2 guitars, e-drums and jamming using In-Ear Monitoring (need help)

Z

Zurmeo

New member
Hi,

I’ve been looking for 2 days straight for a simple solution but I still don’t know how to pull this off. Me and my pals have been looking for a cost-efficient way to play with 2 guitars and e-drums using wired headphones. I’m asking for help, because all of this seems to be fairly complicated to execute when you have a budget that can’t exceed 200 Euros. But we have a Lexicon Omega Studio that we can use if that is going to help us.
We aren’t focusing on recording but jamming together.

The setup right now:

The guitarists want to use Amplitube in Reaper as VSTis and there would be 2 Amplitubes at the same time. The problem is currently that we don’t probably have enough inputs for 2 guitars
I as an e-drummer will use Superior Drummer 2.0 also in Reaper as a VSTi. My DM10 is right now connected via MIDI to Lexicon Omega Studio and from there it’s connected to my PC.

http://www.thomann.de/fi/lexicon_omega_studio.htm

What we need:

Each of us needs to use separate headphones that we hear each other’s instruments at the same time. We don’t care that much how well we can mix our own sounds etc.
(We aren’t looking for any headphones, we have them already.)
A way to distribute our sounds to each headphones from 1 or 2 sources.

Possible setups?:

Alesis iO2 Express + SM Pro Audio Q-Amp + 1 computer for guitars + 1 computer for e-drums
Lexicon Omega Studio + Behringer HA400 + 1 computer for guitars and e-drums


Here are links to the hardware I have found:

http://www.thomann.de/fi/sm_pro_audio_qamp.htm (headphone splitter)
http://www.thomann.de/fi/behringer_ha400.htm (headphone splitter)
http://www.thomann.de/fi/alesis_io2_express.htm (USB interface)


Thanks for reading!
 
There's plenty of inputs on the Omega. Is there just the one High-Z Instrument input? Then one guitar could plug in there. The other will run either through a guitar pedal (any non-true-bypass pedal, powered but it doesn't have to be on) to one of the line ins or through a DI box into a microphone input.

If your computer can't handle two amp sims and an instance of SD at reasonable latency without crapping out, then it's a boat anchor.

All you need is a headphone distribution amp.
 
Thanks for the quick answer.

There is only one Instrument input on the Omega and 4 line ins.
But could you explain the reason why you can't connect the other guitar straight to line in if the pedal doesn't need to be on?

My PC should have enough power to run the instances without creating big problems in latency.

Can you expect an increase of latency if you use a DI box?
 
Nothing you do outside the computer will increase the latency.*

The guitar needs to "see" a very high impedance in order to pass all of the treble that it can. The line ins by themselves are only 20K. Plugging the guitar in there will be very much like plugging into an instrument input or amplifier and then turning the guitar's tone control down past halfway. Some folks might dig that... Most guitar pedals are buffered even in bypass mode, which means they present something like 500K-1M, which will probably be much better for the tone. I very much prefer this approach to a passive DI because DIs are often a little low on impedance, and they attenuate the signal quite a bit, so you have to add gain (and usually noise) on the other end.

*well, you could run stuff through a 100% wet outboard delay...
 
Thanks guys for helping.

We are probably going to try using the DI box + Lexicon Omega + Headphone Splitter.
That solution seems to be cheap and most importantly, it works :).
 
That setup should be ok. If you want more gain I would add a headphone amp, but you might be ok with what you went with.

I hope your computer is pretty stout though because running all that in low latency is asking a lot of your machine.
 
It's really not that bad. I guess I don't use Amplitude, but I run multiple instances of PodFarm alongside SuperiorDrummer all day long on both of my machines, and my live laptop is not exactly the fastest processor around.

Zurmeo - I hope you're not talking about a passive DI. Especially not if you have got buy one when the guitarists already have pedals, and even more if they intend to use a lot of heavy distortion on the amp sims.
 
Well I actually thought about buying a passive DI box but now it seems that I shouldn't :).

The guitarists actually want to use metal sounds in Amplitube so I guess that means more distortion?
So do you suggest that we should try something else?

I'm fairly certain that my PC should be having no problems running the VSTis at the same time, but
I'm going to make sure that this is the case.
 
Assuming that your guitarists already have a pedal or two sitting around, I've got two main arguments against buying a passive DI for the job.

1) The level coming out of the pedal is almost exactly the same as what goes in, whereas the DI drops about 20db. With the pedal into a line input, you might add 10db of gain to make the amp sim happy. With the DI you will have to add about 30db. The difference in noise will be immediately noticeable, especially if you're adding a bunch more gain with heavy metal amp sounds.

2) If you've already got the pedals, then you don't have to buy anything! I suppose the argument could be made that a decent DI isn't that expensive, and is the kind of thing that comes in handy, and that there should be one in every studio or live rig anyway. It's not (IMNSHO) the right tool for the job in this case, though, so if you don't need it for anything else...
 
Sorry I forgot to mention that the guitarists don't actually have any pedals and I think they don't want to use them at all.

So, are you suggesting that I should buy an active DI box or just another solution?

Thanks again for helping.
 
Didn't mean to leave you hanging. Yes, I think an active DI would be better, as long as it will do unity level through.
 
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