From ynottnaro@yahoo.com Fri Mar 07 05:02:14 2003
Subject:In Ear Monitors

In an effort to improve fidelity and yet keep weight
down, combined with the frustration of being the guy
who DOESNT get a monitor when there aren't enough, I
decided to check into some Personal (in ear) Monitors.
All I can say is....O M G!!!!

I had investigated Shure's site looking at their
product line and had decided the PM600 series was the
way to go. After some tutoring from the salesman, I
was convinced to go with the Sennheiser IEM series.
This is a wireless system (a bit more expensive, but
considering the multitude of environments I find
myself in, I can't always depend on the club to have
an extra channel or send in their snake...with the
wireless system, you can depend on them having an
extra aux send, in which case you can get your own
TOTALLY INDEPENDENT mix) that has more broadcast
channel options than the Shure 600 series. It also
gives you the option of broadcasting in mono or
stereo!!! It comes with earphones, but I decided to
spend some extra money and get some Shure phones.
There are 3: ES1, ES2 and ES5. The ES1 are the
baseline (not much better than the stock Sennheisers)
the ES2 are a bit more performance oriented, and the
ES5's are dual driver (think mini-subwoofer in each
ear). The ES2's run about $100, and the ES5's about
$500 (list of course), but take it from me, you can
hear the difference in quality IMMEDIATELY. I took
the plunge.

We played a theatre in Peoria, IL last night, and I
figured this would be a good test. I didn't expect
this theatre to be at the cutting edge of sound
reinforcement technology, and I wasn't disappointed.
The engineer was good though. He did have an aux send
he could send to me. I had everything fed to my
in-ears and told him he could my wedge to the bass
player (who likes things tres loud). I had drums,
acoustic guitar, elec guitar, bass, my Motif (and to
totally throw caution to the wind, I left my keyboard
amp in the van) and my leslie (instead of running it
at full, I backed the leslie amp to 2:00...let's see
how clean I can get it!), and of course vocals.

INSTANTLY I felt justified in spending the money.
Vocals were never so clear EVER in my life. Hearing
everything so well enabled me to hit notes with more
authority and clarity than ever before (I get the
ultra nasty tenor parts). I was able to zero in on
anything I needed to. Best of all, my keyboard rig
sounded great. And man, did the Electro/leslie combo
sound beautiful. This was amazing!!!!! The drummer
has been using an in-ear system that is quite
rudimentary (precursor to the ES1 phones, and a little
Behringer mixer as an amp) but often is unable to use
them as the snake/PA can't accommodate his need. But
when he saw the look on my face, he knew I was getting
something he wasnt. The bassplayer just looked at me
during soundcheck and turned to the vocalist and said,
I quote: "When a musician smiles like that, you know
he's a happy motherf$#*er!" Now he wanted to know
what it was like. Imagine his look of surprise when
he realized he was going to be able to quit lugging a
bassamp along (he has bad gear karma by the way, and
lugs two ampheads everywhere we go) and can just use a
preamp and these phones.

If you are still looking for a good sounding amplifier
for live use, and your band uses ANY kind of PA, even
the "Sound On A Stick" variety, I strongly recommend
you check this out. You can leave your own amp
behind, and the sound will blow you away. You'll hear
vocals clearer than you ever have...and you can
control the volume right at your belt. When in stereo
or mono, you get a balance control. The unit is
half-rack one space (you'll need a kit to rackmount
it, but I recommend NOT racking it: this way the pa
guy can put the transmitter ANYWHERE on his rig and
not tell you he can't fit it up there), weighs like
2lbs, has a belt pack the size of a 100 pack of
smokes, is lighter than your cellphone, and runs on a
9volt battery. I'm told the Sennheiser is very
conservative when it comes to battery life, and will
run on a rechargeable.

I can't tell you enough how great this sounded and how
liberating it was. When I do get a monitor, I end up
sharing someone's mix, which necessitates me bringing
an amp, and it's never exactly the way I'd like to
hear it. Last night....I saw the future!!! And
imagine how cool my side of the stage looked with just
my keyboards and the leslie! I was digging it hard!

Tony

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