Drawback number two is that for IEM mixes to be effective (and readily accepted by the music team) they have to sound really good, and getting IEM mixes to sound really good is really hard. Where we may have been able to put some vocals and keyboards in a couple of wedges and call it good, now we need to put everything everywhere.
In short, if it’s not in someone’s mix, they’re not going to hear it. And it’s pretty difficult to play well as a group if you’re not hearing all the members of that group. We also have to try to replicate a little bit of that three-dimensional ear space with basically one dimension, left and right. This makes the exact level and placement of sound sources in IEMs very critical.
Of course, there are things to mitigate these issues as well. Make sure that everyone is using quality IEMs (and not the two-dollar earbuds that came with their phones). Take extra care to help musicians and singers with their personal monitor mixes. Or there’s my preferred solution, which is to use a dedicated monitor console to get more control and raise the quality of the IEM mixes. Regardless of the approach, getting IEM mixes to sound good and make the musicians comfortable can be daunting.
Changing The Paradigm
Drawback number three: switching to IEMs just feels weird. You’re taking away a significant part of someone’s hearing sense, and trust me, it’s not a comfortable feeling. This is the source of most of the “I can’t hear the congregation” or “I feel closed off” complaints that come especially from singers, and often from other members of the band as well. It’s also why singers take out one IEM (or both) and now there’s click bleeding into the mics and they’re turning up the other IEM, and and and… But I digress.
I can already hear the chorus of voices: “Just add ambient mics and apply this sound to their mixes so they can hear the room. Problem solved.” Well, kind of, but also kind of not. Even with perfect IEM mixes with stereo ambient mics that are perfectly placed and EQ’d and compressed, all that’s created is a perfect sounding static stereo space. And that’s not how our hearing naturally works.
With open ears, if the drummer is playing behind the singers (for example) and to their left, the singers, they’ll hear him coming from that direction until they turn around to look at him – then he’ll sound like he’s directly in front of them, because well, he is. And the guitar amp that was behind them is now to their left, and the congregation is now on their right. You get the idea.
But with IEMs, none of that happens. They turn their heads, their eyes tell their brains they’ve turned, but their ears are hearing the same thing no matter what. And that feels quite odd. It can take a long time to get used to it, and it will still always feel a little “off.” I’ve been wearing IEMs on stage in church and elsewhere since 1992 and I still don’t totally love it.
Unfortunately, there’s currently no easy way to address this problem. There’s a solution from a company named KLANG: technologies that’s called the Immersive In-Ear Mixing System. I’ve used it and it straight-up works, but unfortunately, it’s out of financial reach for the vast majority of churches. That said, there’s hope that the cost of the technology will come down over time to make it more affordable.
The Good News
At this point, many are probably wondering, “When are you going to get to the why it’s still worth it part?” Good question. The answer is pretty much summed up in three words: volume, volume and volume. In short, correctly implementing a quality IEM approach can help to bring down stage volume, help everyone on the music team hear each other more clearly, and stop the inevitable “wall of sound” that plagues so many stages with traditional monitors.
Of course, the lowered stage volume significantly helps bring the overall volume of the entire service under control. Since that’s often the chief complaint that sound techs get, anything that gives us a fighting chance of mitigating it is worth exploring. It’s worth noting, though, that IEMs can seem daunting, especially to volunteers.
Hopefully, the information presented here can help church sound techs better understand some of the challenges they’re asking their music team members to take on, as well as some useful ways to help them (and themselves) overcome those challenges.