove and notes lean on Tommy and the drummers, they’ll get you fixed if you have questions. Nobody’s gonna think less of you for wanting to do it better! Hope your well man!

 

[JRA]

it's not like the tone or anything, but more the groove itself.

I noticed that my choice in notes, or the kinds of notes I play sometimes don't fit.

Turn your bass down in your mix and listen to the rest of the band!