I am starting a duo and I want to make the monitoring as simple as possible so I thought I would try in ear monitoring. We have been practicing using over the ear headphones and it sounds really good and very easy to get a balance. I bought some in ear phones that are a cheaper set (but are designed for monitoring) because I want to make sure before I sink any real big money. I find that music wise the in ears perform fine....vocally it feels like you are singing with your fingers in your ear. I even found a way to use moldable silicone to make exact ear molds so the phones fit my ears perfectly....it is better with them but still have the feeling of having my fingers in my ears. I am thinking about using lightweight over ear phones to see if they work better. Just want to know if anyone here has experience with this. I have 2 hotspot style monitors but since I have been using the over ear headphones they just don't compare to the sound quality.

I thought you said you wanted simple?

With a duo, ITE monitors are overkill. A simple floor wedge or "Hot Spot" kind on a mic stand are all you need. In ear monitors are suitable for large, loud stages with lots of instruments. Something you really don't need.

However, as far as IEM go.... the real ones are pretty expensive. If you're doing this on the cheap, try the EP-630 by creative. Under $20 on Amazon and they have great seals and are comfortable. I use them in the studio sometimes in place of my cans. They are my MP3 player regulars.

You're plugging phones into your mixer headphone output?

What you're hearing through headphones (or IEMs) is not what your audience is hearing. I put everything through the floor monitors -tracks, guitar, bass, vocals – and try to match what the mains are putting out as closely as possible. You really play better when you can hear everything clearly.

The only use for IEMs in a duo would be if you were playing in a really loud joint, where you couldn't hear yourself at all.

“Hotspots” suck. Get a decent floor monitor, then add another if you think you need it. There are a ton of great, affordable powered monitors on the market now.


Regards,

Bob

I have a BEHRINGER EUROLIVE B205D and TC Helicon VSM-200 VoiceSolo monitors which I use with my band and I can use them. In practice with the duo I am using a Yamaha mixer and the house mix and monitor mix are the same. It sounds really good to me on headphones. I have used wedges and I prefer the TC Helicon that I have. The difference with the duo is I am going to use my GR55 guitar synth and keyboards direct into the board so I won't have a guitar/keyboard amp. In ears are no more complicated to use. I just was wondering if anyone on the board has use them. Instruments sound great to me with the in ears the issue I was having is with the vocals. I can always use the monitors I have if it doesn't work out.

addendum to the below: after reading your later post, if you decide to go in ear, I would tell you that for me the in ear se215s work excellent for me, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, drums, vocals and keyboards all come thru clear and defined. I may have to give some credit to the sound guy at this point!

original response...
For a larger group I use the shure se215 in ears thru an Aviom/berhinger powerplay type personal mixer setup. It is really nice. But for the single, duo or trio I skip the in-ears and use the Bose Classic l1 or more often the very straightforward Fishman sa 220. For the small to mid size rooms the Fishman works very well for us, placing it a short distance between and behind us, it is our monitor as well as PA. If the room is larger I use the Bose or run two of the Fishman sa220 units, connected to each other via crisscrossed monitor in/outs, which double the amount of inputs I can use and fill things out in the room pretty well for the type of things we do. Best of luck with you duo. Please let us know how things work out with the technology.

Unfortunately from the equipment I have from my band I am going to be using my Alto Trusonic's for now. I have a set of 10" 600 watt for smaller gigs and 15" 1000 watt for larger. I have subs but can't imagine I'd need them. I'd really like to get a Bose system but just not in the budget for now. I have a Behringer headphone amp that I use to balance the individual monitor levels. Using the headphones is what started me down the path of using in ear. What I am interested in is how you get past the feeling of singing with your fingers in your ears....instrument wise everything sounds great.
We are just practicing with headphones right now to keep the levels down once we get closer I am going have to rent some space to set up the full system and then I can probably get a better feel. I have played for years using my TC Helicon mic stand monitor and it works fine but now that I am taking my stage amps out and going to direct in I am a little worried about using them.
Also I have used molding silicone to make perfect fitting in ears that stay put and pretty much isolate all the outside sound. They are dual driver but weren't real expensive. They sound pretty good to me.

It is nearly impossible to get past the feeling of singing with your fingers in your ears with IEMs that are properly sealing in the ear canal to cut down stage volumes. Some have found that mixing on your own miked voice with reverb, and only above 1000hz or so can help, but the sound of your bone conducted voice will swamp that and its alot of hassle. Stick with hotspot type monitoring. For the record, I worked for Westone for over 5 years, they pretty much invented in ear monitoring.

A serious downside to using IEM in a small gig is that you can not easily hear the audience. I can understand a drummer using cans if there's a click he needs to hear, or if the stage is particularly loud and the cans are to keep the volume to safer levels for the musicians. Performers on big stages need them to avoid the floor being cluttered with wedges and the time delay that is part of the big stage due to distance. Duo's in a small club don't need that sort of monitoring.

I used to play a solo act for a time... acoustic guitar into a pretty substantial PA....

I used floor wedge monitors with excellent success. And I could hear the audience since the audience in a small club for a solo act or duo will be talking to you and commenting and you want to be able to hear them and reply. If you don't reply, they will think you're ignoring them and that's not good for business.

I agree with Bob.... hot spots are not my choice in monitors. Our band tried them out and blew them out and went beck to floor and side fill. They covered too small of an area. Like their name implies, if you're not in the "hot spot" you're not going to hear much.

Thanks for the advice. I am going to practice some more with the in ears but from what I am hearing probably won't be able to get over the finger in ear feeling. One of my guilty pleasures is watching the "Voice" and I have noticed a lot of times the singers will yank one of the in ears out during performance and I suspect it is because of that finger in ear feeling.
I have used the TC Helicon for years and I know what it sounds like and will try it once we go to live practice and see how it goes. With the duo not being as loud I can also work with speaker placement so we will be able hear house mix pretty well. I am glad I didn't spend a fortune on my in ears and I can say if I was only worried about instruments they would be great. Although I do imagine that on stage communications would be a pain.....since my other duo member is my fiance that could lead to some real issues

There are many reasons performers will pull out one of their IEMs:
1. The monitor engineer is not sending them a usable mix
2. They can tell they are starting to sing flat (very common with bone conducted dominant hearing)
3. They want to hear the crowd or mains
4. Other reasons.

I use IEMs weekly but not for singing. I play one of the following in our worship band: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, electric bass or keys. We have no amps on stage and use a booth around the acoustic drum kit. We use a full Behringer system (X32 board, digital snake and Behringer personal monitor mixers) and sometimes I pull an IEM out in our rehearsals because our worship leader does not use a headset mic and if he gives verbal instruction/commands off mic, I really can't hear him whatsoever. Our FOH guys often forget to use the talkback mic as well, so if they are shouting from the FOH board, I can't hear them if they forget to use the talkback mic.

The Behringer stuff is really easy to use - much easier than the original AVIOM systems and light years easier than the insanely complicated Roland V-Mix systems.

However, I've never been able to sing on pitch with my IEMs. I have Westone ES5 custom models and Westone UM3x universal fit models by the way.

That is exactly what I am finding....my pitch gets off with the in ears in. Instruments sound great but I can't live with the pitch problems. I'll know more once we try some practice with the whole system. With the over ear headphones I don't have the pitch issues but it would look goofy using them live. Thanks for all the input on this....I had just seen so many of the pro acts use the in ears so I thought I was missing out on something.

Pitch is a problem for a lot of folks when using cans of any sort. You often see pictures of recording artists in the studio with the headphones off..... actually they are holding the cans with one cup pressed to one ear and the other ear hearing the room.

I have, on occasion, also done similar.... with one of the cups half off of one ear to hear my voice when singing.

The pitch problem is exacerbated by in ear monitors compared to over the ear cans because of what is called the occlusion effect. This shifts the balance of frequencies highly towards the low end and it messes with the psychoacoustics of our pitch control circuits in our brains. Occlusion effect doesn't really happen with cans because they don't seal the ear canal. They do block out room reverb as a feedback mechanism, but that can usually be corrected by adding in some reverb to the voice coming back into the cans. Occlusion effect cannot be passively controlled with IEMs. Some can train themselves to rewire their pitch control with IEMs, but it takes time and effort. Like I said I have Westone ES5 IEMs, but I do vocal tracking with a cheap set of Samson circumaural cans. The Westones are wrth 10x the Samson. Now, for tracking acoustic guitars and other mic'ed instruments, the Westone's rock because they let me hear what the MIC hears much better than the non isolating Samsons.

Thanks for clearing that up. I was wondering whether I would start singing out of tune with cans on or worse still couldn't hear myself singing out of tune.:-)

Nice info Rockstar. Thanks.

This is basically what I do. we have Avioms in our worship band and I use IEMs connected to the Aviom, but I only use the left IEM and I disconnect the right one so that I can hear everything else going on around me, including the WL when he's "off mic" but giving directions, I can hear the choir that way (they're not going thru the Avioms, but they're mic'd going into the house), etc.

one difference is that I have the SE-215's but they are customized. I paid a company to have them make custom IEMs for my ears. made a mold of my ear canal, sent it to them and they sent back the custom IEMs.

and our FOH NEVER use the talkback mic. most of them don't even know how. [rollseyes]

I actually made my own using moldable silicone. It is the same stuff hunters use for making custom ear plugs. All you have to do is mix the 2 part silicone up and fit it in your ear. Then you press the headphone drivers in. You have to be careful getting the driver aligned properly. once it is cured you pull the drivers out then stick a toothpick down the hole the driver left and use a dremel tool to open up the hole so it is open to your ear. They isolate perfectly but I still cannot get past the feeling of having my fingers in my ears.....if I only had to use my guitar and not sing I would use them. They sound great as headphones.

DIY will not work as well as lab made custom IEMs for many reasons including the fact the DIY does not get down into the cans nor are the acoustic of the ear taken into consideration with driver selection but if you like them then they are working for you.

Mine definitely get down into the ear canals. They really sound good and stay put. The sound isolation is great. I realize they aren't $900 dollar units but I didn't want to spend that much on an experiment. And for me they answered the question.....I just can't get past the fingers in ear feeling.

WOAH! Mine aren't $900 units either!!!

I paid $100 for the SE215's and ~$150 for the customization.

If I thought they were going to work for me I would have spent a fair amount to get them.....I only threw out 900 because it can easily get that high if you add the wireless components. As it is I have a nice set of headphones and knowledge so it was a pretty good deal.