Creating a better money channel in IEM land

[Jeff Babcock]

Re: Creating a better money channel in IEM land

adding a slight bit of delay to his channel may eliminate the tonal problem associated with the short latency inherent in the digital gear.

Art, thank you for suggesting something that I have been practicing on other IEM channels, but for some reason never occurred to me to do on vocals. Why wouldn't I apply the same principles there?.... DUH on my part.

For example, I have been adding delay to electric guitarist IEM mixes on a regular basis, as the extra delay usually helps them feel more like what they are used to (standing at a distance from their amp, not with their ear to the cone).

I'm going to do some experimenting in terms of adding a few extra MS of vox delay, what you suggest makes sense and shouldn't be significant enough to be a distracting amount of latency.

 

[Art Welter]

Re: Creating a better money channel in IEM land

Art,

You seem to be confirming what I have been thinking.

Singers may be requesting the "more me" to create enough of a level difference between their natural voice and the monitors to cover the phase difference.

And while short as possible seems to be the password for latency, it may be more effective to try and hit the 5-6 ms that wedges would have due to their placement.

Jay,

I have to admit I never have adjusted the actual in ear delay time, my experience was with recording (overdubbing) my voice and finding the digital latency made it sound even worse than it does, at the time I did not think of trying to add a little delay to get out of the “suck” zone.
Although I won’t be winning any singing contests, I had no trouble believing my voice sounded OK before through an analog set up with phones, while the digital latency messed up the sound of my voice (in ears) really badly. Frankly, I’m surprised more singers don’t complain about it, but if you grew up on digital, you would not have something to compare it too.

Before changing delay, the polarity switch (“phase reverse switch” ) should be tried, even with an analog set up. With as many places to get a polarity swap in a RF mic and in ear phones chances are fairly good a swap may have occurred somewhere in the chain.

A polarity swap is quite apparent when I listen to my voice through phones through an analog desk, while I’d never notice it on someone else’s voice, or my mic alone through a wedge or side fill. That said, the digital latency problem won’t be eliminated by a polarity switch, but the switch may subjectively be better than adding more delay to get out of the critical range.

Art

 

[John B. Miller]

Re: Creating a better money channel in IEM land

I've been a singer and a sound company owner for over 20 years. The very first digital desk that I bought was an 01v, and the very first time I heard the digital "thing" in the IEMs was the very first gig at which my band used the 01v. I instantly heard the phase/latency effect on my voice, and it was very distressing and distracting.

Once I figured out what was causing it, I did what the OP is talking about and split my vocal mic into a small analog mixer, and simply had my monitor mix (with the rest of the stuff in it minus my vocal) returned to another channel of my analog mixer. The analog mixer's headphone amp serves to drive my IEMs. Problem solved.

I also share Art's frustration when recording to a DAW where the monitor mix goes through an AD/DA conversion before I hear it back in the phones.

Go ahead and get your singer an analog signal chain, even if it's only for his vocal. The effect on anything other than vocals is not detectable...at least by me, so the rest of his mix can be generated in the LS9 and sent to his analog mix. It's certainly very easy to do, and worth a try. Any small, decent analog mixer should suffice, at least for an experiment.

Best of luck.

John

 

[kristianjohnsen]

Re: Creating a better money channel in IEM land

I've been a singer and a sound company owner for over 20 years. The very first digital desk that I bought was an 01v, and the very first time I heard the digital "thing" in the IEMs was the very first gig at which my band used the 01v. I instantly heard the phase/latency effect on my voice, and it was very distressing and distracting.

Once I figured out what was causing it, I did what the OP is talking about and split my vocal mic into a small analog mixer, and simply had my monitor mix (with the rest of the stuff in it minus my vocal) returned to another channel of my analog mixer. The analog mixer's headphone amp serves to drive my IEMs. Problem solved.

I also share Art's frustration when recording to a DAW where the monitor mix goes through an AD/DA conversion before I hear it back in the phones.

Go ahead and get your singer an analog signal chain, even if it's only for his vocal. The effect on anything other than vocals is not detectable...at least by me, so the rest of his mix can be generated in the LS9 and sent to his analog mix. It's certainly very easy to do, and worth a try. Any small, decent analog mixer should suffice, at least for an experiment.

Best of luck.

John

I've seen a few vocalists have the mixer attached to their mic stand, even

 

[Karl Winkler]

Re: Creating a better money channel in IEM land

I don't mean to unduly promote our IEM system, only to point out that it exists. Here is a thorough review by Langston Holland: http://www.soundforums.net/live/threads/1988-Lectrosonics-Quadra-Digital-IEM-Review

Since latency is a topic in this thread and also in Langston's review, it is worth addressing.

Our system does use digital transmission, and thus we took pains to minimize latency. The result, interestingly (as noted in Langston's thread) is that with an analog source, our system exhibits 0.95 ms of overall latency. However, with digital sources, depending on the sample rate, the latency is greater - it spans between 2 and 3 ms. However, this turns out to be only a very small amount more than if you use a digital console with an analog IEM.

Whether or not any of these delays will affect your singer, the only way is to try it. Obviously, there are lots of major tours out with digital monitor consoles and analog IEM systems. Thus, most artists with this type of setup have between 1.8 and 2.5 ms of latency between their microphone and their ears.

 

[Jason Raboin]

Re: Creating a better money channel in IEM land

I like this thread. Baez doesn't seem to mind the latency. We're using Futuresonics drivers, Sennheiser EW300 G2, Avid SC48.

To the OP, and those who feel that the Sennheiser iem systems don't get loud enough, you have the limiter off right? That's just a pad. I know that's obvious, but I wanted to make sure, because those things get so damn loud I can't imagine not having enough gain from them.

Tomorrow I'm going to play around with a little input delay on the vocal channel and see what it does to the frequency response. Fascinating topic.

 

[Andrew Broughton]

On the G2 and above the limiter is a limiter. It was a pad only on the g1. Though on the g2 it's not adjustable - just on or off.

 

[brian maddox]

Re: Creating a better money channel in IEM land

this IS an interesting discussion.

as a singer/engineer, i've noticed and hated the icky 'occlusion mixed with digital sound latency' effect before, but this rather simple solution never occurred to me. i've been using the 'turn it up loud enough to overcome the occlusion' solution. which is obviously not a solution at all...

i'm gonna have to give this one a go myself and see if it cleans things up for me a bit...

 

[Simon Ryder]

Re: Creating a better money channel in IEM land

Latency is generally not a problem for instrumentalists, as has been pointed out it is generally less than the latency from a wedge to a performer, so no timing problems.

The problem with latency for a singer is the short delay in ear mixed with their natural voice causes a phase difference that only they will hear, though as a monitor engineer you will hear it if you try singing along through the same gear.
Short delays of around 2ms associated with most "decent" digital gear can cause worse "hollow" sounds for the vocalist than longer delays which move the coloration out of the vocal fundamental range. The actual delay will determine the frequency the problem is worst at, so some songs in a different key may sound "OK" to the singer, while others sound like crap to him. The singer is hearing something that sounds (to him) like a phase shifter effect stuck somewhere in the middle of a sweep. No way to EQ that right, but cranking the level makes it sound less annoying.

The OP, if not able to find an analog alternative (interesting to see Bono using a Midas Venice for his in ears :^) may find that adding a slight bit of delay to his channel may eliminate the tonal problem associated with the short latency inherent in the digital gear.

BINGO! right on the money Art.

I would suggest you go for one of the Focusrite ISA's (depending on taste and budget). You can come out analogue into your sub mixer for the IEMs and over SPDIF straight into the LS9. You will get the advantage of a much better pre amp than the LS9, a much better ADC and if you sync the LS9 up to the ISa, a much better word clock (flame-suit on here!) Either way without the word clock debate, the improvements are worth having.

For a sub mixer, something like a Midas XL88 would be perfect, though the APB you are currently using is pretty darn good too.