In our continued quest to provide our clients and fans with the best possible experience, we have been experimenting with in-ear monitors. (IEMs)
Our investment has been pretty modest up until this point, we purchased a Sennheiser wireless transmitter with a pair of body pack receivers, a headphone pre-amp with extension cable and the materials to rack mount that equipment.
Chip, our lead vocalist is wireless and using the stock earbud monitors, and John (Bass/vox) is using another brand of single driver monitors with a wireless bodypack. Tony, who plays keys, sax and sings, is currently wired, using a set of earbuds he brought to the table.
Richard (Guitar/vox) and Chris (Drums) are both using powered floor wedges still.
This new setup has eliminated three floor monitors, and helped to reduce the overall stage volume, speed up setup/teardown, and freed up some stage area!
Everyone has their own mix, so if they keyboard player needs to hear more of himself, that can be arranged, without affecting the guitarist in the least.
It’s a learning experience, and takes some getting used to after you have played for 35 years with standard stage setup, however, in the end, it’s only going to make for a better show for us and our audience.
The next step is to move to multi-driver, custom molded in-ear monitors (CIEMs). That will give us even better sound in our ears. Completely isolating us from ambient sound (noise) and sealing in all the good stuff (the bass, bass drum, etc will be much more punchy).
So, if you are at a show and scream out “Free Bird!” (or hopefully some other song request), and we seem to ignore you, it might be that our ambiance mics are not picking you up well. Come see us in a break and tell us what you want to hear!
We’ll post more as we progress on our new journey towards a quieter stage!