Personal Monitoring Solutions

[ryanrotman]

Recently our church has gone to IEMs, however with the equipment we have we've been doing it using our pre-existing monitor lines and the AUX feeds from the sound board and using Rolls Headphone Taps. This has been ok and has been a blessing to cutting stage volume, but not the greatest as far as everyone getting a great mix in their ears. We only have 5 AUX sends but sometimes 8-9 people on the platform. That means a lot of people have to share the same mix. I would love to upgrade to something much better.

I have used AVIOM in the past and would love to go to that system, but I was wondering if anyone knew of others out there that are comparable to the AVIOM maybe for a cheaper price, better funtioning, etc. I recently heard about Roland's M-48 Personal mixer. Anyone used that yet? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[bbrunskill]

The Roland will only work with the Roland audio network. Pretty much useless unless you have a Roland desk/stage box too.
Aviom is really good if setup right, but I'm still not crazy about it, I would prefer a decent monitor mix from the techs.
HearBack make a similar system, but it only 10 channels, only really good for small bands.


I am waiting for a desk upgrade, I'm planning on getting an Yamaha LS9 and running 6ish wired in ear monitors to stage, using the Yamaha auxes and limiters. Will keep bv's on a stereo monitor at first.

[efrisch]

We are using Aviom right now because the church that uses our facility on Sunday evenings has a system. That said, I prefer to have everything mixed at the board. One way that we've gotten around having a limited number of mixes in the past (and will again in the future) is personal monitor mixers. Rolls & Samson both make nice ones. That way, you can create a general "vocal" mix or a mix for drums and bass, and then give each musician or vocalist an additional control for their own instrument or voice. Your five mixes might be split into a leader's mix, vocals, drums/bass, guitars, & keys. Each person then gets control over themselves within that mix. We've had a lot of success with that type of system.

[hcguitar]

I got a catalog recently that had the ProCo Momentum system that looks pretty sweet. Although it looks like it only works if you also have their digital snake so it may be more than what you're looking for.

[yod1948]

Quote:
Originally Posted by bbrunskill

Not meaning to be a troll, but you don't know exactly what everyone else is hearing, not out front.
The room acoustics will be completely different on and off stage, and may wreak havoc with your carefully mixed stage mix.

nope. There is no appreciable difference in the room, even the volume is the same.

The only time there is a difference is if there are a lot standing bodies and you are sitting down in the middle of them. Then you'll lose some of the bass.

The Bose also only works in a 7 foot wave. If there are balconies or you are on a high stage, then there would be a problem. But in the average room that seats under 500 its the same mix and volume everywhere in the room.

There are limitations to what types of rooms it can be used as a main PA system, but not as monitors. They are wireless and cover a small-to-mid-sized area in any venue evenly with a small footprint.

While the Bose system is excellent for small gigs, at bigger gigs there is a reason why sound people exist, why try to cut them out of the loop?

In my case, I'm usually working with people I've never met before and on systems I've never used in a room I'm not used to. Even though there is the rare sound person who is excellent and knows the gear, I wouldn't find out that out until it was too late. Then there are also communication differences that I can control with the twist of a button instead of finding space after the next song to stop everything and get it straight.

not to mention the changes necessary because of crowd noise.

And with a proper sound check and monitor setup, there should be no trouble hearing yourself, especially in an arena where stage volume is not severly limited.

that's true only as long as you are standing close to the monitor the entire time....and you do the sound check with the same conditions as what you will playing under....like a full room of people.


__________________

[yod1948]

the board here is acting weird.


It posted my reply to bbrunskil before the remarks he made that I was responding to...so if this works....look up there ^^^^^^^^^^^

[yod1948]

At the risk of drawing Rocky's ire, I've never found anything to work better than having 2 Bose L1 columns for stage monitors.

Even if I'm in a place that is too large (800+ seater) to use them as the main sound system, I send the house a mix from my Bose columns so I know exactly what everyone else is hearing, and I always hear myself perfectly. I can also adjust them on the fly from the stage so I don't ever depend on communication with a sound person at all.

We recently played in a 2,500 seater arena and sounded better than all other acts this way. All the other bands complained about not hearing themselves and/or bad monitor mixes while my trio sailed on through with no difficulties whasoever.

[bbrunskill]

Originally Posted by yod1948

I send the house a mix from my Bose columns so I know exactly what everyone else is hearing, and I always hear myself perfectly.

Not meaning to be a troll, but you don't know exactly what everyone else is hearing, not out front.
The room acoustics will be completely different on and off stage, and may wreak havoc with your carefully mixed stage mix.
While the Bose system is excellent for small gigs, at bigger gigs there is a reason why sound people exist, why try to cut them out of the loop?

And with a proper sound check and monitor setup, there should be no trouble hearing yourself, especially in an arena where stage volume is not severly limited.

RE: the 'more of me' systems like the Rolls units, as a sound guy I don't trust them. Having a mic going through the little splitter adds another point for possible failure.
Also, with the 1 Rolls unit we have at church, changing the volume of the 'me' changes slightly the sound of the feed to the sound desk.
That certainly sets off warning sirens in my head!

Ben

[louca]

Originally Posted by bbrunskill

Aviom is really good if setup right, but I'm still not crazy about it, I would prefer a decent monitor mix from the techs.

Originally Posted by efrisch

We are using Aviom right now because the church that uses our facility on Sunday evenings has a system. That said, I prefer to have everything mixed at the board.

Why in the world would you guys ever prefer your personal monitor mix to be set at the sound board? I just don't understand that. With the Aviom, you can set any mix you want, you can pan instruments to different stereo positions and even have several mixes to choose from - all done from where you sit or stand. And when you want someone up or down a little bit in your monitor, you don't have to wave your arms and holler to the FOH sound techs to get it changed to exactly where you want it. Seems to me adjusting my own dial is much simpler. What am I missing here?

Lou

[efrisch]

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE the Aviom and being able to dial in my own mix, but at least in our situation, I see a few benefits to mixing from the board:

-We've got a small stage and 7 Aviom mixers add a lot of extra stands/cables.
-Some of my musicians and (especially) vocalists will spend the whole service playing with their Aviom mix instead of really engaging the congregation. It's also nice for the engineer to be able to solo an individual mix in their headphones when a team member just isn't sure what they want/need from their mix or how to achieve it.
-If I'm getting an aux send from the board, I can have the channel EQs applied to the mix. On the Aviom I just get a master treble & bass (we have to run out of the inserts on our console to use the Aviom). The Avioms have a very sterile, digital sound that I'll admit I don't prefer (side note - ear bud quality is not an issue here... I'm using custom molded dual driver monitors).
-Avioms are darn expensive... again, we're only using them because the other church has them and uses them... before that we were mixing all of our in-ears from the board, and none of us can see a reason not to go back to mixing from the board when we lose them. In a church our size, I wouldn't be able to justify the expense to accomplish something we can already do well.

These are just my $.02 - I know Avioms and other systems like them are great for a lot of churches, they just don't seem to fit well in our current situation. I'm not the only one who feels this way... several of my team members have expressed their own displeasure with the system and desire to return to mixes from FOH (even folks who weren't around when we were doing it that way before). Just not our cup of tea, I guess.