In Ear Monitors

[ftatarelli]

Can anyone provide information regarding in ear monitors.

Whats a good system to use?
Are ear buds good to use?
Who makes the best ones?
Are there wireless units?
Best place to buy from?
Anything I missed?
Cost?



Thanks
Frank Tatarelli

[saxboy]

The Shure in ear smokes. I had one for a few months before it was taken. They have 2 ear pieces, and the E7? the expensive ones - they are great.
The Sennhieser sp? is really good too.
You can get the ears pieces customized for your ears and they are great things if you move around at all during a show. Would have one today if they didn't grow legs and walk away.
I had a cost deal with Shure and they still ran 800+ with the good ear pieces. I think retail is around 1500.
The ear buds reduce the overall volume you are exposed to and make hearing and playing great fun.
Wireless are the only one I needed, yes both manufacturers mentioned are wireless.

hope this helps, get online and check prices...

SAXBOY

www.gregvail.com

[saxboy]

Someone needs to check out the Rolls in ear wireless and tell us about it. It looks pretty cheap and says it sounds great on there site; big surprise.

www.rolls.com

SAXBOY

[ferrari]

I love this place. I'm seriously looking into in-ear systems for our entire 9 piece band, and here's the Thread.

It's been a crazy summer gig wise, so I have not been posting for a while. Good to see you're still hangin' out Saxboy. Your real world experience is a huge help to guys like me; I hate reinventing the wheel.

I've been trying to convince the band members to save all our gig money for a while, and outfit everyone with wireless in-ear monitors. Shure or Sennheiser seem to be the choices. I know this stuff isn't cheap, but I'm tired of crappy mixes or not being able to hear myself. We do have a sound guy as part of our band and he's awesome, but when he's not available it can get kinda rough.

Any more thoughts on these products would be appreciated Greg. Thanks.
Jim F.

[Safesax]

We considered wireless in our group, but were concerned about the interference, etc. Decided that we're all pretty well tied to a mic stand anyway, so we went with wired ear monitors. And no batteries to worry about, either.

Just to get the feel, we tried the following setup: Each of us have a Rolls Personal Monitor amp, with a line to a junction box off the mixer. Some of us have just vocals and sax in our mix, and others have everything.

We had tried in-ear, but didn't like the feel of them. The ones we use are not in-ear, but hang on our ear. Although it doesn't block stage sounds, it doesn't block stage sounds :lol: so it sounds quite natural on stage.

Total cost each person: Rolls PM52s, $50. Earpiece, $5. Cable, box, etc. probably added another $10. Altogether, less that a night's pay per man, and the difference is amazing. Harmonies are tighter, and stage volume is lower. It's a low buck approach that works great for us. YMMV.

Dale C.

[tenorman canada]

It's my impression that IEM's are first and formost for preserving the working musician's ear. I assume you're looking at the round sony walkman bype of buds. If the in earpiece doesn't reduce much of the ambient stage sound, then what the point. All you're accomplishing is driving more sound into the ear canal. I'm switching to in ears because I'm tired of hearing the music loud. Best solution...block out a considerable amount of the live stage and monitor sound and replace it with a quieter mix in my ear.

Shure makes a great in ear system, but Future Sonics also make a couple of great earpieces. The EP3's are a universal foam with and then of course the custom moulded plugs. They both use the same drivers which are apparently top quality, but the ep3's are about 250.00 where as the custom moulds are about 1300.00 Keep in mind, this is the cost of the ear pieces only.

I purchased a transmitter/receiver manufactured by db technologies for approx 800.00, a very reasonable cost. My futur sonics will be arriving in town next week. I'll let you know hos they worked out.

[tenorman canada]

I've now been working with the Furure Sonic in ear moniters for a few weeks. I use the kind that are foam. They're fabulous. They do a great job of cancelling the ambient stage sound if I wish and deliver a very clean sound. I usually ask for all 3 horns, several of our vocals, some drums and a bit of guitar if it's a very large stage.

I would suggest IEM's to any working musician. I'm hearing small little things like I've never heard before in moniters, and that's after 30 years of gigging. Just imagine listening to a live recording of your band at home under headphones. Same thing. Nothing gets by you. You'll hear every out of tune note and every phrasing miscue in your horn section.

Sax players will notice that they have to listen to the monitor mix at a slightly higher level than rhythm players. The reason is simple. When you play the horn it resonates in your head, therefore you'll have to turn up a bit to hear the mix above the natural resonation.

These things aren't cheap. Around $1,000 for a good transmission system, and at least $300 for very good in ear speakers, but what kind of price should we put on a lifetime of saving our hearing and also hearing the band in a pleasant way?

[crawford]

FWIW, I'm just getting into IEM's after using a friend's setup to sit in at a few of his gigs. I've got a pair of Westone earbuds and a Mackie DFX6 mixer on the way. If you don't really need to be wireless, you can save beaucoup bucks by purcasing a small mixer like the one Tapco is making. I went with the Mackie for flexibility, but the Tapco mixer with Westone UM-1's gets you in ear for only about $200. I'll post more when I've had a gig with this setup.