In-ear Monitors for a Big Band

[nbevan3]

I recently played a gig with a big band consisting of 5 saxophones, 4 trombones, 3 trumpets, and a full rhythm section. Since most of the instruments were acoustic and the room was fairly small, we didn't have a sound engineer.

The band leader placed me at the back, right next to the drums. As a result, I could only hear the drums and my amplifier. When the band leader told me to turn up the volume, it only made it harder to hear the rest of the band.

One solution could be to mic everyone and hire a sound engineer to manage the mix for both the audience and the band. However, this isn't practical in our situation.

I am considering using in-ear monitors, placing an ambient mic near the saxophones, and feeding my guitar into the in-ear mix. This way, I can put my amp speaker in front of me to project sound to the audience while reducing the volume in my ears, allowing me to hear the band through the ambient mic.

Has anyone faced this issue before? How did you solve it? What do you think of my idea to use in-ear monitors in this situation?

[Christian Miller]

I recently played a gig with a big band consisting of 5 saxophones, 4 trombones, 3 trumpets, and a full rhythm section. Since most of the instruments were acoustic and the room was fairly small, we didn't have a sound engineer.

The band leader placed me at the back, right next to the drums. As a result, I could only hear the drums and my amplifier. When the band leader told me to turn up the volume, it only made it harder to hear the rest of the band.

One solution could be to mic everyone and hire a sound engineer to manage the mix for both the audience and the band. However, this isn't practical in our situation.

I am considering using in-ear monitors, placing an ambient mic near the saxophones, and feeding my guitar into the in-ear mix. This way, I can put my amp speaker in front of me to project sound to the audience while reducing the volume in my ears, allowing me to hear the band through the ambient mic.

Has anyone faced this issue before? How did you solve it? What do you think of my idea to use in-ear monitors in this situation?

Sit next to the horns, not behind them. Don’t be too far away. Position yourself between the drums and the horns. Point the amp towards the horns, they need to hear you more than the audience.

If you can be bothered setting up that sort of monitoring I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

Most band leaders are horn players and don’t have a clue about rhythm sections …. spaces to set up aren’t always ideal either.

I had a gig like that last week. Could barely hear the horns. Meanwhile the horns complained they couldn’t hear the RS lol. The drummer was situated between us and the horns and working hard to keep us in synch. Didn’t help that we were sight reading a bunch of new charts. Still, the audience liked it haha.

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[nbevan3]

I had a gig like that last week. Could barely hear the horns. Meanwhile the horns complained they couldn’t hear the RS lol. The drummer was situated between us and the horns and working hard to keep us in synch. Didn’t help that we were sight reading a bunch of new charts. Still, the audience liked it haha.

You feel my pain!
I will post how the in-ears work in the next couple of weeks

[AllanAllen]

The bari sax player is friendly so I usually try to sit next to him.

[Doctor Jeff]

The bari sax player is friendly so I usually try to sit next to him.

Bari guys have to be friendly. They don’t get no respect otherwise…

My son played mainly bari in his high school jazz band. The others sax positions were already filled, so he got bari.

He never complained. Fortunately I had a Subaru Outback that was big enough to haul the thing around.

I love me a good bari. The foundation of a great horn section.

[Doctor Jeff]

BTW interesting post.

Is it possible to Bluetooth a live mixer into earbuds? Our piano guy has a rig similar to the Bose T8S.

[Christian Miller]

BTW interesting post.

Is it possible to Bluetooth a live mixer into earbuds? Our piano guy has a rig similar to the Bose T8S.

There would be significant latency


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[rpjazzguitar]

I play in two big bands, each of which has been around for decades and yet, they both still occasionally make major changes to the setup configuration.

These jobs didn't come with any training, so take this for what it's worth.

I've never had any trouble hearing the horns or the drums, no matter where I am or they are. They're just loud.

For me, the issue is to be able to hear the bass and the keys. Also, if possible, not to be too near the drums (to protect my hearing). This often involves a compromise - usually to end up closer to the drums than I want to be, so I have to use earplugs.

For volume, I try to be a little quieter than the piano, except for my solos.

For positioning, wherever I can near the bass and kb amps. I say that as if I have a choice. In reality, the placement of the guitar is usually kind of a "what's left?" thing.

I like my amp behind me and to my right, if that works. If the leader wants more volume, I think I'd try moving the amp towards him and pointing it right at him. I use an open back amp, so I should still be able to hear it even if it's in front of me. Another possibility would be raising it off the floor, on a stand or a chair or something and facing it toward the leader.

I carry extra cables and a female-to-female 1/4" connector so I can chain two cables if I need to for any reason. I use a pedal board from which I can control my sound, so I don't need to be able to reach the amp.

I've never used in-ears, so I can't comment on that. I'm interested in learning more about it.

[nbevan3]

My plan is to create a "silent zone" around me using ear plugs and/or in-ear monitors. I'll place my speaker in front of me to provide sound only for the band. I'll also send a line level signal to the PA system for the audience.

I'll use a single 'ambient sound' microphone by the horns and mix it with the line level signal from my amp, which will then feed into my in-ear monitors. This setup allows the band mix to be adjusted for any situation and simplifies the mixing process for anyone managing it.

The downside is that I can't have a foldback speaker near me, as it would disrupt my "silent zone." It might take some time to get used to, but I believe this is the best solution for me.

[rpjazzguitar]

A few weeks ago, my 19pc band played a 379 seat theater at a local college. I'd guess the audience was around 250. The theater is used for stage productions and music. I assume it's pro level acoustics.

In advance, I asked the leader about sound reinforcement. The answer I got was "less is more". He didn't expect to be using the PA (a pro set up with a sound booth at the back and so forth).

There was a student big band on before us. We didn't even move the chairs. There was no sound check.

I brought my regular amp, a JC55, but there was already a JC40 on the stage next to the guitar chair, so I used that. Nobody mic'ed it. In fact, I don't recall seeing a sound man. I could hear the bass amp clearly because I was sitting more or less in front of it. I could hear the piano through the kb amp to my right, so I played a little quieter than that.

Of course, the kb amp was facing the audience, not me, so I might have ended up playing too quietly. That said, if I played much louder I wouldn't have been able to hear the piano - and I need to coordinate with it.

Of course, I had no idea what the audience was hearing. Maybe better off not knowing, since there wasn't much I could do about it.

Nothing about this setup was promising. Nonetheless, the show went fine and we got an encore. Apparently, the audience could hear something.

I'm not sure what indoor venue would require this band to use a PA. I have heard similar bands sound anemic outdoors, so maybe in that situation?

I've also seen mics used for a big band in a relatively small room, which I thought was overkill. But, the sound guy only amplified what had to be amplified, so the horn mics probably weren't even on.

[pauln]

Not a fan of in-ear monitors. I was in a project once that was considering in-ear for everyone... If in the future that happened again I would definitely come up with a reason to miss the rehearsal where they would try it out and discover the issue with the proximity effect.

Have you ever put on or removed head phones and heard the pitch of the music rise or lower, respectively? This is the proximity effect, which raises the perceived pitch when the source is extremely close to your ear (or in-ear). This is the basis for lots of grief and confusion when in-ear stuff is introduced to a band.

Singers have it the worst because they must track pitch continuously, but will hear two versions of the pitch they sing, one from their throat and one in their in-ear monitor which is relatively sharp to the pitch in their throat. If they try to match their singing to the in-ear pitch (which they are hearing sharp), their acoustic singing correction picked up by the mic will be sharp with respect to the rest of the music through the board... so their correction now makes it actually sharp with respect to the band and more sharp than before with respect to their throat voice - they can't match it unless they deliberately try to sing flat with respect to what they hear.

This is why singers will complain that the sound is muddy or not clear or they can't hear themselves, but what's happening is that they are struggling to match their voice pitch with the monitored pitch. It might work if the in-ear monitor voice level were loud enough to mask their throat voice level, but that might be loud enough to mask the rest of the instruments in the monitor.

Likewise for instruments where you hear the actual instrument as you play it (trumpet, sax, guitar amp), that instrument sound may be as loud as the sharp in-ear pitch and be problematic. Whether this is a problem for guitarists will depend on the relative level that you hear your amp compared to in-ear.

[nbevan3]

Not a fan of in-ear monitors. I was in a project once that was considering in-ear for everyone... If in the future that happened again I would definitely come up with a reason to miss the rehearsal where they would try it out and discover the issue with the proximity effect.

Have you ever put on or removed head phones and heard the pitch of the music rise or lower, respectively? This is the proximity effect, which raises the perceived pitch when the source is extremely close to your ear (or in-ear). This is the basis for lots of grief and confusion when in-ear stuff is introduced to a band.

Singers have it the worst because they must track pitch continuously, but will hear two versions of the pitch they sing, one from their throat and one in their in-ear monitor which is relatively sharp to the pitch in their throat. If they try to match their singing to the in-ear pitch (which they are hearing sharp), their acoustic singing correction picked up by the mic will be sharp with respect to the rest of the music through the board... so their correction now makes it actually sharp with respect to the band and more sharp than before with respect to their throat voice - they can't match it unless they deliberately try to sing flat with respect to what they hear.

This is why singers will complain that the sound is muddy or not clear or they can't hear themselves, but what's happening is that they are struggling to match their voice pitch with the monitored pitch. It might work if the in-ear monitor voice level were loud enough to mask their throat voice level, but that might be loud enough to mask the rest of the instruments in the monitor.

Likewise for instruments where you hear the actual instrument as you play it (trumpet, sax, guitar amp), that instrument sound may be as loud as the sharp in-ear pitch and be problematic. Whether this is a problem for guitarists will depend on the relative level that you hear your amp compared to in-ear.

Good information, thank you

[Danny W.]

With my big band I wear custom-mold earplugs with a -25dB filter on the side away from the band (pretty much always my right) and a solid plug on the side facing the band because I find the horns intolerably loud and bright otherwise. Over the years I've sat in the trumpet row stage right, 'bone row stage right, and the past couple of years I've been mostly up front stage right, but it depends on the venue. My favorite location is usually outboard of the drums if that's possible.

We almost always use our sound and soundguy for the front end and monitors. If the venue has good facilities we'll feed into that for FOH. I can usually hear the singer(s) and soloists through the nearest monitor. If I can't I know what they sound like anyway. Some of our venues are much more big band friendly than others as far as band layout and stage acoustics. At a church we played recently I've usually been in the back behind their grand piano but in April the leader, who just took over the band this year, asked me to sit up front. I had the back of my chair pressed up against the piano and an audience member's foot on one leg of my music stand, with a noticeable amount of latency to the farthest horns in a room with boomy bass and significant echo. Adding to that a folding chair that was doing its best to dump me on the floor made it one of the least comfortable gigs I've done in a long time. Packed house, great audience and a fun time anyway!

I'm not even visible from the far side of the stage:



Similar layout but more compact. Better acoustics too:


Danny W.

[sgcim]

Not a fan of in-ear monitors. I was in a project once that was considering in-ear for everyone... If in the future that happened again I would definitely come up with a reason to miss the rehearsal where they would try it out and discover the issue with the proximity effect.

Have you ever put on or removed head phones and heard the pitch of the music rise or lower, respectively? This is the proximity effect, which raises the perceived pitch when the source is extremely close to your ear (or in-ear). This is the basis for lots of grief and confusion when in-ear stuff is introduced to a band.

Singers have it the worst because they must track pitch continuously, but will hear two versions of the pitch they sing, one from their throat and one in their in-ear monitor which is relatively sharp to the pitch in their throat. If they try to match their singing to the in-ear pitch (which they are hearing sharp), their acoustic singing correction picked up by the mic will be sharp with respect to the rest of the music through the board... so their correction now makes it actually sharp with respect to the band and more sharp than before with respect to their throat voice - they can't match it unless they deliberately try to sing flat with respect to what they hear.

This is why singers will complain that the sound is muddy or not clear or they can't hear themselves, but what's happening is that they are struggling to match their voice pitch with the monitored pitch. It might work if the in-ear monitor voice level were loud enough to mask their throat voice level, but that might be loud enough to mask the rest of the instruments in the monitor.

Likewise for instruments where you hear the actual instrument as you play it (trumpet, sax, guitar amp), that instrument sound may be as loud as the sharp in-ear pitch and be problematic. Whether this is a problem for guitarists will depend on the relative level that you hear your amp compared to in-ear.

Maybe this explains a weird experience I had one time on a BB gig where on the stand, the band was mic'd. and sounded like crap from where I was set up. Out of tune, weak sound, etc...

We took a break, and I came back late, and the band was already playing without me. It was outside in a park, and I had to walk a long way back to the stand, the band sounded fantastic from a distance. It sounded like Rob McConnel's band, and the singer/trumpet player, Johnny Amoroso, sounded like Steve Lawrence!
I snuck past the leader, without him knowing I was late, and as I got on the stand, the band sounded as crummy as it did before. I still can't explain it.
Maybe it was the reverb from the PA system?

[fep]

The Reaper DAW has a function that allows for each member of the band to set their own mix with their phones. Maybe this would be of interest.

[Christian Miller]

Amplifying big bands - I mean this varies. None of the pub gigs I do with my blowing band are amplified. I have done amplified BB gigs and then you just get the horns through the monitor which solves the problem.

Some engineers are more apt to put overheads over the band (like the old school way of recording a classical orchestra) in which case the on stage balance will be acoustic and the amplification will be more ‘sound reinforcement’ of the natural sound of the band.

In the acoustic case, set up is very important, especially very old school set ups with an all acoustic rhythm section including acoustic rhythm guitar (there are some bands in london that do this)


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[Christian Miller]

Maybe this explains a weird experience I had one time on a BB gig where on the stand, the band was mic'd. and sounded like crap from where I was set up. Out of tune, weak sound, etc...

We took a break, and I came back late, and the band was already playing without me. It was outside in a park, and I had to walk a long way back to the stand, the band sounded fantastic from a distance. It sounded like Rob McConnel's band, and the singer/trumpet player, Johnny Amoroso, sounded like Steve Lawrence!
I snuck past the leader, without him knowing I was late, and as I got on the stand, the band sounded as crummy as it did before. I still can't explain it.
Maybe it was the reverb from the PA system?

Probably a big part of it. Outside gigs are always difficult with respect to the sound unless you are playing in a purpose designed acoustic space (some old school bandstands have interesting stuff going on, band shells are weird!) Electronic reverb, tastefully applied, can do a lot.

I would say I’ve had similar experiences. A lot of crappy on stage sound over the years. For players it can give the false impression that sound engineers are all terrible (well many do tend to turn up the bass and drums too much, but that’s a separate issue.)

Monitors in particular always seem to sound harsh and bright. That’s why I still bring backline for my own instrument, it always sounds better and I feel I can play better even when I use something with speaker sim (i don’t know if the proper digital modeller guys still bother to do that?). But obv doesn’t help with the other instruments. Ear plugs can also help (as mentioned above.)

I’ve somehow managed to avoid playing any gigs on in-ears. That would be an adjustment.

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[RJVB]

Ear plugs can also help (as mentioned above.)

I’ve somehow managed to avoid playing any gigs on in-ears. That would be an adjustment.

I was thinking the same about simple earplugs, and IEMs, in fact. Though I don't really see why we'd distinguish them from simple plugs. Because I suppose they're basically in-ear headphones that double as protective earplugs? (I expected this thread to be about recommendations for good ones, btw.)

The Reaper DAW has a function that allows for each member of the band to set their own mix with their phones. Maybe this would be of interest.

Brave new future ... where both the audience and the musicians are playing smart with their phones...

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Not a fan of in-ear monitors. I was in a project once that was considering in-ear for everyone... If in the future that happened again I would definitely come up with a reason to miss the rehearsal where they would try it out and discover the issue with the proximity effect.

Have you ever put on or removed head phones and heard the pitch of the music rise or lower, respectively? This is the proximity effect, which raises the perceived pitch when the source is extremely close to your ear (or in-ear). This is the basis for lots of grief and confusion when in-ear stuff is introduced to a band.

Singers have it the worst because they must track pitch continuously, but will hear two versions of the pitch they sing, one from their throat and one in their in-ear monitor which is relatively sharp to the pitch in their throat. If they try to match their singing to the in-ear pitch (which they are hearing sharp), their acoustic singing correction picked up by the mic will be sharp with respect to the rest of the music through the board... so their correction now makes it actually sharp with respect to the band and more sharp than before with respect to their throat voice - they can't match it unless they deliberately try to sing flat with respect to what they hear.

This is why singers will complain that the sound is muddy or not clear or they can't hear themselves, but what's happening is that they are struggling to match their voice pitch with the monitored pitch. It might work if the in-ear monitor voice level were loud enough to mask their throat voice level, but that might be loud enough to mask the rest of the instruments in the monitor.

Likewise for instruments where you hear the actual instrument as you play it (trumpet, sax, guitar amp), that instrument sound may be as loud as the sharp in-ear pitch and be problematic. Whether this is a problem for guitarists will depend on the relative level that you hear your amp compared to in-ear.

The classically described proximity effect has nothing to do with pitch. It applies to directional mics and refers to the increase in bass that occurs as the sound source moves closer to the sensing element in the mic. It comes into play at less than a meter and can reach a 20 dB boost in lows at a few inches or less.

When you remove earplugs, you may think you heard a slight pitch shift in some environmental sounds around you. Theories on whether and why this occurs clutter the internet. But it’s external sound that’s said to be affected, not sound coming from headphones / ear buds etc.

If you have any references on the pitch shift effect that you describe, we’d really appreciate your posting them. If “proximity effect” is also used to describe a pitch shift, please direct us to a source so we can learn. Thanks!

[RJVB]

The classically described proximity effect has nothing to do with pitch. It applies to directional mics and refers to the increase in bass that occurs as the sound source moves closer to the sensing element in the mic.

Was it on here that someone called this the Doppler effect and used it to explain (basically) why external tuners give an erroneous reading?

FWIW, could it be that the bass we perceive from ear buds is at least partly due to this kind of proximity effect? The configuration in which in-ears are used turns our ear into a very directional microphone, in a sense...

If you have any references on the pitch shift effect that you describe, we’d really appreciate your posting them. If “proximity effect” is also used to describe a pitch shift, please direct us to a source so we can learn. Thanks!

I second that.

But talking about the Doppler effect: this may indeed come into play when you remove in-ear monitors out of your ear while they're still playing. Whether or not it can really influence your perception is debatable because the sound pressure must drop off sharply and in particular for the lower frequencies so there may be 2 antagonistic effects going on. But the sharper drop of bass contents in the sound you hear from the earbuds as you remove them may give an impression of the reproduced sound going sharp. The doppler shift towards lower frequencies of the sound being played back may cause ambient sounds appear sharp if somehow our hearing remains locked-in on the earbud sound and continues to take that as the reference.

[RJVB]

Re: singers: I think we're all familiar with the fact that we hear our own talking voice as much lower in frequency (or richer in lower frequencies) than how we sound to others, and that it gets taking used to to hear one self in a recording. I can easily imagine that this can become an issue with in-ears monitors.

I don't sing, certainly don't know "real" (classical) singing technique (using "head voice" I think the term is?) so I can't assess to what extent we also hear our singing voice differently than how others hear it.
I do know I can't match pitch with a recording, of anyone... I never made the association with how we perceive our own voice.

[pauln]

You don't need references to demonstrate it for yourself. Play music through your headphones, then listen as you bring them to your ears, then take them off, still listening.

You will hear the pitch of the music rise sharp as you place the headphones and go flat as you take them off; this is not background sounds, this is the sound of the music in the phones. This is not Doppler frequency shift, the effect is present even if you place and remove slowly.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

You don't need references to demonstrate it for yourself. Play music through your headphones, then listen as you bring them to your ears, then take them off, still listening. You will hear the pitch of the music rise sharp as you place the headphones and go flat as you take them off; this is not background sounds, this is the sound of the music in the phones. This is not Doppler frequency shift, the effect is present even if you place and remove slowly.

I just tried it with AKG Q701s, Sony studio phones, Edifier WH700NBs, Jabra buds, JBL buds, and the BASN B SInger Pro IEMs that I've been using on gigs for the past 2 years. It just ain't happening.

Unlike you, I'm not completely comfortable expressing an opinion with certainty without making some reasonable effort to validate and support it. So in addition to trying to experience it myself, I searched the internet for any hits on combinations and permutations of multiple keywords like proximity effect, pitch, frequency, headphones etc. There are hundreds of similar hits defining it as I did in my earlier post. Not one describes the proximity effect as altering the pitch (or perception of pitch) in what's coming out of headphones. Every single definition refers to the previously described effect on bass enhancement from close proximity of a sound source to a directional microphone. Here are examples from the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society and a PhD thesis from the Centre for Digital Music at the University of London (see section 2.2.3 starting on page 31 for the scientific definition).

There are literally hundreds of current studies and descriptions of the proximity effect right now because it affects what we hear from our mobile phones. Our mouths are so close to the microphones on our phones that frequency spectrum alterations from proximity effect seriously affect intelligibility on the other end. It's a very hot topic in designing all sorts of communication devices that use closely placed mics.

I'm expressing a widely accepted concept with scientific support. So if you'll pardon my uneducated and insensitive ears as well as my dull mind, I have no reason to accept your personal belief and explanation if you can't support it with even a single reputable source in agreement. I'd really appreciate knowing that someone (preferably a recognized source of knowledge) besides you agrees with you.

If you're right, I'll learn something and you'll be smugly self-satisfied. If you're not, you might learn something and I'll have a bit more confidence in my aging memory. It's a win - win situation either way. And I'll still love you, even if I think you're wrong

[rpjazzguitar]

If in-ears are that bad, how is it that I've heard many performers sound great while using them?

[RJVB]

I just tried it with AKG Q701s, Sony studio phones, Edifier WH700NBs, Jabra buds, JBL buds, and the BASN B SInger Pro IEMs that I've been using on gigs for the past 2 years. It just ain't happening.
[...] So if you'll pardon my uneducated and insensitive ears as well as my dull mind

Same here, with phones ranging to various Sennheisers, a pair of AKG studio phones, Grado SR60x and Klipsch and iMore earbuds. If anything I might believe the opposite happens because of the shift in frequency content that I already described.

Contrary to never, I'm not going to be modest here and point to the fact that I'm (ok, was) a trained classical violinist who's been listening through headphones for decades. So my ears are probably just as little uneducated and insensitive as never's ears are.

Maybe you're hypersensitive; can you listen to a vinyl record without going crazy because of wow & flutter, for instance?

So yeah, I'd like a reference, because the fact that I don't notice an effect doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Or ... you turn your music up too loud. IIRC tend to perceive loud music as sharp and softer as flatter; the reverse is definitely true and actually playing loudly enough also tends to make the pitch sharp.