in ear personal monitors

[samuelson]

can someone give me some input on personal monitoring systems? with those systems can I adjust the various instruments to my liking as well as my voice, or can I only adjust the instruments as a whole and then my voice? and how does that work? does it plug into the PA output? I'm new to this but we need to do something to hear ourselves sing in our band. we can't seem to harmonize well as we cant hear each other sing like we need to. so any advice is much appreciated. are we needing PSM 600 type of thing or something else?

[t_ross33]

What kind of music are you doing, samuelson? IMHO in ear monitors aren't necessary unless you are playing on very large stages or in venues where your stage show activites would take you away from an in-place monitor.

We run our stage sound/monitor mix completely seperate from our front-of-house mix. This allows us to adjust the vocal and to a lesser degree, the instrument mix to OUR needs, rather than to the ear of the audience. How loud is your stage sound? You might want to look at methods to get your stage volume down so the vocal mix comes through better. Things like running bass guitar DI to the board lets you pump thumping bass out the front, but keeps it at a reasonable level on stage. Same with mic-ing drums, guitar cabs etc.

In ear systems are just like any other monitor, you get the complete monitor mix . Before investing in in-ear technology I'd try a traditional monitor that includes an amplifier (active) to allow you to adjust it's volume/output. That way each band member can at least set the volume of the monitor mix to his/her taste and needs.

If you do try an in-ear system, let me know what you think of them.

Trev