In-Ear Monitoring and Limiter

[JamPro]

Hello.  I'm making the switch to in-ear monitoring.  My plan is to run keyboard outputs to a small mixer - like a Mackie Mix8 or Mackie 802 - and feed the IEM using the headphone out, while feeding the FOH from the mixers main or aux outs. 

 

Many here have commented on the importance of using a limiter when using IEM, so my question is how do I limit the IEM inputs.  How does one apply a limiter to the headphone output of a mixing board?  Or should give up on using the mixer headphone out and use a mono aux out to a limiter to the IEM? 

 

And what limiter should I buy?  Something small and easily transportable and not too expensive would be my preference.

 

Thank you.

[Stokely]

All the limiters I have used with IEMs have been built into the units.  I've used a Shure wireless/wired pack, then a Behringer P1, now both a Rolls pm55p and a Behringer P16m (depending on whether we are using our Behringer mixer or something else).  All had a limiter; I also used a Behringer P2 for a while before I realized that it didn't have one like I thought.

I'm not sure how good those limiters are, I still follow "safety rules" (mainly, never put in my ears when off or turned up, you can get a nasty surprise).  Always try to use an app if possible or other way to visually see if you are getting signal before putting on the buds.   All that said, the singer was messing with her wireless mic and a big loud burst of sound  still made it through to me a few weeks ago, much louder than my actual aux was.

A friend got blasted at a church using the mixer headphone jack while testing the system--someone did something (can't recall what he said) out on stage and caused a huge burst of feedback.   I've seen this happen by accident at a big session with a lot of  musicians on cans, and they were pissed as hell.  I'd be pretty leery of using a mixer headphone out personally.

[Analogaddict]

Fischer Amps is the company you want. They have the best IEM solutions with lightning fast analog limiters.  

[Chris Link]

I use the Rolls PM55P with the limiter but ran across a passive limiter a few years ago (PreservEars) that I use as well. I’ve managed to keep my hearing relatively intact and wish to keep it so. 
 

Unfortunately, the company doesn’t seem to be in business any more and I’m not aware of any similar product. 

[Ibarch]

I use a Fischer amps wired belt pack. Highly recommended. Includes a built in limiter and two inputs which can be used as either  stereo or a mono instrument and another input,eg foh mix, to allow More Me style mixing. Been using it for several years.

 

I see they have a wider range now, including smaller sticks for a single input and a bigger one stereo input +mix too. Sound quality is better than behringer equivalents. 

 

Much cheaper than Shure. 

[Stokely]

I'd never even heard of Fischer amps, but looking at their product line--I think I know where Behringer came up with the P1 and P2 from, geez.  They look identical.

I wish I'd known about them before, as it is I still have four different in-ear amps (one with no limiter as I mentioned).  The two I use are both on a pedalboard, with a 1/8" headphone extension coming off.  One thing I don't like about the belt sticks is that you have a big XLR cable coming up to it (though I saw one of those fischer units had a smaller jack for something)
 

[Reezekeys]

Do any of these sticks allow you to mix your own stereo keys with a mono or stereo send from a monitor desk?

[Stokely]

I have the Behringer P1 and P2...the P2 is a stick.  I don't know that you'd be able to do that with either one unless you had a mixer involved.  They both have stereo or mono operation, the difference being that the P1 has two inputs while the P2 has one, and that one can be a stereo signal.  You basically need stereo + one.   I bought the Rolls PM55p for that very scenario, it takes in a mono feed (which is typically FOH aux) and has a separate Monitor input which I feed from the monitor out of my Key Largo.  

That said I'm pretty much decided on going mono moving forward.  It's just too much of a pain in the ass to try to switch back and forth, as I have to do on certain gigs.  Tired of sound guys saying "your piano was too low, I had to boost" due to it being fine in stereo but lower/phasier in mono...and I can't tell because I'm in stereo.   At least with the P16M I can pan mono keys slightly to one side, mono guitar slightly to the other, which opens up the vocals in the middle and lets me hear both instruments better.

Edit: looking closer at the Fischer lineup, the "In Ear Body Pack XL" has an additional mic input...you might be able to do as I do with my Rolls, which is to use the "mic" input for FOH aux, and the "monitor" input for the keys.  I kind of wonder about impedance and of course level with a mic input.  I think the Rolls has a mic/line switch for the mic input.   I really like the "In Ear Amp 2", it appears to have two sets of stereo ins.  What the heck is a "bass shaker amplifier", it has an output for that whatever it is    I'm assuming a sub?

[JamPro]

2 hours ago, Analogaddict said:

Fischer Amps is the company you want. They have the best IEM solutions with lightning fast analog limiters.  

 

I looked at the Fischer Amps website.  There was no mention on the website of any sort of limiting function on any of the wired or wireless headphone amps described there.

 

Does anyone have a link to a Fischer Amp headphone amp that includes limiting?

[Stokely]

I was wondering the same thing, it didn't pop out at me.

Most of the units have a limiter listed in their specs on this page, the only ones that don't appear to be passive headphone units (that I wouldn't think would work for you).

https://www.fischer-amps.de/in-ear-monitoring-headphone-amplifiers-periphery.html

It isn't super obvious on some of them...for instance one line item is "2 x 40mW output power with limiter".  On the in-ear stick, the first one listed, it's "Electronic limiter design in the input section to save your ears and the in-ear earphones"

[JamPro]

2 hours ago, Stokely said:

I was wondering the same thing, it didn't pop out at me.

Most of the units have a limiter listed in their specs on this page, the only ones that don't appear to be passive headphone units (that I wouldn't think would work for you).

https://www.fischer-amps.de/in-ear-monitoring-headphone-amplifiers-periphery.html

 

 

Aha!  Thank you.

[Dave Keys]

19 hours ago, JamPro said:

Hello.  I'm making the switch to in-ear monitoring.  My plan is to run keyboard outputs to a small mixer - like a Mackie Mix8 or Mackie 802 - and feed the IEM using the headphone out, while feeding the FOH from the mixers main or aux outs. 

 

Many here have commented on the importance of using a limiter when using IEM, so my question is how do I limit the IEM inputs.  How does one apply a limiter to the headphone output of a mixing board?  Or should give up on using the mixer headphone out and use a mono aux out to a limiter to the IEM? 

 

And what limiter should I buy?  Something small and easily transportable and not too expensive would be my preference.

 

Thank you.

I use a Zoom H6 as the mixer, which has limiters built in. You can toggle these on and off per track and there are a few different settings. Another useful feature of the H6 is the built in mics, giving you full control over your ambient stage sound so you don’t feel too isolated like you’re in the studio.

[Analogaddict]

I emailed Jochen Fischer about this a while ago and got the following email back;

 

”thank you for your email. The In Ear Amp 2 have a installed hard limiting device in the gain stage and limits internal signals over +4 dB. Your input gain is perfect adjusted when the red signal LEDs flickers little bit while loud signals. Just in case of heavy increasing signals from feedbacks or other issues the limiter will cut the signal internal and the volume increase at the output stage and also your In Ears will be in a small range. You will also hear the working limiter and it’s a warning from to high input signals and adjust the gain to a lower level.”

[Analogaddict]

My setup is like this;

Keys and sometimes miced Leslie to Mackie 1202 VLZ
XLR outs to FoH

tele out in stereo to Fischer Amps rack 

 

XLR in stereo (or mono) from sound guy. I balance their mix with my keys myself. 
 

mono out from Fischer amps rack to power amp -> butt kicker. I set the level and low pass freq myself. 
 

xlr cable to belt pack/passive stick with volume control. 

[JamPro]

Thanks everybody who wrote in.  Very helpful.  I admit I am put off by the idea that I would use a mixer which includes a headphone amp, and also need to purchase a second headphone amp that includes a limiter.  The only other solution I can think of is buying one of those (more expensive) digital mixers if it includes onboard limiting that can be patched into the headphone bus.

 

OK, then.  Onwards and upwards.

[stoken6]

On 6/2/2023 at 5:23 PM, Stokely said:

What the heck is a "bass shaker amplifier"

I think it's a thing that rattles your drummer's throne, to make it easier to "feel" the low frequencies.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Stokely]

Interesting.  I do know that our drummer has one main thing he wants in his wedge monitor--his own kick drum.  He wants enough of everything else to tell where he is in songs, but the main thing is that low end coming from his 15" wedge.

[obxa]

RE the P2.     Because I noticed mention of limiter was missing on some websites, Last week I  reached out to my rep Sweetwater and also Behringer. Both confirmed the P2 does indeed have a limiter.   Still short of details as to what kind, and the Behringer rep said to "always exercise caution."   

 

I just had one of those incidents at my main church gig, where a tech  enabled phantom power on our click track while FOH was  trying to troubleshoot- it blasted me out of my stool while I ripped my IEM out quickly.    Ironically the one time I wasn't using the P2.  I'm going back to using either that, or my old Shure pack which does have a limiter. 

 

As a work- around to mixers:  Because I want stereo keys-on regular gigs,  I also always used Mackie  mixer that allows A/B mixes, plus the p2 or my Shure pack.  Which besides the limiting, serves a  convenient way to adjust volume away from the mixer.     I'd do :  Keys in stereo (pre) , Ambient stage PZM mic,  and house feed (controlled by whatever app)    Then send  only  keys to  FOH (minus the mic, and the monitor send).   

 

This past Saturday did winery gig amphitheater with terrible load-in.   I wanted to avoid loading the mixer,  so did Numa piano's built in mixer  to mix everything (itself, plus Nord & Harp)- then took Numa headphone out to a Behringer MicroMon, put the house feed in XLR of Micro Mon. Worked great.

 

I missed having an ambient mic, but truth be told the band was so loud, I could of just used a mic instead of asking for a mix.  I'm fully confident I can stop using a mixer.  Just need to mount the Micromon in a more sophisticated way, put it on stool for this gig.   Could also just use any generic small mixer instead of the Micromon. 

 

Last couple of shows,  been encountering more and more sound folks doing stereo, so might even be able to bypass the whole deal. 

 

 

Butt-kickers: we use them at our main  church campus,  drummer loves it.   Tried it once for grins,  felt like I was sitting on my phone in vibration mode. 

[SamuelBLupowitz]

On 6/2/2023 at 11:13 AM, Chris Link said:

I use the Rolls PM55P with the limiter

I just bought myself one of these to replace my P1 in my live rig, and I absolutely love it. I was trying to figure out how to whittle down my line mixer and my in-ear amplifier to a single unit so I had less to fiddle with -- and also monitor my keys in stereo without having to ask for stereo from the house and then sometimes have to settle for mono anyway -- but ultimately decided it was going to be less efficient to add a big rack mixer into my life.

The Rolls is great. Sits right on top of my Mojo, takes a single XLR from the house, and then I feed it a TRS cable from the headphone out of my line mixer (or, on one-board gigs, right out keyboard's headphone output) and I always have a reliable stereo mix of my keys to listen to, which I can *balance on my own against the rest of the mix.* It's made my last few gigs SO much more manageable to be able to make tiny adjustments to how much I'm hearing keys vs. everything else as we go from ballads to big rockers, different lead vocalists, that sort of thing. And I can just tell the monitor engineer "I don't need any keys, I've got it covered," and only need to flag him down if I need to hear my vocal (or a specific individual in the band) better.

Oh, right, and it has that built-in limiter. That's good too.

[Stokely]

Wait, so the P2 DOES have a limiter?  Geez.... as I say I used it for a bunch of gigs before someone on another forum said it didn't have a limiter, which sent me off looking for evidence yea or nay.  I couldn't find any mention of one, while on the P1 it listed the limiter quite clearly, so I took that to mean the other forumite was right.   Quite ironic as I bought it originally with the notion that it had one  

It's a great little unit, though now that I see the Fischer amps stick I know where they "got the idea" from.   I keep it in my backup case and it's come in handy at several gigs, once for me and once for a fill-in drummer whose wireless in-ear rig had an issue (and he had no backup!)

 

[obxa]

On 6/6/2023 at 11:28 AM, Stokely said:

Wait, so the P2 DOES have a limiter?

I was confused too.  Got this from Behri (AKA Music Tribe) , and also asked my great rep Jeff Bohan at Sweetwater. (see below).  I'm guessing the MicroMon I use is Behri's clone of the Rolls. I'm doing same exact thing as Samuel.  Dd it again tonight with Numa and Mojo- and was able to lose the mixer (as long as I have the Numa on the gig) 

 

I have to use two pieces of gear to have limiting, so  may check out the  Rolls 55- I noticed it has line/mic level on the XLR;  I had impedance mismatch on the Micromon with the  FOH send being too hot for the XLR (mic level) input.

 

Dear Chris ,
 

This is in relation to  CAS-677640-Z1G4C1 

Product:  Behringer P2 

  

Yes, I can confirm that the Powerplay P2 still has a basic limiter built in but I would not rely on this alone to protect hearing although it will certainly help.  I would encourage all singers and musicians to be mindful of the dangers of listening at volume levels that are too high.

 

 

From Sweetwater:

 

I heard back from my rep:

I'm seeing it on the Behringer website, but it doesn't seem to be on the Sweetwater site any longer.  But I can confirm that the P2 still has the built-in current limiter.  From the Behringer site:

Integrated current limit protects your ears and headphone

 

Best Regards, 

 

Jeff 

[Reezekeys]

6 hours ago, obxa said:

may check out the  Rolls 55- I noticed it has line/mic level on the XLR

 

I get an XLR from the monitor board to my PM55P, set to line, works fine.

[kwyn]

On 6/8/2023 at 7:43 AM, Reezekeys said:

 

I get an XLR from the monitor board to my PM55P, set to line, works fine.

Does the rolls limiter work on both inputs of the 55p?

[Stokely]

Good question, I'd assume and hope it works on the headphone amp portion (so after any incoming signals from either monitor or "mic" are combined).

 

[Reezekeys]

I have the schematic. The limiter works on whatever is coming out the headphone jack.