{"id":782,"date":"2013-10-15T17:40:06","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T17:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aviom.com\/aviomblog\/?p=782"},"modified":"2016-02-29T11:59:57","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T16:59:57","slug":"whats-so-different-with-in-ears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviom.com\/blog\/whats-so-different-with-in-ears\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s So Different With In-Ears?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"keyboard-with-in-ears\"<\/a>We\u2019ve talked before about some guidelines for making a successful transition from wedges to in-ears (see it here<\/a>), but let\u2019s dive back in and start getting a little more specific on what some of the issues are and how you can avoid them.<\/p>\n

In our experience, the biggest reason people have a less-than-ideal out-of-the-box experience with in-ear monitors is they expect it to be basically the same as working with a floor wedge. Remember, they\u2019re different and the adjustment may take some time.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s look at what\u2019s really so different.<\/p>\n

#1 Open v. Closed<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The first difference is that a wedge is a big, open-air speaker that leaves the musician\u2019s ears open to all the other sound sources around him or her, while in-ear monitors are a combination of ear plugs and earphones. By design, in-ear monitors block out a lot of the other sound sources and then put the musician\u2019s monitor mix right in his or her ears.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a great thing because it helps musicians hear only what they need to hear, without lots of interference from competing sound sources. Like the guitarist\u2019s wedge. Or the drum kit. Or the bass cabinet. Etc., etc., etc. It\u2019s what brings an end to the \u201cvolume wars\u201d where each musician asks for something to be turned up because he or she can\u2019t hear it over all the other things they\u2019re hearing ambiently. (It\u2019s also great because it dramatically lowers the amount of sound on the stage, spilling into the audience area.)<\/p>\n

The downside of being closed, though, is that all of those other sound sources that a musician is accustomed to hearing are (mostly) gone. What\u2019s left? The monitor mix. Which means the monitor mix HAS to be right. Because it\u2019s all the musician can really hear.<\/p>\n

The other downside of being closed is that some musicians feel isolated or cut off or will say that things sound or feel unnatural. That\u2019s because sticking tiny speakers in your ears and blocking out all other sounds IS unnatural. Literally. It\u2019s not how we as humans naturally process sound. There are some easy ways to address that (Stay tuned for a future post!), but it\u2019s a legitimate issue and a big change from a wedge.<\/p>\n

#2 One v. Two<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Another big difference is that most wedge-using musicians rely on just a single wedge (or they use multiple wedges for coverage across a stage), while earbuds come in pairs. (Side note: if you\u2019re ever tempted to take one earbud out, resist the urge! It can be bad for your hearing, which we\u2019ll talk more about in a future post over in our Audio Lab<\/a> section.)<\/p>\n

\"mix-needs-chart\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Why does that matter so much? Because it dramatically increases the workload for engineers (unless\u00a0 you go with Aviom Personal Mixers!) and the number of customized mixes required (which Aviom Personal Mixers make easy!).<\/p>\n

In a world of wedges, customizing mixes for each musician means one mix per person, and you can sometimes even get away with people sharing the same mix because of all the ambient sounds blending in.<\/p>\n

With in-ears, everyone\u2019s mix needs to be customized (because that\u2019s all the musician hears), and<\/em> you need to customize two<\/em> mixes for every musician: one for the left ear and one for the right. Yes, you literally can<\/em> send a mono mix to a musician using in-ears, but the quality is vastly inferior, and musicians will have a harder time hearing what they need to and<\/em> will be more likely to complain of ear fatigue and isolation. More on that in a future post as well.<\/p>\n

#3 Intangibles<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Some people just don\u2019t like the idea of sticking things in their ears. Some people love the feeling of a loud wedge making their pants vibrate and like to hear the whole stage rather than the more pristine world of in-ears. All those preferences are legitimate, and in-ears are simply different.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s no reason that in-ears can\u2019t sound and feel great, if you start by recognizing what\u2019s different from wedges and work through those issues, collaboratively, musicians and engineers together.<\/p>\n

And, of course, Aviom Personal Mixers will really help too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guidelines for making a successful transition from wedges to in-ears<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[5,7,6,58,8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2780,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/2780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}