personal in ear monitoring

[mixmkr]

wadda ya all using playing out live?

Seems the Shure E2 or E3 earbuds are popular either wired or not to personal monitor choices ranging from Aviom to whatever...

The Shure PSM 400 seems decent for a wireless stereo option, but is kinda pricey for the average gigging joe.

I just tried the Nady EO3 at $169 for the wireless receiver/transmitter. Total piece of junk.... Glad I borrowed a friends to try before I bought one!!

So... what are some "success" stories?

[mixmkr]

so...everyone have the Sony MDR7506 cans and play in their bedrooms??

C'mon live giggers.... what's good...or more important, what are you happy with (IEM, that is )

[TexRoadkill]

Our singer uses the Shure E3 (I think, maybe E2) wired up for rehearsals and he loves them but we just go with the house monitors for shows.

[cnix]

We use the E-5's I believe, not sure the model but cost around $500 each, and fit into our custom ear molds which is nice. They sound good, but you do lose some live "excitement" feel of the band, in exchange you will be able to retain your hearing for the rest of your life. The key in the ear buds is the monitoring. We each have our own Aviom at our fingertips, allowing me to not only control the volumn of all the band and singers, but pan them to get a sense of stereo stage presence and fit in the mix.

+1 for in-ears here.

[WCMastering]

Originally Posted by cnix

We use the E-5's I believe, not sure the model but cost around $500 each, and fit into our custom ear molds which is nice. They sound good, but you do lose some live "excitement" feel of the band, in exchange you will be able to retain your hearing for the rest of your life. The key in the ear buds is the monitoring. We each have our own Aviom at our fingertips, allowing me to not only control the volumn of all the band and singers, but pan them to get a sense of stereo stage presence and fit in the mix.

+1 for in-ears here.

To re-gain the "live feel" put a mic above center stage and have the sound guy send that just to the in-ears. If you want to get really crazy put a wireless lav system on you and have that signal fed to your mix. The effect will be not much different than if you didn't have the monitors in....other than you aren't blasting your ears out.

[Whale Bone]

I used a set of Shure E1's (not made anymore) recently and loved them. Just a low tech foam ear-piece that expands to hold them in place and block outside noise. Great full-frequency response. I've considered looking for used ones to buy since then.

[misterlong]

I use a sennheiser EW300-IEM G2 system (my own, but I tend to find this, or the previous version is the system supplied in most large monitor rigs, certainly in the UK). The generic earbuds are pretty good (I use them on the train and stuff when I am making music on the laptop) but I bought a set of Futuresonics custom ear monitors (about 600 GBP) They are awesome but they should be for the price!

used to use Westone UM1s which were pretty good, but not a patch on the futuresonics.

The actual wireless unit is fine. Does the job great

some people actually like to have a wedge as well. It helps a little with low end since you can feel it, as well as get a bit of a vibe.

I will however second WCMastering's comment about the crowd mic. If you don't have one. even with overheads in your in ear mix, 40,000 people sound like one old lady and her dog!
hope this helps
long

[almix12]

i don't think one needs to go wireless
i think the most cost effective sollution is:
a pair of ER-6s eartomic or whatever they're called earphones
then just go for a small personal mixer and either get directs from your band or get sends from the soundguy and you can control how much of evryone you hear to your hearts content
and if everybody in your band wants one, go for a... i'm not exactly sure what they're called.. but i'm going to say "audio router" basically a box with a pantload of ins and outs and knobs and you can control how much everything gets sent everywhere
then all everyone needs is some kind of preamp for their headphones which could be made very small.
what do you guys think of that?