|
Post by daddyelmis (Greg) on Jul 7, 2022 8:41:36 GMT -7
My band is now considering IEMs for all 4 members. I was going to go with the Xvive for myself (thanks for the input zpilot) but now all 4 of us want to go that way so as to avoid lugging around wedges and amps. But, of course, we don’t want to spend a fortune as we’re not gigging that much. We also want multiple (at least 2, but 3 or 4 would be great) mon mixes. Our Mackie board has 2 dedicated mon outs plus we have a couple unused aux outs, so in theory we could have a mon mix for every one. Lots of less expensive options for one mix with multiple receivers. A few with possibly 2 mixes on multiple receivers (most of these by panning hard L and R on the receivers). Unclear how the sound quality is on these cheaper multichannel units. Nady has one (PEM-04) that has 4 separate mon inputs and each receiver can be set up to receive any one or a mix of all. Nady’s been around forever, but that’s no guarantee of sound quality. This unit is $600, so $150 per man which isn’t bad. Any one have any experience with the Nady unit, or other advice for a multiple mix unit?
|
|
|
Post by zpilot on Jul 11, 2022 13:24:29 GMT -7
No experience with that particular product. I have had some experience with other Nady stuff, including an IEM, and I was always underwhelmed.
|
|
|
Post by Russell B on Jul 11, 2022 14:14:55 GMT -7
I'll tell you what we do now and what we're going come this weekend.
We didn't want to spend outrageous amounts of money on In Ears. So, I bought a Behringer HA8000 V2 8-channel Headphone amp. Everyone bought a pair of Shure SE215 in ear headphones, and a 25 ft extension cable. Our Yamaha board has 3 aux outs, so we had 3 mixes. That works alright.
We just bought a PreSonus StudioLive 16R 16-channel Rackmount Digital Mixer and a wireless router. It will give us 6 personal mixes. I'll push the mixes to the direct inputs on the Behringer and everyone will be happy. Everyone will be able to adjust their mixes with their smartphone! I'll use my iPad to control it. It will be a game changer for my band.
We didn't go with wireless in ears yet because It's so expensive. But regardless, if you don't have enough aux outs even the best wireless system won't make up for the lack of personal mixes.
If you decide to go wireless, make sure you're in the 500MHz range. Anything high MHz or GHz will give you problems from what I hear.
|
|
|
Post by daddyelmis (Greg) on Jul 12, 2022 5:40:48 GMT -7
The Nady is 900Mhz, which can be problematic but hopefully in our use we’ll find clear channels. The UHF units are crazy expensive, and my guitar wireless (2.4 ghz) has never had a problem, so we’ll see and fingers crossed. The price is right - it’s about $125/person after my 20% musicians friend discount.
I’m trying an “inexpensive” wireless IEM to reduce the amount of cables running around the stage. Other than RFI, my big concern is whether these sound “good enough.” Our old floor wedges are no great shakes either, so it’s not like the Nady has a high bar to get over. I’m just over lugging around what is almost a 2nd PA for monitors.
I’ll report on this unit once we get it in and give it a whirl.
|
|
|
Post by Rhino on Jul 16, 2022 20:00:41 GMT -7
I've been using Westone ears (5-driver...a HUGE improvement over single driver!) and Sennheiser transmitter for years. Both are top-notch products.
<edit> I also use a Sennheiser analog guitar wireless...anther HUGE improvement over any digital rig that preceded it!
|
|
|
Post by daddyelmis (Greg) on Sept 22, 2022 6:41:31 GMT -7
Well, we bought the Nady PEM-04, a 4-channel wireless IEM that has a rack mount transmitter and comes with 4 belt pack receivers and sets of earplugs. I have to say, at its price point, this a pretty good system to get you multiple mon mixes in a convenient and user friendly package.
Took some fiddling in getting levels correct to reduce some initial distortion, but ultimately it worked very well. It's not best audio you've ever heard for sure, and I can't say whether upgrading the rather cheap earbuds would help or not, but for what we need it's fine as is. We initially ran 2 mon mixes because our Mackie ProFX-16 has 2 dedicated Mon busses. We can go up to 4 using two Aux sends if we want, but I doubt we'll go that far. Mainly we needed vocal monitoring with just enough other instruments, particularly drums (we've got electric drums), to provide "context."
At about $550 all in, this was a deal compared to most other multi-channel IEM systems.
|
|