In ear monitoring

  • Hi!


    I have used IEM yesterday for the first gig ever. I had never had as much control over my sound in a concert. I really liked it.

    I ran the IEM directly from the headphone out on the Kemper. I used it only to monitor myself. (The band is not using IEM)

    I know... I should send everything I want to hear on my IEM.

    But for simplicity: are there open IEM or sleeves? I’m using Shure in ears with the rubber sleeves. The isolation was a bit to much. I would love to hear the band, the room and the audience a bit more.


    Thanks

  • Which shures did you get?


    TL;DR - Yeah. You want to send everything you want to the IEM. Otherwise it's dangerous to your hearing.


    You *normally* want MORE isolation- and then take a monitor mix from the board with the whole band. Doing it the way you're doing it - you gain none of the protection benefits of using IEMs. You could damage your hearing, in fact.


    Why?


    In a loud room, you'll turn your IEMs up to dangerous levels so that you can hear yourself. You're still competing with the rest of the room for volume.

    Isolating the room, you want CONTROL. Can you take a feed from the mixer into the aux in of the transmitter?


    Otherwise, depending on which shures you got, you can get smaller foamies- that don't fit as well. But I do not recommend it.



    Source: I have tinnitus. It sucks.


    KPA Unpowered Rack, Kemper Remote, Headrush FRFR108s, BC Rich Mockingbird(s), and a nasty attitude.

  • I use Westone UMPro 50 5 drivers and they are absolute heaven. Massive difference between those and triple drivers.


    They also make some “ambient” models which are designed to let a little more of the outside sounds get in. Sounds like those would be a good option for you if you plan to stick with your existing setup. But I fully agree with the poster above; unless you’re using the in-ears the way they were intended, and having your full monitor mix go through them, you’re basically just using headphones with no real advantage.


    You can still run your whole mix through your in-ears even if the rest of the band isn’t using in-ears. It’s just a matter of using one of the monitor sends from your board.

  • Do you have a sound man or do you mix from the stage?


    If you have someone at FOH, you can have him dial up a monitor mix for you. If you're mixing from the stage, some mixers these days also have mobile apps that would let you control your own monitor mix from your cell phone.

    Kemper remote -> Powered toaster -> Yamaha DXR-10

  • I have some 1964 V3 molded IEM’s that are good when there’s a live drum kit to control bleed into overall mix, but prefer my Westone AE30 (Ambient) most of the time with current “silent stage” band set up. I feel less “isolated” from off and on stage and audience interaction and can mix in whatever I need with the ME personal mixer and still have more “live” feel.

  • Hi!


    Thanks for the thoughtful replies.


    The model is Shure 215. I connected it directly wired to the KPA.


    I didn’t consider that isolation is important in order to avoid excessive IEM volumes. But I will definitely keep this concern in mind for the next time.

    In my case the gig was with quiet drums and almost acoustic on-stage volume. I think open IEM would have been safe for my ears .

    Headphone volume in this “isolated” setup was -15 dB. (Profile (clean-crunch) volume is average or below) I never needed to push in order to hear myself and I played much more relaxed and controlled. That was really great.


    With amps or KPA through a monitor I sometimes find it hard to find the balance between “don’t hear myself” & “too loud”. I was surprised that it felt really comfortable through IEM.

  • I use an unpowered stereo bus/mix off the mixer into the Kemper, then out to my wireless IEMs (Alclair RSM).

    I prefer it that way, since I always have the guitar at a specific volume, and then mix everything else to that level.

    It's not how everyone does it, but it seems to work for me.