What advice can you give on in-ear monitoring based on your vast experience?
Gavin Says:
here's my story with IEM.
When Pocupine Tree decided to start using 'in ear monitoring' (IEM) we went to a place in London to have some custom fitted molds made - and the idea was to buy the best ones available (Ultimate Ears). When we got there the guy talked us out of getting the uber expensive ones and go for the custom molds that will house any generic walkman type headphone buds.
When I got them (a couple of weeks later) I was disappointed by the lack of quality of the sound. ALL the high frequencies were missing due to the fact that the ear buds don't point directly down your ear canal. That meant that I struggled to hear the cymbals/hi hat etc...BUT as a strange side effect to that - my ears didn't ring anymore (in a tinnitus way)..which was REALLY GOOD.
So I turned the overhead mics up pretty high in my mix to try to compensate. This is a sound I've got used to. It's not a great sound but I can hear the drum frequencies up to a mid range acoustically - and the highs are accentuated through the headphones.
Curiosity got the better of me last year so I went and got the uber expensive Ultimate Ears UE10's fitted (cost just over $1000). They sound amazing - but I found them very hard work because they cut out SO much of the outside sound you can't even have a conversation with someone standing right next to you.
So you feel VERY cut off and then totally reliant on the mics...which is fine - but I couldn't tell how loud the headphones were and became scared at turning them up too much and damaging my ears.
Plus I couldn't really hear my drums acoustically at all - and (probably because I've been playing for so many years) found it to disconcerting. I like to feel the drums nice and loud (and 'in my face') and when I had the UE10's up that loud - my ears would start to ring again.
Plus I found I was hitting the drums too hard to try to get that feeling back of the drums hitting me directly in the face.
I know there are UE7's which have holes in them to allow outside sounds to bleed through, but I've got used to my original headphones now and I actually like the fact that my ears don't ring anymore due to the lack of high frequencies. Also I deliberately take off all the high frequencies of my click sounds (anything above about 7khz is off).
I've got to add to all that - if you're using IEM and don't carry your own monitor desk with you - you can be in for a pretty rough ride using the 'in house' monitor desk and engineer who doesn't know your music.
We quickly gave up with wireless packs. All of us go hard wired. It sounds better, has no interference and no battery related problems. We're not the kind of performers who go running all over the stage anyway.
My UE10's are unbelievably good for listening to my iPod on a plane trip though.