Ghetto In-Ear Monitor System

Can't afford a nice IEM system? Me neither!



When recording with my band awhile ago, I realized how much I loved being able to hear myself clearly through the headphones. I went off to purchase an In-ear monitor system for live shows, and was awe-struck when I saw the prices. I gave up on it immediately: maybe to revisit when we get some more money. I can't remember how or when this idea came to me. but I think it's pretty innovative for the resources we had around.

Step 1 "Parts"!

Here's your list of "parts":

1. An FM transmitter (I went with BELKIN because it got really good reviews)

An FM transmitter is a little device which(simply) let's you listen to your audio source(Personal CD player, MP3 player, etc.) Over a stereo. These are low powered and don't have the greatest range. I would suggest the Belkin Tunecast II FM Transmitter Mod to boost your output power.

2. a personal FM receiver(With headphones!)

Basically, a small FM radio with a headphone jack people used to use before CDs and iPods were invented.

This doesn't need to be brand new. Just functional, and have a headphone output.

(TIP: If you want to seem really cool and professional; get a rectangle one that you can put in your back pocket. This way people won't know you don't have a professional IEM system!)

3. Headphones, 1/8 to 1/4 adapter(optional, depends on conditions)

Comments

[jirooooooo]

Hey! that's a good idea over there! I was thinking of walkie talkies for home made IEM's but I think yours is better. could you post a video of you using it? I'd like to see them in action.

[santamanuela]

I'm really not sure if you're still following this. I hope that you are. First of all, awesome idea, I had the same idea myself, since I don't need to be able to listen to other instruments in my band, but only a constant beat from the metronome. I also thought of a bluetooth system that would let me do the  same thing, it would probably be better quality, although a little more complicated to set up. I read the comment about the range, yet I'd appreciate if you have any new thoughts about it. One thing still bothers me though, what about sync? do all audio sound exactly at the same time on all headphones? what about the range on this issue? does it "unsync" if you move away from the transmitter, or when you start going out of range? since It's a metronome I'm gonna hook up, I'm still not sure

[WillTheRescue]

 Hm...You know...I never really thought about sync. I'm the only one in the band that uses it, so I'm not sure how it sounds on other's. It seems to work fine with just mine. The quality isn't very good, but it's enough for what I need, which is basically the drums, and guitar, but most importantly, my voice. EQing can be a huge help. Keep instruments in their "best range". I usually cut off all treble and most mid from the bass drum. All low-end on the hi hat and crashes. The guitars I keep mostly in the mid-range, and I keep my voice on whatever it's set at to come out the speakers (I want to hear it as accurately as possible)

I've never thought about expanding on it, since we've been in the studio(and between drummers) for so long. But maybe it's about time!

I never thought of bluetooth, and I'm not really smart in that area. Ideas on how the system would work?

[santamanuela]

Well, it would basically be the exact same thing, but instead of having an FM transmitter, it be a regular usb bluetooth dongle (usually about $20) hooked to any laptop, or  desktop pc, and then the band would use bluetooth wireless headphones (I found a cheap pair on the web for $16), or just regular universal cellphone handsfree sets. You could connect the headphones or auxiliary jacks of the mixer directly into the pc mic jack. I'm really not sure about setting up the system, but I did find a white paper explaining how to hook up more than one reciever to the same bluetooth source. It is possible, although an issue would be bandwidth, yet one should be able to fix it by hooking another bluetooth hub to the same pc. White paper doesn't cover the sync part either, although I found somewhere that bluetooth range would be up to 10m, (30ft). So we're talking about somewhere around $100 which is fairly cheaper than the $400 per musician with the in ears, of course, you have to have a pc with usb ports.

[WillTheRescue]

Would the fact that I run Ableton Live off my laptop, and out the laptop's headphone output, and into the mixer? Would I hear the sound from the monitors back through the laptop?

[santamanuela]

Wait, explain that connection a little better... mmm anything you have running "in loop" would generate feedback. What I'm saying is that if your laptop's headphone out goes into the mixer, and then the mixer goes back into the laptop through the mic jack, to be turned wireless then yes, you WILL get a feedback, and a very huge one, I've done similar things and trust me, it's a total deff-ener. Althoug there's no need for that, you could just go mixer to laptop's mic jack, and then wireless through bluetooth, since anything sounding on your laptop should be being sent wireless already, even whatever ableton live reproduces.

[WillTheRescue]

Well,

The most complicated part is that we have one mixer that mixes all our drummer's mics together, then the main output from that goes to our good mixer. That way the drums only take up one channel on an 8 channel mixer.

Other than that:

The tricky part is that the laptops input is from the FX send.
That way when we want to play with a track in Ableton, we just turn the FX output on the tracks we want to get run into the laptop, and turn their main output down (eliminating feedback).

When we get bored, we tend to loop stuff, then chop it up.

It's a lot of fun.
You can basically build a whole new song from improv.

[santamanuela]

Cool! seems like you guys are all set. So now that I get what you're saying, I guess you should be able to listen to ableton live back from the mixer, since you should be able to listen to everything that goes through your laptop. What I finally did was order this: http://www.hobbytron.com/fm-radio-transmitter.html it's a semi pro FM transmitter, it claims to have a range of up to 200ft, I'm guessing it'll give me enough bandwidth for my own home made in ear monitors, let's just hope for the best on that sync issue. It's a kit though, so I got my soldering stuff ready. I'll be sure to update when I get the final results on that

[WillTheRescue]

 Wow, I'm really glad I was actually able to help somebody!

[santamanuela]

Hey man, how's it going? Just bringing back the response I promised on the whole FM transmitter kit thing. As you said before, it's terrible with the lows, seems like bass frequencies are much too saturated for this system. The rest of the band members where ok. Sync is perfect, even in the range boundry, so I guess it's a good thing to use just for voices, or a basic click track, which is what I initially intended, although you do have to re-set the trasmitting frequency every time you get to a new gig, so it's not trully reliable.

[WillTheRescue]

Myspace.com/cellblock12me

As you can hear, some of our music can get very intricate, and sometimes I have a hard time hearing myself over Duncan's drumming, and my synthesizer tones tend to cut through the normal monitors.

[Ezza]

Awesome! Fairly cheap and simple. Nice work.

[WillTheRescue]

Thanks. I'm still kind of proud of myself for coming up with it ;)

[Ezza]

You should be

[it_dont_work]

about 50 bucks will buy a wired inear line monitor that would be 100x better than any of this. i like the use of simple house hold tech tho easy to get your hands onto and dead simple to make and operate. i doubt it would hold up in well on stage. tho a second hand shure monitor system is rather cheap and priceless once you've got it imo

[WillTheRescue]

It actually holds up decently on stage. It obviously will never be better than shelling out money for a good, real one. But for stuff I had laying around my house, it works good. Not so great with low frequencies though.

[it_dont_work]

lows aren't too much of a big deal you can mainly fee lthem and generating more power they're usualy easier to hear so in fact your in ear might be helping to protect your hearing abit better.

[WillTheRescue]

Exactly. Before I came up with this idea, I was mainly relying on feeling the bass hits through the subwoofer to know where I am in the song, and relying on putting one finger in my ear to hear if I'm hitting the correct notes. It's rather nice to be able to hear yourself.

[billygotmygoat]

Check out Jump Audio...

Jump Audio - IXM in ear monitor system

It runs the in-ear signal IN the guitar cable so you only have one cable.

[WillTheRescue]

Thank you! That's awesome, but I still don't have any money, and it's only getting worse.

[destrokhan]

You should look into the nady PEM system...it's cheap. And I know what you mean, the prices on these things jump from $200 to $1000 pretty quick.

[WillTheRescue]

Besides the fact that I'm broke; I've owned Nady products before, and I was very dissapointed.

[destrokhan]

trust me, I know nady sucks, I was skeptical to use one but our manager got it and it worked far better than I expected. But there's really no need to spend that much money on something you really don't need until you're in a touring situation or gigging a lot

[WillTheRescue]

If I had better luck with Nady, I'd probably be at least open to it. But my Nady headphones that came with...Well, they came with something I bought. They lasted a week. They completely fell apart. My Nady wireless instrument system; I figured I'd see how I like it before I spend hundreds more. I loved it at first. Hated it just a few days later. I'm sure it's better than my IEM system. But I'd rather stick to mine, at least until I get the money for a good one.

[dchall8]

Okay, I'm kind of new to playing bass guitar. I have a small practice amp, not a mixer. Could I plug the FM transmitter directly into the (unpowered) guitar and listen on the earphones from my MP3 player (which receives FM signals)?

[WillTheRescue]

No. Your bass guitar signal is much too weak for this. I do believe there are small headphone amplifiers you can get though. They plug into your guitar and boost your signal for headphones!

[jackillac92]

Well you can do this with a regular electric guitar, a pocket FM transmitter for an Ipod, and an adapter for the input jack. So I am pretty sure you can but the signal would be very weak and you can barely hear it and have barely any tone at all. I have done this it DOES work.

[WillTheRescue]

Hm. Yes, the signal would be very weak. My suggestion would be to use the same technique, but plug the transmitter into the headphone output on your practice amplifier.

[jackillac92]

no

[WillTheRescue]

Er...why?

[jackillac92]

Its pretty obvouis to me so it should seem pretty obvouis to you!

[WillTheRescue]

Yeah, that makes no sense. Why not the headphone output on your amplifier? It's basically the same thing as plugging it into the headphone output on my bands mixer.

[jackillac92]

No I meant if you didnt have an amplifier and you just had the guitar, the transmitter, and a radio. You plug the transmiter into the guitar, turn radio on and tune to correct frequency and then strum the guitar. I think your thinking one thing and I am thinking another.

[WillTheRescue]

dchall8 has a practice amp. He said so up there.

[jackillac92]

Yea I know both of our methods work thats what I am trying to say!

[WillTheRescue]

Haha. I guess we both get confusing.

[jackillac92]

I guess so!

[emilyguitar]

Great idea. I was praying for this type of thing, so thanks for putting this up! One thing , how far is the range on this? Also, in my band I play alongside a pianist, a PA system for vocals, a guitar amp, a bass amp and sometimes other instruments... Will it pick up any of the other instruments that are amplified electronically?

[WillTheRescue]

I'm not sure of the range, I know it doesn't work so great in my basement, but I haven't taken it outside or anything yet(I just haven't had the time) As far as I know; no, it shouldn't. I'm not a professional in electronics or anything besides producing audio. But it doesn't even pick up signals from my wireless guitar system! So I don't think you should have a problem. If you do, try picking a different frequency.

[WillTheRescue]

At first it'll get kind a little fuzzy and distorted, then one of two things. It will either mostly drop-out (meaning you'll only hear it sometimes and it will be very fuzzy) Or you will pick up another radio station or something(very bad!)