What do musicians hear through the earbuds? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

Here's a pic of a "monitor engineer" from a large Midnight Oil concert in Australia in 2017. His only job is mixing the monitors for each band member and supporting players. A "front of house" engineer mixes the concert sound for the audience with a console more complicated than this one shown here!

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ForestFriend wrote:

Gerinski wrote:

Do they hear a click track for starting the songs? or perhaps a permanent click to keep a perfect tempo during the tracks?

Do they hear any comments from the sound engineer?

I'm sure it depends on the band, but nowadays more and more bands are using backing tracks, so they'd need a click to line up with it properly. In some bands I've played with, just the drummer would listen to the click and the band would follow him/her - although I've found that gets annoying in sections where the drums would ideally stop, but you get this perpetual hi-hat click to keep everyone else in time. Drummers tend to love click tracks, other musicians not so much. I know in Dream Theater, Portnoy used to have a silent cowbell that only the band could hear to count them in.

I don't know if the sound engineer really needs to make comments to a pro band - maybe they'd scold amateurs if they turn up their instruments too loud or do stupid things with the mic that cause feedback. Of course, the sound engineer would communicate during soundcheck!

This sound engineer made many comments to pro bands like "you just switched your mic off". "Again!"

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hugo1995 wrote:

Catcher10 wrote:

As Argo states, what they hear in the in ear monitors is their choosing. I've read where some hear the whole mix just at a very low level, the vocalist clearly does not want to hear himself or they struggle with timing, the slight delay would cause havoc.

I remember last time I saw Transatlantic, Pete lost his monitors about 30min into the show, so he simply played based on feel with Portnoy, he did not move much away from Portnoy's kit area. Today not having the huge monitors on stage the band does not hear the mix well, I suspect on stage today it sounds like one big wall of muffled sound without in ear monitors.

Question... what is a monitor?

A monitor in this context is just a speaker - the term is typically used for live performance for a speaker pointed at a musician (usually a wedge on the ground in front of them), or as mentioned, wireless earbuds. It's mixed so the musician can hear (or "monitor") themselves well and any other musicians they need to hear, as opposed to being mixed so the audience gets a good balance of all the musicians.

Sometimes the term is used for speakers used in a music studio for recording/production purposes, generally higher quality speakers that reproduce the music as accurately as possible.

Edited by ForestFriend - January 20 2020 at 20:04

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Catcher10 wrote:

As Argo states, what they hear in the in ear monitors is their choosing. I've read where some hear the whole mix just at a very low level, the vocalist clearly does not want to hear himself or they struggle with timing, the slight delay would cause havoc.

I remember last time I saw Transatlantic, Pete lost his monitors about 30min into the show, so he simply played based on feel with Portnoy, he did not move much away from Portnoy's kit area. Today not having the huge monitors on stage the band does not hear the mix well, I suspect on stage today it sounds like one big wall of muffled sound without in ear monitors.

Question... what is a monitor?

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SteveG wrote:

Bass players want to hear drums and drummers want to hear bass.

Singers just want to hear themselves!

so true.

As Argo states, what they hear in the in ear monitors is their choosing. I've read where some hear the whole mix just at a very low level, the vocalist clearly does not want to hear himself or they struggle with timing, the slight delay would cause havoc.

I remember last time I saw Transatlantic, Pete lost his monitors about 30min into the show, so he simply played based on feel with Portnoy, he did not move much away from Portnoy's kit area. Today not having the huge monitors on stage the band does not hear the mix well, I suspect on stage today it sounds like one big wall of muffled sound without in ear monitors.

Argo2112 wrote:

Generally they are getting a personalized mix of the music. For example the singer may want the vocals on top of the mix with the instruments more in the background. Drummer may want the bass more predominant than the guitar, etc..

Personally I like a mix with the singer completely removed.

. But that might just be because of our singer.

In Ear Monitors are basically used to reduce the volume of the music that the musicians hear so that they can protect their hearing while performing live or in the studio. I don't know of any musicians that were active in the 70s or 80s that don't have some degree of hearing loss or annoying tinnitus. Above is an off the rack set with a wireless receiver. More expensive models have ear pieces that are molded to the musicians ears and are virtually sound proof.

Edited by SteveG - January 20 2020 at 06:53

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Yes, they're probably in-ear monitors. I know of bands that rehearse like this with everything routed through the PA and in-ear monitors, so no amps required.

They’re effectively a combination of earplugs and iems aka in ear monitors. I believe Metallica paved the way back in the early 90s as a way of saving their hearing whilst still kicking arse live.

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