Setting up in ear monitoring IEM at gigs?

[Mischief]

Howdy,
First off thanks to everyone taking the time to help people here.

This is for solo acoustic, country genre. The venues would mostly be smaller restaurant or outdoor etc. but are ones that are unsuitable to use my single speaker to double as a monitor.

So for the sake of this discussion let's assume that IEM is the solution we are using and not get bogged down with alternatives to their use.

My question is; when setting up a gig using IEM can you normally have them set where as long as your room sound is set correct they will work? Or is it closer to using fold backs where they need to be adjust to each venue?

My chain is guitar/mic- TC Acoustic Play DI - IEM parallel to 1002FX Behringer mixer - single Yamaha DBR 10.

FYI my IEM is wired coming from the Acoustic Play. The Play has a limiter, room sense (mic that picks up room sound and allows go to hear the audience ) volume and I think some tone control for the headphone IEM out. So I'm hoping I can adjust my IEM in a way that allows me to get in a venue set up my sound for the room using my speaker and hopefully not have to fiddle with the IEM settings. Is that wishful thinking?

Any tips getting the mix right etc?


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[Marty C]

I assume you are going out of the Play Acoustic in stereo and have two channels on the mixer panned left and right? Or are you DI out so you can indepentantly adjust the signal of the vocal and guitar at your mixer?

I usually play a chorus or verse of a few different songs and record this on my looper. Take my earphones off and walk the venue to listen to myself and do a sound check. I adjust the mix levels to get the sound where the audience is comfortable with this.

If you want to best of both worlds (good IEM mix and good house mix) you will need to do the DI out of the Play Acoustic and adjust the mix levels of the guitar and vocal on the mixer for the house/audience. Before you do that, you will need to adjust the guitar and vocal to best suit your IEM. Then you can adjust the house levels on the mixer. Again using the looper so you can hear what they hear.

One key thing is to listen to the effects levels in the house. They may sound great out of the IEM, but the house may be overdone for the room. If this is the case, don't change any of your presets. Just go to the main "mix" button on your Play Acoustic and turn down the reverb/delay output to get the acceptable level for the house.

Hope this helps.

[Bob Womack]

We have lots of bands coming through who perform using IEMs. Their monitor engineers usually have the entire set-up on a thumb drive and ask for a specific console. They'll load the setup and rarely change much.

Bob

[Mischief]

Originally Posted by Marty C

I assume you are going out of the Play Acoustic in stereo and have two channels on the mixer panned left and right? Or are you DI out so you can indepentantly adjust the signal of the vocal and guitar at your mixer?



I usually play a chorus or verse of a few different songs and record this on my looper. Take my earphones off and walk the venue to listen to myself and do a sound check. I adjust the mix levels to get the sound where the audience is comfortable with this.



If you want to best of both worlds (good IEM mix and good house mix) you will need to do the DI out of the Play Acoustic and adjust the mix levels of the guitar and vocal on the mixer for the house/audience. Before you do that, you will need to adjust the guitar and vocal to best suit your IEM. Then you can adjust the house levels on the mixer. Again using the looper so you can hear what they hear.



One key thing is to listen to the effects levels in the house. They may sound great out of the IEM, but the house may be overdone for the room. If this is the case, don't change any of your presets. Just go to the main "mix" button on your Play Acoustic and turn down the reverb/delay output to get the acceptable level for the house.



Hope this helps.

Thanks,
I was basically thinking the same thing. Here's a rundown of my plan and sounds like I may have it right. I hope.

Im coming out of my play with independent guitar and vocals going into 2 individual channels at the mixer.

So my plan was to have a base line set up with my Acoustic play. Run a loop with the play and check the house sound. My mixer FX is set to simulate a small hall or can be easily changed between a few different FX to accommodate basic venue types. Then for some venues I could run the mixer FX on 0 utilizing only the FX from the Acoustic play. A venue with flat acoustics I could fatten up by increasing the FX presence on the mixer or quick FX change. If that does not take care of it then I can utilize another preset on the acoustic play. (Is this wrong and I should just adjust my main mix in the Play as you suggest? Does that isolate the change from this IEM?)

I don't use the acoustic play for much harmony etc. I pretty much use it as an all in one tuner, looper for sound check, Para EQ, DI, IEM, and Vocal delay reverb box. Sometimes I use the Hit with slight voice doubling when singing a chorus and that's about it. I hope because I do it this way I could pretty much have my IEM set where it would not change much from venue to venue and all I would have to worry about is setting the house sound by mostly just tweaking with the mixer or changing a preset at the peddle. If I can change the Acoustic Play settings output settings independent of the IEM it would be even better but not sure it's possible.

My goal is to get in set up quick and have a very short sound check, adjust and have consistent quality. I have seen some guys fiddling around sound checking what seems way too long. Others fast but don't always get it right. I don't mind taking a little longer but I reckon lay a loop walk the room adjust and check again and maybe have to repeat 1-2 times sort of thing.

Having consistent monitoring I think would be of great benefit. IEM may not always be the best answer but for when it is I hope it's not a bunch of time getting the house sounding good and then taking a long time making the IEM sound good. As far as I know the IEM out of the acoustic play will feed me whatever is going out so if I need a lot of echo reverb for outside sound or something, maybe it will be too much In my IEM if it all comes from the peddle. Thus my reasoning for adding anything extra over a baseline settings using the Mixer FX.

I live on a small sail boat and don't really have a place to set up to try things out. Otherwise I would just experiment with it. It's another reason why I'm leaning to IEM on a regular basis. I can go from my practice area on the boat to venue and my sound will be consistent.

Sheesh I'm long winded [emoji42] if you made it to the end you've done well [emoji482]


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[Marty C]

I am impressed you typed that much on an iPhone!

I like your ideas for the IEM and adding/removing additional effects at the mixing board. This should work out well. Whether you chose to add/remove at the Play Acoustic or the board depends I guess on which is closer and easier to modify. As the room fills up, things change and it's good to have quick and easy access if needed. I do like using the looper for sound check.

I actually thought about mounting the Play Acoustic on a mic stand and use the switch 3 to control the unit. This way I could have if close by if I needed to make some adjustments. However I could opt to do this with my small mixing board.

Let me know how this works out.

Live on a sail boat... That's cool!

[Mischief]

Originally Posted by Marty C

I am impressed you typed that much on an iPhone!



I like your ideas for the IEM and adding/removing additional effects at the mixing board. This should work out well. Whether you chose to add/remove at the Play Acoustic or the board depends I guess on which is closer and easier to modify. As the room fills up, things change and it's good to have quick and easy access if needed. I do like using the looper for sound check.



I actually thought about mounting the Play Acoustic on a mic stand and use the switch 3 to control the unit. This way I could have if close by if I needed to make some adjustments. However I could opt to do this with my small mixing board.



Let me know how this works out.



Live on a sail boat... That's cool!

Will do! [emoji106][emoji482]


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