Wired In Ears Direct from Auxes

[JimmydrummerParticipant]

Hi Guys.
I was just wondering if any of you lot can help me on this…

I’ve got two guys in my band who use wired in ears. They’ve got these Fischer amps XLR to headphones adaptor belt packs (pic attached). They work really well. The only problem is I’m struggling to get enough signal out of the desk. Don’t get me wrong – I know the ideal way to do it is use a headphone amp to amplify the signal, but to be honest the signal direct from the aux on the desk is almost powerful enough, but not quite. Last night the Aux masters were clipping all over the place on these guys channels. At this point they were just loud enough for the guys but I obviously don’t want red lights flashing all the time and distortion in their headphones, (they didn’t notice any) it’d be nice to have some headroom.

Is there any way round this without installing extra equipment? I think the desk would only need another 5 db of power to run the headphones direct without any problems. I’ve tried other in ears (mine are moulded) and they’re still not loud enough.

Today I’ve tried using a bit of (dare I say it) Behringer equipment I’ve got lying around (a 4 channel compressor and an dual 15 band eq) and running the feed into either of them and out to the headphones, they kick out plenty of power with the output turned up and no clipping at all. I’ll probably end up using on of these if I don’t find a solution. (I had all compression and threshold turned off on the compressor – just used the make up gain – which was plenty).

Any help would be appreciated. It’d be nice to have everything running direct from the desk without extra gear. If it’s not possible at the moment do you think it’s possible in future firmware updates? (I fear the aux mini amps will be running at maximum so the firmware won’t be able to make any difference!

Cheers.
James.

http://www.thesmoothcriminals.co.uk

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[GCumbeeParticipant]

I think you answered your own question in the last paragraph. This is more of a hardware limitation. I am sure the design was never intended to drive headphones directly. I would never attempt that myself. I would put something of a driver in the chain. I have done this many times and with something like a 402 Mackie. Or the smallest Berhinger. Anything that has a decent hp amp. The outputs of the console are line level and that even with any margin just is not enough to overcome a live band.

[GCumbeeParticipant]

The next thing to do would be to get a couple of ME1’s. That way they can mix their own phones and have plenty of level. They work great.

[JimmydrummerParticipant]

True… It’s just so close – shame really, as it wouldn’t cost much more to implement the extra power. I’ve got a cheap & small Tapco mixer which easily powers headphones direct from the aux, so I thought I may have missed something. I’d love a ME-1 or 2 but they’re not cheap and if multiple iPads could be used then they wouldn’t be needed.

[GCumbeeParticipant]

But if you could afford multiple iPads you could just about afford ME’s. That is the way to go for your situation if you can afford it. I bought one just to learn and have for demo on QU and GLD. They sound great. Will blow your ears off :-).

[JimmydrummerParticipant]

You would have thought so but the band all own their own ipads, it would be me paying for the ME-1’s to aid their monitoring. We already have a van full of monitors which we need to keep. Multiple ipads is what we need – wireless is the way to go for us. We always need to set up quickly with as few wires as possible!

Thanks for your help, it’s good to know that the ME-1’s are worth buying.

[GCumbeeParticipant]

The big thing now with iPad monitor mixing is bring careful that what each guy tweaks does not affect the house sound. Like Eq, comp. Even levels if they are not careful. There has been some discussion about that problem.

[Lee7Participant]

On other manufacturers iPad apps you (admin) can set what other band members can and cannot change for those very reasons. I am sure A&H will implement this feature when they roll out multiple iPad usage.

[MarkPAmanParticipant]

You can also lock parts of the iPad’s screen with its accessibility “Guided Access” function . Once you gat the hang of it, it’s quite easy lock it down to only allow the volumes of one mix to be controllable for instance.

If it’s not your iPad though, you may find some resistance to this idea……

[Author]

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