Another IEM thread

PolarityManPolarityMan Frets: 7273
So was chatting to singer yesterday about upgrading our PA a bit and to my surprise he is really k en on tying IEMs. I'd be well up for this but assumed I'd ge no traction from the band. So my question is, what's the bare minimum you can get going with. Our current.mixer is a 4 channel behringer one so mixer is obviously order of the day. Ideally we want a mix each so 4 aux sends and I reckon to accommodate upgrades in the future 8 mic pre's. Is it common to be able to individually EQ on the aux sends? For the actual IEMs I was thinking use our own ear buds to start hooked up to headphone amps running wired into the PA with individuals then buying their own wireless packs or moulded plugs if they want them. This also gives the option of anyone wanting a edge adding that in future too. Mixing from phones would be great but I expect out of our price range. So whacarvoeoples though on a reasonable expectation of vet?
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  • PolarityManPolarityMan Frets: 7273
    I promise there were paragraphs in there earlier
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  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10356

    You really need a digital desk to get the best out of them. Most analog desks will have maybe 6 aux sends at best but 2 or 3 of those will generally be post fader and designed to feed effects rather than monitors. Plus an analog desk won't have any EQ on the aux sends.  Also for the best IEM experience you need stereo, so that's 2 aux sends each, 8 for a 4 piece band

    Ideally something like the Allen & Heath QU16 is the way to go. That's a fully fledged desk with  iPad and phone control. However these cost around £1400. 

    Thankfully there's a cheaper option in the QU-SB which is a iPad controlled version of the QU desks, you get 16 mono inputs, 11 monitor mixs, 7 of which are stereo, EQ on all mix outputs. Still a lot of money at around £850 but worth it

    www.2020studios.co.uk 
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  • PolarityManPolarityMan Frets: 7273
    I'm pretty sure digital is going to be out of our budget. By the end of aug I reckon we'll have about 600-700 quid from gigs and don't think the rest of the band would be interested in chipping in beyond that.

    One thought I did have is mixing via computer as I already have 16 input / out capacity there but not sure if latency would be a factor when running more than a handful of channels with EQ VSTs on them.

    Plus it feels like possibly a pretty complicated setup that is inviting things to go wrong. 

    Surely people must have run 4 mixes in the past on analog desks before the digital ones came out, is there anyting worth looking out for second hand?
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  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10356

    Yeah the better analog desks have 4 to 6 aux sends, remember though you need pre fade aux sends for IEMs and post fade aux sends for effects .... as you don't want your iem level being affected by fader movements.

    A&H GL series and Mix Wizard had 6 sends, 2 switchable 2 post and 2 pre so you could get 4 pre fade sends out of one of those. We used to have 4 sends for monitoring on our GL2400 before we went digital. 

    I haven't done a computer setup using native power but I have put a whole band through an old Protools TDM  MIX setup where all the aux sends were coming from the audio interface and there were no problems. I imagine on a native system there would be a tiny bit of latency but probably not a lot

    A better bet would be a cheaper iPad dependent mixer like the Mackie DL806, that's got 8 mic pres and 4 aux sends,
    www.2020studios.co.uk 
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  • The Behringer XR16 would suit this purpose and give you iPad mix facility with EQ for each aux send. Cost around £400. If you don't have custom made molds you may well damage your hearing as the band noise from stage will bleed in making you turn up to compensate. This is a well documented failure of non-custom ear buds for IEM. Custom units isolate the stage bleed and so you can have a lower Db level going into your ears. 64 Audio have ADEL technology which is meant to protect hearing, the A3 is around £675 a pair which seems a lot but it's the best money you'll ever spend.
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  • PolarityManPolarityMan Frets: 7273
    The Behringer XR16 would suit this purpose and give you iPad mix facility with EQ for each aux send. Cost around £400. If you don't have custom made molds you may well damage your hearing as the band noise from stage will bleed in making you turn up to compensate. This is a well documented failure of non-custom ear buds for IEM. Custom units isolate the stage bleed and so you can have a lower Db level going into your ears. 64 Audio have ADEL technology which is meant to protect hearing, the A3 is around £675 a pair which seems a lot but it's the best money you'll ever spend.
    Plan is that each band member buys their own buds / wedges but part of the reason for doing this is that we want to be able to significantly lower the on stage volume which at the moment is pretty fucking ridiculous.
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  • PolarityManPolarityMan Frets: 7273
    just been ggogling the XR16 that looks like the business..any experience using it?
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  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10356
    I find the Shure SE215 s have pretty good reduction if you use the right inserts ... I often don't put mine in for encores and I'm always amazed how loud the stage sound if without them in .
    .
    Custom buds are the best but the Shures are pretty good especially if you tape them in at the back
    www.2020studios.co.uk 
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  • just been ggogling the XR16 that looks like the business..any experience using it?

    A band I know quite well has been using the XR18 and they love it. I'll be getting one soon to replace my A&H Mix Wizard.
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  • PolarityManPolarityMan Frets: 7273
    Im guessing theyre too new to be showing up second hand yet.
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  • Im guessing theyre too new to be showing up second hand yet.

    If a used one turned up I'd be all over it!
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  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10356

    I've got a little acoustic gig tonight so I was loading up my old Behringer mixer and I remembered this thread and the aux sends problem. Well my old  MX2642 has 6 aux sends and each channel can choose any 4 from the 6 using a shift button that shifts 3 and 4 to 5 and 6 ...... so you get 8 mic pre's, a load of stereo lines in and enough aux sends to run 4 x mono IEMs. On ebay you can buy one of these as cheap as £80 


    Check it out
    www.2020studios.co.uk 
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  • PolarityManPolarityMan Frets: 7273
    that looks definitely like out kind of budget. Im going to pitch for the XR18 but i suspect ill get more traction spending our kitty on something like the MX2642.
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  • PolarityManPolarityMan Frets: 7273
    So manage to get buy in for going for one of the behringers but the rest of the band would like a dry run at using IEMs before laying out the cash. What im thinking of diong is lugging my recording rig down to a practice and then running cheapo headphone amps with individual mixes.

    I can arrange headphone mixes direct in the interface for zero latency monitoring but this wont show the benefits of having EQ / compresison available but im still thinking the zero latency mix is better than running into a DAW and through a channel strip, bearing in mind we're really just testing things out.

    Then I'll run each mix into a separate out going to a little headphone amp for the most of us and into a wedge for the drummer.

    Im hoping to make the experience as good as possible so that everyone is still on board buying the mixer so any advice on making this test run work, esecialyl from the likes of @Danny1969 would definitely be appreciated.
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  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10356

    Are you gonna be using headphones or IEM's ? If it's IEM's then some people get a little freaked by the isolation at first, as even the off the shelf Shure SE215 and such cut down what bleeds into your ears dramatically. Setting up a condensor mic and feeding a tiny bit to everyone can help ........... keep the mic low so it doesn't pickup so much cymbal wash. 

    If you have enough sends then set them up in stereo, the human brain is better able to separate frequencies if they come from different directions.  I always run mine in stereo with guitars, keys and toms panned, exactly like you would pan a mix in Reaper

    It's actually hard to some people to move over to IEM's ......... old habbits and such. I play in 5 bands and for the most everyone uses IEM's but there's a couple of singers that just won't let go of their wedges. These wedges have got louder and louder over the years and frankly it's a ridiculous level of volume to me but to them it's normal,  as their hearing has been damaged. 
    Some music does tend to be louder than others and your style does tend to be pretty loud. Not as loud as Desolated thankfully, a band from your way ......... those guys are fantastic but insanely loud! You gotta protect yourself 

    It's a pity I'm not in 2020 at Farlington any more, I could have easily set you up a rehearsal there with full on IEM's as the live room was patched to a 64 channel digital desk. 
    Good luck anyway 
    www.2020studios.co.uk 
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  • RocknRollDaveRocknRollDave Frets: 6432
    FWIW I use a very Heath Robinson set-up with £4.99 in-ear headphones - They are in snugly enough to block out a significant chunk of the sound on-stage and I can take an aux feed from the desk into them which allows me to hear everything I need to hear.

    A proper IEM system will be significantly more costly but significantly better, but either way both from an ear-protection point of view and a playing live point of view, I wouldn't gig without IEM now.  I can hear my singing and my playing so much better than ever before. The downside being it is very "warts and all" because I can hear my mistakes much more prominently now!



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  • PolarityManPolarityMan Frets: 7273
    Danny1969 said:

    Are you gonna be using headphones or IEM's ? If it's IEM's then some people get a little freaked by the isolation at first, as even the off the shelf Shure SE215 and such cut down what bleeds into your ears dramatically. Setting up a condensor mic and feeding a tiny bit to everyone can help ........... keep the mic low so it doesn't pickup so much cymbal wash. 

    If you have enough sends then set them up in stereo, the human brain is better able to separate frequencies if they come from different directions.  I always run mine in stereo with guitars, keys and toms panned, exactly like you would pan a mix in Reaper

    It's actually hard to some people to move over to IEM's ......... old habbits and such. I play in 5 bands and for the most everyone uses IEM's but there's a couple of singers that just won't let go of their wedges. These wedges have got louder and louder over the years and frankly it's a ridiculous level of volume to me but to them it's normal,  as their hearing has been damaged. 
    Some music does tend to be louder than others and your style does tend to be pretty loud. Not as loud as Desolated thankfully, a band from your way ......... those guys are fantastic but insanely loud! You gotta protect yourself 

    It's a pity I'm not in 2020 at Farlington any more, I could have easily set you up a rehearsal there with full on IEM's as the live room was patched to a 64 channel digital desk. 
    Good luck anyway 
    So for the trial run i was thinking everyone brings their own earbuds, i have some reasonale ones (50 quid range from memory) but if you think closed back headphones will give a better impression could certianly go with those. I have 8 mono outs plus 2 stereo headphone mixes, the drummer can take a mono feed as he's not letting go of his wedge but think if i can grab enough stereo splitting cables i can get stereo for everyone else and still feed the main PA.
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