in ear monitors

Our church is heading in the direction of having a silent stage, and so we will have to use in ear monitors.

1. What in ear monitors do you use? How many drivers?
2. What wireless system do you use?
3. Did your church pay for any portion of the expense?

Thanks!

We have used the Aviom system for about five years now. The church provided in-ears for everyone, but some people including my self have purchased upgraded models.

We play in a small band area so only one person uses a Shure wireless so he can walk up front to speak sometimes.

I really like the Aviom because each person sets their own mix. When I play drums I will have just the bass, keyboard, very low guitar, and one singer in my mix.

For electric guitar we share a Line6 board, I don't know what model. I'm sure there will be much consternation over tone, but we rotate four electric guitarist and none of these guys, all good players with tube amps at home, have every expressed any concern. And as we learned in another thread, tone is in the player's technique, not the amp.

1. Alien Ears. 3 drivers with three way crossover.
2. Alien Ears system.
3. No. Don't play in a church, just gigs.

Go for it!

1. Unique Melody - 4 drivers, custom molds.
2. Sennheiser wireless
3. Sennheiser rig belongs to church 100%, UMs are mine 100% (not cheap, but less that Ultimate Ears. zero regrets)

So you all actually prefer using in ear monitors, or do you just use them when you have to?

I prefer it. Only hear what I want, at the volume I want.

Pretty happy since we went to in-ears, even at the budget level. We're all wired into an 8 channel ART headphone amp. I use the same set of Sony buds that I run in and they sound pretty true. The trick for us was putting up a mic to catch the ambient room sound so it wasn't so sterile. Works great for the sound folks (I'm one of 'em) as we have a small sanctuary and fewer sources of sound make for a cleaner FOH mix.

As much as we do it as an act of worship, we still serve the congregation, and the better it sounds FOH the happier everybody is.

So you all actually prefer using in ear monitors, or do you just use them when you have to?

For drums I prefer the in ears, I get just what I want at low volume.

For guitar I would rather be playing my amp and hearing all the live sound. But so what, it is what it is so I don't worry about it.

I've had the weirdest thing with my in-ears this year. Just when I finally got used to them and started enjoying them, I lost a bunch of weight and they don't fit right anymore. It seems that my ear canals have slimmed down! I'm going to have to have new ones made.

I prefer IEMs at church or any large venue gig with a large ensemble. Two reasons - I'm relying on FOH so hearing the amp "as the mic hears it" is a big plus, and separation and panning of other musicians and singers makes it easy to ascertain who is doing what.

Also, in our church an MD talks through a cue mic - this really helps eliminate ambiguity on the fly, and allows spontaneous changes to be communicated to everyone. Band confidence moves up several notches because of it.

Club gigs on small stages with a cranked amp I still like wedges.

I prefer IEMs to the old way of amps on stage and constantly being told to turn down, and two wedge mixes where the result was that no-one was happy. Now it's individual mixes and everyone gets what they want. Plus, we get to have fun during set-up when we get mock-offended if anyone wants less of any of us in their ears!

And +1 on the MD mic - that's something we've done once or twice in the past but we're now making an integral part of our setup (and the role's fallen to me...). That wouldn't work without in-ears. It doesn't work so well if the MD is also singing - my brother made this mistake at his church and spoke into the wrong mic, so the band had no idea where they were going but the congregation did. :lol:

And +1 on the MD mic - that's something we've done once or twice in the past but we're now making an integral part of our setup (and the role's fallen to me...). That wouldn't work without in-ears. It doesn't work so well if the MD is also singing - my brother made this mistake at his church and spoke into the wrong mic, so the band had no idea where they were going but the congregation did. :lol:

:lol: our MDs that sing use a footswitch that toggles between bands in-ears and FOH, assigned to left-right panning in their own ears so they know which is which! Im enjoying an extended break from leadership roles - but sooner or later I'm gonna have to face this too.

Not looking fwd to the first time I mistakenly tell the congregation, "pick it up... building, into the chorus.... ONE TWO THREE FOOOOUUUURRR!!!!!"

The other thing to note is remember in quiet sections, how quiet the stage actually is. I had my ears out once listening to the congregation
sing, singers off their mics etc, and suddenly from across the stage re keyboard player yells (his mix was loud in his own ears) to monitor
guy "CLICK TRACK DOWN! LESS CLICK!!"

I love in ears.
I use Shure SE215s with an aviom. Avioms make everyone happy! I can head myself (and everybody else) so much better than with those stupid wedges.. I had to use a wedge at a gig outside of the church a couple of weeks ago and it just made me mad.

And we usually have an MD with a production mic but we've started using loops with click tracks and we put vocal cues on the click track. So it will say "chorus, two, three, four" on the click track. It's VERY handy. And it all goes along with the loops!

Don't like in-ears at all. We have the Avioms and I can set my own mix but i feel totally isolated from the other musicians and what I do hear doesn't feel or sound like a band. I have been using them for a year and still don't like that I can't feel the energy of the other musicians. Very sterile. I play another church that doesn't use in-ears and I am much more comfortable with the "live" feel. They are all hot to move to in-ears as well.

Aviom to Shure wireless to my own skull candy in-ear phones.

Also iusing a Line 6 wireless guitar transmitter.

I like the in-ears a ton. The acoustics in our worship center are such that if the piano is on one side and drums on the other, hearing each other from the acoustic bounce off the back wall is a good 1/3 second difference. We really noticed it one year when we first started and the piano player didn't want to use them. Talk about tape delay sounding.......

Seriously - if you're feeling isolated point a mic toward the audience and patch into your monitor mix. It'll give you back an awful lot.

Some things to make IEMs a better experience:

1. Mix in an ambient mic to pick up live room sound and congregation (as said above)
2. Pan some of the channels left and right. This helps to open up your head space a bit - get rid of some of that "playing inside a coat closet" feeling.
3. Don't pull one of the ears out. You'll tend to run the level hotter, given the "in" ear a worse beating. And, of course, if you are panning, pulling one out could really affect your mix.