Musician's Help and Opinions Needed

[Herculosis]

This is kind of a tech question, but the Cafe seemed like a better place to put it for some reason.

Anyway, here's the deal.

I've been experimenting with a sort of personal in-ear monitor setup, but since I don't need mobility and am not willing to pay the price of decent wireless gear, I've been wired so far.

I've got 2 different setups that I need to work with. In both cases, I'm using a Yamaha Clavinova CVP (keyboard). The unit has built-in speakers that sound fairly decent, but aim back toward the player, so aren't always useful in a performance. For solo work, I use the built-in mike jack which is great because I can get good balance and control mike effects directly.

Even just with the clav itself, the position of the speakers makes it difficult for me to hear my own vocals well enough to be happy. I'm OK with my own vocal ability, and I have a very good ear for pitch, etc. As I've gotten older, though, I really need to be able to hear the vocal. When I can, I can do great, and when I can't, I'm all over the map pitchwise.

So far, I have a very nice headphone amp with a passthru that does pretty much what I need it for. Even just using the clav itself, I run an aux out line from the clav to the headphone amp, and then into phones. I can also run out from the HA directly to a bigger system for solo work. Or, when playing in a larger group, I can just grab a line from the snake and run it from one of the AUX outputs on the mixer back to the HA to pick up everything.

The problem is that I'm not willing to play with headphones.

On Saturday, I went to pick up a pair of Shure E2C in-ears, but the guy I talked to convinced me to get a pair of M-Audio IE-10's instead. I got them home, and tried them out, and was NOT pleased. The nicely shaped and balanced sound I was hearing from decent headphones was instead extremely flat, almost NO bass, boosted midrange and highs. So, I then tried them on my kid's i-pod. Compared with the $20 apple buds these sounded like a transistor radio.

When I took them back, the guy I had dealt with listened to them and agreed they were \"toast\". Then, a different guy listened and said they were performing exactly like they were supposed to. His explanation was that a \"studio\" monitor SHOULD flatten the sound out. He let me try a pair of IE-30's, a higher priced M-Audio model, and they sounded almost just the same, with just a touch of bass added. He also said that the Shure E2C's would sound the same. This seems completely stupid to me since they're being sold as monitors. If you don't hear what your audience is hearing, what's the point? If you have to adjust your instrument output, or separately EQ a line just for the buds, that's just plain stupid.

Does anyone have any experience with any kind of similar in-ear stuff? I'd like to think that the guy was just full of it, and the Shure's would be the way to go, but he wouldn't break into a sealed package to let me try them, and again claimed that they wouldn't sound significantly different than the IE-10's. I think what I need is just some good ear-buds with some isolation. I figured getting something sold \"AS MONITORS!\" would be the best bet for durability, but maybe just a better set of stereo buds would be better. Any suggestions? Anyone have or have used Shure E2Cs?

[Isaac]

i forwarded this problem to my little bro, who's should be sending it to his band tech guy.

[Testiculese]

Dunno, man, if Chris Gilbert can get onstage with Satriani and wear those bigass 1970's headphones while he's playing, then you can too.

A studio monitor ought to flatten things out, though I wouldn't like the high's boosted. You are trying to hear everything without any one range overloading your ears. Bass can clip the mids and highs so they usually have a low threshold for it. Besides, bass rebounds well so you ought to still hear it ok from the regular speakers.

Shure makes OK stuff. But remember, you're wearing in-ear buds...they don't have much of a response to begin with. You can get a low-profile set of open-air headphones, or just get a monitor and put it under the keyboard, aiming up, and run KB and voice through it.

[Herculosis]

But remember, you're wearing in-ear buds...they don't have much of a response to begin with.

I get that they're not gonna be like sitting in front of a big folded horn. But, just considering them as ear-phones, I would have expected them to perform similarly. Particularly when I'm using the clav by itself, I don't really have the option of adjusting the EQ for the phones. It's already set up the way I want it to come out at the speakers. Using the following choices I had available for phones, I got the following results:

Bose Sound-Isolating headphones: Great sound with essentially same EQ balance as speakers.

Other cheaper headphones: Very Good sound with essentially same EQ balance as speakers

$20 Apple ipod buds: suprisingly good sound with essentially same EQ balance as speakers

$6 Cheapass buds: OK sound with essentially same EQ balance as speakers

$100 M-Audio IE-10 buds: OK sound with EQ balance completely changed, no bass, totally worthless to me.

[De Rigueur]

Those M-audio buds were probably designed with a neutral, flat frequency response to be used in systems with a separate monitor mix.

If you only want to hear yourself well enough to sing on key, what I do is stick an earplug into one ear. I'm not really a vocalist, but on the rare occasions that I sing into a mic, that's what I do. It has basically the same effect as putting your hand over your ear (which I can't do while playing.)

But if a set of less expensive buds works for you, go for it.

[Isaac]

hmm i'm not really sure I have the technical knowledge or connections to solve sucha problem. just don't know enough about specific monitoring setups and stuff. does he mean his own vocals when he says "hear the vocals" ? If so, I agree, being able to hear yourself period is important for playing with other musicians, or even while accompanying yourself. I'd recommend just plugging the keyboard into some sort of board which simultaneously output to speakers and also headphones (or earbuds) he can hear with. i find that lots of extra speakers on stage doesn't do anything except make everything louder, even if they are monitors. headphones for me worked best the few times i ever used a monitor system.

Not much, but there's our 2 cents.

[Herculosis]

Thanks for the opinions. I had a chance to try a pair of the Shures last night, and I have to admit that they sounded very sweet. Bass response was still pretty light side, but overall sound quality was great. Isolation is extreme, however, and the more I've thought about it, I don't think I really need that in my situation. So, I've got a pair of Bose in-ears on order, and I'm going to try those. They have a 30-day return (unusual for things you actually stick into a hole in your body), so if they don't work out, I'll go back and get the Shures.