Nord User Forum

Thank you for the kind words.

For what it’s worth, my bass player uses sound reducing ear plugs. He has hearing issues, and is trying to limit further damage.

Your stage setup for performance is typical for a big band. We’ve gone to a “box” setup for rehearsals, where each section sits in a line facing into the center. Saxes and trumpets face each other, and the trombones face the rhythm section. It gives us all a better opportunity to hear and interact with each other. It’s also a great opportunity to remind the musicians to listen to each other and respect the soloists.

It’s very rare that we use mics and a PA for the horns - it’s really just piano, guitar and bass with our normal amps and we try not to play loud. Most venues we play do not require additional amplification. We occasionally play outdoor festivals, but sound is provided. I would think with that many horns, you do not need a PA system.

Ehm… since i play trumpet also every week in the army band with 15 people i have some experience about dynamics…

Here we are reading our scores notes and we follow it .. no one trying to be louder than others or make a volume race… maybe because its army band and the band leader is very eh.. i dont know the word.. the kind of guy that will kick you out of the band if not follow exacly what says in the scores which means if you get kicked you lose your job.. we are 1 tuba 2 horns 1 trombone 2 clarinets 3 trumpets 2 snares 1 kick 1 cymbals 2 saxs and we also have modified the room with … i dont know the right word again.. this foam sound reducers and bass traps etc

Anyway the in ear monitors solution will solve your hearing your self problem..

So I got my custom molded IEs which sound nice at a halfway reasonable price (750 EUR total cost) - IE molds directly taken at the producer's: Fischer Amps FA4 (slightly boosted bass, sounding nicer than the flat FA3) - hadn't known before that you can get them with custom molds. It was clearly visible that I needed the custom molds because of a 'special' shape of my ear canals.

The mixing is still an issue: I returned a simple own-brand product from my dealer for the clearly audible hissing/noise. Someone had said that hissing wasn't an issue any more even for cheap live gear, but that doesn't seem to be true.

I'll try with a Behringer Flow 8 next. I couldn't find a small analog mixer with comp and pan. And I didn't want a digital mixer without any hardware fader.

My scenario is still to have 2 channels from my keyboards plus 1-2 channels from the rest of the band (either a monitor mix from FoH=our band leader or raw mike signals) - which I want to set into a stereo panorama and compress the other band members a bit (good idea?).

Any other tips?

FZiegler wrote:So I got my custom molded IEs which sound nice at a halfway reasonable price (750 EUR total cost) - IE molds directly taken at the producer's: Fischer Amps FA4 (slightly boosted bass, sounding nicer than the flat FA3) - hadn't known before that you can get them with custom molds. It was clearly visible that I needed the custom molds because of a 'special' shape of my ear canals.

The mixing is still an issue: I returned a simple own-brand product from my dealer for the clearly audible hissing/noise. Someone had said that hissing wasn't an issue any more even for cheap live gear, but that doesn't seem to be true.

I'll try with a Behringer Flow 8 next. I couldn't find a small analog mixer with comp and pan. And I didn't want a digital mixer without any hardware fader.

My scenario is still to have 2 channels from my keyboards plus 1-2 channels from the rest of the band (either a monitor mix from FoH=our band leader or raw mike signals) - which I want to set into a stereo panorama and compress the other band members a bit (good idea?).

Any other tips?

Hmm… usually when we have singers on stage with in ear body pack we send it this way..

The in ear bodypacks for examble shure psm. Has 2 inputs left right and 2 knobs on the bodypack. 1 knob is volume and 2nd knob is left right…

So we send everything in mono at the 2 inputs…. Input left we use the whole band in a mix that suits for the singer and input right his/her voice.. so he can mix it alone from the left right knob.. when turning it left the band goes louder and voice lower volume and turning right the voice goes louder and the band lower..

You can do that cheap by buying the behringer p1.. but i dont recommend it because the sound is low quality and not very clean… but it will be almost the same with any kind of mixer… all the cheap mixers from 200 to 600 euros specially the analog ones have cheap headphone amp..

TLDR: I see people recommending a FOH + me -type of solution, simply summing together and adjusting levels on a small mixer. Does that not introduce weird frequency reaponses (= bad sound) when the FOH is delayed compared to the split signal from my keys? Or is the effect just ultimately not that bad?

Long version:

I'm looking to overhaul my approach to monitoring on stage, and I think IEM (in-ear monitors) are the correct solution for me, as they are for many. I didn't want to create a new thread because this seems like the correct subject.

I've played in the same band for seven years. We've always handled the tech ourselves. We've played through the same digital mixer, with everything routed to the mixer, and everyone getting a personal auxiliary output channel, (be it mono or stereo, in-ears, or a monitor wedge). We've always had full control over the mix balance. So, straightforward. But now I'm going to move to a new city, and most likely going to join new groups, which means I won't be using the same tech. I can't rely on the same system at all.

The solution that first came to mind, or that so far has felt the most reasonable, is this:
1. Get a copy of the main mix
2. Split my stereo keys, and my vocal mic signal
3. Mix them on a small mixer like Yamaha MG06
4. IEMs

The reason I like this solution is that I know every band is going to have a stereo main mix. I just need to get a copy of that somehow (prob. wont be a problem). And my two keys channels and my one vocal channel, those are all under my control, as I can just split them from the signal I send to front of house.

Simple. But:
If I send my keys and my vocals to front of house, and then route it back to my personal mixer, most likely, especially if the front of house has any digital parts in the signal chain, that signal will be delayed. And so, that inevitably will lead to some phase cancellation issues. Especially if the signals happen to be the same amplitude, I'll literally not hear certain frequency bands. How is this not a huge problem?

PS any other solutions and ideas are appreciated as well

Using a front of house mix is almost always going to be compromised solution.

The FOH may or may not have every instrument in it as it will be a mix that includes a balance of on-stage amps/live drums and other non-amplified instruments (horns). In the most extreme case it might only have vocals in it and nothing else.

You would be better off getting a monitor feed from the sound system / FOH / Monitor mixing board with the things you actually want to hear in your mix and running that to your IEM system. Alternatively you could do a "more me" setup where you use a keyboard/Voc mixer which drives the FOH and also drives your In-ear mix and you can directly control how loud you are in the mix (Only add the additional channels you need into your mix from the Monitor/FOH mix - don't double add your keyboards/vocals)

Don't worry about the latency from the FOH console it won't matter. Phase issues would only occur if you double send the feed which you don't have to do in either scenario. In the first your personal mix would be coming entirely from the Monitor/FOH console. In the 2nd scenario you would only receive mixer channels other than your voc and keys as those would come directly from your mixer.

cgrafx wrote:Using a fron... ...in it and nothing else.

Yes. It is a compromised solution, but I'm looking for the most universal setup possible here. I know this would not get me even close to ideal results. But if the main mix does not have any guitar or bass in it, neither will a monitor mix (the bass is not run through the console). But as long as the FOH engineer is doing their job, all instruments and voices should be (A) loud enoigh without FOH reinforcement OR (B) fed to the FOH and thus the main mix, to make them louder. And me being on stage, I can naturally (more or less) hear everything that falls under "A", and the ones that fall under "B" are in the main mix.
(and the "more me" you mentioned later is more precisely what I meant. I never meant I would only be listening to the main mix as is... more on that below)

cgrafx wrote:You would be better off getting a monitor feed from the sound system / FOH / Monitor mixing board with the things you actually want to hear in your mix and running that to your IEM system.

Yes. Absolutely. And I will do this whenever possible. And whatever setup I choose, it will be able to do this as well. But sometimes a monitor feed might not be an option. I might not get my own mix, but still want to be able to hear myself and others on stage.

cgrafx wrote:Alternatively you could do a "more me" setup where you use a keyboard/Voc mixer which drives the FOH and also drives your In-ear mix and you can directly control how loud you are in the mix (Only add the additional channels you need into your mix from the Monitor/FOH mix - don't double add your keyboards/vocals)

Sure. A good option. But still requires a dedicated mix channel for my. One that has everything but my keys and vocals. So it does not solve the problem of not getting a personal AUX mix. Although this has one benefit as opposed to completely relying on an AUX feed: Here if I only get a mono AUX feed I can still hear my keyboard stereo.

cgrafx wrote:Don't worry about the latency from the FOH console it won't matter. Phase issues would only occur if you double send the feed which you don't have to do in either scenario. In the first your personal mix would be coming entirely from the Monitor/FOH console. In the 2nd scenario you would only receive mixer channels other than your voc and keys as those would come directly from your mixer.

All of this is true, but my main issue (maybe wasn't very clear in my first post) is when neither of these is available. When I can't get a personal AUX feed from the console. Granted, I might be overly concerned about an unlikely scenario here, but I want to be equipped for any scenario. If I can.

I use two small mixers when playing with bands other than my own.

Mixer One sends keys to FOH and Mixer Two. Mixer Two combines FOH and keys to drive my IEMs. One knob will give you "more me" without affecting performance volumes.

It's clunky, but it works. Strange that no one has made a dedicated product for this role.

cphollis wrote:I use two small mixers when playing with bands other than my own.

Mixer One sends keys to FOH and Mixer Two. Mixer Two combines FOH and keys to drive my IEMs. One knob will give you "more me" without affecting performance volumes.

It's clunky, but it works. Strange that no one has made a dedicated product for this role.

All right, so you have something very close to what I'm looking at.

What exactly do you mean by the FOH signal? Is it a copy of the main mix or is it a custom mix?
If it is the main mix, are you getting problems with double feeding keys into your monitors? (one copy inside the main mix, and another directly from your splitting mixer)

As a fill-in keys player, I usually get a bog-standard FOH mix that I'm supposed to run through a floor monitor. It is not a custom mix, it's what everyone else is hearing. It arrives via a single XLR cable, as you'd expect. Every performer usually gets some sort of monitor mix, but I don't expect it to have enough keys in it.

Instead of plugging it into a floor monitor (yuck), I plug it into a small second mixer, combining the bog-standard FOH signal with a feed from the first mixer which only has my keys signal. I can make the keys as loud as I want in my ears.

Only the first mixer sends a keys signal to FOH and the second mixer. The second mixer sends a mixed signal to my IEMs (or stage monitor, if I was using one of those, or a stage amp in some circumstances). There is no "double feed".

Small mixers are about $100 each, much less used, so it's an inexpensive solution, although it's a bit clunky with two mixers, cables, etc.

For my main band, we all use PM-16 personal mixers. We can adjust every instruments in our ears that way: drums, guitars, vocals, etc. But I don't expect that setup when I sit in with other bands.