What do musicians hear through the earbuds?

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 ForestFriend wrote:

 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. 

Spot on........also on tape decks with multi-heads there is a Monitor button usually marked Tape or Source, where you can hear what you are recording to tape and hear any adjustments you might make like volume, balance, mix, bias so on. So if the tape is going L to R it first passes over the REC head then passes over a PLAY head, the delay is very minimal, but allows you to "monitor" the recorded sound, rather than wait till you are done and then playback the whole thing and hear the results.