Why Every Church Uses In-Ear Monitors

[@NWD518]

We run IEMs in our church BUT I will say it’s not always the best option… recently we were doing a Christmas gig out doors and our option was either wedges or mono ears… we went with wedges (and stayed away from tracks) and it sounded amazing and there was such a live feel to it! Most of the time I’m 100% with ya IEMs all the way but don’t be afraid to try wedges out (especially if outdoors)

[@phil-good]

KZ ZS10 Pro series are thumping great !!! Got myself 3 of them, the ZS10PRO - ZS10PROx - ZS12PROx, all 3 don’t sound alike but they are so responsive in every way frequency. Crystal bass deep and precise all the way up to the highs !

[@SApilot11123]

We use crowd mics, however we don't use any efx on our monitors. A nice way to mix them is if you can just hear the room with no one is playing then you don't need it louder. It really depends how loud your PA is.

[@ObtuseRhombus]

Excellent video, David! My first IEM experience 10 years ago was with Westone, and it set a high bar. They fit even the tiniest of ears, and even the single driver units sound incredible. I have used the CCA C12, and they sound really good. A/B against Westone Pro X30, the mid scoop is very noticeable. I wouldn't say the C12's sound bad, the soundstage is wide, and I feel I can pick out individual instruments clearly. I recommend them all day for the $50. Comfort isn't even a competition: Westone feels like 'nothing' in the best way! That said, I feel Westone IEM's hit that step before customs. And what you get in the box is unmistakable quality, from the ear tips, the cable, the case, etc. Whereas with CCA/KZ, many upgrade all of those for an extra $50+. I think if you are willing to take the CCA/KZ as they are, you can't go wrong. But if you are going to buy all the add-ons, just skip to the Westone and be done.

[@unakhomgoduka6352]

I've always wanted to get more information on this🙏🏽💯this will be helpful, thank you so much man

[@sarahmusana3250]

Which ear moniters do you recommend for the choir ????

[@sherribenson1]

Great video. We are a very small older congregation so getting worship team members to go to IEMs created some grumbling. However, with a small stage and a lot of wedges the sound was even more challenging especially with contemporary worship and Lloyd the synths, pads, arms and sound beds. Once I introduced them to your last recommend IEMs it was great to watch their faces change as they could dial in their mix and hear with clarity each individual musician and voices. Next up introducing them to a click track🤞🙏. I just have to learn how to set that up through our system. Yes, I am also the tech person. Thanks SundaySounds for keeping us informed looks like I have something new to add to my wish list❤️.

[@ukrainian2012]

Since a lot of folks think they should switch to in ears because everyone around did it, or because it’s “modern” - let me share another perspective. With in-ears you're isolated with sound which came out from it. To make in-ear sound really comfortable you need a separate sound engineer with second mixer or Phone/Tablet connected to the stage/foh mixer. You need additional mics in hall to pic up audience sound and add it to in-ear mix to not feel weirdly isolated. If some of the instruments became louder (some of guitar pedals had more gain, different sound presets volumes on keyboards or midi sources, someone changed volume knob on amp, etc.) - with in-ears you're much more sensitive and unanticipated surprises will be much more painful to ears than from floor wedge. You don't need all mix in wedge and can hear real sound of audience. You can get more detailed sound with in-ears but with much more efforts and dedicated engineer for that on the one side. Or you can have more stable and predictable sound with much less efforts with wedges on the other side. I was very pleased with my vocal tiniest details control with in-ears but it's hard to have consistent great and balanced sound of everything else. And I went back to wedges. Important thing to make stage sound comfortable - add stage side fill speakers. Send mix from PA there and make its volume lower than wedge in front of you. I have only my vocal in my wedge and little bit of keyboards to be in pitch. And I hear all the mix from side fills which made overall experience much more comfortable. It's not such super-detailed sound of my voice that I can hear subtle breath details from my vocal mic, but I hear my vocal very well and as a huge advantage I hear all the band and audience live and feel all overall sound much better and receive much more energy and connection with band and audience.

[@ToddPage1987]

I have custom Westone IEMs (a 3 driver and an 8 driver). When people on my team ask about the differences, I tell them they're both fine - for me it comes down to budget and preference. I will say that once you get a pair of customs, you won't want to go back, but with that being said, I still wear airpods, etc when just going out and about or mowing the lawn or whatever. But once I've got my bass on and playing on the team, I would be pretty unhappy with anything but my custom in-ears and it's not even close. Way more comfortable, way more consistency with the audio because it's not the constant struggle to get your universal fits to "sit right" in your ears, and the sound quality itself is just better because you don't get customs only to have cheap-o materials stuck in them! While there are a lot of options out there for customs, 2-3 driver models are going to work for 99% of us. I also have a pair of 8 driver customs and when I'm serving on the worship team, I'm hard pressed to appreciate any difference between the 8 driver ones and my 3 driver ones. When I'm at home and working on material by myself, or mixing/mastering (though I'm no pro), or wanting to do some critical listening, then the 8 driver ones serve very well, though 3 driver ones are great for that, too......

[@LauraUpshaw]

Hey David……I haven’t been playing in about three years but I still love to watch your videos. Your reviews are always so thorough! Keep up the great work!!

[@SundaySounds]

Laura! Great to see you around here still and we appreciate you’re still watching our videos! Let us know if we can ever help you out with anything should you dust off the keyboard yourself :)

[@LauraUpshaw]

I’m actually teaching a few piano students and last year one of them came in and said she wanted to learn worship keys…..she was only 11 so that was a blast getting to teach her the basics!

[@jazzchia]

Switching to in-ears is not all about those on stage. It really gives the sound-person volunteer a much easier job mixing the FOH. With the solid walls in our church sanctuary, we have the problem of the monitor speakers competing in volume against the FOH speakers, causing the sound to be so muddied. With the removal of monitor speakers and using in-ears, the sound is so much clearer at lower volumes. I do agree that it takes time for the volunteers to transition to in-ears. Now, we hope to implement click tracks in the near future.

[@ToddPage1987]

In regards to room/ambient mics, I couldn't agree more! It seems nice in theory but ultimately, I find having them in my mix too much just muddies things. I kinda assumed it was the mic being used or the setup but perhaps that's just how it is! I good mix will always trump the ambient noise need, IMO but when I'm singing, some ambient seems even more important so I don't feel like I'm singing with my ears full of wax. Adding a bit of reverb works wonders though, even moreso than having an ambient mic in the mix. My Westone IEMs have an ambient filter in them, though, that does allow some stage sound to get into the ear without disrupting the seal so that's why I prefer my 3 driver westones when playing on the worship team!

[@Timbuctoo24]

I use ultimate ears I upgraded to from Shure se 425s. The Shure are now my backup.

[@musicjazzvez]

I use in ear monitor, it’s more control sounds! I recommend it! 🙏

[@richardpenrose1968]

I’ve been using the newer KZ ZS10 Pro-X IEM’s with a Fischer In-Ear Stick for the past couple of years. It sounds way better than my Shure SE215’s which had custom mould sleeves.

[@JonathanCasas1]

Acclimation TAKES TIIIIIMMMMEEEEE!!!!!!! Please please take David's advice here. I have had people walk off the stage because of how difficult it can be to acclimate!

[@darenmanley8020]

So true. Especially using a click track. If you have some join in that’s never used them and played to a click, it’s really tough for them. Definitely takes getting used to.

[@quintonburton9205]

IEM fix problems that our church doesn’t have. Thank goodness. I like to keep things as simple as possible.

[@SundaySounds]

Sometimes it’s definitely best to keep things simple :)

[@AleksandreMarkeviciaus]

In Brazil, due to budget , the chinese KZ is very popular and affordable. Also , believe or not , is very good and with lots of drivers

[@allendunning272]

I've been using IEMs for many years and can "ditto" your experiences, including a broken unit at the last minute which is one argument for the less expensive IEMs ie a back up pair is affordable and I keep one in my kit. I use 5 driver KZPro, which at the time were under $50 and in my opinion comparable to my $150 monitoring headphones in sound quality. I also have had the negative experience of having one of those rubber ear buds come off and get stuck in my external ear canal, necessitating a trip to urgent care to have it extracted. Our worship band/vocalists all have/use IEMs, play to a click, and one of the band is designated as a music director with a mic. I also like being able to do my own IEM mix, as the audio tech/engineer is mixing for the room and/or his own taste, which on occasion results in booming electric bass and over balanced rhythm electric and acoustic guitars. IMO of course.

[@sarahmusana3250]

Thank you so much

[@zimbot_KWB]

We use in-ear, universal fit unless individuals invest in custom fit because the church does *not* supply these; I personally use the cheap Chinese multi-driver ear-buds (5 drivers for around $15 per pair), and also use memory foam replacements that fit better; unfortunately the mix engineer seems to not know how to use a talkback mic. There is a house mic primary for blending in to the live streaming feed, but I like to add it to my personal mix (which is done via app, but our monitors are definitely wire) because it lets me tell when the FOH level of my instrument is dramatically changed (and I would not otherwise be able to discern this). This video comes across sounding like an advertisement -- rotating connectors? give me a break -- it means nothing. BTW, we used to use the individual hardware mixers that take ethernet cables, but moved instead to an app-controlled central mixer station with wires to the headphone drivers for each band-member, mainly for the increased sound quality. But the biggest problem is that some people simply do not own smart phones. Yes, seriously. Someone else must do the mix for them.

[@prosperadebayo5152]

This is a video that is necessary💓💓

[@ayolabimartins690]

Love this video!

[@JT_2707]

Very comprehensive video on this subject. However.... I feel like I can relate with a lot of churches out there where you have maybe 1-3 individuals who serve as the sound tech, livestream guru, and leading worship at the same time. I would love to implement in ears to our setup but yet I lose the ambient awareness of what's going on in the room. I have played with people before where I was only responsible for my instrument and my mix and the IEM experience was phenomenal.

[@hatricklov]

The solution to hearing the room ambience is to include some ambient room mics. They become another option to dial in the volume you want to hear in your personal mix.

[@bobs88s11]

Great video! We use the KZ brand which work fine for us. Is it my monitor, or do you have a purple outline - especially on your face?

[@kraklowm]

I watch almost all of your videos and have learned a lot. I was very interested in the Mach50 IEMs...until I clicked the link...absolutely can't do $800!

[@SundaySounds]

Totally understand that, and quality, name brand IEMs definitely require more budget. Westone does have options in this line that feature fewer drivers in order to offer a lower price point. You may check those out.

[@arguy2021]

Team universal just makes sense nowadays unless you're making money from your music craft. If you're receiving income, invest in the custom molded IEMs. If not, get a pair of KZs or a pair of Shure 535s and then you'll be set. You just cannot beat the price/quality ratio of the KZs.

[@OlivierFourniol]

How do those more expensive pairs compare with more budget options (Simgot, Kz)? Is the price difference worth the increase in sound quality? For instance a pair of KZ ZS10 pro X clocks at around 50 bucks, has 5 drivers (1DD + 4BA) and sounds amazing. How does that compare to the Mach 50 for example?

[@allisterrenaud776]

What would you use for the Pastor or special guest singer?

[@arthurels5832]

Depends from church to church. 1. Special guest singer uses in ear. Which a lot of church do that, and usually the singer is alrdy familiar with it. As for pastor, you have to provide him with a monitor. My church is a more tradition service. We have worship singing, offerings, readings, hymns singing, and solo/duet/quartet (2 every service) sermon and more. The musicians have in ears, the worship singers have in ears but for hymns we just use pulpit mic since its just piano anyways. As for solo/duet/quartet/, mind you they have no idea how to use in-ears, we give them one monitor and sometimes two.The monitors are always on stage but we have them off during worship

[@allisterrenaud776]

@arthurels5832 make sense...we are kind of traditional also....thanks will work that option

[@joshuanadel8354]

Maybe I’m using it wrong, but as a singing guitarist who has to share a mix, I find the my voice level is too much for the others (needs to be raised above the “plugged up” sound in my ears from the IEMs). Advice?

[@guilhermeingles2531]

I’m trying to install a song specific patch for mainstage, and even though I have the Ultimate License, it’s still charging me and I haven’t use even 1 of my 15 downloads. Can u help me? Is there something I need to do?

[@guilhermeingles2531]

It says I have no active subscriptions, but mine only expires on April 14th of these year

[@SundaySounds]

Please reach out to our support team at sundaysounds.com/contact, and they'll be able to help you out. Thanks!

[@megawatimaria5471]

universal

[@sammyslmans2466]

First to comment 💯🙏❣

[@AllenPendleton]

In 2024 no one should be using wedges anymore.

[@ArthurPrince03]

Erm. Depends on the setting and traditions. My church would not be able to function the way we do without a wedge. And our worship team uses in ears 😊. You’d be surprised that some churches aren’t just worship songs, announcements and sermon. Ours has like 8 different things in one service

[@ukrainian2012]

Not at all, properly set wedges are more versatile and convenient in many ways. Used all possible setups for many years, including various IEM models and prefer wedges much more.