# Software/app for monitor mixing live - advice needed



## IkarusOnFire (Feb 15, 2016)

Hello everyone!

My band is looking for a way to gain more control of our monitor-sound. We've simply had too many problematic experiences that has been ruinous to our shows. This is in particular extremely important for our vocals - we have a lot of clean singing and it's extremely fragile in a very dense and loud live setting. 

So we're looking to do a full in-ear/wireless setup complete with a digital mixer and software for making our own monitor setup. 

We're looking towards the Behringer X AIR XR18 - that comes with software for the iPad. Does anyone have any recomendations for or advice in regards to a similar setup?

Does your band use something else, that you'd care to share your experience with?

I've enclosed a diagram of the set-up we're looking at here:


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## concertjunkie (Feb 17, 2016)

I use a somewhat similar setup in my band, although we use a laptop as sort of the brain. Still needing more pieces, but the main structure is there

Macbook Pro Laptop Running Logic Pro X
Our set is mapped with tempo changes, midi patch changes (using midi interface pluuging into amp modelers, so patch changes at the times I set in the project), click track/guitar pro to drummer for reference, and Backing track to drummer and FOH

XR 18 AIR - guitars, kick, overhead, vocals, click, backing, reference tracks all run into this digital mixer. We don't use it wireless (due to countless complaints on wireless issues), but rather ethernet cable direct into the Macbook Pro, to change personal mixes for Myself and drummer (still working on getting the other pieces for everyone else).
We've pretty much dialed in our mix as we want it, with very little adjustment once a show/practice happens.

Also , have a Saffire Pro interface running kick/backing tracks/vocals to the venue's snake (we run vocals through a splitter, so we can get vocals in our in ear mix, and another goes to the venue's snake).

Guitars we run through our cabs, although we may go to FOH eventually.

Sorry if I missed any details, I'm about to go to sleep, but had to write this before I forgot! 

I'd be happy to break down our setup further, but I can tell you, it's made our live set significantly tighter!


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## Blasphemer (Feb 19, 2016)

That actually all looks pretty good, my two recommendations:

The overhead may not give you quite what you're looking for in terms of drum monitoring. Obviously you'll need to try it out for yourself to see, but maybe just a snare mic will do the trick.

Think about using Ableton rather than Logic. When my band made the IEM switch, we used Logic, but it was pretty unstable in a live setting. Ableton has been rock solid. This was, however, Logic 9 and not Logic X. I can't speak to Logic X's stability in a live setting.


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Feb 19, 2016)

You should check premier guitar's rig rundown with Periphery. They run their rig with the Behringer, and all of their backing tracks are running into it as well, which also changes all of their presets so there's no pedal board dancing. Very little SPL on stage, very clean, pristine mix going out front, and to each set of in ears.

Misha has been a regular on this forum long before Periphery got nationally known, so even pm'ing him a question now and then might be fruitful for you.


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## concertjunkie (Feb 22, 2016)

Blasphemer said:


> That actually all looks pretty good, my two recommendations:
> 
> The overhead may not give you quite what you're looking for in terms of drum monitoring. Obviously you'll need to try it out for yourself to see, but maybe just a snare mic will do the trick.
> 
> Think about using Ableton rather than Logic. When my band made the IEM switch, we used Logic, but it was pretty unstable in a live setting. Ableton has been rock solid. This was, however, Logic 9 and not Logic X. I can't speak to Logic X's stability in a live setting.



That's interesting that you've had issues with Logic live. We use Logic X (and the laptop is using a SSD, not a standard hard drive, which is a MUST for live shows, I can give you the techy explanation if you'd like) and have had no crashes , no issues, just solid performance.

What kind of hardware is your laptop/computer running? Are you running at least 8GB of Ram or more on it?


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## Blasphemer (Feb 22, 2016)

I know why you need a SSD for a show 

Our computer had a SSD, 16G of ram. Not sure why it wasn't a happy camper, but it always had issues. As I said, though, Ableton hasn't crashed on us once in the two years+ we've been using it, though.


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## IkarusOnFire (Feb 25, 2016)

Thanks for the replies! I feel more comfortable about the setup now - confident it makes sense  We've been nomiated for best metal release in Denmark and are playing at the award show, so we want to test this out before the rather important show.


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Feb 25, 2016)

A friend of mine here in the Seattle area uses his old Macbook pro with Pro Tools to run multiple outputs of backing tracks, including click. He has it on a snare stand just to the left of his snare on tour, runs the whole show that way as far as songs with backing tracks go.


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## JonathanCooper (Apr 4, 2016)

We are thinking of getting a similar setup for your exact reasons. Only we are looking at the Persons studio live rm16. I was looking that this one for two main reasons: 
1. It could be used as a dedicated FOH mixer if we wanted to bring our own sound guy and bypass the Venue's PA.
2. We can use iPads, iPhone, or computers to mix the FOH, or any other aux mixes like in hears or monitors.

Does anyone have experience with this system that could offer advice?

P.S. It also can record, and payback live performances for sound checks and such.


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## robare99 (Jun 16, 2016)

JonathanCooper said:


> We are thinking of getting a similar setup for your exact reasons. Only we are looking at the Persons studio live rm16. I was looking that this one for two main reasons:
> 1. It could be used as a dedicated FOH mixer if we wanted to bring our own sound guy and bypass the Venue's PA.
> 2. We can use iPads, iPhone, or computers to mix the FOH, or any other aux mixes like in hears or monitors.
> 
> ...



I use an RM32AI every gig. Have been since Jan 2015. 3 out of 4 weekends I use it for gigs. Love it. It has a really good app for IEM's and mixing your own monitors. You just hook a router up to it and you're good to go. 

You need a laptop with FireWire to record, but you can mix and use IEM's withiout. 16 in, 8 out. For the difference in price you get 32in and 16 out which would give you 8 sets of stereo IEM's. The RM16AI will give you 4 sets of stereo IEM's.


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