I played a Christmas party gig last night with Gig Performer. Worked flawlessly. However, I struggled to hear myself from the monitor I share with my singer. Really interested to hear any recommendations for keyboards. Thanks!
I am using in ears
2 advantages: hear saving and clean monitor sound.
5 Likes
Do you not find that they make you feel detached from the room?
Sure the listen experience is different.
For my mix I get the kick drum, snare, the vocals and guitars from the foh mixer and route it into the RME Interface.
My sounds I hear directly on my RME
With Totalmix I have control over all aspects.
1 Like
I’m going to look into this. I’d previously discounted IEMs.
Yes, you are certainly isolated, particularly if you use decent molded IEMs that block outside sound.
I personally love that isolation. I can focus on what the band is playing, what I’m playing, how everything is balanced, and at living room levels which protects my ears. When personal mixes are available it’s even better because I can place different instruments in the stereo field making it even easier to hear what I need.
All that said, if you want to be able to hear the audience, then the easiest solution is an ambient mic placed near front of stage
4 Likes
I also use IEM on stage like @pianopaul and @dhj and as mentioned by @dhj an ambient mic solves the “detached from the room” issue. Using my RME audio interface I can adjust my submix as I want. I need the mix of the group and I want to hear my keyboards and my mic a little bit better. The only drawback, is when you want to speak directly with the band mates, then you need to remove one earpiece during the talk.
1 Like
When I’m playing guitar, I only want to hear drums and a just little keyboard leaking through (just enough to know where to song is). Even more strict on this when playing bass guitar, so I really like iem.
Being not worthy of real earpieces, I use simple wired Apple earphones of $ 30,—
(A way to avoid detachment is by using just one of the earphones, but you then will have to get accustomed to the difference in balance and sound pressure on your ears.)
Btw: I’m not playing in big venues
1 Like
If you have not shopped for these in a while, I think great iem’s have come down in price a lot. For under $50 you can get IEMs that are better than top end (hundreds of dollars of not more) 5-10 years ago.
2 Likes
Really? Why do I learn this only after I bought my UE IEM 
4 Likes
Hi
I have a focusrite with a headphone output, and our band’s mixer, but I’m intrigued to know how one creates the personal mix for the IEMs. Does the IEM system have a box that’s fed from the mixer? Not sure how the RME audio interface fits in here. IEM novice, apologies!
I have the predecessor to these (CCA10):
CCA C12 in Ear Monitor Headphones 5BA 1DD Hybrid HiFi IEM Earphones Noise Isolating Stereo Wired Earbuds for Musicians Audiophile Singers DJ Amazon.com
1 Like
In conjunction with my Shure P9HW wired bodypack, I have the ASI Audio 3DME In-Ear monitoring system. The IEMs have built in active ambient microphones. I just added the custom molds from Sensaphonics, who work in conjunction with ASI. This setup was recommended by a really trusted FOH who works with us and who really likes making keyboardists sound and hear good.
1 Like
When you’re running thousands of dollars of hardware and software into an IEM system, $50.00 in ears absolutely don’t cut it, IMHO. You get what you pay for…
1 Like
Exactly that !
1 Like
I had the same thing happen few months back. I am a solo musoe and I was playing in a smallish room to about 40 people. The drinks flowed and I turned my floor monitors up, but as the (alcohol induced) babble rose up, I just couldn’t hear the FOH or the floor monitors. Over the next few days I thought about it and eventually bought some wired IEMs. I didn’t like them and my grandson suggested I try small monitors mounted at waist level. I settled on the Mackie CR2-X cubes which are actually high grade computer speakers. When they arrived I was a bit disappointed, because they began to distort at higher sound levels. Then I found out that Mackie also made a companion sub, and when I added one of those, everything changed. The volume out of this setup with sub is room filling. I built extensions to my keyboard set up and sit the companion sub on the floor underneath. This suits me, but please keep in mind that I am a solo musoe controlling everything myself, and don’t require huge levels of sound. I use a Countyman H7 headset mic which has excellent feedback suppression, so feedback isn’t a problem with the speakers mounted as close as they are.
1 Like
Another vote for in-ears here. I always use them, apart from the most quiet acoustic gigs. And even then I might use them (for the click, e.g.). I play drums and keyboards live.
Some really good advice has been given already; here are some further things to consider:
Are you the only one in the band who wants to use in-ears or is the whole band ready to do this?
A lot of semi-pro bands nowadays have their own digital mixer with a sufficent number of busses to make their own monitor mixes, even in stereo (which I highly recommend). All the band’s signals will be split on stage so that FOH can get the unaltered signals for the house mix.
If you are the only one using in-ears and the monitoring situation does not allow for your own dedicated stereo mix, you could at least monitor your keyboards in stereo and mix in a mono band mix from the mixing desk. Or you bring your own set of stereo mics to feed the room/ambience into your in-ears. All this is possible either with your audio interface or a small mixer at your position.
IMHO the most important thing with in-ears is the ability to exactly control what goes into your ears. That means a complete seal of the ear canals is mandatory, also for effective hearing protection. Because of that I am not a fan of using only one ear plug. As mentioned before, you can use ambient mics to overcame the feeling of beeing removed from everything.
You don’t have to spend too much money on a pair of in ear headphones. I opted for a modular approach, that means the cable is detachable from the drivers (L/R), I also use custom molded sleeves that fits the drivers. So each of the components is exchangeable - quite cost-effective.
If on a budget, use a wired connection with a small headphone amp (Behringer P2, Fischer Amps, etc.). Good wireless units are expensive and the cheap ones aren’t fun.
For the ultimate/premium experience there are binaural processors available that let you put all the band signals in a 360° space. (Klang Technologies). Very expensive, but if you ever experienced such a spatial mix it’s hard to get back to even stereo. That is imho again.
Right now I am experimenting with GP and spatial plugins to achieve something similar.
HTH
1 Like
I do agree in a way that the ChiFi offerings have sound-wise disrupted the sub-300 IEM market significantly.
In May during a tour when asking about which IEMs our warm-up bands were using, everyone had something from KZ, quite often AS10s.
A bandmate bought couple of pairs and swapped the eartips from default to tree-shaped ones; I tried a pair myself on rehearsals and even on few gigs and I agree being quite impressed by how they sounded, compared to something that could cost at least 100 euros more from American or Japanese brands. What I disliked a lot was the quality of the cable. Somehow I also got the feeling that the earbuds themselves may not be so durable in touring use, but there I could be wrong.
Also, the bass was a bit too much for me, although it must be said that the midrange and treble were still admirably clear.
Having a spare cable available is highly recommended, no matter which buds you end up getting (even the very expensive ones).
I’m currently gigging with ATH E70s with complyfoam tips and I’ve been very pleased with the comfort, isolation and overall clarity. I have no doubt that molded ones like UE stuff would provide even better isolation and nicer overall sound, but since I’ve been able to do my job very comfortably with the E70s I’ll happily use them as long as they last. They seem quite durable, E50s I wouldn’t recommend since the plastic housing is quite poorly glued together (first pair I got was already broken inside the package, the replacement lasted something like 2 years of active use).
But just like playing on stage with loud stage monitors, getting used to playing with IEMs will take some time. I remember in 2011 playing my first IEM gig and feeling I could never enjoy and play freely with that setup, now I’m doing 90% of my work with them and I highly enjoy being able to hear even some subtle stuff instead of just barely hearing the keyboard parts from regular stage monitors on louder gigs.
Just to add something that should be obvious: IEM stuff seems to be just as subjective as choosing headphones. I’ve seen colleagues rocking some of the biggest festival stages in this country happily wearing Shure SE215s, which at least here in Finland seem to have reached the “SM58 of IEMs”-type status (“not the best, not the worst, but in many situations definitely good enough”). I even know a couple of professionals who started out with SE215s, at some point decided to “upgrade” to some much pricier multi-driver BA stuff, and after a year came back to their SE215s. And these are people who did spend thousands on their other hardware on stage.
1 Like
jwdnty, I would suggest purchasing ear tips to use with them. Getting the right size is important (maybe start out with the assorted sizes).
Apparently, I have small ear canals. Who would’ve thunk?
1 Like