TheArsonistsDaughter
Well-Known Member
After a 4 year hiatus, my band got back together this winter. We just found a bass player and are starting to think about getting some shows booked this summer.
Hearing myself in practice is a bit of a challenge. Not because of any gear deficiency or frequency , but because the cabs I use at practice are straight front and I'm 6'4". I'm sure my knees are really enjoying the crushing sound they get, but my ears are another story. We're in a long, narrow space, with the cabs along one of the long walls, so I can't get very far away from the cabs. It's passable for the time being, and when we play live I'll play through my straight front/angled baffle Mesa 4x12 (which allows me to be positioned in it's cone of death to balance things out), but I've been kicking around the idea of adding some in-ears to my rig. To give me more control over how much of my guitar I can hear without getting into a volume war with the drummer (triggers on his kicks) and the bass player. It's not a dialing/frequency issue...I use lots of mids in my sound and sit well in the mix (playing with a drummer that wants to be the lead instrument taught me that lesson long ago...lol) it's a "sound isn't hitting my ears and the drummer runs his triggers a bit too high but is getting better about it" issue...
I'm running an Axe FX 2 and my main patches are set up so that I send the signal to a Matrix/live cab and have the XLRs with an IR for direct, so that it's easy to use the same patches live and for recording. For practice and live, I'd just run the XLR out to the in-ears so I can get a bit more of me in my ears.
It's probably also important to point out that we're a tech-y death metal band. We play scrappy venues that sometimes have great PAs (not sure in the 14 year history of this band I've ever had good monitors live...lol) and sometimes have a PA for vocals only. So I'd not be planning on getting an actual monitor feed for the IEMs. Just me, and rely on what bleeds through for the rest of the band. I've been looking at the Shure PSM300 which has 2 ins...I figure I could always add an inexpensive omni mic for drums, stage sound, room, etc. if needed. I'd probably go with the 215 earpieces.
Anyone using IEMs in this way? My biggest question is whether enough of the live sound can bleed through like earplugs; so that I can still hear everything at a lower volume and then bring up my guitar as needed?
Hearing myself in practice is a bit of a challenge. Not because of any gear deficiency or frequency , but because the cabs I use at practice are straight front and I'm 6'4". I'm sure my knees are really enjoying the crushing sound they get, but my ears are another story. We're in a long, narrow space, with the cabs along one of the long walls, so I can't get very far away from the cabs. It's passable for the time being, and when we play live I'll play through my straight front/angled baffle Mesa 4x12 (which allows me to be positioned in it's cone of death to balance things out), but I've been kicking around the idea of adding some in-ears to my rig. To give me more control over how much of my guitar I can hear without getting into a volume war with the drummer (triggers on his kicks) and the bass player. It's not a dialing/frequency issue...I use lots of mids in my sound and sit well in the mix (playing with a drummer that wants to be the lead instrument taught me that lesson long ago...lol) it's a "sound isn't hitting my ears and the drummer runs his triggers a bit too high but is getting better about it" issue...
I'm running an Axe FX 2 and my main patches are set up so that I send the signal to a Matrix/live cab and have the XLRs with an IR for direct, so that it's easy to use the same patches live and for recording. For practice and live, I'd just run the XLR out to the in-ears so I can get a bit more of me in my ears.
It's probably also important to point out that we're a tech-y death metal band. We play scrappy venues that sometimes have great PAs (not sure in the 14 year history of this band I've ever had good monitors live...lol) and sometimes have a PA for vocals only. So I'd not be planning on getting an actual monitor feed for the IEMs. Just me, and rely on what bleeds through for the rest of the band. I've been looking at the Shure PSM300 which has 2 ins...I figure I could always add an inexpensive omni mic for drums, stage sound, room, etc. if needed. I'd probably go with the 215 earpieces.
Anyone using IEMs in this way? My biggest question is whether enough of the live sound can bleed through like earplugs; so that I can still hear everything at a lower volume and then bring up my guitar as needed?
