The Steel Guitar Forum

I'm playin in a Italian Bluegrass band since 30 years, All Acustic instruments, all singers, so that we use 10 MIC on the stage. As you can image very difficult NOT to have larsen or interference between MIC's and Speakers. Main problems are related to Monitors, that are closer to MIC's so that we are thinking to buy one Wireless in ear
system able to drive 5 In Ears. We saw some brand to buy like Sennheiser, Proel etc. For sure some of you are more experienced about this, so any help is really appreciated. Maybe some model is performing (electronically) better than others...
My best

The Shure and Sennheiser systems are the ones consistently chosen by those who have the money to get the best, i.e. major touring musicians, broadway productions, television talent, etc..

Hi Daniele,

I use In Ear Monitors, but with a different configuration. I use the ART HeadTap which is a passive device that connects directly to the Main Speakers via a standard Speaker Cable(does not present a load to the Amp)and use earbuds of my choice (Shure SLC3's I think).

I attached a belt clip to the HeadTap, and they are daisy chainable so you can run multiples with NO BATTERIES!


If your band is not dancing on stage then why pony up the cash for a wireless system when you can go wired for less than $100 US per player?

for informational purposes only, I am not affiliated with MF:

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=180628

Hi Dave We are not that case. We are playing for fun, finding the best effect at the show, but it's not our job.so that we are founding lower cost (but good performance)products.

Hi Walter . It seems a good idea, we will take into consideration it.

My best to all

A good in-ear monitoring system should have enough power and a great and settable built in limiter...

The bad news is that there's no cheap good in-ear system. Any cheap solution is just a waste of money.
Just look around on "Mercatino Musicale" and you'll see how many "used like new" DB and Proel you can find there on sale...

I have been talking about in-ear for long in a big music store in Milan (L.M.) where I asked "real" suggestions. That's what they told me:

- DB or Proel are just "toys", forget 'em! They may even be dangerous for your ears sometimes...
- Shure PSM200 and the mid-price AKG (around € 5/600...) are not bad, but for the price they should be much better.
- the only good system is Sennheiser EW300, but it's not cheap at all, over € 900!

They refused selling me a Shure PSM200 system, saying: "I won't allow you to waste € 600 now... if you can't afford spending more right now come back in a while or give it up and go on with speaker monitors!"

About head sets, they find silly spending only € 200 for the receiver and € 200 or more for a very good set of in-ear-phones. A good standard pair, the one provided with good receivers, are often enough and you can choose to replace them with better ones later, shouldn't you be satisfied...

Still waiting to get a Sennheiser... LOL

If your average stage is not big and you don't run back and forth, you may evaluate using a headphones amp (with up to 8 outs...) and a wired set of earphones, I'm doing that sometimes and it isn't bad at all.
You can even tape the earphones wire together with your instrument cable.
All in all, if you play an electric instrument you have a "leash" already, having two is not that different

In-ears have the advantage that they block most ambient sound, so that the volume level needed as monitors is very low, which is good for protecting your hearing.

They can take some getting used to, because occlusion makes your own voice sound louder than it is, and you can't hear anything that is not coming through the monitor feed (such as crowd noise and asides from band members). Also, some people (like me) have difficulty getting a comfortable fit.

Open headphones do not have these issues, although you will tend to use them at higher volume levels and should take care to protect your hearing. BTW, using a single in-ear is the worst situation, as the volume level needed will be higher than the other three choices.

As an alternative, have you considered adding automatic feedback suppression to make your current mics and monitors more usable?

Shure E series are adequate
Good value
Been happy for about 3 years now

I use a Shure PSM600 wireless system, with custom, dual driver earphones. It wasn't cheap, but it works extremely well. We use Aviom 16 channel personal mixers so each musician can set their own mix. This is top of the line stuff, but there are lots of lower end systems that work well also, just not as much flexibility.

Thanks a lot to all of you for opinion and suggestions. We have collected in a few answers a lot of issues to work on internally in our band.
Anyway just for yr info, in our band is the Guitarrist that is always claiming for an higher speaker volume for his Martin. I also understand from other guys that this "desease" is commont within guitarrist arena, so maybe it is inside of their DNA ?? No I'm joking, In our case I think it's a matter to convince our Banjoist to play more silent !! I'm not joking this time unfortunately.

Here's a cheaper way. Just use one mic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxUbIuKGTjc

Hi Mark, we bought 2 AKG like the one's showed, 2 weeks ago and we are experimenting them. anyway also this solution needs some compromise. Last saturday gig we got the following: PROS: less MICs on stage, good solution for Unplugged instruments, easy sound check, amazing reproducing sound CONS: In a small place all room noise/conversaion etc enter in the MIC bumping on the wall, a lot of "Gymn" is needed to play in front of it, difficult to find for each player his own distance from the MIC depending on the voice tone and on the instrument,gain have to be not to hight, otherwise you have larsen problem with monitors as weel. Considering we are singing in 5, we decide to buy 3 of it.
In this way we reduce a lot the cause of larsen (3 MICs instead of 10) but the speakers problems remain.

A few thoughts

Buy the best quality earbuds you can, it will make all the difference in how good everything sounds.

If you don't mind wires, have wires. Get a Splitter box for however many imputs you need, put one end into the snake for the front of house then the other into a a mixing board then take as many of the aux sends and mains as you can into a headphone amp for each channel and if people share a channel get a passive attenuator for each person . Mix your headphones from the stage, and also possibly invest in a limiter for each channel incase something goes wrong. Front of house mixer will be able to do whatever they want and it wont affect the stage.

If you do your own sound from the stage, forget in ears. You're in you're own little sonic world in them and wont be able to tell if something is wrong in the house.

Del McCoury uses AT mics, not AKG.

I do sound for my bluegrass band and I've used different configurations going from a single mic all the way to separate mics for each vocal and instrument. It mostly depends on who is in the band and whether they are able to handle the choreography and get a good mix with less mics.

I've been able to use large condensers successfully with stage monitors, and the key has been the use of a dbx Driverack 260. This box will do a lot of things, but the two features that help the most are the automatic feedback suppression (I use one channel for mains and one for monitors), and the parametric EQ, which I have set to flatten the effective speaker response for each type of speaker.

Without the 260 I would not be able to get enough gain before feedback in most rooms we play, even without the monitors. With our current setup we always have more than enough gain.

There are a number of different products available that do automatic feedback suppression. The only two I've used are the dbx and a Sabine FBX; the dbx works much better for us than the Sabine.

That said, the first thing you should do is check your speaker placement. I'm sure you know all this, but just in case... Monitors should be aimed directly at the back of the mic, which is the area of lowest gain for a cardioid pattern. Sometimes a slight shift in position can make a big difference. Mains should be well forward of the mics, and elevated off the floor (usually above head height).

Thanks Lynn. Sorry for my English, I meant SIMILAR of the one's showed and not Like.
As you said we are experienced on Main and Speaker positioning. I think what you suggested is interesting, especially regarding the background suppressor. Thanks

Whatever system you get, try and get a pair of Sensaphonics ears for yourself. The material they use is the most comfortable out there, and actually goes slightly deeper into the ear than any other set of ears. That provides more isolation, allowing you to hear the same using lower levels. They're also the only company that makes a devide to actually monitor the dBs coming into your ears. It will tell you exactly how long you can listen at the volume you're at before you get hearing damage. You can save your hearing with in ear monitors, but using them incorrectly can actually damage your ears more than using monitors. That's just my take on it.

-Jeff

Probably late to the game in this post, but I use Shure 300, the cheapest Shure system. In-ear quality is completely dependent on the quality of the monitor board and the sound and mix you are getting out of it. My 300's have sounded like crap with bad mix/eq's out of the board and sounded wonderful with the correct tweaking. Remember, your in-ears are just the same as a wedge, just stuck in your ears.

Thank you Jeff and Michael for yr suggestions. We are in analisys phase so that we have time to consider several options. Jeff very interesting the feature offered by "dB Check In-Ear Sound Level Analyzer". For sure it will cost a lot, but it's interesting.

Daniele,

Yes, it is more money than many of the other brands. When it comes to protecting your ears I think it's worth the extra bread. Try plugging into the mixes used by the other players and see how different the prefered volumes are. Each person is comfortable with a different level, but nobody really knows what that level is. That dB analyzer will tell you exactly where the safe volume is. Once you have the information you can choose to follow it or not, but at least you know. I just think you can't make a compromise when it comes to protecting your ears as a musician. Michael is right about how you set up your mix. With the correct use of panning and levels it can sound fantastic. Also, I'd avoid using a wireless pack if you can do it. That will obviously depend on the system you end up getting. I just plug right in with a 1/4 inch cable that has an 1/8 inch female connector for my ears. Whatever you do, enjoy the new toys.

-Jeff

I think that the db Check device is pretty cool, but I also know from personal experience that following the standards--even the more stringent NIOSH standard--does not guarantee that you won't damage your hearing. Tolerances vary widel from person to person.

There are some good articles linked at the Sensaphonics site.

At the moment we try to play all unplugged instruments (no more DI boxes or MIC/Pickup on Instrumens)sharing 3 AKGs on stage like the attached photo. It is working well, we are experimenting.....
This is the AKG type we have:

http://www.akg.com/site/products/powers ... ge,EN.html

Next step is to eliminate Speakers/monitors.
We are not dancing on the stage so that it's not a problem to use wired systems. However as you can see some of us change instruments frequently during the show, so wired systems could handicap. Also thinking to introduce my Pedals steel in some songs next future ..... maybe is needed an additional place on the stage with a single mic for my voice.

Daniele, If you can wait until July our so you should be able to pick up Shure psm 400 or psm 700 systems very cheap on ebay. The reason for this is those systems operate in the 700 mhz band and after June of this year they are ILLEGAL to operate in the U.S. because our FCC auctioned off those bands after we switched over to all digital TV broadcast. So I think you will see people trying to dump them on ebay, cheap!! The other guys in my band use the psm 400's and they sound great. Do invest in good ear buds though. Westone makes great universal fit buds and actually designed Shures first ear buds.

Shure has a substantial trade-in program for 700 MHz equipment, so I'd be a little surprised to see too many show up on eBay.

Looking at the pickup pattern of your AKG mics compared to the AT4047/SV that I use, I would expect that you will have significantly more problems with feedback.