Over the past decade, many churches have transitioned from monitor wedges to in-ear monitors. The cost of in-ear monitoring has come down dramatically for wired IEM systems, wireless systems and the ear buds themselves. Nevertheless, there are certainly still churches out there that haven’t taken the plunge and are still trying to navigate the benefits and challenges of moving away from wedges. While in-ear monitors aren’t for everyone, they often solve many of the traditional problems that we have with monitor wedges.
Wedges: Tried and True
Wedges are the tried and true stage monitoring method. It is tough to give them up because they are very flexible and somewhat forgiving. In-ears require significantly more attention to detail from the engineer. The downsides of wedges are fairly obvious and well documented. They create hotspots onstage where the mix might be good in one area, but move three feet to the left or right and the mix changes dramatically. Of course there’s the greater potential for feedback, and wedges bleed energy all over the stage and out into the audience as well.
The Transition to In-Ears
If you have yet to move over to in-ear monitoring, there are a lot of gear options and other considerations. The most difficult transition to ears will be for vocalists who are used to hearing their own voice through a monitor wedge. As soon as they try in-ear monitors, they’ll perceive a change in the tonality of their own voice. Try plugging your own ears with your fingers and talking, you’ll get the idea. This can make for a challenging and delicate transition as they make the switch, and the audio team needs to be conscious of their plight. We’ve all seen vocalists pulling out their in-ears as soon as a song starts and they can’t hear themselves. If you’re thinking about transitioning your worship team to IEM’s, it might be a good idea to move the band over first and let them get situated, and transition the vocalists later.
Mixing Considerations
As you make the move to ears or try to make improvements to existing in-ear monitor mixes, there are a lot of mixing techniques to consider. The first (and often overlooked) aspect is gain structure. Do not neglect the need to properly gain structure IEM systems as you would with anything else. If you are using hardwired IEM packs, find out what output level on your console produces clipping on the pack, and be careful not to exceed that level. If you’re using wireless packs, take note of where your transmitters clip and adjust the input level of the transmitter to align the console’s and transmitters’ clip point. That way, just avoid clipping on the console and you know that you’re good on the transmitter’s input. Nothing destroys an in-ear mix faster than clipping and distortion.
Next, consider whether you’ll be providing your worship team with mono or stereo mixes. Mono mixes can work for IEMs, but stereo mixes are worlds better. With a mono mix, having everything panned dead center makes it difficult to differentiate between sources that share frequency ranges such as guitar, keyboards and vocals. This often leads to the “more me” syndrome, where your performers always seem to need to hear more of themselves. By providing a stereo mix, a little bit of panning can go a long way towards creating separation and space in the mix.
Finally, be sure to consider isolation and ambience as your team moves over to ears. When an artist is on a wedge for many years, they aren’t just hearing their wedge, they are hearing bleed from everything on stage, they’re hearing the congregation and they are hearing the acoustics of the room. Now pop in a set of IEMs with 20 to 30 dB of isolation, and they feel completely closed off from the outside world. The isolation from in-ear monitors is both a blessing and a curse. By attenuating most of the outside sound, it allows them to maintain a reasonable listening level that is safer for their ears because they aren’t trying to compete with the volume of the P.A. At the same time, when you lose the ambience, the mix sounds sterile, dry and lifeless.
As you try to reclaim some of the ambience your worship team wants to hear, consider some of the following options. Personal monitor mixers such as the Roland M48 has a small microphone built into the mixer that allow artists to dial in some ambience. It’s a start, but it probably isn’t going to give them the quality ambience they are looking for. Instead, you might try a pair (or multiple pairs) of ambient microphones that can be fed back through your band’s in-ear mix.
Placement of such ambient microphones is a challenge. Try to focus on capturing the ambience as your artist would hear it naturally if they weren’t wearing IEMs. That means you can’t reasonably place your ambient microphones at FOH or have them hanging over the audience. Placements like that are good as ambient mics for live recording, but not for in-ear monitoring.
Instead, place the ambient microphones on or near the stage. A stereo XY pair in the center of the stage works well if it isn’t an aesthetic issue. Or, you can do a split a pair with one on each side of the stage. Add a high-pass filter and bit of light compression to the ambient mics, and gently blend them into the in-ear mixes. Some musicians will prefer the more ambient sound, while others will likely ask you to remove the ambience from their mix.
Meeting the Challenge
Switching from wedges to ears is a process that doesn’t happen overnight. Even if you move your entire band to ears tomorrow, there are going to be challenges and hurdles to overcome. A good relationship between the band and the tech team is essential to making everyone happy with their mix.
