IEM Users - How do you EQ your IEM mix

Catthan

Live or at home listening through headphones. 

I Always find that getting all that "tone" through small drivers straight in the ear and not pushing air is very painful for the ears and the quality of the tone itself. 

Specially gainy lead sounds which sound fizzy, honky and clip the drivers. 

I think I'm missing a trick such as "cut X frequency in the IEM/ HP mix"

Big pros do it so there must be a way.. 

Our keys player gets a stereo feed of the desk and mixes it and always raves about the quality of the sound. 
Is this the lengths I need to go to? Mix the whole band differently just for my ears feed?
That's the one bit I've not tried. 

Please enlighten me

kennedydream1980

I never eq'd my IEM mix any different to what was hitting the FOH speakers.

However I do use a few tricks to help sweeten my IEM's.

Firstly I play and monitor myself in stereo.

Secondly I always use a room style reverb.

Thirdly I use a dual delay. One side set to 35ms, the other to 45ms. Feedback set to 0 and mix to taste (Usually around 15-20%) This makes the IEM's sound less direct. The way I like to explain it is takes the perception of sound from the middle of your forehead and places it just outside your temples. The kemper has a parameter called 'Space' which does something similar to this.

Catthan

thanks @kennedydream1980,

the verb and eq go in your iem mix channel after it's feb back to you or in the tone you're sending too?

kennedydream1980

The verb and dual delay are on the presets on my modeller. The reverb is fairly subtle. The delay is very subtle so you can’t here it out front in a mix. It’s does make a noticeable difference in the earphones though.

Danny1969

Basically for great IEM mix's you need a stereo mix with things panned across, specially the drums guitars and keys. I like my own vocal in the centre but everything else panned
On my IEM mixer, the ME-1 from Allan & Heath there's also compression so a tiny bit of bus compression just like you would mixing a song in a DAW.
EQ wise it really depends on what IEM's your using, some have no bass, some need high passing etc 

darcym

I honestly hear the guitar sound through my iem's in the mix exactly the same as infant of my guitar cab, there is a big difference to listening to your guitar in isolation and hearing it in the mix.

There is also a perception thing to get over, depends how long you've been using IEM's, I found the first couple of months hard, what I do find, if I'm doing something where I really want to focus on the guitar, I pop an ear out, and the blend of hearing live and through the ear is great. 

mike257

What sort of IEMs are you using?

Your comment suggests you aren't getting an individual mix tailored for you, are you just getting the main front of house mix from the PA sent to your ears?

Catthan

@mike257 ;

I've used budget shure ones and custom 3-driver pro ones and had similar results. 
In terms of mix, I've tried the following. 

1. Get a band mix sent from PA into my Kemper and blend that with the gtr tone in the HP out of the Kemper. 
2. Get a mix from PA into IEM amp and eq and balance the mix myself in my iphone via the PA app.

I confess I didn't stick with it for too long and after a point I kept the IEMs on just for some reinforcement while still using a stage monitor. 
Then I dropped IEMs completely and use moulded ear plugs with a stage monitor. 

The issue was more about harsh frequencies from the gtr in my IEMs which I always attributed to the fact of pushing a lot of tone into tiny drivers and straight to my ear drum. 

Are you suggesting that with a tailored band mix these frequencies would be masked off and I'd get a band mix with more "me" in it?

I do find the same with studio HPs at my home studio. What sounds nice with bigger drivers tends to sound thin, raspy and fizzy with IEMs or HPs. 
I thought there might be an industry std hack that addresses this

mike257

@Catthan - thanks for the extra info

Receiving the band mix that goes to FOH as the basis of your IEM mix is always going to be a big compromise, as the band mix is build around the noise coming from the stage, so without that context you'll lose a lot of information. 

In terms of your issues with the guitar sound, I can see two possible issues.

If you're experiencing too much harsh top end in your Kemper signal, is it possible that you're not applying cab simulation before the signal hits the headphone out? The big sonic difference a guitar speaker (or speaker emulation) usually makes is a roll off of the high end. I'd check your Kemper patching, and make sure you're taking a tap for the headphones post cab sim. 

The other issue that will mess with your guitar sound is latency from your mixer. If you're taking a full band mix from a digital mixer that already includes some guitar from your Kemper, there'll be a slight latency caused by the conversion and processing. If you're returning that to your headphones, but mixing in a direct signal from your Kemper on top of it to add more guitar, your direct signal won't have that latency, will arrive at your ears slightly earlier, so will be slightly out of phase with your guitar in the mix. You won't hear it as a delay, but you will hear summation of some frequencies and cancellation of others that will make your guitar sound a bit off. 

If your mixer has enough buses to give you even a mono mix of your own, then it's worth doing that to have your own dedicated mix. What I would absolutely avoid though, is feeding guitar in to your ears from the mixer AND direct. Either take your mix in full from the monitor send, or take a mix with no guitar from the mixer and add yourself as needed from the Kemper, whatever suits better. It's when it's coming from both at once that you'll have a problem.