Is this personal mixer all I need to run in-ears?

[Jon May]

Trying to get my head around replacing my powered wedge monitor with in-ears. I have a Yamaha MG102C mixer (pictured) and in-ear buds. I did use 'search' and found a 2018 thread on the general topic of routing in order to employ in-ear monitoring. The challenge appears to be preventing the incoming FOH monitor being sent back out in a feedback loop.

 

http://www.propertyshoot.com/dev/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Mixer-MG102C.jpg

 

From my understanding of that 2018 thread, this looks to be the simplest solution (chime in if in error).

 

http://www.propertyshoot.com/dev/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Mixer-to-in-ears.jpg

[Reezekeys]

That looks fine. I see no feedback loop in that diagram. Get ready for some folks here recommending you buy different or extra gear! I prefer your setup because you're not beholden to a monitor mixer to get your keys level right. You can separately control level and eq of the monitor feed and your keys - that should make it easier to get an enjoyable mix.

 

What would be perfect (see, watch me do exactly what I said others would, lol!): a stereo mic on the stage somewhere, to give you some ambience in your ears. And a stereo monitor mix. Neither of these are essential though. Do you like things loud in your ears? Depending on the impedance of your buds and the headphone amp in this mixer, that could be an issue. I used a MOTU Microbook IIc to send my laptop setup's keys to FOH and give me my in-ears mix, and its headphone amp was a little lacking â mostly because the band I [used to ] play with had an exceptionally loud stage volume.

 

On re-read, I see you wrote "my powered wedge monitor" as in singular, as in mono? I could not deal with mono in-ears myself, but chacun à son goût. Good luck. Again, your setup should work fine.

[Jon May]

Someone on the Yamaha board suggested feeding the FOH monitor mix into the RCA ins on my mixer (2TR IN in the photo above). That signal can be sent to monitor only (toggle button "To Stereo/to monitor), it doesn't go back out my mains to FOH (I just checked using music from a connected phone) and its volume can be varied independently via the monitor mix knob.

 

Any drawbacks to that solution?

[Jon May]

Thanks ReezeKeys - ha ha... yes I'd seen extra personal monitor amps suggested in that old thread. and I'd heard from a guitarist/vocalist friend who used in-ears, that he found the isolation from ambient noise a little disorientating. His solution was to pull out one earbud, but that seems to me to partially defeat the advantages of having in-ears in the first place.

 

I do run mono keys - well spotted. I can imagine that the more that is added to the in-ear mix, the more one would appreciate stereo separation.

[Reezekeys]

Someone on the Yamaha board suggested feeding the FOH monitor mix into the RCA ins on my mixer (2TR IN in the photo above). That signal can be sent to monitor only (toggle button "To Stereo/to monitor), it doesn't go back out my mains to FOH, I just checked using music from a connected phone) and its volume can be varied independently via the monitor mix knob.

 

Any drawbacks to that solution?

 

Now you're contradicting your original post. I'm not sure what you mean by "back out my mains to FOH"... according to your diagram the mains of this mixer are not going to FOH so it shouldn't be a factor. The mixer is strictly for your in-ears and is not sending anything to FOH. I would forget about using the RCA ins â just do it the way you drew that diagram!

 

One thing that did occur to me - it might be wise to carry a female XLR to 1/4" TRS adapter because the feed from the monitor mix will likely be XLR, and your mixer's mic input gain control, even at full CCW, might not be enough to trim a +4 level signal down to a level that wouldn't overload the mic pre. In that case you'd need to use the 1/4" line input , which I assume can take a hotter signal (might need to check on this to make sure though). Looking at the manual, only the CH 1 & 2 line inputs are balanced TRS, the other line ins are unbalanced TS.

[Reezekeys]

Thanks ReezeKeys - ha ha... yes I'd seen extra personal monitor amps suggested in that old thread. and I'd heard from a guitarist/vocalist friend who used in-ears, that he found the isolation from ambient noise a little disorientating. His solution was to pull out one earbud, but that seems to me to partially defeat the advantages of having in-ears in the first place.

 

I do run mono keys - well spotted. I can imagine that the more that is added to the in-ear mix, the more one would appreciate stereo separation.

 

Playing with one ear out is supposed to be very bad for your hearing. I forget what the reasons are, but I've seen explicit warnings to not do this.

 

If the band you work with has a few vocalists, and their mics are in your mix, you'll likely get some ambience from those. It's not quite the same as the "real thing" though. When everything is mono and you're wearing ears or cans, the sound is "inside your head" â not very enjoyable imo. With a mono wedge, at least you're listening to it in an acoustic environment so you have the ambience of the room and stage to help - but that ambience is missing when you have ears on. Some â maybe a lot? â of musicians have no problem with this, but I do.

[Tom Williams]

Playing with one ear out is supposed to be very bad for your hearing. I forget what the reasons are, but I've seen explicit warnings to not do this.

I suspect it's bad for hearing, that's not my motivation for two-ears. I prefer a band in which the sound man is trusted to take complete control of the FOH. Conversely, my job is to play my part as well as I can, whether playing or singing. My job is not to assess the FOH mix from the stage.

 

Ever since my church converted me to IEMs about 7 years ago, I've noticed (in church and also with my band) that people who wear zero or one IEM are always trying to mix from the stage. For some musicians that means bugging the sound man about wedges. For other folks it means trying to mix their vocals from the mic -- which is now picking up the drum set louder than the musician's voice, all because he thinks he is helping.

 

In the 70s and 80s we _had_ to mix from the stage most of the time, four piece band in a bar with a vocal-only PA and no sound man. But that ain't the case any more -- everything goes through the FOH. SO lets stick it in our ear (Eeww), do our job, and let the sound man do his.

 

Slight disclaimer: I'm spoiled, as all the PA systems I currently use allow me an individual FOH mix of all inputs, not just (1) keys, (2) my singing, and (3) everything else as detailed by the OP.

[nursers]

You definitely want to avoid monitoring in one ear only from a hearing damage viewpoint. You definitely have the gear you need to achieve what you want. If money's no object then a Key Largo in lieu of the DI would be handy but it's somewhat overkill. If you have a rack at the gig anyway AND money's no object then take a serious look at the Radial KL-8

[Stokely]

edit: removed all my junk as I didn't read the diagram correctly. You are not using the mixer as a keys submixer and monitor mixer as I was. Yes that should work....

 

I should never post without two cups of coffee first!

[stillearning]

I use one of these Rolls PM 55 P

Let"s me hear myself in stereo, and monitor feed from foh is mono with separate controls for each. Let"s me easily do 'more me". Small, cheap, and has a built in limiter, which is a big deal with in-ears.

[analogika]

Your sketched setup is going to work fine.

 

I concur that ambient mics for audience feedback are a useful addition.

 

You will even be able to use the mixer for a keyboard submix if you use more than one board, but that would of course entail a direct connection from mixer to FoH, skipping the DI. In that case, you"ll need to be careful to avoid feedback loops.

 

In this scenario, there is no feedback Loop I can see.

[Canoehead]

That should work, although I would be concerned about volume spikes, ie feedback, from FOH being directly injected to your ears. I would suggest a solution that involves as limiter, as Still learning mentioned previously.

 

Cheers,

Gord

[eric]

This product is discontinued (not sure why, because it's awesome), though it is readily available on the used market. I've been using one of these for a decade or longer with my IEM rig - really easy way to keep the stereo key send and mono or stereo band monitor mix balanced.

 

Shure P4M

 

[Reezekeys]

I use one of these Rolls PM 55 P

Let"s me hear myself in stereo, and monitor feed from foh is mono with separate controls for each. Let"s me easily do 'more me". Small, cheap, and has a built in limiter, which is a big deal with in-ears.

 

I have the same Rolls and it works well - actually, it's set up exactly as the diagram in the OP here. The XLR input has a mic/line switch, so the monitor feed won't overload the headphone amp. It's a great little piece, although the very cheap-seeming flimsy AC adapter scares me a little. I keep a 9 volt battery in the mixer.

 

Of course the point is for Jon to use the gear he already has, rather than have to buy more! That Yam mixer has built-in effects that include a compressor, so hopefully it can be configured as a limiter, at minimum on the channel getting the monitor feed. I haven't actually looked at the manual for that mixer to know if it can work like this though.

[Stokely]

As an aside, I have a small Rolls mixer myself, and I never used it much as it was a bit noisy and had a bit of crosstalk between channels.

 

On the advice of people here (iirc) I got a better quality wall wart and the noise went away. Obviously you have to be careful to get one with the same specs. I forget the term to look for but it's something used in better power supplies.

 

Indeed the connection for the power is pretty flimsy.

 

For your use case it has the advantage of being much smaller than the Yamaha and you can velcro on your keyboard stand etc

 

Another option would be the Behringer p1 beltpack--I have that one and the p2. The P1 has two separate inputs and can be put in mono mode, essentially a mixer. There is a balance control on the front for doing monitor vs keys. It can be battery or DC powered and has a limiter. The P2 is better for my needs, but the two inputs would be handy for you. I kept mine on the ground (not on my belt) powered up and used a long headphone extender cable to my IEMs. Provided you never have more than two inputs and the only output is to your ears, I prefer this quite a bit over having a relatively large, more expensive mixer that doesn't have a limiter.

[Mike Davis]

Nice diagram!

[Reezekeys]

The noisy power supply issue with these Rolls has been noted a few times, here and on Amazon too I think. Mine is not noisy, so my very uneducated guess is Rolls used different suppliers for these at various points. Or I'm just lucky?

 

For a mono-hater like me, that Behringer wouldn't be a good option but it's obviously a lot less trouble to carry and set up than a mixing board.

[stillearning]

I"ve had several Rolls products, only one was noisy, and even that wasn"t bad. My small monitor mixer for in-ears is reasonably quiet. Very usable. Agree, the wall wart seems flimsy. I always have spare 9v batteries so it doesn"t bother me. All in all, gets the job done and easily fits in a gig bag.

[erik_nie]

I used to use a Rolls, but had some noise because I used the mic input for click with line-level. That made it too noisy.

From a Chinese site, I used a small stereo audio mixer that has hardly any noise and the output is very strong and easily drives my AKG headphone.

I used two of them to make exacly what I wanted (removed all the connectors and soldered the internal wiring directly on the PCB).

 

Hope this helps:DIY Mixer

 

in the post there is also a picture of the Rolls, I needed some extra knob to balance and split the iPad input (Used for backing [L] and click[R]). Now it is all done inside one box

[gg22]

I was laughing so hard looking at this diagram. The FOH guy and the keyboard guy look awfully similar. Are they related?

[ShadowMan]

I've had success with Rolls MX28 Mini-Mixers or their PM351 Personal Monitor. Yes, the power supplies are cheap and noisy - but if you swap them out with decent ones, they're convenient due to their size and the ability to velcro them right to the top of your boards. The mixers also provide the extra gain needed by some amplifiers if you're not feeding the FOH.

 

If you only wanted to mix/monitor multiple boards, the MX28 works.

 

The PM55 mentioned above should do the board and a monitor feed. (I haven't used this model)

 

The PM351 will do keyboard monitoring, house/vocal monitor and takes a mic. (But on this and the PM55 you will need some adapters - T/S to T/R/S "Y" cables or adapters - for stereo inputs.)

 

Hope this helps...

[Jon May]

I was laughing so hard looking at this diagram. The FOH guy and the keyboard guy look awfully similar. Are they related?

 

The FOH guy is a wannabe keys player

[Jon May]

Nice diagram!

 

I'm a retired science teacher with a major in stick figure diagrams

[U.Honey]

Wouldn't there be a ground loop and possible hum issues if the line coming from the FOH to your monitor mixer is not isolated from the ground? Or, perhaps the monitor feeds from FOH are lifted from the ground, I don't really know.

[stillearning]

The Rolls PM 55 has a ground lift switch.

[musicbysterling]

You definitely want to avoid monitoring in one ear only from a hearing damage viewpoint. You definitely have the gear you need to achieve what you want. If money's no object then a Key Largo in lieu of the DI would be handy but it's somewhat overkill. If you have a rack at the gig anyway AND money's no object then take a serious look at the Radial KL-8

 

Being an owner of a Radial KL-8 and an in ear monitor user, I can attest that the KL-8 really does the job for me. I get either one or two feeds from FOH and have them run into a Radial Pro Iso box which takes the balanced XLR and converts it to unbalanced 1/4", which then feed into the Aux inputs on the KL-8. There's an Aux return assign switch on the back of the KL-8 which sets the functions of the Aux return. I use the setting in which the Aux return will only be sent to the headphone and monitor outputs. I then feed the signal from the KL-8 monitor outputs into my Shure P9HW wired body pack which I have a set of in ears connected to. This way, I can control the FOH monitor feed with the Aux return knob and balance it with the feed of the inputs of my keyboards.

[Jon May]

Someone on the Yamaha board suggested feeding the FOH monitor mix into the RCA ins on my mixer (2TR IN in the photo above). That signal can be sent to monitor only (toggle button "To Stereo/to monitor), it doesn't go back out my mains to FOH, I just checked using music from a connected phone) and its volume can be varied independently via the monitor mix knob.

 

Any drawbacks to that solution?

 

Now you're contradicting your original post. I'm not sure what you mean by "back out my mains to FOH"... according to your diagram the mains of this mixer are not going to FOH so it shouldn't be a factor. The mixer is strictly for your in-ears and is not sending anything to FOH. I would forget about using the RCA ins â just do it the way you drew that diagram! .

 

My apologies for the confusion. The suggestion from the Yamaha forum was an alternative routing to the one I diagrammed above. More like this...

 

http://www.propertyshoot.com/dev/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Mixer-to-in-ears-2.jpg

 

Any input to the 2TR IN RCA's can be routed, via a toggle button on my Yamaha desk, to only go to the monitor outs/headphone jack, so avoiding a feedback loop. Drawbacks could be

* hitting the toggle button by mistake

* having to have an adapter cable (eg female XLR to male RCA's), though I note below that I'll probably need an adapter for my other scenario.

* possible physical strain on those RCA's

 

What I have diagrammed here (no DI or fancy-shmancy 'FOH') is my most common setup; my mixer direct to an ancient 'brick-style' powered mixer unit (the YAMAHA EMX212S I think) on stage. (5-piece Eric Clapton tribute band playing small bars and clubs). I've yet to find out what limitations it has to send me a monitor mix.

 

One thing that did occur to me - it might be wise to carry a female XLR to 1/4" TRS adapter because the feed from the monitor mix will likely be XLR, and your mixer's mic input gain control, even at full CCW, might not be enough to trim a +4 level signal down to a level that wouldn't overload the mic pre. In that case you'd need to use the 1/4" line input , which I assume can take a hotter signal (might need to check on this to make sure though). Looking at the manual, only the CH 1 & 2 line inputs are balanced TRS, the other line ins are unbalanced TS.

 

Great idea. And useful to know how FOH commonly delivers a monitor mix. I occasionally play bigger stages in other bands, so now I can act all knowledgeable

[Jon May]

That should work, although I would be concerned about volume spikes, ie feedback, from FOH being directly injected to your ears. I would suggest a solution that involves as limiter, as Still learning mentioned previously.

 

Cheers,

Gord

 

THIS! The possibility of a volume spike does worry me. My particular little desk does not have built-in effects such as a limiter (that model was more expensive and I'm thrifty, OK?). A limiting feature is important enough to me that I may just have to buy extra gear after all.

[Stokely]

If that is a concern, get the Behringer P2 and just have a send or output go to it. It has a limiter, not sure how good it is on a 39 dollar unit.... Again, if you get the P1 it has the limiter and probably gets rid of the need for a mixer altogether.

[Reezekeys]

I would go with your first diagram, not the one suggested by the Yam forum â assuming you have just the one keyboard of course. The DI isolates your keyboard from the FOH board, so less chance of ground loops, which can often happen when smaller mixers with wall wart or lump-in-line adapters are used â it's just a cleaner way of connecting things imo. Also, imo going from balanced XLR (which I assume the monitor feed is) to two unbalanced RCA plugs is not as good as using a female XLR to 1/4" TRS plug adapter because the 1/4" adapter maintains the balanced line (as long as you plug into CH 1 or 2 line input). Using an RCA adapter would make the line unbalanced, which might be OK for shorter cable runs, but why have to deal with even the possibility of noise issues when it's just as easy to use a channel input and keep things balanced? Not to mention that the first two line inputs give you a compressor, which could be used as a limiter. Unfortunately it's a very simple "one knob" compressor that looks like Yamaha tuned for vocals. However, at its maximum setting it could work OK as a limiter â it depends on the compression ratio. Yamaha doesn't provide that figure. My gut feeling is that it's probably not as effective as circuitry specifically designed for limiting, but worth checking out how good a job it can do before investing in more gear.