IEMs and real amps

Gulliver

Alright all, 

I'm about to throw myself into the world of IEMs - and I don't currently mic my amp(s) live.   They're more than enough without any PA assistance.  I can easily take a DI from the bass amp to the mixer for a bit of bass in my ears - but since neither of my amps has a DI out, what can I use to do the same job that isn't stupid money like an OX Box or Torpedo?

Cheers in advance!

Danny1969

Just put a cheap mic on it ... Shure PG series or T Bone 57 clone..... turn up the aux send on the channel so you get it in your ears but keep the fader down if you don't want the guitar through the PA

Roland

I think we need a few more details here. Why do you want to use IEMs? What do you want to hear in them? What does the band currently put through the pa? What do the other band members use for monitoring?

Gulliver

Roland said:

I think we need a few more details here. Why do you want to use IEMs? What do you want to hear in them? What does the band currently put through the pa? What do the other band members use for monitoring?

Good questions!

I'm going IEM for a couple of reasons - with the full band, we're going to be playing small venues and getting a wedge on the floor in front of me is going to be tricky.  I'm also looking at doing some more solo-acoustic stuff, so IEMs with the looper will be a god-send. 

Currently it's only vocals from me in the PA

PA Monitoring for drummer and bass player will probably be a small powered speaker for them

p90fool

The two singers in my band don't want any bass in their IEMs, they have a little of my guitar and rely on vocal mic spill for drums. 

I have seen one function band who have a condenser mic on a waist high stand purely as an overall IEM feed for all the other instruments. 

I've just put a speaker-emulated Palmer DI on my amp with great results if you don't want to faff with mics. 

Gulliver

Danny1969 said:

Just put a cheap mic on it ... Shure PG series or T Bone 57 clone..... turn up the aux send on the channel so you get it in your ears but keep the fader down if you don't want the guitar through the PA

That's definitely an option, but I was wondering if there was another solution I hadn't thought of!

p90fool

Gulliver said:

Danny1969 said:

Just put a cheap mic on it ... Shure PG series or T Bone 57 clone..... turn up the aux send on the channel so you get it in your ears but keep the fader down if you don't want the guitar through the PA

That's definitely an option, but I was wondering if there was another solution I hadn't thought of!

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/166449/palmer-pdi-09#latest

Gulliver

p90fool said:

The two singers in my band don't want any bass in their IEMs, they have a little of my guitar and rely on vocal mic spill for drums. 

That's interesting.  I probably won't want any bass, and the only thing I pay attention to on the kit is the snare drum, so I might not need anything other than a bit of guitar and my own voice!

Danny1969

I find the hi hat is pretty much the most important thing drum wise in your IEMs ... if you get a good seal it’s surprising how much drums can get attenuated out but a bit of hi hat keeps you in time and the snare bleeds through it too so you can hear that.

Theres so many ways you can go.., in my Kate Bush tribute I have a little mixer on my pedal board and have my guitar and keys connected directly into that as well as FOH and the I have the FOH monitor feed into 2 of the channels so I can then control my guitar and my keys in my ears without bugging the FOH guy 

I use a dual IEM guitar cable too as I can’t be bothered with the problems of wireless.  

Gulliver

Danny1969 said:

I find the hi hat is pretty much the most important thing drum wise in your IEMs ... if you get a good seal it’s surprising how much drums can get attenuated out but a bit of hi hat keeps you in time and the snare bleeds through it too so you can hear that.

Theres so many ways you can go.., in my Kate Bush tribute I have a little mixer on my pedal board and have my guitar and keys connected directly into that as well as FOH and the I have the FOH monitor feed into 2 of the channels so I can then control my guitar and my keys in my ears without bugging the FOH guy 

I use a dual IEM guitar cable too as I can’t be bothered with the problems of wireless.  

Well, apparently we had band practice this evening, but nobody told me until I got a pissed off phonecall about 'missing it' - so I'll see how I get on with it there.

But Dual IEM/Guitar Cables is a new one on me - and might solve the problem of how to power the IEM amp if it's attached to me (I was dreading having to use batteries because I hate them on principle)

Musicwolf

I’m the only one in our band who always runs IEMs (the bass player has also tried them on a few occasions and the singer once).  I run a cheap dynamic mic clipped to the rim of the kick drum (pointing through a hole in the skin) and another, better, mic dynamic mic clipped to the snare rim which also picks up hi hat.  Bass amp and singer’s Blackstar have DI outs, I use a Helix.  Everything goes into desk (Mackie DL802) but only guitars and vocals go FOH.  We have up to 4 aux mixes.  My IEMs are mono and wired (I have a little LD headphone amp that clips to my belt).

a couple of points re IEMs

A good fit is required to get any sort of bass.  Even my custom moulds move during the gig which changes the amount of attenuation dramatically.

It takes time / practice to get used to them - be prepared to work at it.  I did and it’s been worth it, I’ve worked with many others who gave up too soon but who would have benefitted from IEMs.

Don’t expect hi-fi quality.  I saw a drummer on YouTube who made an excellent analogy with a very expensive video camera which had a crappy 4” LCD monitor screen.  You just need to hear what you and the rest of the band are doing.  The FOH quality is what’s important.

ESBlonde

Gulliver said:

Roland said:

I think we need a few more details here. Why do you want to use IEMs? What do you want to hear in them? What does the band currently put through the pa? What do the other band members use for monitoring?

Good questions!

I'm going IEM for a couple of reasons - with the full band, we're going to be playing small venues and getting a wedge on the floor in front of me is going to be tricky.  I'm also looking at doing some more solo-acoustic stuff, so IEMs with the looper will be a god-send. 

Currently it's only vocals from me in the PA

PA Monitoring for drummer and bass player will probably be a small powered speaker for them

If you haven't enough room for a wedge in a small venue, you will need clip on Mics for the kit because tripod stands take up space. A decent overhead and a kick mic alone can be sufficient for IEMs, you might get away without the kick mic too if there is no reinforcement out front.

Having a mixer that can cope with everyones mix is then the key unless you can live with a stereo pair on stage to feed everything. For guitar just dangle a cheap dynamic mic over the grill cloth.

Danny1969

Musicwolf said:

I’m the only one in our band who always runs IEMs (the bass player has also tried them on a few occasions and the singer once).  I run a cheap dynamic mic clipped to the rim of the kick drum (pointing through a hole in the skin) and another, better, mic dynamic mic clipped to the snare rim which also picks up hi hat.  Bass amp and singer’s Blackstar have DI outs, I use a Helix.  Everything goes into desk (Mackie DL802) but only guitars and vocals go FOH.  We have up to 4 aux mixes.  My IEMs are mono and wired (I have a little LD headphone amp that clips to my belt).

a couple of points re IEMs

A good fit is required to get any sort of bass.  Even my custom moulds move during the gig which changes the amount of attenuation dramatically.

It takes time / practice to get used to them - be prepared to work at it.  I did and it’s been worth it, I’ve worked with many others who gave up too soon but who would have benefitted from IEMs.

Don’t expect hi-fi quality.  I saw a drummer on YouTube who made an excellent analogy with a very expensive video camera which had a crappy 4” LCD monitor screen.  You just need to hear what you and the rest of the band are doing.  The FOH quality is what’s important.

You certainly can get studio quality ... certainly what I have in my ears is pretty much what I would set up as a headphone mix when in the recording studio. I actually like to hear what everyone else is doing so I have the keys panned in my ears, the toms panned across and my guitar the other players guitar panned each side  .... lead vocal in the middle and then BV's panned each side .... nothing hard panned but around 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock is nice

For anyone interested in wired combined guitar  /  IEM cables here's an easy way to do it. 

Get some 4 core cable individually shielded not overall shielded. Then  use them like this  

Shield  = Guitar ground
Core 1 = Guitar hot
Core 2 = IEM ground
Core 3 = IEM left feed
Core 4 = IEM right feed

That numbering system isn't essential EXCEPT the shield "must" be guitar ground otherwise you will get noise in your guitar amp. 
The IEM feed doesn't need grounding, it's essentially very low power speaker wire so will not add any noise

If you want to add a volume control at the guitar end like mine then wire the IEM ground to the both left lugs of a stereo 1K pot and also the ground connector of the IEM 3.5mm socket . Then the left and right feeds to the right hand lugs of the 1K stereo pot.  Then both centre lugs of the pot are wired to the left and right connectors of the IEM 3.5mm stereo socket. You can put the 3.5mm stereo socket and the volume control in a little breakout box near the end of the guitar cable

I went the whole hog and designed my own headphone amp and built in ambient mic's etc but any little headphone amp on your pedal board should do the trick. The tip here is by having the headphone amp permanently on your pedal board you don't need to use batteries. 

You can power a headphone amp from normal pedal power but remember almost all will be positive centre not neg centre  ... some needing lower voltages like 5 will need either a little buck regulator in the power chain or a linear 7805 regulator. Or you could hack a car USB charger .... feeding one of those with 9V instead of 12v will still result in 5V out because it varies the pulse width so the out is always 5V within reason

I use 5 pin XLR to connect my IEM \ Guitar cable to my box as this is very neat and tidy but some guys split the cable so one split is the guitar and the other is the connection to your headphone amp

Another trick is rather than running 2 mic leads from your desk to get a stereo mix of everyone else is wire an XLR splitter  - 2 females to 1 male  ... connect all grounds together and connect pin 3 of both the female XLR's to ground as well .... now connect pin 2 of one Female XLR to pin 2 of the male and pin 2 of the other female XLR to pin 3 of the male ..... Now you have a stereo unbalanced feed you can send down a single mic cable .... just wire the input to your headphone amp so pin 1 is ground, pin 2 left and pin 3 right. At a gig at a theatre where you might be 20 metres from the stage box this can save 3 or 4 mic leads. 

Here's my system to give you some idea ... this system was called the combiner and a few local guys use it but I stopped production due to time constraints and the fact once i've solved a problem I get bored and want to move on with something else. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imw968VyTO4

pintspiller

I use a Palmer PAN01 between head and cab.

PolarityMan

We use IEMs for practice and even with a mono mix and very very basic EQ it is such a step up from monitoring through backline only.

Trude

I'm very happy with my gigging setup:

One XLR feed with the mix I want from the desk (I can tweak the mix myself via iPad)
Behringer Powerplay P1 on my pedal board (takes standard 9v connector)
One of @Danny1969 's custom made IEM/guitar leads (I opted for no volume pot, as I always knock them by accident)
Mono works fine for me - less hassle, fewer cables
I have some v posh Read Audio ears, but have also used a cheapy Chinese made back-up set, and they work very well too
I use the direct out from my Quilter TB200, and the other guitarist has a 57 on his AC10.  Both work fine.
I've never felt the need for an extra ambient mic to get room/crowd sound.  Either there's enough bleed through the vocal mics or I have very effective bone conduction!  Either way, I can normally hear enough of the room to know what's going on.

Prior to this I'd use filtered ear plugs and floor wedges.  I'd often end up blasting the backline much too loud, and there was a lot of variance from venue to venue.  We're a lot tighter as a band since most of us have gone IEM

sw67

Just did my first gig with IEM last night - all the band were using them so it took a fair amount of tweaking on the fly but I had a good mix after the first set. Bass player not convinced and pulled one out but everyone else is sticking with it. It was nice going to bed without my ears ringing 

Gulliver

Ok - first time using in-ears tonight. Immediate thoughts.

Game changer.  Could hear my voice better than any wedge I've ever used, left without ringing in my ears which is nice.  Only slight negative is with a mic in front of the amp going into the IEMs and what I hear from the actual amp, if I move about there's some phase cancellation. So for now I might just put my voice in the IEMs.

Now I know in-ears are for me. I just need to get some decent custom molded ones.

ESBlonde

I did an IEM audition this week, Bass player was very full in his technique on his 5 string and this caused the harmonics to clash constantly, making it feel out of tune. Straight 3 piece + single vocal. I mainly used my strat which has proven to be very stable in tuning over the decades. I then switched to my 335 (which is less stable) and had the same issues. At first I thought the strat might have knackered strings, but the 335 certianly doesn't. It was wierd, I constantly checked the tuning on the HX fx unit and on my own with harmonics. Bass player checked too and was seemingly in tune.

A&H digital desk, decent cans, Bass DI and guitar signal taken from the preamp out of the HRD for convenience.

Not something I've witnessed before, I'm wondering if the bass was intoned correctly, but the harmonics sounded sweet!