Two IEM questions- OT

[mojogil]

I have a legit challenge when it comes to mixing stereo iem. The same reason I can't really do studio work effectively I have significant hearing loss in my right ear from a childhood issue. I can work around a little by running a monitor solo through a headphone amp with a pan control, and then setting the pan to 4:00, but it's still not the same. This is why I have these very basic questions aimed at you who have done it for a while. I'm trying to understand the basic overview approach to stereo iem's so I can offer the band a positive experience right off the bat. I'll practice the S#$% out of the things I'm learning before I try it live. In two weeks we'll try the SAC approach to see if they like it. If the latency is uncomfortable for them (at 1/64) then we'll get a X32 setup. We're at a club with a very competent house guy coming up, I'll have him mix FOH and I'll sit in monitor world all night tweaking things.
Last questions:
How do you like to approach the stereo imaging (per artist), do you spread everything out a bit and keep the artist in the middle?

How hard do you pan things? Is anything hard panned L/R?

What if the artist is on the far end of stage right, will it screw him up if some of those things are panned right?

I'm planning on having four subgroups per monitor console: vocals, electric instruments, acoustic instruments, drums. As Mycorn stated, which seems common sense to me, I'll create a solid foh type mix, complete with drum gates, (slight comp on some things but not vocals), and light verbs, and keep the artist in front. Is the artist the only thing that is dead center in his/her mix?

Thanks for your patients and wisdom!
Gil

[Donnie Frank]

2. Drummer specific- do you typically put the entire kit in the ears?

Big can-o-worms here...I will try to be brief, but there is a lot to know.

Questions you need to answer first:

1) Is your drummer using standard E2-like ear buds? Or does he have good, custom-molded ear shells?

2) Does your drummer sing? If so, does he use a headset mic or mic on a swinging stand???

3) What is his objective? Is he trying to save his hearing? Or is he simply stepping up to new technology?

If he's using E2's or the like, then plenty of audio "leaks in," and he should be able to hear all the drums just fine. But since you have some endorsement cash, I'll assume he has custom ear shells...

I have really good custom-made isolation ear shells and sing via a head-set mic. Because I sing, I have a vocal mic in my IEM all the time, which definitely "leaks" the entire kit into my mix. This said, I bias the kick a little more than the rest of the kit and I'm golden. That said... As an audio engineer mixing for other drummers with IEM's, I've had some mixed experience.

Mixing IEM's for a drummer who is new to the IEM world and doesn't quite understand how they work is a really slippery slope. Because the kit will *naturally* leak in through OTHER microphones, I add drums last. Almost always a drummer will want more kick. But once you start adding guitar and other vocals, he may find that enough snare and cymbals are leaking in. I do triplets between the kick, snare and toms to make sure everything is coming in equally. If not, I adjust accordingly. I tell my drummer clients to do the same thing. Since I can hear their mix in my cans, I do adjustments so all the toms, snare and kick are even with a slight bias toward the kick.

Unfortunately you may have to educate your drummer to the caveats of IEM's. It is VERY easy to pump too much volume into them and then you run into the same volume war as you would with a common single monitor mix split up among several musicians. If he's open to being educated, I personally find it best to turn the mix OFF and then figure out what he can't hear. Since low end naturally leaks in, I find that just *touching* in guitar and/or keys and other vocals is all I need. Because my own voice naturally resonates in my head (good ear shells are like plugging your ears), I bias my vocal, too. What does this have to do with the kit? Well, the LESS I have of everything else, the better I can hear the kit.

I can't imagine snare would need to be in the ears?

Probably not, especially if he sings and has his vocal mic in his IEM. If he can't hear his snare, then everything else is probably too loud. My IEM volume is literally speaking volume. No matter how loud the band I'm performing with, I make every effort to keep my IEM mix low. But that's me.

What about Hat?

I have never needed hi-hat in my IEM. The hi-hat and cymbals naturally bleed in through my vocal mic. In lieu of a vocal mic he may find that leaking in through *other* mic's may be enough. If not, then an overhead or ambient mic should do the trick as opposed to trying to add all the toms, cymbals, snare and hi-hat individually.

Do you gate/comp things for the ears as you would for FOH?

My latest trick has been to create a sub group for peripheral instruments/vocals and hard limit them. Be sure you do *not* use dynamics on the primary performer's vocals or instrument. This eliminates "vocal wars" during 3 and 4 part harmonies and dual guitar solos, etc. It also protects the primary musician's ears should something get away from you like a rogue keyboard patch, etc.

3. Any IEM highlight or bullet point items would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, but I *have* seen engineers high-pass IEM's out of pure habit of high-passing wedges. I have also seen unnecessary E.Q. curves on IEM's. Run them totally flat and unEQ'd.

[mojogil]

Thanks for the thoughts.
1. The whole band (and me) have Starkey custom molded triple driver iems.
2. Yes, the drummer sings. he uses a senheiser on a boom stand. One lead voc song and 5 or so harmony songs.
3. right now the drummer uses his molds through a small behringer mixer so he can mix his click into his ears. He may stay with that, but we'll have a wireless ready for him if he chooses.

The band is well used to IEM's and they love them, but are really ready for a more positive experience. Right now they can only monitor 16 of the 30 channels being used and the mixes are mono.
Thanks

[airickess]

Right now they can only monitor 16 of the 30 channels being used and the mixes are mono.
Thanks

Have you attempted to do some submixes and then send those to the mixes?

[cgrafx]

My band has been using IEM for about 3 years.

We run 4 stereo IE mixes and one Floor wedge for the guitar player. Our guitar player didn't feel comfortable with the IE. Actually the floor wedge is useful, since this makes it easy to have guest artists sit in.

Even with custom molded IE's there will be acoustic bleed that occurs. Although we have full stereo mixes available I don't do much with the stereo field. Keys are stereo by default, the guitar player has a Roland guitar synth which is also stereo.

Remember this is still a live mix, not a studio mix. Its noisy. The primary purpose of a monitor mix is to make it possible to hear what your playing/singing along with enough of everything else in order to blend.

With that in mind, our mixes are specifically tailored to make it easier to hear what we need on-stage, not to create a studio mix. They are very different.

--------------------
I'm the keyboard player and one of the lead singers. My mix is

- Keys (I don't use on on-stage amp)
- My Vocal (slightly louder than anybody else)
- Michelle (our other lead singer, mixed down slightly from my voice)
- Backup vocals, mixed lower than both Michelle and My vocal
- Guitar & Guitar Synth (both mixed slightly lower than my keys)
- Kick & Snare (small amount just to make sure I don't lose the beat from the drummer)

I get plenty of bass & the rest of the drums acoustically and from bleed into the vocal mics.

-------------------
Guitar player (floor monitor)
- Guitar/Guitar synth
- Vocals
- Keys
- Snare (little bit)

-------------------
Drums & Bass

- Vocals
- Keys
- Guitar & Guitar Synth
- Snare (little bit)

-------------------
Michell (Lead Singer)

- Lead Vocal
- My Vocal (Mixed lower than Lead)
- Backup vocals (mixed lower than both lead and my vocal)
- Keys
- Guitar Synth
- Guitar Mixed lower just to fill in

[IraSeigel]

Matt brings up a very good point, and you should reconsider using RF IEMs for those that aren't mobile (drums, keys, etc). Much less problems and probably better fidelity.

As to your scanning question and worrying about choosing the right frequencies: The Sennheiser software (as the Shure) will choose the proper open frequencies in a "Group" or "Channel". You should (almost) NEVER mix frequencies in different groups; the software calculates the intermod potentials and will not recommend frequencies that conflict. As you said, getting a switch to aid in the scanning (and setting) of all the transmitters is a HUGE help and benefit. Then you only have to retune your receiver-beltpacks manually (the really REALLY expensive Shure stuff does all this automatically now).

As to your question about the drummer's mix: I've done many drummers (JD Blair with Shania, Jack Dejohnette, e.g.) who have only asked for a single overhead and kick for their kit. Some have also asked for one of those "butt-thumpers". Or only a DPA or similar quality lav that they wear, to pick up the whole kit. As someone else suggested, wait for the drummer to ask for stuff - don't put it in there without being told to. Ditto for the rest of the band. Use little - if any - gating. NO COMPRESSION on anything, for anyone.

[Mattseymour]

The stereo field is interesting. You can reduce hearing fatigue and improve mix clarity by panning things a bit, particularly when you have instruments occupying similar frequency ranges. I always have the performer's own instrument centred. If their instrument is stereo, like a synth, then they might benefit from a stereo feed of themselves, but not necessarily. In my experience a lot of performers end up using one ear. I think this is a mistake, but it's part of the challenge of IEMs. Of course if the performer is only using one ear, stereo is a waste of everyone's time.

One of the biggest challenges I've found is how to avoid the performers feeling cut off from the room. A stereo mic pair fed into the mix should sort this, but mic placement can be very tricky.

One other thing that's obvious but worth a mention is you can have a mic on stage that's routed into everyone's iem but nowhere else, so a band leader, music director, whatever, can speak to the band without being heard by the audience, not useful for everyone but a massive selling point for IEMs when it works out.

[operationwhat]

I'm mostly a monitoring guy and I did lot of major acts.
When doing in ear I always talked with the singers or players and the answer is always the same.We hate it but it's better than running 10kW on the stage But what I figured that when the artist get things mono, they pull earbuds out right away and that is the worst thing they can do.That way they kill their ears as they crank up the pot afterwards.So I tell them to be cool and I mixed their IE like I would do a studio mix, squashing everything and gating drums but compressing hard the over so that I don't have to put ST stage mic.Thanx to SAC now this is even easier, lot of brutal plugins and the compressors and limiters are much better than those on "new" didtal boards.My approach is that the musicians, guitarists, drummers or singers want to hear themselfs just like if there were listening all to the monitors on the stage.A bit wider and stereo, roomy and not spiky and mono...I usually compress the vocal mic brutally so that the singer could hear the drums, the way their are on the stage, in his mic.Plus some drum feed into his IE mix.I usually use a delay plugin 3-12 ms to do the trick in the headphones to create a huge sound stage and for the most time it does the job!
I put tons of rev on the vocal mic, certenally it depends of the artist, cause it's should sound like that when singing in a huge place...

[Sound Machine Inc]

I guess I must be the weird one out.. my whole band is on ears (triple drivers for me and drummer and duals for everyone else) and there are NO amps onstage. my bass and keys are direct (1 bass line 3 stereo key lines) guitarist has stereo outs on the axeFx and a direct on his acoustic. Drums are all internally mic'd for no bleed.. we mix everything like a cd with about a 1.5db more me per mix.. sure it took a week of practice to get everything just right, but it's a TON better and more fulfilling to US to sound sweet and processed like the cd would be. the ONLY issue we have had is the 3 mics up front get a lot of drums since the drummer feels the need to use a small redwood forest to hit with.. a simple plexiglass deflector attached to the drum rack made the ears MUCH easier to mix

[Mattseymour]

Mixing a band using in ears with virtual amps, drums.... Almost silence from the stage... Beautiful.