In ear monitor systems consist of three components : the transmitter, the receiver, and a pair of earphones. The transmitter is placed off to the side and is used to send the audio of the performance to the receiver. This audio is known as the monitor mix. The receiver is generally worn as a belt pack, which the earpiece is plugged into. The belt pack will also have a volume knob so you can get the playback level just right. Using noise cancellation, the earphones block out unwanted background sounds.
The monitor mix can then be heard through the earphones in crystal clear quality. Wedges often have to be cranked at loud volumes to compensate for a rowdy crowd or other acoustic problems in the venue. This can lead to ear fatigue, or worse, it can increase your risk of hearing damage while on stage. They can also contribute to a messy stage, making it harder to move around and increasing the odds of you taking a spill in front of the entire crowd.
In Ear Monitors can solve all of these problems. Even though stage monitors are only meant to be heard by the performers on stage, they can still wind up interfering with the rest of the speakers. They can introduce feedback and even create phase issues that will make your music sound weak and poorly produced. Obviously these are big problems when it comes to putting on a good show. Mobility Another downside with wedges is that they limit how much you can move around the stage.
You more or less have to stay in one spot throughout the show or risk hitting some bum notes or losing your place in the song. Since most IEMs are wireless, you can be much more mobile during performances. Cheap systems are only likely to frustrate you and perhaps put you off using them.
Look into running a set of ambient microphones on stage, preferably high-quality condensers, to blend into your overall stereo in-ear mix.
Go full stereo if you can. A busy mono mix will sound congested — and could give you a headache! Spend your money on a better set of IEMs first.
Nick Bruce Smith was a respected sound engineer in his own right before forming the rental company Hand Held Audio about 20 years ago. But then the band announced they were no longer going to tour, and all their equipment was to be sold. Once again, they worked, with little failure.
Although the concept was perfect for the act, the technology wasn't quite there: the RF performance of the VHF system was quite erratic, and trying to run four VHF radio mics and four channnels of in-ear monitors was very challenging. The Radio Station operated without any companding [the process of compressing a signal in the transmitter and expanding it in the receiver, to get around the limited dynamic range of radio signals], and this did give it a very dynamic sound, but it also gave a lot of RF noise.
On a number of occasions, notably in Tokyo and Chicago, I could only get one transmitter to work, so everyone ended up with the same mix. Not a happy band! I thought I had gone to the moon — things were about to change! Its almost unthinkable! I asked Nick what had been the greatest advances in the technology, and what he thought the the next steps would be: "I haven't touched on the earpieces themselves yet! In those early days you had two choices: a custom acrylic mould with a Sony Walkman driver pressed in, or, if you had loads of money, then you could buy the Future Sonics Ear Monitor, which used a 16mm speaker properly mounted into a flesh-coloured shell with detachable cable.
The advance that has taken place since then has been quite substantial, and developments still go on. JH Audio and Ultimate Ears have both developed three-way earpieces that contain six or eight armatures inside the shell, giving much greater dynamic range. ACS have developed an active ambient earpiece, which has miniature microphones in the earpiece, allowing the user to mix in some ambient sound.
And it seems that the systems themselves have also come a long way. Newer models, according to Nick, benefit from "much lower noise floor, the ability to run multiple systems, improved RF range and, very importantly, system pricing, which has made it affordable to more musicians. I asked Nick what he thought musicians' experiences had been like when switching to using IEMs. But engineers started to use ambient microphones to try and get round this issue, and sometimes it helps.
Finally, I asked Nick what he would say to someone first starting out. There are some very good universal-fit earpieces on the market at relatively competitive prices. Try to pick a dual-driver earpiece if you can, as a single driver can often struggle with the dynamic range of a busy live mix. Obviously getting a custom fit does mean you don't have to fight with the insertion of the earpiece, and should guarantee you consistent isolation levels, providing the impression has been taken correctly.
The range available to you in a custom format is much better than for off-the-shelf designs, and you can now get an extremely high-quality audio experience, but you do pay for that. But as soon as you find yourself doing shows where the tech spec allows it, I would definitely recommend the IEM route over wedges.
There are many claims about who invented in-ear monitors, but it is generally considered to be sound engineer Chris Lindop. He was working with Stevie Wonder in , and on that tour Stevie had a a full-blown, broadcast-standard FM mobile radio station, Wonderland Radio. On stage, Wonder used a standard Walkman FM radio receiver tuned to Wonderland Radio, which broadcast his mix to him via a pair of earbuds.
Effectively a pirate radio station, the legality of the setup was very questionable. When he played London's Wembley Arena, his private monitor mix could reportedly be picked up in Hampstead, around six miles away! However, using this system, Stevie was able to walk freely around the stage listening to his mix. From this, Chris went on to develop smaller systems for many artists, and, with the help of others, developed the Radio Station, which was later manufactured by Garwood Communications.
These early systems were rather hit and miss, but they soon gained popularity with major performers. A mention must also go to Marty Garcia of Future Sonics , who began developing custom-fit earphones in the early '80s in the States. Working with high-profile acts such as Todd Rundgren and the Grateful Dead, he pushed the design of earbuds forward with the use of custom moulds and drivers.
In The Beginning
0コメント