Ear phone Monitors

HairyEyeball

Junior Member
Hey, so I'm a 46 yr old drummer. Ears are NOT what they use to be.
Is there a gadget out there that I can sit in the middle of the room to hear the guitars and bass thru headphones while we're practicing? Even when I play quiet I still struggle to here the guitars.
Thoughts?
Thanks
 
I use this Rolls Personal Monitor. This particular one has a mic pass through. My vocal mic goes into the unit and then from the unit to the PA. I take a monitor feed from the PA into the unit. I have two volume controls, one for my "local" vocal pass through (which does not affect the volume of my vocals that others hear) and one for the monitor feed. It also has a limiter built in though I only use it during set up.

I then use Shure SE215s as my in ears. The isolation is great. The volume in my ears is such that I hear everyone at a lower volume than if I played my drums alone without ear protection.
 

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I hear everything better when I wear decent quality noise reduction plugs. About 15 db reduction cuts the really loud stuff and makes everything else even out a bit.
 
The best way would be to setup an in ear monitor rig, since your sitting and not moving around much you can go with a wired setup and you can piece one together for fairly cheap. You'll need a small mixer, a pair of in ears and some 1/4" cables, a headphone amp and an overhead mic for your kit are also things you MIGHT want but don't necessarily have to have.

You can probably run a direct out from the guitar amps depending on what type of amps they are, my guitarist uses two amps and I run a 1/4" cable from the line out on one head and from the pre amp out on the other into seperate tracks on my mixer, I also run a 1/4" cable from the monitor out on the PA into my mixer and I have a cheap SM57 copy that I put on a boom and use as an overhead for my drums and I run that into my mixer and I run a click into the mixer, I run the L and R outs from the mixer into a headphone amp just so I can run the volume low. With this setup I have volume control over each instrument and vocals so I can get the mix I want. The cables were cheap, the SM57 copy is a Pyle-Pro PDMIC78 that I got off Amazon for $10 and the in ears I use are Mee Audio M6 Pros that I got off amazon for $25, my whole setup was right around $100 and it works perfectly for practice.

If you put a mic or something in the middle of the room and plan on using that as a monitor that COULD work but you're going to have a hard time finding a spot to put it where you don't get a lot of cymbals and drums bleeding into it.
 
Buy a cheap mixer, a cheap mic, and some Shure 215 IEMs. I have a pair, and I love them.

I'd buy the mixer and the mic on Craigslist.
 
I use this Rolls Personal Monitor. This particular one has a mic pass through. My vocal mic goes into the unit and then from the unit to the PA. I take a monitor feed from the PA into the unit. I have two volume controls, one for my "local" vocal pass through (which does not affect the volume of my vocals that others hear) and one for the monitor feed. It also has a limiter built in though I only use it during set up.

I then use Shure SE215s as my in ears. The isolation is great. The volume in my ears is such that I hear everyone at a lower volume than if I played my drums alone without ear protection.

A very good friend of mine (and fabulous singing drummer) uses this interface, and I've been trying to talk myself into making the jump.

Going over the particulars with my guy in our band, it ought to work very well for me, if I can bring along an "i" device (iPhone, iPod, iPad) that will connect to our board, and allow me to set my complete mix any way I like. (The wireless app to our board is "i" device only, apparently. No android equivalent.) So I need to add that to the total investment, acquiring a used iPad mini, or iPod Touch of a generation that can run the app. I snagged one of my kids iPod Touchs to try it, and its too old to upgrade enough.

My drummer friend that uses this interface doesn't go that far, but I think I'd like the option.

So I'm saving my pennies, and continually trying to sell myself on it. This thread didn't help, or did it :)
 
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