Opinions on wireless in-ear monitors or an alternative...

[avj]

A quick search revealed there hasn't been a giant discussion about this, and Fran's thread had me thinking about wireless stuff.

The bandmates and I have been kicking around the idea of getting some in-ears for rehearsal and playing out. We have immense trouble hearing vocals during rehearsal and we've yet to have a good experience with monitor wedges playing live. (I realize this could just be because we play at horrible venues with underpaid soundpeople.)

I have a pair of Shure E4C in-ear headphones that I use for listening to music at work, and it's like having earplugs in and listening to music inside. The thought of having that kind of isolation from the loudness on stage makes my pants tight.

From what I gather, it seems like a pretty simple setup. We're not interested in any complicated submix deal -- everyone could just have the same mix. To me, this seems pretty straightforward: you purchase a transmitter and receivers, and the transmitter is fed by the PA. Each chap has a receiver with his in-ears and gets the same mix. Joy and rapture ensue.

If not wireless in-ears, can anyone that's dealt with the same problems offer an alternative?

[timhulio]

Play better venues.

[Mike]

Play better venues.

Shush, you hack. You don't play music where vocal harmony plays a part. He's also talking about rehearsal. basically your post is useless and you should be ashamed. Go stand in the corner.

Having in-ear monitors or just a decent monitoring setup is obviously a bit advantage if you're having to do a lot of singing and want to be able to ensure everyone is nailing their parts and not wavering around. SelL Crazy have done a few practises where we just take the PA aux out and fold it back to can headphones that we all own so we can hear what we're singing and check everything is blending well.

You should be doing these also though to be honest if vocals are important:

1. Cutdown Acoustic practises so you can get the vocalists all together and get your parts written, sorted out and nailed.
2. Record yourself practising, even if it is just the vocal feed from the PA, you will easily see what parts need more work.

[avj]

Play better venues.

Totally workin' on it. The last show was the worst yet, at a venue with a system handed down from a place five times its size. The sidefills for the front of the stage were so loud I had to actually step back out of their path so as not to be vaporized. 'Twas a shame; sound check went so well.

Having in-ear monitors or just a decent monitoring setup is obviously a bit advantage if you're having to do a lot of singing and want to be able to ensure everyone is nailing their parts and not wavering around. SelL Crazy have done a few practises where we just take the PA aux out and fold it back to can headphones that we all own so we can hear what we're singing and check everything is blending well.

You should be doing these also though to be honest if vocals are important:

1. Cutdown Acoustic practises so you can get the vocalists all together and get your parts written, sorted out and nailed.
2. Record yourself practising, even if it is just the vocal feed from the PA, you will easily see what parts need more work.

Thanks Mike -- two excellent ideas. We've done some rehearsals at very low volume, like all-clean guitars and brushes for the drummer, but it just seems to fall to shit when the volume returns to normal. Sometimes I feel I'm the only one with a fully-functional set of eardrums. I'll stress the importance of simplicity before we run out make significant investment in wireless gear. If we can't get it sorted with acoustics, we probably never will.

[mickie08]

In-ears are nice, but don;t go cheap if you get them.

Also, as far as venues go.... It seems like venues always go cheap on the monitor systems (especially smaller clubs...) They don;t understand that if the band can hear themselves, the quality of the music will be much better and the quality of bands you attract will be better. I have seen a bunch of venues with killer FOH systems running cheap, crappy, underpowered monitor systems...

[NBarnes21]

They oughta help a lot, especially for hearing your vocals. I drum with them live and they really help reduce my kit's noise and I can hear everything else great. Highly recommended if you have the dough for it.

[stewart]

these sorts of problems are usually caused by playing too loud, in my experience- turn down a bit in rehearsal for starters. wedge monitors in venues i've played in often seem to be pretty shit due to, again, bands being too loud onstage (even though they're going through the PA) and asking the sound guy to put too much back through the monitors so they can hear each other. monitor gets trashed. volume does not automatically equal goodness. if you're waking up the morning after a rehearsal with buzzing ears, that's bad.

[euan]

What Stewart says.