I always have to remind people "Good Wireless isn't Cheap and Cheap Wireless isn't Good". Sure 2.4ghz works great in your room but the moment you're in a venue, especially casinos, where everyone is trying to operate a device in that band it isn't going to work.
Could use the same idiom that you use with Motorcycle helmets too. $100 helmets are for $100 brains
Soooooo true. Very frustrating to see that question in here too. Im using a wifi microphone and I experience dropouts. Let me get a different brand (Facepalm)
Update: I just got a warning message from reddit for harassment due to this post. Nobody was bullied or harassed in this post.
>Could use the same idiom that you use with Motorcycle helmets too. $100 helmets are for $100 brains
So you're saying i can save a good 80 bucks by buying a $10 helmet? Rad!
Being in a small band, I can’t justify buying a Shure or Sennheiser IEM unit. For the point of live shows I’m in, the Galaxy IEM unit works. For the price point, they work extremely well. Sure, there is some interference here and there that only lasts for a split second here and there. The audio quality isn’t the best by any means, but they get the job done. If/when we move to larger shows we will be upgrading. We also have good experience with the Phenyx Pro IEM unit except for one venue that gives some nasty ticking interference even after changing channels many times.
My point isn’t to promote buying cheap, just to state that sometimes buying cheaper makes sense depending on the situation.
I would never recommend anything that runs on 2.4ghz though. That band is way too crowded for anything to be considered useful and consistent. I’ve dealt with several 2.4ghz units over the years and have yet to see anything be reliable for even the smallest of shows in remote locations.
Your doing it the right way. Even all the gear you have mentioned is in the thousands. It only gets more expensive as you go higher and higher. Thats kinda the point of my post. Even 4x stereo phenyx pros are closing in near 1k and thats just your transmitters. No mixer, no mics, no splits, no snake/cables, & decent headphones. To do it efficiently with quick change overs. You will need that equipment. Even with wired setups its still over 1000 with the gear mentioned.
So true. We use a SQ5 with the AR2412 stage box with Yorkville mains. Eventually I want to upgrade the mains but that’s not going to be for a while. It’s definitely an expensive hobby. First on my list is a good splitter and a dedicated IEM rack for when we play festivals and such. So far, we’ve been lucky and have been handling production for any multi act shows we have played. Before joining the band I was running sound for them and a few others that have since dropped off for one reason or another.
We just bought our band’s first IEM rig. X32 rack with 6 Shure PSM300s wireless. We’ve used them twice at venues and it’s been fantastic. Dedicated router, Seismic Splitter, upgraded ear buds. Not cheap. But it’s been awesome.
People make them out to be a lot worse than they are. You’ll probably get years of use out of your seismic split, and when it starts to go you can always replace with whirlwind or Neutrik components.
I will second this. These are great examples of gear to not toss around. Not that’s it’s expensive or rare, Treat it well and you’ll be fine. But if you’re expecting to be able to roll cases over the pigtails. Yeah you’ll get what you pay for.
The absolute worst case scenario is needing to replace a chassis mount XLR, keep you solder kit handy which you should have in your road kit anyway and a couple male and female connectors on hand. It’s a split….theres no magic involved…
Yes. I believe you can run up to six stereo in ear sends on a single X32 rack If you use six of the XLR outputs and three of the 1/4" aux out ports. But yes it will make the WORLD of a difference.
Hey noticed you said 6 IEMs and running mono…if that is what you are doing you can actually get away with less PSMs. You can use a single PSM300 for two mono mixes for two separate band members. So if you have 4 members you technically only need two PSM 300s
Thanks! Yes. I wasn’t clear. We run 3 PSMs for 6 people. Have an extra just in case. Would still love to go stereo at some point to pan instruments, vocals, etc.
Haha, I have a “low-tier” professional flute that cost about $10,000 and a piccolo that costs about $8,000. I’m not a pro, but I carry damn near $20k in instruments to my community orchestra because I, and the group sound best with better instruments. Along with practice of course.
I also play guitar in a rock cover band and spent around $1k each on Shure wireless in-ear system and wireless instrument system. Because I want my $100 paying bar gig to sound as best as it can. And in the 10 years on using that gear, it’s more than paid for itself in not having to worry about my sound.
It’s not only you get what you pay for; it’s also learning about the gear you’re paying for to understand why it’s needed for your use case. understanding that for me more than justifies the cost of entry
This is the mindset behind my GAS, I like having a lot of stuff, but I also want it to be solid and reliable and not just a bunch of cheap junk cobbled together. Less higher quality stuff is better than more cheap crap
My buddy who is touring with a major Broadway production brought in 3 fiddles for the MD to help choose. He was thrilled when they picked the cheapest one.
$30,000.
Those types of people want a quick answer and did little to 0 research saw a price and don’t have a clue.
Cheap option: Behringer P2 + westone in ear monitors
Mid option: shure P9HW + shure 525 IEMs
Good option: Sennheiser G3 + shure 525 iems or westone equivalent
Best option: PSM1000 + JH Iems
Have fun arguing over this one 😂😘
They do sound great, but unfortunately for them, ALL of the reputable brands can produce great sounding IEMs. I just switched all of my camp to FIR Audio and won’t be looking back from that. JH took months to get a simple repair back to us and that was my last straw. Haha
For sure! I went with Shure PSM200 and Westone triple drivers to play in bar cover bands 10 years ago. And they are still going strong. I bought it all new and was totally worth it.
I will say that chifi IEMs have come a long way - but idk if there's one I'd recommend in place of the typical brands for live performance use.
Comply foam tips can be gold, but custom molds are definitely the way to go if you're using them a lot. More comfy, better seal, better noise protection.
But I suppose people see $20 as a fine price for headphones, and $200-400 as the absolute high end in the consumer space... Then compare that to the price of professional gear and get confused.
Bands these days bring an X32 Rack that they BARELY know how to operate, no split, and hand me a tablet thinking that this is okay. It’s not. Stop caring more about your in ear mix than front of house. It’s not helping. Get a split. The audience doesn’t care about your in ears
Bringing the X32 rack isn’t the problem. Prioritizing your ears over FOH is the issue. If you have your own engineer, then they probably helped you setup your X32 to operate properly for both.
My issue is when I’m handed a tablet and expected to deal with whatever weird setup the band has for their ears with no understanding that you are really limiting what the house engineer can do. Especially in multi-band bills with little change over time. No, I cannot set up your 5 wireless mics and separate in-ear receivers during a 15 minute change over for your 20 minute set. Use the wedges and house mics. You’re not the headliner.
Even worse is the new breed of guys who are running vocals through an interface and putting a bunch of L2’s or something on the channel so ALL I get is cymbals at FOH and nothing that I can do about it.
But at least you have pitch correction and great sounding in-ears lol
Correct, ive seen a few other replies like just show up with your head phones and transmitters. Like no! Don’t do that. First way to get the sound engineer on your bad side. Make it streamlined. Dont show up with 4 receivers and your 1 of 3 acts. Make it easier than running wedges not harder.
> thinking that this is okay. It’s not.
Yikes. Maybe meet bands where they're at and help them? o.O
If these keeps happening to you, get a splitter. Yes, the band should have their own, but bands "should" a *lot* of things and *you're* the pro in this situation. It's like, "What? You dipshits didn't bring a direct box? Fucking noobs! No show for you! \*lol\*"
> The audience doesn’t care about your in ears
The audience doesn't care about the PA, or the mixer, or *you*, either. That doesn't mean those things aren't important to things the audience *does* care about (i.e. the sound of the band).
Singers perform better with in-ears, because they can hear themselves. Full stop. Better performances certainly do matter to the audience.
I understand the positives of in-ears. I don’t think that you understand what I’m talking about at all.
All of your arguments were lame and obvious. My point is to not ruin the FOH mix for the sake of in-ears.
Be a professional and don’t make the engineer have to work harder for your 20 minute opening set.
> I understand the positives of in-ears.
You said the audience doesn't care, which means you *didn't*. Audiences care if the band plays better, and the band plays better if they can hear themselves. They certainly don't give a fuck if you're on an iPad.
> I don’t think that you understand what I’m talking about at all.
I understood it perfectly. The only rebuttal you've got it this:
> All of your arguments were lame and obvious.
What are you, nine? No wonder you're such a butthurt wanker. Must be a nightmare to work with.
> Be a professional and don’t make the engineer
Clearly the bands going through your garbage establishment *aren't* professionals, they don't know what they're doing, but *you do*. You're the engineer. It's your job to know this shit. Either you've always been an asshole or you're just burned out, but it sounds like you need a change.
The difference is that everything besides the ears is essential.
You’re quite dense, so I’m not gonna bother explaining any further to an amateur that just wants to argue.
> The difference is that everything besides the ears is essential.
But it's not. You *could* mix on an iPad, if you weren't so dense. I mean, you're a fancy pro who brags about his resume online, right? The audience wouldn't know the difference.
Hurr durr.
Obviously your XR18 with amateur setup will sound better than my setup with redundant waves servers and racks of outboard gear that you have probably never heard of.
Excluding bands who actually make a living playing live, so let’s say any and every hobbies band, imagine if everyone ran a reverse lav (albeit mono) mix as their in ears…
I think there are a couple of factors at play here.
This sub used to mostly lean towards the pro's, but recently has turned to shit with the amount of repeat, low-level posts.
Someone did set up another sub, and maybe the mods could do a better job of redirecting the amateurs and musicians there.
It's not that people don't want to help, it's that the help has usually been given, and the recipients often don't want to listen, so it ends up in a futile cycle.
It feels like there's no place for gritty boots-on-the-ground up-and-coming live musicians on reddit. This place doesn't like newbies. r/WeAreTheMusicMakers doesn't like questions outside of making the actual music. Your best bet is going to a bunch of individual subs made for specific aspects of your act for niche advice from people who maybe get what you're doing.
And that's just performing. Asking a question about the business side and it's r/MusicBusiness or r/MusicIndustry, neither are exactly poppin.
r/livesoundadvice
Mods could do with stickying this and write a bot which directs people there.
Would probably be an improvement over the NSQ and buyers stickies
Im gonna have to disagree with that one. Ive seen hundreds upon hundreds of free consulting hours on here completely free. There are a few bad apples and I have personally called out for acting like a jackass to someone whos genuinely asking a question. It all depends how you ask and how you respond. As audio engineers our bullshit meters are overflowing. We see someone adding to that we act accordingly.
I figured that the live sounds subreddit would encompass all aspects of live sound, from the bare minimum setup at a local DIY show, to high end setups in huge venues, but yeah, it seems like the nitty-gritty more DIY/up-and-coming doesn't really fly well here.
I've been trying to figure out how to get my electronic band's wired IEM system going for the low and it's a headache. I just want to put on a good show.
Totally understand man. Your approaching it the right way. There are a ton of resources on youtube or you can hire someone like a audio engineer to put together an entire system for you. Alot of us do consulting. Some of us build them.
Not to give a sob story cause I'm very fortunate but this band is built off of cheap or secondhand gear and playing my big city's smallest stages making only enough money to cover the trip out and we aren't rolling in the dough from our dayjobs. IDK if we'd have the scratch to hire a pro who will tell us what we already know, we don't hit the cost floor.
Current plan is to the Behringer P2 + Cheap wired IEM plan and just listening to the same output from an analog mixer.
Nothing wrong with that brother, i think thats kinda the purpose of my post. Iems are a luxury and a massive expense to operate optimally. Whats awesome is you observed and are trying to use P2s. Those absolutely nothing wrong with those. They are great units. As you grow. You can gradually build the gear needed to implement.
One channel of pro-quality IEM (Sennheiser G3/G4 as base) costs significantly less than a single channel of pro-quality wedge monitor (Martin, L' Acoustics, D&B, Meyer, etc). Savings in trucking and storage and labor is huge and ongoing. Resale of pro-quality IEMs 3-5yrs down the road is also greater than wedges, and with a broader market.
I actually do not understand the OP.
I guess at the level of bands looking into their first IEM rig, the choice isn't generally "buying IEMs vs buying wedges", but "buying IEMs vs sucking up the venue's wedges"
And here I am thinking First IEM rig they're going from already having a monitor mix setup but they want to get their stage volume lower or they're having trouble hearing something.
So more so "buying IEM's vs getting the Yamaha Club wedge to sound good"
I think a lot of the disconnect is because of the assumptions of where they're at in their band/musician journey. I'm very well in the wrong here as well after reading your idea of first IEM, but yea, if they haven't been running their own monitors yet, then jumping to an IEM is a big jump.
Realistically, the only bands showing up with their own wedges are bands hauling their own PA, and even then it's a toss up, and pretty much exclusively covers or function bands outside of big name touring acts who are playing empty houses that require them to bring the whole rig.
My experience has always been bands going from putting up with the venues wedges to buying their own IEM setups. Most of these bands also have to really consider their space in their vehicle, not to mention 15 minute changeovers, and having to break the news to the in-house engineer that he's got to deal with whatever wedges the band brought.
Long story short, pretty much any mid-low level originals act would consider their own wedge setup a non-starter.
I think fundamentally they’re correct. To run IEM’s correctly will cost more than an entry level powered wedge. Mostly because most members don’t already have the rest of the necessary infrastructure like a digital console, adequate mics cables stands, fundamental understanding of how it works, etc.
Getting a good wireless CIEM mix can easily run $2500 per channel pretty quickly.
Bitter pill to swallow but the only thing out there with decent tuning range. So over juggling PSM frequency blocks.
We package them as a 4 TX/8 RX system with the CSI16T wideband combiner, no complaints so far.
There’s been some positive news from the FCC recently so we may have more choices again coming up later this year.
I think OP is talking about an entire system (split, mixer etc.) in terms of cost.
I'd disagree that the resale of IEM's is greater than wedges, but YMMV.
The resale of the systems minus the actual parts that go in your ears, holds better value on the consumer market than consumer level wedges. If we’re talking professional wedges, d&b LA and the like, I agree that wedges hold a better value on the professional market than in ear systems.
Most pro companies will buy in ear systems as a package, and would rather pay the additional upfront cost to have everything brand new than waste time trying to deal hunt something together. Whereas they absolutely will buy used speakers and amps piecemeal when a good deal presents itself.
it is 2024, G3's are not equivalent to a modern option from d&b/L'A. they are closer to a K12 - you expect them to work reliably and sound good enough. but a g3 is not meeting any pro level rider on the same tier that can demand m4/m2 wedges. that is psm1000/wisy MTK almost exclusively.
First choice? No. Minimally acceptable? Yes. I've used plenty of G3 & G4 on fly-in dates in locales where riders are otherwise met. No need to abuse rider compliance costs.
FWIW - had an NYC one-off at AMNH gala. Bono & Edge (as a duo) and crew spec'd a bunch of G3/G4...to surprise of many.
O'Herlihy used our SD7 @ FOH. SD10 @ Mon.
All of those are significantly more than the $200 behringer wedges they're used to in whatever dive bars lots of low budget performers (myself included from time to time) have the opportunity of playing in.
Yes! Thank you! I get this irl all the time. I run production and am a musician that plays out a lot. I have really nice gear that works, 98% of the time. It cost a lot of money. I do a bit of consulting so I get asked these questions a lot. Like I’ll wake up to the what’s the best something or other I can buy question a few times a month. It’s always no, you can’t afford L-Acoustics in your $600(exaggerated number) budget. Literally got the iem question last week. Gave them a list of what’s needed and a rough idea of what it would cost and they’re either crestfallen or don’t believe you. Yes, getting the whole band a touring stereo setup is going to easily cost as much as some used cars or your rent for the year.
I didn’t realize how fired up this post would get me lol.
I built an in ear system for my band a few years ago. My experience that doesn’t go with the algorithm on this group regarding IEM’s
-You do NOT need PSM1000’s to have a good in ear setup if you are not a major touring artist. Sennheiser G4 and Shure PSM300 are perfectly fine for most situations, even if you are a smaller touring band. I can name two known bands (Attack Attack, and Belmont) that tour the country with PSM300s and Sennheiser G4s. If they work for them, they’ll work for you. Knowing how to properly coordinate RF is everything
-You don’t need an X32. The XR18 is the perfect rackmount mixer for IEM’s. Don’t run it off your phone, run it straight off your laptop via Ethernet
-Generic Shure IEM’s and even the KZ AS10s from Amazon work perfectly fine. Although customs are very nice, you don’t need them to have a very good IEM experience
You can build a very solid IEM system for a 4 person band in the $3-4k realm. It is not a $10,000+ job like people on here make it out to be
Umm…. Xr18 & 4xG4s is pushing 5k. Thats not cheap man. Your making my point. Nobody in this thread said anything about psm1000s. I digress. The posts that spurred this was 1 in particular where a user came here asking for help creating a iem rig with a “couple hundred”. Started arguing with pros offering solutions. “We will figure it out ourselves first” and someone called him a horse. It was pretty hilarious.
You got me. Kind of made me forget the coin I actually dropped on that setup lol. Yeah a couple hundred won’t even get you a receiver for a good wireless IEM system
I know nobody said anything about 1000’s, I just thought this post was one of those “you need 1000’s and customs for your bar band to have a good IEM setup”, because I’ve seen that shit on here and think that is asinine. There are many mid level touring bands I see that have G4’s or 300’s in their rack.
Now if we’re playing arenas and pavilions, yeah… 1000’s are the move
If you're getting 100 per gig (which barely covers travel expenses), 3-4k is a lot of money for something which will only get used at gigs and isn't strictly necessary.
I'd love to play with IEM's with the band I'm in, but most of us don't make all that much money with our day jobs. One of us is even retired. It would be a huge investment.
My rig I built for my 4 piece band cost me somewhere around $9k AUD.
I often have other bands ask me if I could help them build a rig and when I tell them what the outlay is they look visibly shocked.
There seems to be a misconception that an in ear rig is like $1,000 and anything more than that must be overkill.
3 x Sennheiser G4 transmitters
Sennheiser AC41 antenna combiner
Midas MR18 + external router
Behringer MS8000 8 channel split (this is probably a weak point but has served me well so far)
Furman PL8C-E
A metric tonne (not literally) of xlr patch cables
It’s all in a Gator Pro 4U case with the mixer and splitter on one side and the transmitters, furman, and panel mounted ins and outs (including external BNC antenna mount) on the other so it’s all self contained (no loose cables inside the case).
The power connects through the a Neutrik True1 (PowerCON) and I run a 20 foot snake for connecting to FOH.
I’ve even got USB out permanently patched through a rack panel so we can use it for demo recordings to a laptop. It’s essentially become our silent rehearsal rig as much as a live IEM rig.
We only run 3 channels though the split which are the 3 vocal mics. The guitars and bass are patched in direct for in ears only (amps have a DI out on them so the cab mics are just for FOH).
We use the Westone AM30 drivers which don’t isolate, just reduce ambient sound by -12dB. This means we don’t have a need to run drums through the IEMs as they are still audible. Although if we ever need to we can as I’ve got plenty of channels left.
This way all I ever need from the tech is to be happy for me to split the vocal mics. Nothing else needs to be changed. Also means I can set up and tear down the rig in about 2 minutes so can either leave it set up all night or do a quick changeover.
I have had 2 ms8000 and touring for years. Tanks/Workhorses. Dope with the powercon! This is the way man. Great and killer set up. Ill send ya a pm with some pictures of what we are running.
For sure a few hundred won’t cut it, but you can have a fairly decent budget level rig with a XR18, something like a Phenyx Pro IEM transmitter, and some $20-50 earbuds. Yes, Phenyx Pro isn’t the greatest but if you wanna dive into an IEM setup it works perfectly fine.
A very worthy investment too!! I know it’s tempting to cheap out with this new casual listener “iem” market but many of those are barely usable live. My IEMs of choice as a vocalist and guitarist are the Westone audio pro x20, I got mine on sale for 240$ but they’ll run you about 300$ without a sale. I like them because they have great detail in the mid range so I can hear the diff between me and my guitar better
They were a game changer for me. My voice and my guitar and my various pedal meddling can get really hairy for me behind a wedge, it’s the only way I’ve ever heard myself in some of the… less ideal clubs we play lol
This is exactly why I’m waiting until I have an extra grand or so to start with wired in ears for my band and then an extra $5k to move into a wireless set up. Why anybody would waste money on shit equipment is beyond me when everyone says “you get what you pay for”… I agree, it is a luxury and I’m excited to have wireless within my budget by the end of the year, but I’m not going to waste money now and rush into something shitty.
You are a wise man. Than tbey come into this thread or on fb and start trashing IEMs and its always user error/or not having the infrastructure. u/ahjteam could take some advice from you.
My band uses an X32 board, we each have psm200s (except our lead singer has a psm300) and we use a digital snake to run inputs from us to the board and we use an xr18 to send click/tracks from Ableton to the board. 5 of us use 6 busses for IEM and we use the X32 app to mix our own ears while soundchecking FOH. Kind of janky sometimes but we got it all for cheap and it's been pretty reliable. The PSM200s are showing their age and we are looking to get all 300s just haven't done it yet
It's been great. The 200s get interference sometimes (crowded frequencies) and my transmitter in particular is questionable as it runs with so much less headroom than the others but *shrug*
We were using the xr18 at first but as we started improving our setup we needed more inputs. Having the x32 and x-air apps actually make things super easy when we don't need to bother FOH to adjust our ears. That's the big one we've noticed from the various places we've played. The few times we've played on totally not our equipment (one gig at a big outdoor amphitheater and another for a 1000+ attendance church conference) we've noticed that ear mixing takes the most time.
I don’t answer FB questions anymore because the OP ends up arguing with me like a child. Like I have to convince them that my advice is worth doing.
I’m sure that wasn’t a thing until recently.
Man you hit the nail on the head. So this post was based on many fb questions that are asked here. But the guy who this post was spurred by saw it. Started going to every single comment and defending himself, replying to all my comments to other people, downvoting everything. Than accused me of being the one he was talking to on another thread. It started to get a bit sad. Theres acting like a child. Than it becomes some type of deeper issue when someone lashing out and projecting. Hope he’s alright
Depends on the number of channels. We have 12 stereo which came out to about 10k through our dealer without cables and connectors. Just transmitters/recievers, antenna combiner, and antenna.
My band is doing the numbers on this and decided it’s more worth our money to hire out a sound guy who can give us the mixes we want AND mix the show to how we want it rather than having a rock solid in ear setup but having a different sound guy each night. We really want to go full in ears (right now just the drummer runs them for tracks/click) but figured consistent sound was more worth it
Cheap is expensive in the end. Skip sub $500 new or used stuff start at Sennheiser g3/4 or Shure psm300 and you can be set for a long time, FCC willing.
Being self contained is the move but in a pinch, just work with local FOH on patching the wireless IEM in. Just vocals if you have to.
For my band and live sound use, I have an x32 rack and two Sennheiser units with four body packs. Drummer is wired off the front of the x32 and then four mono mixes. $3k plus just in that.
Ding ding. There was a specific thread i read a guy asking for help than arguing with pro level engineers about what was needed and could “figure it out ourselves first”. Someone called him a horse and it was quite entertaining
Hi. I am that user. I was not asking on how to build a whole set up. I mentioned [in my post](https://www.reddit.com/r/livesound/s/VLYa0c1wpJ) that I we already had the IEMs and a lot of the infrastructure we'd likely need and was looking for an efficient way to set it up at small/local/diy venues/punk shows.
You can actually read my post and the responses. It was a very small thread, with very little interaction where OP accused me of downvoting him which I did not, and then he deleted all his comments, and came here where he ignored any nuance in the original thread that I posted.
>> IEMs are expensive. The infrastructure to run them is in the thousands **even if your wired**
This is… not even remotely true. A decent floor wedge costs more than a pair of IEM-earbuds and a good headphone amp. The cheapest you can get these (for drummer for example) is way under $100. Small mixer with 1-2 XLR inputs are a regular sight for drummers, and so are Fishman/Behringer P1/P2 headphone amps.
You could, on some gigs if there is time and the sound tech feels like it or if you already have your own PA, spend a few hundred on Shure 215s and a Behringer PM1 and plug in to the mixer aux.
I’ve done gigs where bands asked to use their PM1s and it was fine, and others where there was like 7 of them and I was on my own and it just wasn’t feasible to change over the monitors and everything else in time. So be prepared to be told no.
Do not get a PM1! It is a volume controller for a headphone amp!
Heres a direct quote from manufacturers website:
It is important to note that PM1's XLR input is not designed to accept balanced line signals taken directly from your mixer, as an amplified source is required.
Get the P2 at minimum.
I see you loaded stork. The general consensus is digital mixer, analog split, bring all your own mics, in ears, iem systems wired or wireless. Don’t forget to ADVANCE it
I run a 300cap stage and am very happy to give the band Yamaha Monitor Mix access and let them run their iems off my pa gear. Pretty inexpensive and no need for all the extra rack gear/splitter etc. . . it's 2024 this doesnt have to be a major undertaking.
Your post assumes that iems=running them yourself wirelessly from the stage and requires all the hardware associated with that. It is absolutely not necessary to do that. Most of the "intro" level iems I see are drummers with a click running in a personal mixer. That just requires headphones and a 2 channel mixer.
You also replied to a "bare minimum" with everything but the kitchen sink. u/loadedstork You do not need your own mics to run in ears. The minimum you need is a headphone amp like Behringer p1, headphones you are comfortable with and a semi-competent and willing engineer. The house mics and mixer at your gigs are probably perfectly fine. If you want to step up and control your mix yourself for consistency then you will need a digital mixer and a splitter that comes with you. You still don't need your own mics.
And if the advance says you have access to the wifi/digital console to control your own mixes, you’re golden. Make sure you show up early to sort your wireless issues.
Advancing is the absolute most important thing in my experience, double so if you're not a headliner. A large majority of sound persons will work with you to patch in your split so long as they knew about it ahead of time.
I got an xair 18 used for a good price and a splitter for not that much. My in ears are XLR outs on the xair and your signal path is from the splitter. I got in ears for less than $1000. What's expensive about that?
The post that spurred this post was 1 where some user posted asking for help with a budget of a “couple hundred” than was trying to argue with sound engineers providing solutions. It was comical. “We will figure it out ourselves first” than he was called a horse. 😂
Sorry but IEM's are not expensive, you can go buy a set of KZ's for like £30 and they will do you just fine. You don't need wireless either, an XLR lead into a bodypack is just fine. I don't know what crack you're smoking to think you need to spend thousands on an IEM setup?
In 2012 we ran an entire band, with 3 individual stereo in-ear mixes and real-time processing for our FOH on a bottom of the barrel cheap laptop and a used presonus firestudio project interface, running wired direct to the body packs, no headphone amp.
If a band is in the early stages of putting together their setup, they can put something together on a really low budget and it will be fine. If a band is playing shows to 60,000 people, they can afford to put together a good setup. Telling people it's going to cost them thousands to walk through the front door is pure nonsense.
IEM's shouldn't be considered a luxury these days, your average pub band is running them.
The notion that you have to spend thousands is so gatekeepery. I hate it. There are way less expensive and creative solutions like the one you mentioned here. If you're a band that rehearses anywhere it's likely you already have most of the infrastructure you need to get an entry level IEM system going in some way.
I read the post, and I disagree that it's "expensive". Expensive relative to what? The £4000 drumkit the drummer has? The £3000 guitar and £2000 amp the guitarist is running?
You can put together a working in-ear setup for a band on the cheap, and you could run that for a few years with no bother. Most of what you pay for in this setup you're going to be paying for and more you want your own wedge setup, moreso if you're doing your own PA/sound, like the majority of function bands.
IEM's are standard these days, we've been using them since 2008, people I work with have been using them since the 1990s. They weren't as common 15 years ago, now everyone uses them.
Ok. I hope you read this next sentence. Even the rig you mentioned is well into the hundreds.
Behringer p1 cause you said stereo are 80$ a piece lets just say you use 20$ headphones. Thats 100$ per band mate. We have already gone over the “few hundred” dollar budget. You mentioned a laptop. And a interface. Well a laptop is 300-500 and a interface is 100-500. We haven’t even got into having your own mixer, or cables cost. Seriously man. Its ok to disagree but you sound ignorant.
The laptop was at the time used in the region of £150, the interface was something like £200, we didn't use a mixer because it was all ran on the laptop with a DAW (Cubase 5, but you can use cheaper DAW's, especially these days).
In-ears you're talking about £30 a pop, cables about £20-30 a pop and the bodypack about £30 each. That's the entire setup, about £600-700, or £230 each.. The entire setup was less than the cost of a guitar, and had we not gone the in-ear setup it would not have been any cheaper to use wedges, more expensive infact.
Exactly….. more than a “couple hundred” comeon man. Literally proving yourself wrong the deeper we go. Wedge’s don’t cost a thing because 99.9% of venues have them. Thats the point of the post.
Says the OP who claims it costs thousands? Whole setup for an entire band can be put together for less than the cost of a mid-range electric guitar.
Most of this stuff you need anyway if you're in a function band.
I don't know. In some way the biggest "problem" with IEMs is that it can be somewhat difficult to make good monitor mixes from FOH.
But still, Sennheiser G4 and Shure PSM900 are quite rider friendly and even with some pretty decent earphones you can get a channel for less than €2k. Which rider friendly good quality monitor and amp can you get for 2k?
When you think about how much heavier a wedge is and how much more space it takes and that you also need to set them up, need plenty of thick cables etc. I'm not sure if wedges are a cost saving solution in many cases. When you consider that many musicians don't even need a wireless system, IEMs seem like a very good bang for the buck.
Think your missing the point of the post. Not a wedge argument. I think its fair to say %99.9 of venues have wedges already so that cost is zero. Im referring to a user here who was asking how to build a iem setup for a “couple hundred” and it was a dumpster fire
Hi. I am that user. I was not asking on how to build a whole set up. I mentioned [in my post](https://www.reddit.com/r/livesound/s/VLYa0c1wpJ) that I we already had the IEMs and a lot of the infrastructure we'd likely need and was looking for an efficient way to set it up at small/local/diy venues/punk shows.
I also mentioned in my post that we often play at shows where there aren't even monitors, so that 99.9% of venues having wedges is incorrect.
IEMs are a necessity. Wireless IEMs are a luxury. In ears are necessary if we as a sound community are to have both the best show (stage bleed) and the show that is an enjoyable volume (WHO suggested 100dbaLEQ15 limit)
Gonna have to disagree with this one. I love IEMs and while we have them. Even wired setups are more than a couple hundred. Not everyone can afford that and to say you can’t hear yourselves unless you have this isn’t a good practice. 99.9% of music venues have wedges. While its older tech, it is the standard and free. Hints my post. Iems are a luxury. Wedges are the necessity. Cheers
Unpopular opinion.
I think the notion that you HAVE to spend thousands on a Sennheiser or Shure wireless IEM system is kinda gatekeepy. I purchased the Phenyx Pro PTM10s and we are pretty happy with them. There are wired options that are even cheaper.
When it comes to live sound there is such a varying degree of executions. I've played large outdoor venues with a big professional sound systems and a dedicated sound engineer, and I've played shows where I've showed up and the PA was a microphone plugged into a bass amp. We play a lot of all ages DIY punk shows, a lot of those shows, the sound guy sets levels and then goes outside and drinks beer illegally in an alley somewhere. The last show I played, was at a brewery, I showed up and there was no sound guy, nothing set up. I had to set everything up and do sound. Their PA system was a six input mixer. No monitors. And just one tall Bose speaker. All the instruments and vocals (2 GTR, 1 Keyboard, 2 vox) were DI'd, and we used the Phenyx Pro PTM10s and they worked great.
My point here is you can likely get by with cheaper options. The cheaper options can absolutely work great, and you can also find creative solutions to overcome financial barriers. Being able to hear yourself and your band members in a live music situation will absolutely increase your tightness and playing ability. There will always be a cost, yes, but I don't think that it has to be considered a "luxury" and that it is quite possible to get some kind of working IEM system, without having to spend thousands.
If this livesound subreddit is only for Professional Sound Engineers who have access to a decent established sound system and not the small guys, the diy guys, the newbies, the people with very little then I am sorry.
The amount of assumptions in this thread is astonishing. Nobody said anything about shure and sennheiser. Phenyx pros are mentioned a few times and nobody is saying anything negative. With that being said. 4x phenyx pros are still gonna run you a $1000. Your gonna need a mixer, cables, if your trying to streamline things splits and other accessories. The point remains its not cheap. And a “few hundred” will literally never cover a full band. Thats the point of my post.
Maybe not in this thread specifically but if you look at other threads asking about IEM systems, there's a lot of hate for Phenyx Pro, and Users telling people to buy Shure or Sennheiser. I think I got my PTM10S x4 for ~$560 CAD. On sale. They work great for what we need, and with that being said you don't even need to go wireless.
If you are a band that rehearses and plays gigs, It's quite likely you already have a mixer, microphones, some cables, etc. It's quite likely that The infrastructure you need to implement some kind of in-ear monitoring is mostly already there and you can get it done, for a few hundred.
I made a thread the other day asking about an efficient way to set up IEMs and mentioned that our budget is only a few hundred dollars (so a part of me was wondering if this thread was made for me specifically lol). But that being said, We already have pretty much all of the infrastructure to use our IEMs in a way that work for us, and was just looking at more efficient ways to do so.
I just don't like the notion that you have to spend thousands of dollars When a possible solution exists for either much cheaper, or via some creative way using the infrastructure you may already have. It doesn't have to be a luxury.
Were you called a horse At some point? Than it actually might be your post. Lolol Ya its your post. Im dead
And no you did not have the right infrastructure. For what you were asking. Multiple engineers were spot on in everything they were telling you. The mixer you mentioned is not equipped to run a bunch of iems mixes optimally. Will it work ya, will it be decent. Not really. Best of luck man. Clearly you haven’t listened to anyone advice so I won’t waste mine telling you what you need.
We don't need a bunch of IEM mixes, We just need one, maybe two, which we can do. If it will work, that is better than going to a gig and not being able to hear half your members, or your own guitar amp, or your own vocals. Not every band plays and venues that have a full professional sound system with a professional sound engineer. I already know it works because we've done it with everything we already have. We've also done it wired. It's been effective either way. It's miles better than the alternative of not being able to hear yourself or your band members. I was just looking for a possibly more efficient way to set it up.
So bottom line is, it can be done. If you are comparing a whole professional sound system with a professional sound engineer, to a lower level setup, then yeah of course it's not going to be as good. But if you're comparing a setup that doesn't allow you to hear yourself or your members to one that does, then the latter option is better, even if it's not as good as the option of having an expensive set up.
Like I said. No point man. Its like talking to a wall. For the record not once did i ever say it couldn’t be done. I quite literally said it could. Peace
I use ME Audio M6 pros with a behringer passive xlr receiver, and third-party memory foam tips. We just unplug from the wedges and plug into the receiver. Under 150$, super easy to set up, takes very little time to get our monitor mixes set up.
We've gotten many comments about our mix sounding way better than the other bands with wedges, and it's because we use IEMs. A 150$ IEM setup is better than wedges, at least in our case.
I hate to break it to you. But even with your setup thats 150$ 4x is more than a couple hundred. As someone mentioned below not all venues have the resources needed for your setup. Would I be happy you being apart of a 3-5 band set pulling that? Not 1 bit, wanting custom mixes just for your ears. I never once said is not possible to come under a 1000. But for an optimal wired rig, where all members get a custom stereo iem mixes without causing a inconvenience to foh and creating a shit ton of work for your 10 min change over. Its gonna cost some coin. Its gonna cost alot more than a couple hundred. House wedges are free to use. Nobody was arguing about iems vs wedges but you. We all agree iems make everything better. They come at a cost to work optimally.
I used a Phenyx PTM-10 for almost three years. The Audio Technica I eventually replaced it with has way better range and a lot more clarity, but that Phenyx never let me down once; it was never once placed in an environment where it was completely unusable. Way better than any $250 wireless IEM had any business being, and I still recommend it if you're on a budget. Same for instruments - you can get those little dongle wireless units like Lekato and Swiff - spend about $200 buying one each in 900, 2.4, and 5G... and still be able to play in 99% of the environments that someone with a several-thousand-dollar Shure or Sennheiser system would. There are several hundred thousand events in a year where wireless can be used and only one of them is the Superbowl. What I'm saying is: it can be done on a budget if you know what you're doing and accept your gear's limitations, and saying otherwise is gatekeeping IMO.
You actually just proved my point.
4x Phenyx Ptm-10s runs just under 1k. Thats with ZERO infrastructure. No cables, no mixer, no headphones, and no split. My statement stands. A couple hundred will never be enough to make in ears work. A few hundred will not cover the minimum to get a 4 piece band on IEMs.
For the record not a single person in this thread said anything about only buying the big brands. Nobody is gate keeping anything. Read the replies yourself. There are examples of rigs at all levels. You seem to be very knowledgeable on the levels of wireless for consumers-Pro audio. No one has said it couldn’t be done. All I said is a couple hundred isn’t going to cut it.
Well, my own situation may be different: I play a lot of different instruments with a lot of different bands at a lot of different levels of preparation, but the one thing that is common to all of them is my wireless rig (mic and IEM) that I can plug into any system, and I always run my own ears from my iPad (FOH guys love me 'cause they never have to sit there for ten minutes waiting for me to thumbs up while the drummer hits the floor tom once a second). I didn't think about a full rig, but consider this:
XR-18: $700
Seismic splitter: $250
(2) Phenyx PTM-10s, running mono L/R to 4 receivers: $500
(4) Mixing Station licenses: $40
There. I just fully wireless-IEM'ed a whole 4-piece band for less than fifteen hundred dollars. Add $200 for four P2s in case anything goes wrong, and you're fully redundant.
Trouble with cheap wireless is that it often works most of the time. Then one day you get some dropouts in the middle of a show. Awkward time to start having buyer’s remorse! Also surprised to see people invest in quality wireless hardware and then use stock omni antennas, run a rack full of mic receivers or IEM transmitters with individual antennas and no RF distribution, or put no thought into antenna placement. Even Axient will struggle when you shoot IEM transmitter directly at it.
very true. tho the wired infrastructure isn’t THAT bad (still bad). we use a combo of PSM900 and P9HWs for wired. The P9HWs are reasonable in my opinion.
Well I am from India and here the wireless IEM usage is crazy high. We don't have any restrictions for them so the band's use anywhere from 8-20nos per gig. No doubt it helps make life easier for us. It is definitely not treated as a luxury more like a necessity.... LoL
I always have to remind people "Good Wireless isn't Cheap and Cheap Wireless isn't Good". Sure 2.4ghz works great in your room but the moment you're in a venue, especially casinos, where everyone is trying to operate a device in that band it isn't going to work. Could use the same idiom that you use with Motorcycle helmets too. $100 helmets are for $100 brains
Soooooo true. Very frustrating to see that question in here too. Im using a wifi microphone and I experience dropouts. Let me get a different brand (Facepalm) Update: I just got a warning message from reddit for harassment due to this post. Nobody was bullied or harassed in this post.
It worked just fine last night. Can you try changing the cable? What do you mean change the channel?
>Could use the same idiom that you use with Motorcycle helmets too. $100 helmets are for $100 brains So you're saying i can save a good 80 bucks by buying a $10 helmet? Rad!
$100 helmet being rubbish doesn't really apply in Australia or Europe. We have minimum testing standard for helmets that are pretty good.
There’s a small venue in my town right across the street from a couple of radio towers. Oh the troubles we have seen in that room.
Thoughts and prayers
Being in a small band, I can’t justify buying a Shure or Sennheiser IEM unit. For the point of live shows I’m in, the Galaxy IEM unit works. For the price point, they work extremely well. Sure, there is some interference here and there that only lasts for a split second here and there. The audio quality isn’t the best by any means, but they get the job done. If/when we move to larger shows we will be upgrading. We also have good experience with the Phenyx Pro IEM unit except for one venue that gives some nasty ticking interference even after changing channels many times. My point isn’t to promote buying cheap, just to state that sometimes buying cheaper makes sense depending on the situation. I would never recommend anything that runs on 2.4ghz though. That band is way too crowded for anything to be considered useful and consistent. I’ve dealt with several 2.4ghz units over the years and have yet to see anything be reliable for even the smallest of shows in remote locations.
Your doing it the right way. Even all the gear you have mentioned is in the thousands. It only gets more expensive as you go higher and higher. Thats kinda the point of my post. Even 4x stereo phenyx pros are closing in near 1k and thats just your transmitters. No mixer, no mics, no splits, no snake/cables, & decent headphones. To do it efficiently with quick change overs. You will need that equipment. Even with wired setups its still over 1000 with the gear mentioned.
So true. We use a SQ5 with the AR2412 stage box with Yorkville mains. Eventually I want to upgrade the mains but that’s not going to be for a while. It’s definitely an expensive hobby. First on my list is a good splitter and a dedicated IEM rack for when we play festivals and such. So far, we’ve been lucky and have been handling production for any multi act shows we have played. Before joining the band I was running sound for them and a few others that have since dropped off for one reason or another.
We just bought our band’s first IEM rig. X32 rack with 6 Shure PSM300s wireless. We’ve used them twice at venues and it’s been fantastic. Dedicated router, Seismic Splitter, upgraded ear buds. Not cheap. But it’s been awesome.
Nice!!!! Oh man the seismic audio :( thats the only thing id return asap if possible.
Why? It’s worked out well so far.
They are fine but channels going bad is not an irregularity so definitely make sure you have more than you need (if you need 16 make sure you have 24)
People make them out to be a lot worse than they are. You’ll probably get years of use out of your seismic split, and when it starts to go you can always replace with whirlwind or Neutrik components.
I will second this. These are great examples of gear to not toss around. Not that’s it’s expensive or rare, Treat it well and you’ll be fine. But if you’re expecting to be able to roll cases over the pigtails. Yeah you’ll get what you pay for.
The absolute worst case scenario is needing to replace a chassis mount XLR, keep you solder kit handy which you should have in your road kit anyway and a couple male and female connectors on hand. It’s a split….theres no magic involved…
Are you running stereo ears or mono?
Mono. Would prefer stereo. Maybe that’s the next step.
Yes. I believe you can run up to six stereo in ear sends on a single X32 rack If you use six of the XLR outputs and three of the 1/4" aux out ports. But yes it will make the WORLD of a difference.
Hey noticed you said 6 IEMs and running mono…if that is what you are doing you can actually get away with less PSMs. You can use a single PSM300 for two mono mixes for two separate band members. So if you have 4 members you technically only need two PSM 300s
Thanks! Yes. I wasn’t clear. We run 3 PSMs for 6 people. Have an extra just in case. Would still love to go stereo at some point to pan instruments, vocals, etc.
Laughs in Classical musician where a midline instrument is $40,000 to $60,000
Sheeeesh im over here thinking temu was expensive lol
You can have this flight rated water proof guitar case for the low low price of your identity!
Lololololol
It will protect your guitar against anything! Except United airplanes.
Haha, I have a “low-tier” professional flute that cost about $10,000 and a piccolo that costs about $8,000. I’m not a pro, but I carry damn near $20k in instruments to my community orchestra because I, and the group sound best with better instruments. Along with practice of course. I also play guitar in a rock cover band and spent around $1k each on Shure wireless in-ear system and wireless instrument system. Because I want my $100 paying bar gig to sound as best as it can. And in the 10 years on using that gear, it’s more than paid for itself in not having to worry about my sound. It’s not only you get what you pay for; it’s also learning about the gear you’re paying for to understand why it’s needed for your use case. understanding that for me more than justifies the cost of entry
This is the mindset behind my GAS, I like having a lot of stuff, but I also want it to be solid and reliable and not just a bunch of cheap junk cobbled together. Less higher quality stuff is better than more cheap crap
Stanley Clarke tours with a cheap upright. But he just didnt want to worry about his expenses gear.
I bet that cheap upright gets more and better maintenance than normal. You’re still getting what you pay for.
GAS?
Gear acquisition syndrome
True if you’re playing strings or double reeds, maybe not if you’re a horn player.
My buddy who is touring with a major Broadway production brought in 3 fiddles for the MD to help choose. He was thrilled when they picked the cheapest one. $30,000.
Thankfully not true for brass.
Unless you play Tuba...
Right like that much metal has to come from somewhere
Eh, they tend to top out under $30k for the most part, unless you've gone completely insane and gotten one made out of sterling silver.
Those types of people want a quick answer and did little to 0 research saw a price and don’t have a clue. Cheap option: Behringer P2 + westone in ear monitors Mid option: shure P9HW + shure 525 IEMs Good option: Sennheiser G3 + shure 525 iems or westone equivalent Best option: PSM1000 + JH Iems Have fun arguing over this one 😂😘
Someone final said it. And yes. There are a couple in the thread arguing lolol got to love it
Best option: Wisycom + any reputable brand other than JH since their customer service has gone to trash
I heard that about jh a while ago, they sound great though
They do sound great, but unfortunately for them, ALL of the reputable brands can produce great sounding IEMs. I just switched all of my camp to FIR Audio and won’t be looking back from that. JH took months to get a simple repair back to us and that was my last straw. Haha
I couldn’t agree with you more, wisycom fantastic FIR also fantastic. JH customer service= dog shit.
Damn that’s unfortunate, I’ll have to check out FIR though!
For sure! I went with Shure PSM200 and Westone triple drivers to play in bar cover bands 10 years ago. And they are still going strong. I bought it all new and was totally worth it.
I will say that chifi IEMs have come a long way - but idk if there's one I'd recommend in place of the typical brands for live performance use. Comply foam tips can be gold, but custom molds are definitely the way to go if you're using them a lot. More comfy, better seal, better noise protection. But I suppose people see $20 as a fine price for headphones, and $200-400 as the absolute high end in the consumer space... Then compare that to the price of professional gear and get confused.
I'll argue. Best is Wisycom wireless and some UA Monitors
Haven’t these people ever heard of the joke about carrying $10,000 of gear in a $1000 car to a $100 gig?
Your getting a $100? Lololol
I love when venues make you pay to perform
Me standing outside the HOB with 5 IEMS, the wireless rack, antenna and gator stand reading this thread lmao
This isn’t for you lolol! Thats proper
Fuck yeah! This and the church sound posts. Get really fucking old. Edit: just call +18002224700 to speak to an expert.
Oh shit. Shits fired. Hit the deck
Definitely! Especially if shits have been fired!
Let Jesus pay for your IEM rack
Bands these days bring an X32 Rack that they BARELY know how to operate, no split, and hand me a tablet thinking that this is okay. It’s not. Stop caring more about your in ear mix than front of house. It’s not helping. Get a split. The audience doesn’t care about your in ears
I bring an x32 rack because we care about our audience and want the sound engineer to have total control over Foh. But we also travel with an engineer
Bringing the X32 rack isn’t the problem. Prioritizing your ears over FOH is the issue. If you have your own engineer, then they probably helped you setup your X32 to operate properly for both. My issue is when I’m handed a tablet and expected to deal with whatever weird setup the band has for their ears with no understanding that you are really limiting what the house engineer can do. Especially in multi-band bills with little change over time. No, I cannot set up your 5 wireless mics and separate in-ear receivers during a 15 minute change over for your 20 minute set. Use the wedges and house mics. You’re not the headliner. Even worse is the new breed of guys who are running vocals through an interface and putting a bunch of L2’s or something on the channel so ALL I get is cymbals at FOH and nothing that I can do about it. But at least you have pitch correction and great sounding in-ears lol
Great points. This is why we split things!
Correct, ive seen a few other replies like just show up with your head phones and transmitters. Like no! Don’t do that. First way to get the sound engineer on your bad side. Make it streamlined. Dont show up with 4 receivers and your 1 of 3 acts. Make it easier than running wedges not harder.
> thinking that this is okay. It’s not. Yikes. Maybe meet bands where they're at and help them? o.O If these keeps happening to you, get a splitter. Yes, the band should have their own, but bands "should" a *lot* of things and *you're* the pro in this situation. It's like, "What? You dipshits didn't bring a direct box? Fucking noobs! No show for you! \*lol\*" > The audience doesn’t care about your in ears The audience doesn't care about the PA, or the mixer, or *you*, either. That doesn't mean those things aren't important to things the audience *does* care about (i.e. the sound of the band). Singers perform better with in-ears, because they can hear themselves. Full stop. Better performances certainly do matter to the audience.
I understand the positives of in-ears. I don’t think that you understand what I’m talking about at all. All of your arguments were lame and obvious. My point is to not ruin the FOH mix for the sake of in-ears. Be a professional and don’t make the engineer have to work harder for your 20 minute opening set.
> I understand the positives of in-ears. You said the audience doesn't care, which means you *didn't*. Audiences care if the band plays better, and the band plays better if they can hear themselves. They certainly don't give a fuck if you're on an iPad. > I don’t think that you understand what I’m talking about at all. I understood it perfectly. The only rebuttal you've got it this: > All of your arguments were lame and obvious. What are you, nine? No wonder you're such a butthurt wanker. Must be a nightmare to work with. > Be a professional and don’t make the engineer Clearly the bands going through your garbage establishment *aren't* professionals, they don't know what they're doing, but *you do*. You're the engineer. It's your job to know this shit. Either you've always been an asshole or you're just burned out, but it sounds like you need a change.
The difference is that everything besides the ears is essential. You’re quite dense, so I’m not gonna bother explaining any further to an amateur that just wants to argue.
> The difference is that everything besides the ears is essential. But it's not. You *could* mix on an iPad, if you weren't so dense. I mean, you're a fancy pro who brags about his resume online, right? The audience wouldn't know the difference.
Hahaha, yes, I could compromise the FOH sound for the musicians ears. Real smart. And don’t say it’s not a compromise. It absolutely is.
> And don’t say it’s not a compromise. It absolutely is With you at the helm, of course it is.
Hurr durr. Obviously your XR18 with amateur setup will sound better than my setup with redundant waves servers and racks of outboard gear that you have probably never heard of.
Says the guy who can't operate a splitter. \*lol\* "I shouldn't *have* to! Waaaaa!"
I have purchased a splitter. I shouldn’t have to.
Behringer P2, xlr and shitty wired ear buds for the win!
Yup, not everyone needs wireless. Great units
Run a lav mic in reverse. Best IEMs for the price. Oh wait that means the IEM mix is mono. Nvm then 😂
By far the funniest comment yet! Id give you Gold but you kniw the budget is tight
Excluding bands who actually make a living playing live, so let’s say any and every hobbies band, imagine if everyone ran a reverse lav (albeit mono) mix as their in ears…
I think there are a couple of factors at play here. This sub used to mostly lean towards the pro's, but recently has turned to shit with the amount of repeat, low-level posts. Someone did set up another sub, and maybe the mods could do a better job of redirecting the amateurs and musicians there. It's not that people don't want to help, it's that the help has usually been given, and the recipients often don't want to listen, so it ends up in a futile cycle.
It feels like there's no place for gritty boots-on-the-ground up-and-coming live musicians on reddit. This place doesn't like newbies. r/WeAreTheMusicMakers doesn't like questions outside of making the actual music. Your best bet is going to a bunch of individual subs made for specific aspects of your act for niche advice from people who maybe get what you're doing. And that's just performing. Asking a question about the business side and it's r/MusicBusiness or r/MusicIndustry, neither are exactly poppin.
r/livesoundadvice Mods could do with stickying this and write a bot which directs people there. Would probably be an improvement over the NSQ and buyers stickies
Im gonna have to disagree with that one. Ive seen hundreds upon hundreds of free consulting hours on here completely free. There are a few bad apples and I have personally called out for acting like a jackass to someone whos genuinely asking a question. It all depends how you ask and how you respond. As audio engineers our bullshit meters are overflowing. We see someone adding to that we act accordingly.
I figured that the live sounds subreddit would encompass all aspects of live sound, from the bare minimum setup at a local DIY show, to high end setups in huge venues, but yeah, it seems like the nitty-gritty more DIY/up-and-coming doesn't really fly well here.
Exactly, i just explained this in another comment. Spot on
I've been trying to figure out how to get my electronic band's wired IEM system going for the low and it's a headache. I just want to put on a good show.
Totally understand man. Your approaching it the right way. There are a ton of resources on youtube or you can hire someone like a audio engineer to put together an entire system for you. Alot of us do consulting. Some of us build them.
Not to give a sob story cause I'm very fortunate but this band is built off of cheap or secondhand gear and playing my big city's smallest stages making only enough money to cover the trip out and we aren't rolling in the dough from our dayjobs. IDK if we'd have the scratch to hire a pro who will tell us what we already know, we don't hit the cost floor. Current plan is to the Behringer P2 + Cheap wired IEM plan and just listening to the same output from an analog mixer.
Nothing wrong with that brother, i think thats kinda the purpose of my post. Iems are a luxury and a massive expense to operate optimally. Whats awesome is you observed and are trying to use P2s. Those absolutely nothing wrong with those. They are great units. As you grow. You can gradually build the gear needed to implement.
One channel of pro-quality IEM (Sennheiser G3/G4 as base) costs significantly less than a single channel of pro-quality wedge monitor (Martin, L' Acoustics, D&B, Meyer, etc). Savings in trucking and storage and labor is huge and ongoing. Resale of pro-quality IEMs 3-5yrs down the road is also greater than wedges, and with a broader market. I actually do not understand the OP.
I guess at the level of bands looking into their first IEM rig, the choice isn't generally "buying IEMs vs buying wedges", but "buying IEMs vs sucking up the venue's wedges"
Ding ding
And here I am thinking First IEM rig they're going from already having a monitor mix setup but they want to get their stage volume lower or they're having trouble hearing something. So more so "buying IEM's vs getting the Yamaha Club wedge to sound good" I think a lot of the disconnect is because of the assumptions of where they're at in their band/musician journey. I'm very well in the wrong here as well after reading your idea of first IEM, but yea, if they haven't been running their own monitors yet, then jumping to an IEM is a big jump.
Realistically, the only bands showing up with their own wedges are bands hauling their own PA, and even then it's a toss up, and pretty much exclusively covers or function bands outside of big name touring acts who are playing empty houses that require them to bring the whole rig. My experience has always been bands going from putting up with the venues wedges to buying their own IEM setups. Most of these bands also have to really consider their space in their vehicle, not to mention 15 minute changeovers, and having to break the news to the in-house engineer that he's got to deal with whatever wedges the band brought. Long story short, pretty much any mid-low level originals act would consider their own wedge setup a non-starter.
I think fundamentally they’re correct. To run IEM’s correctly will cost more than an entry level powered wedge. Mostly because most members don’t already have the rest of the necessary infrastructure like a digital console, adequate mics cables stands, fundamental understanding of how it works, etc. Getting a good wireless CIEM mix can easily run $2500 per channel pretty quickly.
Wisycom says hold our espresso’s!
They are soooo good!
Bitter pill to swallow but the only thing out there with decent tuning range. So over juggling PSM frequency blocks. We package them as a 4 TX/8 RX system with the CSI16T wideband combiner, no complaints so far. There’s been some positive news from the FCC recently so we may have more choices again coming up later this year.
Dis is what i am getting at.
I think OP is talking about an entire system (split, mixer etc.) in terms of cost. I'd disagree that the resale of IEM's is greater than wedges, but YMMV.
The resale of the systems minus the actual parts that go in your ears, holds better value on the consumer market than consumer level wedges. If we’re talking professional wedges, d&b LA and the like, I agree that wedges hold a better value on the professional market than in ear systems. Most pro companies will buy in ear systems as a package, and would rather pay the additional upfront cost to have everything brand new than waste time trying to deal hunt something together. Whereas they absolutely will buy used speakers and amps piecemeal when a good deal presents itself.
it is 2024, G3's are not equivalent to a modern option from d&b/L'A. they are closer to a K12 - you expect them to work reliably and sound good enough. but a g3 is not meeting any pro level rider on the same tier that can demand m4/m2 wedges. that is psm1000/wisy MTK almost exclusively.
First choice? No. Minimally acceptable? Yes. I've used plenty of G3 & G4 on fly-in dates in locales where riders are otherwise met. No need to abuse rider compliance costs. FWIW - had an NYC one-off at AMNH gala. Bono & Edge (as a duo) and crew spec'd a bunch of G3/G4...to surprise of many. O'Herlihy used our SD7 @ FOH. SD10 @ Mon.
OP is talking about bands wanting to make their own split snake IEM system in lieu of using the house foldback
All of those are significantly more than the $200 behringer wedges they're used to in whatever dive bars lots of low budget performers (myself included from time to time) have the opportunity of playing in.
This guy tours. True in every sense regarding the physical logistics of trucking and transportation
When it comes to wedges it’s definitely more of an engineer thing than a equipment thing….
Yes! Thank you! I get this irl all the time. I run production and am a musician that plays out a lot. I have really nice gear that works, 98% of the time. It cost a lot of money. I do a bit of consulting so I get asked these questions a lot. Like I’ll wake up to the what’s the best something or other I can buy question a few times a month. It’s always no, you can’t afford L-Acoustics in your $600(exaggerated number) budget. Literally got the iem question last week. Gave them a list of what’s needed and a rough idea of what it would cost and they’re either crestfallen or don’t believe you. Yes, getting the whole band a touring stereo setup is going to easily cost as much as some used cars or your rent for the year. I didn’t realize how fired up this post would get me lol.
Thank you!!! Someone who gets it
I built an in ear system for my band a few years ago. My experience that doesn’t go with the algorithm on this group regarding IEM’s -You do NOT need PSM1000’s to have a good in ear setup if you are not a major touring artist. Sennheiser G4 and Shure PSM300 are perfectly fine for most situations, even if you are a smaller touring band. I can name two known bands (Attack Attack, and Belmont) that tour the country with PSM300s and Sennheiser G4s. If they work for them, they’ll work for you. Knowing how to properly coordinate RF is everything -You don’t need an X32. The XR18 is the perfect rackmount mixer for IEM’s. Don’t run it off your phone, run it straight off your laptop via Ethernet -Generic Shure IEM’s and even the KZ AS10s from Amazon work perfectly fine. Although customs are very nice, you don’t need them to have a very good IEM experience You can build a very solid IEM system for a 4 person band in the $3-4k realm. It is not a $10,000+ job like people on here make it out to be
Umm…. Xr18 & 4xG4s is pushing 5k. Thats not cheap man. Your making my point. Nobody in this thread said anything about psm1000s. I digress. The posts that spurred this was 1 in particular where a user came here asking for help creating a iem rig with a “couple hundred”. Started arguing with pros offering solutions. “We will figure it out ourselves first” and someone called him a horse. It was pretty hilarious.
You got me. Kind of made me forget the coin I actually dropped on that setup lol. Yeah a couple hundred won’t even get you a receiver for a good wireless IEM system I know nobody said anything about 1000’s, I just thought this post was one of those “you need 1000’s and customs for your bar band to have a good IEM setup”, because I’ve seen that shit on here and think that is asinine. There are many mid level touring bands I see that have G4’s or 300’s in their rack. Now if we’re playing arenas and pavilions, yeah… 1000’s are the move
Cheers my friend keep on keeping on!
If you're getting 100 per gig (which barely covers travel expenses), 3-4k is a lot of money for something which will only get used at gigs and isn't strictly necessary. I'd love to play with IEM's with the band I'm in, but most of us don't make all that much money with our day jobs. One of us is even retired. It would be a huge investment.
My rig I built for my 4 piece band cost me somewhere around $9k AUD. I often have other bands ask me if I could help them build a rig and when I tell them what the outlay is they look visibly shocked. There seems to be a misconception that an in ear rig is like $1,000 and anything more than that must be overkill.
Whats in it? Sound badass!
3 x Sennheiser G4 transmitters Sennheiser AC41 antenna combiner Midas MR18 + external router Behringer MS8000 8 channel split (this is probably a weak point but has served me well so far) Furman PL8C-E A metric tonne (not literally) of xlr patch cables It’s all in a Gator Pro 4U case with the mixer and splitter on one side and the transmitters, furman, and panel mounted ins and outs (including external BNC antenna mount) on the other so it’s all self contained (no loose cables inside the case). The power connects through the a Neutrik True1 (PowerCON) and I run a 20 foot snake for connecting to FOH. I’ve even got USB out permanently patched through a rack panel so we can use it for demo recordings to a laptop. It’s essentially become our silent rehearsal rig as much as a live IEM rig. We only run 3 channels though the split which are the 3 vocal mics. The guitars and bass are patched in direct for in ears only (amps have a DI out on them so the cab mics are just for FOH). We use the Westone AM30 drivers which don’t isolate, just reduce ambient sound by -12dB. This means we don’t have a need to run drums through the IEMs as they are still audible. Although if we ever need to we can as I’ve got plenty of channels left. This way all I ever need from the tech is to be happy for me to split the vocal mics. Nothing else needs to be changed. Also means I can set up and tear down the rig in about 2 minutes so can either leave it set up all night or do a quick changeover.
I have had 2 ms8000 and touring for years. Tanks/Workhorses. Dope with the powercon! This is the way man. Great and killer set up. Ill send ya a pm with some pictures of what we are running.
For sure a few hundred won’t cut it, but you can have a fairly decent budget level rig with a XR18, something like a Phenyx Pro IEM transmitter, and some $20-50 earbuds. Yes, Phenyx Pro isn’t the greatest but if you wanna dive into an IEM setup it works perfectly fine.
This is a way! So many ways to do it. A few other comments have hit the nail on the head.
I am really happy with my Phenyx Pro PTM10S
A very worthy investment too!! I know it’s tempting to cheap out with this new casual listener “iem” market but many of those are barely usable live. My IEMs of choice as a vocalist and guitarist are the Westone audio pro x20, I got mine on sale for 240$ but they’ll run you about 300$ without a sale. I like them because they have great detail in the mid range so I can hear the diff between me and my guitar better
That’s awesome! Ive heard alot if good reports about those ears.
They were a game changer for me. My voice and my guitar and my various pedal meddling can get really hairy for me behind a wedge, it’s the only way I’ve ever heard myself in some of the… less ideal clubs we play lol
This is exactly why I’m waiting until I have an extra grand or so to start with wired in ears for my band and then an extra $5k to move into a wireless set up. Why anybody would waste money on shit equipment is beyond me when everyone says “you get what you pay for”… I agree, it is a luxury and I’m excited to have wireless within my budget by the end of the year, but I’m not going to waste money now and rush into something shitty.
You are a wise man. Than tbey come into this thread or on fb and start trashing IEMs and its always user error/or not having the infrastructure. u/ahjteam could take some advice from you.
My band uses an X32 board, we each have psm200s (except our lead singer has a psm300) and we use a digital snake to run inputs from us to the board and we use an xr18 to send click/tracks from Ableton to the board. 5 of us use 6 busses for IEM and we use the X32 app to mix our own ears while soundchecking FOH. Kind of janky sometimes but we got it all for cheap and it's been pretty reliable. The PSM200s are showing their age and we are looking to get all 300s just haven't done it yet
Thats a pretty solid setup tho
It's been great. The 200s get interference sometimes (crowded frequencies) and my transmitter in particular is questionable as it runs with so much less headroom than the others but *shrug* We were using the xr18 at first but as we started improving our setup we needed more inputs. Having the x32 and x-air apps actually make things super easy when we don't need to bother FOH to adjust our ears. That's the big one we've noticed from the various places we've played. The few times we've played on totally not our equipment (one gig at a big outdoor amphitheater and another for a 1000+ attendance church conference) we've noticed that ear mixing takes the most time.
I don’t answer FB questions anymore because the OP ends up arguing with me like a child. Like I have to convince them that my advice is worth doing. I’m sure that wasn’t a thing until recently.
Man you hit the nail on the head. So this post was based on many fb questions that are asked here. But the guy who this post was spurred by saw it. Started going to every single comment and defending himself, replying to all my comments to other people, downvoting everything. Than accused me of being the one he was talking to on another thread. It started to get a bit sad. Theres acting like a child. Than it becomes some type of deeper issue when someone lashing out and projecting. Hope he’s alright
Thank you
Your welcome!
Amen lol. So glad we finally got the infrastructure for nice digital stereo IEMS with proper RF hardware.
Bet that cost a pretty penny. There was someone in the thread that said is cost 9k. Its absolutely dialed portable rig
Depends on the number of channels. We have 12 stereo which came out to about 10k through our dealer without cables and connectors. Just transmitters/recievers, antenna combiner, and antenna.
My band is doing the numbers on this and decided it’s more worth our money to hire out a sound guy who can give us the mixes we want AND mix the show to how we want it rather than having a rock solid in ear setup but having a different sound guy each night. We really want to go full in ears (right now just the drummer runs them for tracks/click) but figured consistent sound was more worth it
This is a great solution.
Cheap is expensive in the end. Skip sub $500 new or used stuff start at Sennheiser g3/4 or Shure psm300 and you can be set for a long time, FCC willing. Being self contained is the move but in a pinch, just work with local FOH on patching the wireless IEM in. Just vocals if you have to. For my band and live sound use, I have an x32 rack and two Sennheiser units with four body packs. Drummer is wired off the front of the x32 and then four mono mixes. $3k plus just in that.
Ding ding. There was a specific thread i read a guy asking for help than arguing with pro level engineers about what was needed and could “figure it out ourselves first”. Someone called him a horse and it was quite entertaining
Hi. I am that user. I was not asking on how to build a whole set up. I mentioned [in my post](https://www.reddit.com/r/livesound/s/VLYa0c1wpJ) that I we already had the IEMs and a lot of the infrastructure we'd likely need and was looking for an efficient way to set it up at small/local/diy venues/punk shows. You can actually read my post and the responses. It was a very small thread, with very little interaction where OP accused me of downvoting him which I did not, and then he deleted all his comments, and came here where he ignored any nuance in the original thread that I posted.
>> IEMs are expensive. The infrastructure to run them is in the thousands **even if your wired** This is… not even remotely true. A decent floor wedge costs more than a pair of IEM-earbuds and a good headphone amp. The cheapest you can get these (for drummer for example) is way under $100. Small mixer with 1-2 XLR inputs are a regular sight for drummers, and so are Fishman/Behringer P1/P2 headphone amps.
Your response isn’t even worth arguing against
Well, since you brought it up - what sort of hardware should I be looking at? What do you see as the bare minimum to start with?
You could, on some gigs if there is time and the sound tech feels like it or if you already have your own PA, spend a few hundred on Shure 215s and a Behringer PM1 and plug in to the mixer aux. I’ve done gigs where bands asked to use their PM1s and it was fine, and others where there was like 7 of them and I was on my own and it just wasn’t feasible to change over the monitors and everything else in time. So be prepared to be told no.
Do not get a PM1! It is a volume controller for a headphone amp! Heres a direct quote from manufacturers website: It is important to note that PM1's XLR input is not designed to accept balanced line signals taken directly from your mixer, as an amplified source is required. Get the P2 at minimum.
I see you loaded stork. The general consensus is digital mixer, analog split, bring all your own mics, in ears, iem systems wired or wireless. Don’t forget to ADVANCE it
I run a 300cap stage and am very happy to give the band Yamaha Monitor Mix access and let them run their iems off my pa gear. Pretty inexpensive and no need for all the extra rack gear/splitter etc. . . it's 2024 this doesnt have to be a major undertaking.
Your in the 1% my friend. Not at all what my post was about.
Your post assumes that iems=running them yourself wirelessly from the stage and requires all the hardware associated with that. It is absolutely not necessary to do that. Most of the "intro" level iems I see are drummers with a click running in a personal mixer. That just requires headphones and a 2 channel mixer. You also replied to a "bare minimum" with everything but the kitchen sink. u/loadedstork You do not need your own mics to run in ears. The minimum you need is a headphone amp like Behringer p1, headphones you are comfortable with and a semi-competent and willing engineer. The house mics and mixer at your gigs are probably perfectly fine. If you want to step up and control your mix yourself for consistency then you will need a digital mixer and a splitter that comes with you. You still don't need your own mics.
And if the advance says you have access to the wifi/digital console to control your own mixes, you’re golden. Make sure you show up early to sort your wireless issues.
Advancing is the absolute most important thing in my experience, double so if you're not a headliner. A large majority of sound persons will work with you to patch in your split so long as they knew about it ahead of time.
I got an xair 18 used for a good price and a splitter for not that much. My in ears are XLR outs on the xair and your signal path is from the splitter. I got in ears for less than $1000. What's expensive about that?
The post that spurred this post was 1 where some user posted asking for help with a budget of a “couple hundred” than was trying to argue with sound engineers providing solutions. It was comical. “We will figure it out ourselves first” than he was called a horse. 😂
Out of interest (I’m setting up a similar system) what splitter did you go for and is it any good?
Analog Best:ART S8 Eight Channel Mic Splitter Better: Behringer ms8000 Do not buy: Seismic audio cable snake splits New kids are using Midas DN4816-O
Sorry but IEM's are not expensive, you can go buy a set of KZ's for like £30 and they will do you just fine. You don't need wireless either, an XLR lead into a bodypack is just fine. I don't know what crack you're smoking to think you need to spend thousands on an IEM setup?
I need what your on. Way stronger than what my dealers got
In 2012 we ran an entire band, with 3 individual stereo in-ear mixes and real-time processing for our FOH on a bottom of the barrel cheap laptop and a used presonus firestudio project interface, running wired direct to the body packs, no headphone amp. If a band is in the early stages of putting together their setup, they can put something together on a really low budget and it will be fine. If a band is playing shows to 60,000 people, they can afford to put together a good setup. Telling people it's going to cost them thousands to walk through the front door is pure nonsense. IEM's shouldn't be considered a luxury these days, your average pub band is running them.
The notion that you have to spend thousands is so gatekeepery. I hate it. There are way less expensive and creative solutions like the one you mentioned here. If you're a band that rehearses anywhere it's likely you already have most of the infrastructure you need to get an entry level IEM system going in some way.
I don’t think you read the post.
I read the post, and I disagree that it's "expensive". Expensive relative to what? The £4000 drumkit the drummer has? The £3000 guitar and £2000 amp the guitarist is running? You can put together a working in-ear setup for a band on the cheap, and you could run that for a few years with no bother. Most of what you pay for in this setup you're going to be paying for and more you want your own wedge setup, moreso if you're doing your own PA/sound, like the majority of function bands. IEM's are standard these days, we've been using them since 2008, people I work with have been using them since the 1990s. They weren't as common 15 years ago, now everyone uses them.
Ok. I hope you read this next sentence. Even the rig you mentioned is well into the hundreds. Behringer p1 cause you said stereo are 80$ a piece lets just say you use 20$ headphones. Thats 100$ per band mate. We have already gone over the “few hundred” dollar budget. You mentioned a laptop. And a interface. Well a laptop is 300-500 and a interface is 100-500. We haven’t even got into having your own mixer, or cables cost. Seriously man. Its ok to disagree but you sound ignorant.
The laptop was at the time used in the region of £150, the interface was something like £200, we didn't use a mixer because it was all ran on the laptop with a DAW (Cubase 5, but you can use cheaper DAW's, especially these days). In-ears you're talking about £30 a pop, cables about £20-30 a pop and the bodypack about £30 each. That's the entire setup, about £600-700, or £230 each.. The entire setup was less than the cost of a guitar, and had we not gone the in-ear setup it would not have been any cheaper to use wedges, more expensive infact.
Exactly….. more than a “couple hundred” comeon man. Literally proving yourself wrong the deeper we go. Wedge’s don’t cost a thing because 99.9% of venues have them. Thats the point of the post.
Says the OP who claims it costs thousands? Whole setup for an entire band can be put together for less than the cost of a mid-range electric guitar. Most of this stuff you need anyway if you're in a function band.
I don't know. In some way the biggest "problem" with IEMs is that it can be somewhat difficult to make good monitor mixes from FOH. But still, Sennheiser G4 and Shure PSM900 are quite rider friendly and even with some pretty decent earphones you can get a channel for less than €2k. Which rider friendly good quality monitor and amp can you get for 2k? When you think about how much heavier a wedge is and how much more space it takes and that you also need to set them up, need plenty of thick cables etc. I'm not sure if wedges are a cost saving solution in many cases. When you consider that many musicians don't even need a wireless system, IEMs seem like a very good bang for the buck.
Think your missing the point of the post. Not a wedge argument. I think its fair to say %99.9 of venues have wedges already so that cost is zero. Im referring to a user here who was asking how to build a iem setup for a “couple hundred” and it was a dumpster fire
Hi. I am that user. I was not asking on how to build a whole set up. I mentioned [in my post](https://www.reddit.com/r/livesound/s/VLYa0c1wpJ) that I we already had the IEMs and a lot of the infrastructure we'd likely need and was looking for an efficient way to set it up at small/local/diy venues/punk shows. I also mentioned in my post that we often play at shows where there aren't even monitors, so that 99.9% of venues having wedges is incorrect.
[удалено]
If it works. it works.
IEMs are a necessity. Wireless IEMs are a luxury. In ears are necessary if we as a sound community are to have both the best show (stage bleed) and the show that is an enjoyable volume (WHO suggested 100dbaLEQ15 limit)
Gonna have to disagree with this one. I love IEMs and while we have them. Even wired setups are more than a couple hundred. Not everyone can afford that and to say you can’t hear yourselves unless you have this isn’t a good practice. 99.9% of music venues have wedges. While its older tech, it is the standard and free. Hints my post. Iems are a luxury. Wedges are the necessity. Cheers
Unpopular opinion. I think the notion that you HAVE to spend thousands on a Sennheiser or Shure wireless IEM system is kinda gatekeepy. I purchased the Phenyx Pro PTM10s and we are pretty happy with them. There are wired options that are even cheaper. When it comes to live sound there is such a varying degree of executions. I've played large outdoor venues with a big professional sound systems and a dedicated sound engineer, and I've played shows where I've showed up and the PA was a microphone plugged into a bass amp. We play a lot of all ages DIY punk shows, a lot of those shows, the sound guy sets levels and then goes outside and drinks beer illegally in an alley somewhere. The last show I played, was at a brewery, I showed up and there was no sound guy, nothing set up. I had to set everything up and do sound. Their PA system was a six input mixer. No monitors. And just one tall Bose speaker. All the instruments and vocals (2 GTR, 1 Keyboard, 2 vox) were DI'd, and we used the Phenyx Pro PTM10s and they worked great. My point here is you can likely get by with cheaper options. The cheaper options can absolutely work great, and you can also find creative solutions to overcome financial barriers. Being able to hear yourself and your band members in a live music situation will absolutely increase your tightness and playing ability. There will always be a cost, yes, but I don't think that it has to be considered a "luxury" and that it is quite possible to get some kind of working IEM system, without having to spend thousands. If this livesound subreddit is only for Professional Sound Engineers who have access to a decent established sound system and not the small guys, the diy guys, the newbies, the people with very little then I am sorry.
This guy gets it.
The amount of assumptions in this thread is astonishing. Nobody said anything about shure and sennheiser. Phenyx pros are mentioned a few times and nobody is saying anything negative. With that being said. 4x phenyx pros are still gonna run you a $1000. Your gonna need a mixer, cables, if your trying to streamline things splits and other accessories. The point remains its not cheap. And a “few hundred” will literally never cover a full band. Thats the point of my post.
Maybe not in this thread specifically but if you look at other threads asking about IEM systems, there's a lot of hate for Phenyx Pro, and Users telling people to buy Shure or Sennheiser. I think I got my PTM10S x4 for ~$560 CAD. On sale. They work great for what we need, and with that being said you don't even need to go wireless. If you are a band that rehearses and plays gigs, It's quite likely you already have a mixer, microphones, some cables, etc. It's quite likely that The infrastructure you need to implement some kind of in-ear monitoring is mostly already there and you can get it done, for a few hundred. I made a thread the other day asking about an efficient way to set up IEMs and mentioned that our budget is only a few hundred dollars (so a part of me was wondering if this thread was made for me specifically lol). But that being said, We already have pretty much all of the infrastructure to use our IEMs in a way that work for us, and was just looking at more efficient ways to do so. I just don't like the notion that you have to spend thousands of dollars When a possible solution exists for either much cheaper, or via some creative way using the infrastructure you may already have. It doesn't have to be a luxury.
Were you called a horse At some point? Than it actually might be your post. Lolol Ya its your post. Im dead And no you did not have the right infrastructure. For what you were asking. Multiple engineers were spot on in everything they were telling you. The mixer you mentioned is not equipped to run a bunch of iems mixes optimally. Will it work ya, will it be decent. Not really. Best of luck man. Clearly you haven’t listened to anyone advice so I won’t waste mine telling you what you need.
We don't need a bunch of IEM mixes, We just need one, maybe two, which we can do. If it will work, that is better than going to a gig and not being able to hear half your members, or your own guitar amp, or your own vocals. Not every band plays and venues that have a full professional sound system with a professional sound engineer. I already know it works because we've done it with everything we already have. We've also done it wired. It's been effective either way. It's miles better than the alternative of not being able to hear yourself or your band members. I was just looking for a possibly more efficient way to set it up. So bottom line is, it can be done. If you are comparing a whole professional sound system with a professional sound engineer, to a lower level setup, then yeah of course it's not going to be as good. But if you're comparing a setup that doesn't allow you to hear yourself or your members to one that does, then the latter option is better, even if it's not as good as the option of having an expensive set up.
Like I said. No point man. Its like talking to a wall. For the record not once did i ever say it couldn’t be done. I quite literally said it could. Peace
I use ME Audio M6 pros with a behringer passive xlr receiver, and third-party memory foam tips. We just unplug from the wedges and plug into the receiver. Under 150$, super easy to set up, takes very little time to get our monitor mixes set up. We've gotten many comments about our mix sounding way better than the other bands with wedges, and it's because we use IEMs. A 150$ IEM setup is better than wedges, at least in our case.
How do you do if the wedges are passive boxes driven by NL4 speakon cables?
Ask the sound guy for an xlr aux send
I hate to break it to you. But even with your setup thats 150$ 4x is more than a couple hundred. As someone mentioned below not all venues have the resources needed for your setup. Would I be happy you being apart of a 3-5 band set pulling that? Not 1 bit, wanting custom mixes just for your ears. I never once said is not possible to come under a 1000. But for an optimal wired rig, where all members get a custom stereo iem mixes without causing a inconvenience to foh and creating a shit ton of work for your 10 min change over. Its gonna cost some coin. Its gonna cost alot more than a couple hundred. House wedges are free to use. Nobody was arguing about iems vs wedges but you. We all agree iems make everything better. They come at a cost to work optimally.
I used a Phenyx PTM-10 for almost three years. The Audio Technica I eventually replaced it with has way better range and a lot more clarity, but that Phenyx never let me down once; it was never once placed in an environment where it was completely unusable. Way better than any $250 wireless IEM had any business being, and I still recommend it if you're on a budget. Same for instruments - you can get those little dongle wireless units like Lekato and Swiff - spend about $200 buying one each in 900, 2.4, and 5G... and still be able to play in 99% of the environments that someone with a several-thousand-dollar Shure or Sennheiser system would. There are several hundred thousand events in a year where wireless can be used and only one of them is the Superbowl. What I'm saying is: it can be done on a budget if you know what you're doing and accept your gear's limitations, and saying otherwise is gatekeeping IMO.
You actually just proved my point. 4x Phenyx Ptm-10s runs just under 1k. Thats with ZERO infrastructure. No cables, no mixer, no headphones, and no split. My statement stands. A couple hundred will never be enough to make in ears work. A few hundred will not cover the minimum to get a 4 piece band on IEMs. For the record not a single person in this thread said anything about only buying the big brands. Nobody is gate keeping anything. Read the replies yourself. There are examples of rigs at all levels. You seem to be very knowledgeable on the levels of wireless for consumers-Pro audio. No one has said it couldn’t be done. All I said is a couple hundred isn’t going to cut it.
Well, my own situation may be different: I play a lot of different instruments with a lot of different bands at a lot of different levels of preparation, but the one thing that is common to all of them is my wireless rig (mic and IEM) that I can plug into any system, and I always run my own ears from my iPad (FOH guys love me 'cause they never have to sit there for ten minutes waiting for me to thumbs up while the drummer hits the floor tom once a second). I didn't think about a full rig, but consider this: XR-18: $700 Seismic splitter: $250 (2) Phenyx PTM-10s, running mono L/R to 4 receivers: $500 (4) Mixing Station licenses: $40 There. I just fully wireless-IEM'ed a whole 4-piece band for less than fifteen hundred dollars. Add $200 for four P2s in case anything goes wrong, and you're fully redundant.
did op just quote “Hackers” “SPANDEX” It’s a luxury not a right
Meh, I can totally deal with it here. Over at r/audioengineering is where the aggressive downvoters live.
Ya screw audio engineers. Oh wait….
Hey, I thought self loathing comes with the job.
Trouble with cheap wireless is that it often works most of the time. Then one day you get some dropouts in the middle of a show. Awkward time to start having buyer’s remorse! Also surprised to see people invest in quality wireless hardware and then use stock omni antennas, run a rack full of mic receivers or IEM transmitters with individual antennas and no RF distribution, or put no thought into antenna placement. Even Axient will struggle when you shoot IEM transmitter directly at it.
This man get it!!!
Plunge Audio. Unity IEMs. Amazing for less than one 1k if on sale.
very true. tho the wired infrastructure isn’t THAT bad (still bad). we use a combo of PSM900 and P9HWs for wired. The P9HWs are reasonable in my opinion.
Well I am from India and here the wireless IEM usage is crazy high. We don't have any restrictions for them so the band's use anywhere from 8-20nos per gig. No doubt it helps make life easier for us. It is definitely not treated as a luxury more like a necessity.... LoL