Tinnitus! The bane of my life at the moment!

[Guest lime ruined my life]

It's hard to convince me with science. The science of how eating eggs affects your health is well studied and understood. I'll sum it up like this:

1970 - eggs are good for you

1985 - eggs are bad for you, eat a maximum of 1 egg a week

2000 - eggs are good for you, it's a different kind of cholestoral

2015 - fuck knows?

is eating eggs a 4th year physics exam too then? infact, i'm really fucking insulted that you just compared acoustics to eating eggs, i might go off and cry.

btw have you considered that loss of sensitivity may be the reason you don't find the pub to be "uncomfortable" anymore?

[soundian]

Who uses IEM?

Percentage wise, practically no one you wouldn't class as a major artist

The only people I can think of who still do not use it are Iggy Pop and Till from Rammstein. Every other fully professional rock musician that I have ever seen uses IEM. If you want disability insurance, then you will have to use it. Every contract requires the artist to 'take reasonable measures to protect his or her health.' That means either keeping the volumes on stage right down, or using in-the-ear monitoring. The same goes for venue and event liability insurance. It may not state "Thou shalt use in-the-ear monitoring!" in the contract, but a claim made as a result of hearing loss when they were not used will be turned down.

Who provides it?

Practically no one except major hire companies, but they incorporate the costs of buying and maintaining them into the hire fee, which is peanuts if the artist is paying 10K a night for the PA

EVERY major PA company has a range of IEM sets as it is on the technical rider of just about every larger band out there.

I have never, never seen an IEM system specced for a one off, and there's been times in my life where I've had a lot more tech specs than hot dinners

Is it difficult to set up?

No, it just takes a lot longer if you change PAs, and believe me, outside the "major" sphere, time is a precious commodity

It is far, far, far easier to use than wedges. The only people who tell you it is difficult are people who have never used it. If you are mixing in digital (DiGiCo etc) then the very act of switching on the system sets up the monitoring in the way you had it for the last gig. For a touring band, then is a God-send, because IEM systems do not have to be altered to suite the venue. If you are a fixed venue, then you will have a set of presets according to the make-up of the act (four guitars and a drummer, three guitars, keys and drums etc.). If the signal path is all analogue, then you set up a series of stem mixes to feed the stage just as you do now, only they go to the transmitters.

Is this only relevant, if you are a big rock star?

I've seen the specs for 200 models, barge pole required

Hell, no. A full set of transmitter and belt pack with additional phones and batteries can cost as little as 200. That comes to 800 for a four-piece band. Try getting a set of wedges and amplifiers for that kind of money.

Do I need a monitor engineer?

No, of course not. The best and easiest way to go is to have every musician use a small mixer that feeds just his or her monitor. This is fed by a series of stem mixes and possibly a split from his or her amp or mic. This is what we use in the studio and it works a treat and is the ideal solution for a small pub band, regardless of whether they use IEM or not. Yes the big boys all have their own monitoring crew, but then they always did - IEM has just made life easier for the monitor engineer, that's all!

Great if you're the only band using that set up.

Do I need an aux-send and a separate transmitter for every musician on stage?

The price of a decent belt-pack compatible with a decent transmitter is at least 250

Of course not! You just need as many transmitters as you have monitor mixes now. In other words, if the horn section all use one set of wedges right now with one mix on it, then you will need one transmitter. Of course every musician needs a receiver, but these are fairly cheap.

Do I need moulded plugs?

The soft ear-pieces cost pennies and come in all sizes and there really is no need for any special moulded plugs to be used, but if you feel the need, you can DIY them using plasticine to make a plaster mould and then form the plug out of silicon. All this talk about musicians having to use other peoples plugs is just silly.

Have you ever tried them on a small stage with a loudish band? I have, too much bleed.

What about the law?

Outwith two narrow bands of radio frequencies, you need a licence. These are different in every country

Health and safety regulations state that you have to be within certain volume limits that vary according to the length of time of the exposure. By handing over total control of the on-stage volumes to the musicians and at the same time protecting them from any on-stage noise, you are complying with the law. Exposing them to 120dB (distorted or otherwise - the law is not fussy) even at their request, is to not comply with the law. So very soon, every promoter, venue and PA company will have no choice in the matter.

Am I liable for any damage to hearing as a promoter or venue?

If one of your employees is putting 120dBA on stage right now and the musician cannot control that volume, then yes you are - 100%. That means that if a venue is using wedges and a musician can prove that in part or in total, some hearing damage occurred whilst playing that venue, then you are leaving yourself wide-open to litigation. If feedback occurs, then this has already been used in an English court as an instance of negligence. IEM systems puts the volume control 100% in the hands of the musician.

Which is why we always ask the artist if the levels in the stage monitors are correct, putting the onus on them.

Do I need additional limiters and feedback killers?

No, the ones you are using now for the monitor mixes will do exactly the same job and in the same way, for your IEM system.

True, but why would you need feedback killers. Btw, I never see a pro using feedback killers, I'm quicker than FB killers so I imagine most sound engineers are.

What about availability of frequencies?

The IE4 D-Band system has 1,440 available channels. Even the very cheapest IEM systems are switchable between 16 frequencies.

But which ones can you use without a licence?, Probably them all if it's the cheap models, but how many other people are using those frequencies on the unlicenced bands

What about distortion and hearing damage?

Without proper mouldings, the level has to go up, and cheap IEMs can't handle that level without distortion.

As I stated above, the law does not care whether noise comes from a church organ or a chain saw, but your ears do. The more distortion, the greater the likelihood of damage. However, a loud noise is still a loud noise and constant exposure to 120dBA, even if it is a pure sine wave, will cause some damage.

Are IEM systems more or less likely to distort?

See above

The cheapest are more likely to distort because good headphone amps cost money. My suggestion would be to buy a cheap system and feed a separate 12V headphone amp from the same battery pack as the receiver. This does add slightly to the overall weight, but it is not much. This is what we do in the studio for the drummer. All other musicians just use the headphone output from the mini-mixers that we provide on a chunky music stand, but the drummer gets an additional small 12V amp so that I am 100% sure that he gets as completely clean signal when he cranks the volume to 11.

Do I have to buy my own system?

Yes! Unless your a major artist and can afford to hire. They are not provided free

If I were a gigging musician and not working tours where that sort of thing (along with all the other bells and whistles) are provided, then I would definitely buy one of the better budget systems and add an amp and additional batteries and a spare set of phones and plugs etc., so that, no matter what happens, I know my hearing is protected. I would possibly add a mini-mixer to that, so that I have total control of my monitor mixes and can hear myself clearly as well. That would bring the total cost of protecting my hearing AND GETTING A PERFECT MIX EVERY TIME up to 250. If a venue or touring engineer pulls a long face, then I would just insist. I would definitely tell him or her that it is the proper and professional thing to do and by not using IEM, he is showing himself to be less than professional.

I've put some comments in bold above. You seem to think that the world consists of pub bands and major artists with nothing in between.

There are many technical and practical issues with using purely IEM's in a multi-act show.

IEMs aren't just plug and play, most people have to get used to using them, which means they need to practice with them, which means you have to buy your own or have enough money to hire as well as mic up what you need to monitor every practice. One of the advantages of IEMs is that they cut out a lot of the backline sound, one of the disadvantages....

I find IEM mixes to have less margin for error so sharing auxes and channels is a lot more difficult. A minor difference in the aux or gain can have major consequences in the mix. Fine of you've got your own engineer who knows what you need in the mix and can monitor it

To my mind the whole IEM thing is in a catch 22 situation, until more bands start using them they won't be bought by venues and small PA companies, but at the moment, bands have to buy their own, so if there's that much bands with their own why should the venues/pa companies spend money on them.

Btw, I do think the world would be a better place if everyone used IEMs.

[HairyScaryMark]

You should legally buy the licenced frequencies of any devide you are using. I cannot remember how much this costs but I do remember there being something about a yearly charge.

I personally wouldn't buy any radio system without a huge amount of thought put into it first. I used the Sennheiser G2 E300 series (in a church for clip-on radio mics) after using some cheaper beyer dynamic models. The difference is incredible, not just in overall sound quality but in practicality of use.

Things to watch out for. People trying to mute it and switching it off. People forget they are wearing the system and leave the building. People have no idea who they are meant to return it to (or no iniatitive). People also had a habbit of routing the cables that go from the transmitter to device (clip on microphone) in the least sensible way possible i.e between legs. over t shirts then under jumpers.

Another common occurance was people would swap them between useage and not tell the sound engineer which one they were using. Imagine this with IEM at a local gig with 5 bands on in a night. Utter chaos. It's been said many times before but IEM is far less forgiving than speakers.

A small venue or PA company would be taking a large risk to invest in this sort of thing. People are likely to treat it with limited respect and/or lack of knowledge of how to use it.

[GraemeC]

Stop speaking shite all of you.....

The bass player cant pose at the front of the stage with his foot resting on an in ear monitor.... so he goes deaf by the time he's 30...(what was that you said?)... a small price to pay for the ubber cool pictures he'll be showing his grandkids in another 30yrs