# Live wireless in ear monitoring



## Erazoender (Mar 27, 2013)

So for a tour this summer, my band is planning on using wireless in ears to monitor. So I have a couple questions as to how to go about doing this.

The plan is to have myself and the other guitarist share one mix and have the vocal/bassist have his own, and drummer who cares  (but seriously, drummer is going to have his own click track but that's a lot easier to deal with)

Anyways so what I'm wondering is how this is all set up. I know from the PA you generally get a mono signal, so how about the signal that you get from your laptop for the backing tracks? We'll be giving everyone a prerecorded backing track, so for example pertaining to guitars, we will have drums, bass, synths, and click. Will this input be stereo? As well, is it possible for us guitarist to share one unit, and have my mono signal panned hard left, and his panned hard right, that way we can hear ourselves better, or is it all going to be mono?

If I have the whole setup completely fucked up, please tell me what would be a better way to look at this 

(And I didn't mention this but we were going to have 2 wireless units; one for guitarists and one for the bassist/vocalist. Drummer doesn't need wireless) 

I have more questions but it all relates to this so may as well start here. Thanks!


----------



## Baelzebeard (Mar 28, 2013)

If you have/get stereo wireless transcievers you could do the left/right panning with the two guitars otherwise that would be a no go. That would also require two outputs from the monitor mixer, one for each side. If you go that route you'll need three outputs from the monitor console for stereo to the two guitars, and mono for the bass/vox.

It would probably behoove you to contact the venue in advance about your needs too, as it may take a few minutes to get set up for your iem's, and the sound guy will probably appreciate the heads-up.


----------



## Erazoender (Mar 28, 2013)

Cool; what iem systems would support the necessary I/Os?

EDIT: routing mockup one... seems very cumbersome if I have to split 4 separate channels (totaling 8 to mixer) so every member gets his own click and the FOH getting a clean synth backing track. Better ways around this? 







Looking at this unit: http://www.zzounds.com/item--GXYAS9004


----------



## BenSolace (Mar 28, 2013)

There's two main ways to do it that I know of;

* Getting all your mix from FOH.

This will involve having as many separate IEM transmitters as you need mixes. Try and avoid fixed frequency models, as you're stuck if that frequency is in use/suffering from interference. The problem you'll have here is, quite simply, the FOH engineer. In many of the smaller venues (and, in fact, some of the larger ones), this guy will probably either;

Not want the hassle

Not have enough auxes/sends on his mixer

or (more likely)

Will not know *how* to rig it up

My personal thoughts is that this method is better suited to larger bands with their own sound engineers who will at least have an idea of what each member wants beforehand.

** Mixing yourself.

This is *much* easier if your amps are DI (like Axe FX, Pod, Sansamp etc.) or have record outs. This will involve (as above) as many IEM transmitters as you need mixes. However, you'll also need a mixer with as many aux sends as you'll need mixes (1 per mono mix, 2 per stereo).

Basically, you'll patch a secondary output from your amps and plug them into the mixer. Either that or you'll have to mic up/split the FOH mic in front of the cabs and send this into your mixer. You'll need to split any vocal mics too in order to monitor them.

In either scenario, backing tracks/clicks can be routed to separate outputs of your audio interface to your mixer/FOH. You'll only want to send the click to your monitor mixer, and the backing track can be sent to FOH, as well as sent to your monitor mixer as well.

Wish I could go into more detail, but I'm at work so I can't  I'll get round to posting a pic of my IEM rig one day, as there's a fair few threads around here asking the same thing!


----------



## xCaptainx (Mar 28, 2013)

I use a set of Ultimate Ears UE18 in ear monitors, currently it's only me and our drummer using In ears. We're a full D.I band (axe fx, Hd500) so thankfully we have two guitar D.I signals going back to our drummers own personal mixing board (where he puts in his own samples/triggers/clicks) and mixes accordingly. I listen to what our drummer uses. 

May I ask why you are giving everyone pre recorded backing tracks? Surely you'd want to use In Ears to make sure everyone is in time with each other? If anything goes wrong with your gear you'd be in serious trouble. I'd recommend working with the sound guy well in advance and finding a mix everyone is happy with, try and limit the aux sends as much as possible (to keep the sound guy happy)


----------



## Erazoender (Mar 28, 2013)

Luckily our bassist/vocalist has been in music production/engineering for 12 years and will be more than capable of setting it up himself. 

I was going with the prerecorded tracks just for consistency; if one of us fucks up the other will not hear it and we'd keep going.

I suppose the best way instead to do this is to just have one transmitter, and send only a click/synth track to the mixer, and have the mic'd up drums, guitars, vocals, and DI bass sent into two mono busses on the mixer, one goes to the right channel and one goes to the left channel. Is that possible?

I do have an ENGL Savage, and if I'm not mistaken it does have a preamp output but I have no idea how the hell it works.

(note this is the ENGL SE but the savage has the exact same feature with a pre/power button and XLR out)

http://i472.photobucket.com/albums/rr84/rick_yo/DSC01744.jpg


----------



## Erazoender (Mar 28, 2013)

I keep saying two mono busses.... I mean a stereo pair despite being essentially the same thing lol.


----------



## xCaptainx (Mar 29, 2013)

I'd remove the pre procorded tracks from the situation to be honest, that's a recipe for disaster right there. Surely In Ear Monitors are so you can hear yourself, and others, while on stage? It's what we use ours for. I've seen bands use similar things and have had horrible experiences once things go wrong. 

All it takes is your drummer to miss one queue and come in late/early and the entire song could be ruined, rather than everyone responding to what is actually happening in their IEM and maintaining.


----------



## Erazoender (Mar 29, 2013)

I was mainly doing the prerecorded tracks for when playing in smaller venues which we'll need to be self sufficient, but I suppose in those smaller venues there's no point to use in ears anyways.

So as such I think the best thing is to bring our own mixer, have the main PA mixer aux send a condensed mono drum mix, and have our line outs of our amp going into our mixer and also the stereo pair synth/click track from our interface straight out to our transmitter.


----------

