Korg Forums

I've been thinking in adquiring an in-ear headphone for my live performances
I usualy play with up to 3 other musicians (drums, bass and guitar). What's your opinion on this subject?
I need to shed some light on this.
Thanx.

Pr0

Hi,

since I got a tinnitus about 10 years ago in the right ear I always use In Ear System in band rehearsals and on stage (and try to stay far away from our drummer´s cymbals ).
I can strongly recommend using it, because it protects your ears and gives you control over your monitoring. Especially when you also do vocals you hear your voice much better what helps for intonation.

I use a wired system from hearsafe, which has a small mixing console included, so I can mix my keys and voice, two mikes (left/right) that are placed near to my position so I can get some ambience and at last I get a monitor signal from the mixing console for all other signals needed.

First you use in ear you maybe feel a little losing the contact to things around you, but for this I use the ambience mikes. The sound depends on the quality of the earphones - there are very good systems and you can even get them custom made fitting for your ears. I myself use shure standard earphones and I´m ok with it.

I´d say you hear more "hifi" not like a big punch using normal wedges.

However any system you choose, wired, wireless etc. should have a built in limiter just in case you get a signal that is too loud, but any good system should have it on board.

Hope that helps a little
SoulBe

What in-ear brand and model do you use, SoulBe?

Pr0 wrote:What in-ear brand and model do you use, SoulBe?

I use the Shure E5 headphones. They are great.

But when you use them all you can here is your foldback send and nothing else.

It is great.

Hi PrO,

the brand is hearsafe a german brand and the model is called in-ear-station. But it seems, that the station is not longer available, on their homepage they now only sell in ear phones.

Regards
SoulBe

Hi PrO,

the in ear station by hearsafe is not manufactured any more. But I found a link, that gives you an impression. If you´re interested maybe you get a used one on ebay or so.


Regards
SoulBe
http://www.soundland.de/catalog/headpho ... ange=deact

I'm using earphones for rehearsals and on stage and I recommend it. I have written an article about my experiences that you probably will not understand, 'cause it's in Hungarian language. The basics are: earphones are a combination of "earplugs" and "headphones". The earplugs protect your hearing and isolate from ambient sound/noise, and - at the same time - the headphones transfer nice controllable sound to your ears.

Important:
1. *Don't* use normal earphones (for mobile phones, etc.), they are not developed for stage musicians. Instead, use professional products like Shure SCL3, SCL5 or similar. Buy as good (= expensive) as you can afford. Personal opinion: I have SCL5, it is great, but quite expensive. I have tried SCL3 which was also very good.
2. The earphones *must* be inserted in your ears perfectly - else you will be disappointed. If inserted correctly they will/should sound better than anything you've tried before. Study this animation for example.
3. Be careful and *don't* use the earphones on high level, as this will damage your hearing. Use the lowest volume that you can.

Pros:
- You won't hear disturbing noises, reverbs, low frequencies, too loud guitar amps or drumsets.
- You will hear much better sound quality, normal volume level, perfect ratio between instruments/tracks, and your part as loud as you want.
- You can move on stage without loosing what you hear (there are wired and wireless solutions).
- You can hear stereo sound, if needed.
- You can get rid of the bulky stage floor monitors.

Cons:
- You have to get used to wearing something inside (relatively deep) your ears.
- You have to get used to having extra wires/cables on yourself and taking care of them.
- If you are monitoring in stereo and you turn around on stage, what you hear will *not* follow the real positions: you will still hear the guitarist on the left but will see him on the right.
- You may need to use an extra microphone in the monitor mix for ambient noises (to be able to talk to each other with your bandmates, or to hear the crowd better).
- You probably will need a headphone amplifier or a small mixer on stage to transfer the monitor signal to your earphones. (Or you can make some tricks - changing internal signal routing - to use the OASYS' built-in headphone output.)

Hope it helps.

Nice "review", thanx Akos!
I was thinking on adquiring the Shure SCL5, too.
What about 2-way vs 3-way earphones... any thoughts?

Pr0

Hi Pr0, you're welcome. I don't have experience about 2-way vs. 3-way earphones. (SCL5 is 2-way, SCL3 is 1-way. I like them both.)

I think you should try them before buying. The earphones usually have a detachable rubber/plastic part which goes into the ear - like these (click on the Accessories tabdeck down). I think it's a good idea to buy a pack of them containing different size and shape pairs, and try all with the earphone you are interested in.

It's also recommended to consider technical data like impedance, sensitivity, or other important factors like built quality. E.g. SCL5 is well-built, strong. When using directly connected to the OASYS headphones output, I have to keep the volume slider low, cause these earphones are almost too sensitive for the OASYS hot output signal. (This output is not designed primarily for using these earphones directly connected.)

I'm using Audio Technica M3 system http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/wls_m ... index.html and I've been nothing but impressed with it. Super-reliable, excellent sound, great ambience protection (I can hear the rest of the band in the background, but just a little - the way I like it). And all of that without customized earbuds.

I use earplugs and gives perfect safety to my ear. I mainly use the earplugs at the time of riding to provide relief ear from the loud sound of motorcycle and a big hit of wind. I bought it from https://bigearinc.com and has good quality and useful.