In Ear Monitors making me sing flat

Musicwolf

OK, so I'm definitely not a 'singer' but I'm the sole backing singer in the band and I also write and record stuff as a side project where I need to add vocals.  Playing live I've used a pair of ACS single driver custom moulds for at least a year.

Recently a few things have happened;

I've retired so I planned to do a bit of structured vocal practice.

I got a pair of KZ AS10 earbuds for use in the gym -  I tried them as in ears as it's good to have a spare pair

I've been recording band rehearsals using my XR18 mixer / laptop

I've been working on original material

What I've noticed

The backing vocals from the band recording were awful (flat)

Original material.  Good guide recording but couldn't reproduce as a proper take

Singing and recording single notes, scales, intervals - not too bad with headphones but went flat using the KZ AC10s

After reading up on t'internet I tried reducing headphone vols, killing reverb in the monitor mix.  The result - headphone recordings pitch is good (I also check visually in Cubase).  In ears - flat.

Then I checked open back vs closed headphones.  Open backed ok, closed - flat (this is why the guide vocal on open backed was ok but I couldn't repeat with closed backed headphones).

Finally, the ACS custom moulds appear to give reasonable results but the KZ's (memory foam tips) are still causing me to sing flat.  I'm going to try some different tips.

Has anybody else encountered such issues?

Gallagherone

I seem to have the same thing but only at certain frequencies when singing with moulds. I can sing perfectly fine in the key of B or D, but singing in C I always seem to struggle pitch wise. I've never looked into why, just try to avoid that key currently...

Musicwolf

I've been running some more trials (despite having a sore throat today).

I tried without any kind of monitoring, so just hearing my voice naurally.  Lowest note I stuggle with, partly due to range but probably not helped by my throat, but I can tell that I'm struggling as I sing.  Within my, albeit limited, range all ok.

KZs - flat

ACS customs - almost as good as natural monitoring.

I'm coming to the conclusion that there are two monitoring paths.  One airborn and one via some form of bone conduction (which is sharp relative to the first path).  As long as I hear both reference source and my voice via the same path I'm ok.  I'll have to run some 'one ear on / one off' tests.

guitarfishbay

I’m not a singer but I’ve heard singers discuss this before. I think it’s to do with you hearing the natural feedback from your own voice - if you can’t hear it (eg due to complete isolation) then it can be harder to judge pitch. But again I don’t sing well regardless of monitoring so I can’t prove it either way myself!

Musicwolf

Well, despite playing in bands and being involved in home recording for a great many years I feel as though I’ve learned a lot these last couple of days.

I’ve just swapped out the tips on my KZ’s to silicone and repeated the tests.  Better than foam but not as good as custom moulds or monitoring ‘au naturale’.  I need to keep practicing and running tests in order to establish the limits of monitoring vs the deficiencies of my voice.  So far this has taught me that;

I’m not completely tone deaf and therefore can improve with practice

The importance of reverb, or rather the lack of it, in the monitoring path

The importance of level when monitoring

I’m never going to be a lead singer but, by putting in some effort, I should be able to improve my backing abilities by some considerable measure.

siremoon

May or may not be relevant.  I use IEMs whilst singing and at first I had a big problem with occlusion at lower frequencies (basically AIUI this is your jaw amplifying your voice directly into your ears).  I eventually solved this by aggressively EQ-ing out the low frequencies on the vocal track of my monitor mix and now it's fine.  Could be worth a try? 

Musicwolf

You could be on to something.  Pitching is definitely worse in the lower registers (although that could just be the shortcomings of my voice).  I have applied a high pass filter already, maybe I'll increase the cut-off frequency.