In-Ears vs. Wedges

My years, I fought against in-ear monitors. I hated the way they felt and believed they took me away from the vibe in the room (still believe that) which made it harder to connect with the audience I was trying to lead. All that changed when I was forced to use them in a college service I was playing at because the sound guy needed all the help he could get controlling the stage volume. Once I got used to and met a few life long musicians who had major hearing loss from using wedges for so many years, I was convinced - and have never looked back. You might not think it makes that much difference, but I assure you, the first time you put ears in your players and lose stage wedges, you’ll immediately notice the difference even if you have loud drummers and guitar amps.

We use Sennheiser wireless ears (EIM300) because they are the best quality and also one of the least expensive options. MSRP is close to $1500 but you can find them for near half that. Compared to Shure and other reputable companies, they blow them out of the water. Almost every major Christian artist I have seen on tour is using these unless they have a Shure endorsement and can not use anything else. Add an additional body pack ($400) and you can have two separate wireless monitor systems just by panning the body packs opposite of each other and sending a separate mono mix to the left and right channel of the transmitter (the main box). We have two systems we have setup tha way to give us four mono mixes and two other systems that are run stereo. I won’t really touch on it too much here, but having stereo ear mixes is something I have just recently come to appreciate and think it makes a huge difference on stage (though I often only have only one ear in which sort of defeats the purpose).

A ton of people use the Aviom system which is great and gives each player their own control over their mixes eliminating time during sound check to get everyone’s ears checked and ready. It also frees up auxes on your board for effects or sub control since it splits the signals coming in. However, it only gives you control over sixteen channels which we use much more than. Our set-up includes a separate mixing board and engineer whose sole purpose is to run and mix monitors. This option frees up the house engineer to do his job (theoretically) and gives us a dedicated person to keep an eye for any needs we have on stage. This person also acts as a “stage manager” who handles mics for guests who come on and off stage and communicates with the house when audio is about to some through via video or whatever. It is a feature that is used mostly on big stages where there are several bands, but we had to choose between Aviom (or something similar as there are some other new options out there that are quite competitive) and wireless ears and we chose wireless…because I prefer not to have wires and I go to make the decision.

Bottom line, either option has pluses and minuses and I’m sure you’d be happy with which ever you choose. Of course, you might have so much money you choose to do both which gives you the best of both worlds and if I had an extra $5000 laying around, that’s what I would do.