Pit IEM Setup

[cekren]

Hey all,

I have been tasked with setting up a wired IEM rig for our pit artists in an upcoming production of RENT. We have an Allen and Heath GLD112 and am currently looking to setup 6 stereo auxes and routing them through the our D-Snakes (AR2412 + AR84,) although this is where I'm looking for advice...

What is the best way to get stereo XLR into something we can plug IEMs in to? I've been looking at a few headphone amplifiers and have found the Behringer Powerplay PRO-8 and ART HeadAmp6 Pro6. I cannot seem to find a cable that will route from the D-Snakes into them without a myriad of adapters, though...

Basically looking for advice on this setup, or if I should be looking somewhere completely else. Thanks!

 

[AlexDonkle]

A few downsides of those headphone amplifiers is that every musician's headphone cord would need to route into 1 box, so you'd need a lot of very long headphone extension cables and no one would have easy access to their own volume knob. I would be very worried about the potential for hearing damage in this type of system. Two other options I would look at are:
1. Whirlwind PW-1 boxes, which would eat 2 XLR outputs per musician to provide stereo IEM's, but gives each musician a volume knob and a short headphone cable. This assumes each musician would control their mix via iPhone app or by talking to the FOH sound mixer. Note that these boxes also have a built-in limiter, which is critical for IEM's to reduce the chance of permanent hearing damage. While these boxes could also be used with mono mix (1 XLR per musician), this is best avoided with IEM's as musicians typically need to mix much louder when they can't pan sources left/right.
2. Go for personal monitor mixers such as Allen + Heath's ME-1 mixers, or Aviom mixers. Both of these boxes can be plugged directly into GLD stageboxes to provide all your audio over Cat5e without eating any XLR outputs. (This should be covered in the GLD user manual)

 

[cekren]

A few downsides of those headphone amplifiers is that every musician's headphone cord would need to route into 1 box, so you'd need a lot of very long headphone extension cables and no one would have easy access to their own volume knob. I would be very worried about the potential for hearing damage in this type of system. Two other options I would look at are:
1. Whirlwind PW-1 boxes, which would eat 2 XLR outputs per musician to provide stereo IEM's, but gives each musician a volume knob and a short headphone cable. This assumes each musician would control their mix via iPhone app or by talking to the FOH sound mixer. Note that these boxes also have a built-in limiter, which is critical for IEM's to reduce the chance of permanent hearing damage. While these boxes could also be used with mono mix (1 XLR per musician), this is best avoided with IEM's as musicians typically need to mix much louder when they can't pan sources left/right.
2. Go for personal monitor mixers such as Allen + Heath's ME-1 mixers, or Aviom mixers. Both of these boxes can be plugged directly into GLD stageboxes to provide all your audio over Cat5e without eating any XLR outputs. (This should be covered in the GLD user manual)

Thanks for the reply! We are fortunate enough to have a dedicated GLD (and board op) to just the pit mix, which includes monitor sends, who can also function as a psuedo-dedicated "monitor engineer" during check and rehearsals, at least. We do have an iPad for wireless mixing and can set up the IOS app GLD OneMix for any performer that has their own iPhone or iPad, too. The board has enough sends to give everybody their own stereo mix, which is a plus. The idea of a limiter has me wondering if maybe we couldn't just use the compressor in-board on the aux outputs - although they could still pump the volume on the headphone amp, but the central location would make that difficult...

I'm looking at the central headphone amp mostly due to price - individual boxes bumped the cost a bit, which is the same reason we can't get the ME-1's or Avioms. I need to find a decent solution for adapting dual stereo balanced XLR down to stereo unbalanced TRS, though! Would like to not have to make custom cables, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

 

[AlexDonkle]

I'm looking at the central headphone amp mostly due to price - individual boxes bumped the cost a bit, which is the same reason we can't get the ME-1's or Avioms. I need to find a decent solution for adapting dual stereo balanced XLR down to stereo unbalanced TRS, though! Would like to not have to make custom cables, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Keep in mind that an unbalanced to balanced adapter cable does not reject noise. To provide a balanced signal from the AR stagebox to each musician, you'd need either a passive isolation transformer or active balancing at each musician. Same reason DI boxes are needed instead of adapter cables for instruments. One other thought is that IEM monitors typically include a local ambient mic input, otherwise musicians need to remove their IEM's to talk to each other in the pit which would be the case here.

If you're looking for the most economical option, would it be possible to find used active monitors for each musicians, Similar to Anchor audio AN-1000X+ speakers?

 

[rochem]

Have you looked into renting Aviom units? I had to do almost the same thing for a musical a few years ago where the pit was onstage, we used a mix of acoustic and electric instruments, and loudspeakers as monitors were not an option. I wrestled with DIY monitor solutions like you're describing for a bit, but it just turned out too complicated, especially considering that the mix of acoustic and electric instruments meant that each musician needed a pretty customized mix that would change based on what song we were in. As it turned out, I was able to rent a full set of Aviom mixers, an input module, and all accessories for much cheaper than I expected, and the ease of running everything on Cat5 and having it "just work" with very little troubleshooting was more than worth the money. I don't know what level musicians you have, but in my experience, good musicians will not hesitate to stop mid-song and rip out the IEMs if they think that using them could damage their hearing.