IEM's and limiters

Emp_Fab

Does anyone use IEM's here, and... in particular, do you have a limiter in the circuit ?  I've got IEMs for the first time and I'm a little concerned about the potential for transients (mental drummer hit, drunk grabbing a mic and shouting in it) blasting my delicate eardrums.  I suffer with tinnitus and really can't afford to take any chances with my ears.  I've seen a few limiters on ebay, but they seem a bit of overkill.  I've got an old Behringer compressor pedal and was wondering if this would suffice ?  I don't mind spending the money - my ears are too valuable.

Does anyone have any ideas ?  Can you get small limiters ?

Danny1969

Most serious bands on IEM,s are using digital desks which have a bunch of processing on the aux sends that feed the IEM's normally 31 band graphic, compressor and limiter. You could use a analog compressor to act as a limiter if you set the ratio as high as it will go ........ Anything reaching the threshold you set will be limited then

In practice your probably find wild transients are not that much of a problem for your ears as any signal that suddenly goes wild is likely to clip the channel strip and distort rather than go massively louder

Some units do have limiters built in the receivers but they won't do anything useful until you set em up with the buds your gonna be using as all have a different sensitivity

You can build a very crude clamping limiter yourself which works very much in the same way as a fuzz pedal anything reaching the threshold for the diodes to conduct in the negative feedback loop will be limited

Emp_Fab

Cheers for that Danny.  I've just realised that because of the way I'll be plugging it together, I probably won't need a limiter now.  Because I'm a fuss-arse when it comes to my monitor mix, I've got my mic, guitar and keyboard split off from the feed to the main mixer into a little Xenix one next to me, and my IEMs are plugged into the phones out on that.  I'm taking a 'rest of the band' feed off one of the main mixer auxes and bringing that to my little mixer, so I end up with ch1=my mic, ch2=my guitar, ch3=my keys, ch4=rest of the band.  I'm not going to generate monster transients myself (and even I do my accident, they're going through the Xenix first, which, as you say, should clip), and the most likely source of transients - the rest of the band / open mics etc - will be going through two mixers before it hits my ears.

ESBlonde

The accidents are the danger zones. A dropped vocal mic being prime example that will make your heart skip.

Jalapeno

Of all PA doodahs Limiters are cheap, the XLRs to hook it inline will probably cost as much - I'd do it. If we were gigging that was to be the next purchase, but we aren't so we haven't, yet ....