IEM tip-n-tricks....

[Donnie Frank]

Hey doods!

As I discussed in another thread, one of my clients (Bob, a lead singer) has been using both IEM and wedges. The band as a whole also uses SM57's as vocal mic's.

During a recent performance, on several occasions I could see Bob removing his ear buds. He clearly looked unhappy with his IEM mix, which was nothing more than his vocal full blast with 66ms slap back and some reverb. So at rehearsal last night I finally decided to take a more executive approach to his IEM mix. I started by replacing his SM57 with my own SM58. I believe replacing the 57 with a "real vocal mic" was a good idea. This seemed to alleviate some of the problems like bleed-through, for instance.

Up to this point I have been simply giving him what he asked for in his IEM and wedge. This consisted of all him in his IEM with a 66ms slap-back delay (chorus effect) and a touch of reverb. And mostly him in his wedge. But clearly this wasn't working. So I decided to audit the whole mess and get his mix "fixed" once and for all. I started by asking simple questions. The first one being, "Why do you pull your ear bud out of your ear so often." His answer astounded me. "So I can hear the guitar." I literally laughed out loud. "Okay...that's an easy fix."

Despite assurances over the past 2 weeks that I could give him "whatever he wanted/needed" in his IEM, he still seemed shy about asking. So I finally just said, "Look...let me mix in some of the other vocals and instruments." He seemed to have much trepidation, but this is what rehearsal is for, right? So I ran a vocal sub group for the other 4 vocalist and brick wall limited them via the Levelizer to roughly 50% of his vox. I then added some guitar and brick-walled it to roughly 30% using the channel strip dynamics. I did this because he seemed to want much less guitar than other vocals. As always, I used my cans so I could hear exactly what he was hearing. I left the other vocals and instruments dry.

Wouldn't you know it....a smile. As a bonus, in the middle of the second song I started pulling the gain down on his wedges. By the end of the second song they were all the way down. Not once did he screw with his ear buds. After the fourth song I told him, "Hey dude...I turned off your wedges." He replied, "You did?! I didn't notice!" Needless to say he was happy.

Not having wedges solved a whole host of problems.

1) His vox no longer blare off the stage.
2) His vox no longer blast out the other guys.
3) The other guys can turn down because they're no longer in a volume war with the lead singer.
4) I can crank his vox in the mains with nary a feedback issue.
5) He's happier and is also singing better.

I've always maintained that most musicians don't know what they want in their monitors. But it's always hard to tell, especially when they are very assertive and confident with their requests. So in this case I had decided that Bob new what he was doing and I would just mix his monitors accordingly. Well obviously I was wrong. It's my firm belief that as an audio engineer, my responsibility goes beyond simply giving a musician what he asks for, but to make them happy (I know...a lot of responsibility). Often times, because I work both sides of the production/artist fence, I know what they want more than they do. This was definitely one of those times.

The "proof in the pudding" will be to see if he is still happy at next rehearsal. Fingers crossed... Goooooooooooo SAC!!!!!

[Andy Follett]

I've had similar experiences including guys that won't touch a board, much less a computer, to experiment with their mix. Musicians that have nothing but them in their mix. IMO you can't sing on pitch if you can't hear a pitched instrument, etc. I guess maybe if you had perfect pitch.....

I've also done what you described: Plugged into their mix and mixed something with reasonable levels, reverb, pans, etc. and had the same result - "I didn't know you could do that" or "sounds much better".

And the proof in the end is their pitch/singing problems often improve or disappear.

[Donnie Frank]

I've had similar experiences including guys that won't touch a board, much less a computer, to experiment with their mix. Musicians that have nothing but them in their mix. IMO you can't sing on pitch if you can't hear a pitched instrument, etc. I guess maybe if you had perfect pitch.....

I've also done what you described: Plugged into their mix and mixed something with reasonable levels, reverb, pans, etc. and had the same result - "I didn't know you could do that" or "sounds much better".

And the proof in the end is their pitch/singing problems often improve or disappear.

Tru dat. During their performance last weekend Bob was a bit pitchy. I wanted to mess with his IEM mix then, but at that point I didn't want to screw with his mix during a show. During rehearsal 2 nights ago his pitch was much better.

They have a rehearsal this morning @ 11:AM. Unfortunately I'm out of town right now (had a gig last night), so I won't be back in town until probably noon or 1:PM. However the lead guitarist uses SAW, so I was able to walk him through the bootup process of my rig. They're adding another guitar player this morning (there are two in the band but only one at rehearsal the other night). So more than likely Bob is going to want that guitar in his mix. And since I'm running his IEM in stereo, we can experiment with panning the guitars. I don't think the bass player is going to be there this morning. But I think the bass guitar is loud enough that Bob won't want any in his mix...we shall see.