Inside IEM Mixes: Bass
Today’s IEM mix we’re going to evaluate is from our bass guitar player. Again, there’s very little processing on the mix. This one would probably benefit from listening on better speakers then those on a laptop. The experience is pretty different for me listening to these clips on my speakers vs. on some good IEMs so you’ll probably find the same thing.
Right now is a good time to stress the importance of good ear pieces in order to achieve wide acceptance. When I started at Kensington, all that we owned were some Shure E1s and NO ONE was excited to put those things on for anything. The first time we did a band with ears for a holiday, everyone but the bass player wore E1s and it was painful. Now we use Shure products exclusively (I’ve written about this before – check the archives if you’re interested in why) and have a mix of SCL3, SCL4, and SCL5′s. Since I consider us still in the early days of a transition campus-wide to IEM, only a small handful of our artists own their own ear pieces. Most use our house sets. We stock the replacement foam and change it for each set whenever a new artist is using them.
Focusing now on the mix, our artists get a stereo drum mix to their PQ mixer for their IEMs. Everyone gets the same drum mix and we find that works fine for us. The only exception is that the bass player also gets the kick channel individually in addition to the stereo mix since bass players always want more kick then the rest of the band. When you listen to the first clip from “My Savior, My God”, the first thing that jumps out is the placement of kick and bass in relation to everything else in the mix. There’s also quite a bit more of the extras channels in this mix then in the electric mix we listened to last time. One caveat though – due to the channel limitations of our system on this particular night, the bass player chose to have mono extras rather than the normal stereo. Personally the stereo part of ambience is really important to me but this particular artist isn’t reliant on ambience so its a simple trade off. I’m actually surprised in listening to his mix that he has this much extras present. Regardless…
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The second clip, like last time, adds a click and track into the mix. What is interesting is that with this mix, the click is pretty buried. In fact, once the drums kick in I don’t think it is very present at all. Again you can get a better idea of the importance of the extras channel in the mix when you hear the crowd singing along.
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Again, if there are questions, let’s use the comments section for this. I’m really not sure what else is helpful to share.
Next time: drums IEM mixes
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Introduction
My name is Tim Corder. I started this blog in February 2007 because there were so few of what I considered good church audio resources available at the time for my team. Fast forward over 5 years and I'm still at it, sharing learnings about the journey towards making audio great. I go through periods where I post a lot and other times when I don't. I'm thankful for the opportunity to share it all with you. Thanks for visiting! 
That is likely how I would have mixed the click as well. I leave that to the drummer and play with him, rather than us potentially competing for being on the 1. good series, Tim
Not a bad series Tim.
I myself never like to hear the click either.
I also don’t like to push my bass in my monitor that much up as I find it makes me not play consistently as I would like. Too much of me and I play too light.
But every now and then….GIMME SOME BASS!!!! LOL!!!
Man, glad your not gonna have a chance to post any of my IEM mixes!!!
Loving this series Tim! Thanks! We use Avioms and I’m using SCL5′s…man, I wish my IEM mix sounded like these
I think it’s really the ambient mics that make the difference. I’ve experimented with them, but always ended up with them sounding funky. I’m guessing that’s cause we’re in a smaller space. But if I put them on the front lip of the stage towards the seating, I get too much drums and they are usually “time delayed”, And if I put mics further back in the audience, I get either too much PA bleed or again, the funky time delay. The only way I got them to work was to put a big ole’ gate on them, so when the drums kick in they jump down. But then the ambient mics only really serve us during non musical times. Any suggestions?
The ambience stuff took a HUGE leap forward when we started using shotguns as the primary source for the IEM extras channel. They are lined up almost directly under the PA so they stay in pretty reasonable time with it. Neither PCCs or large diaphragm condensers fit the bill but the shotguns were money because they reject so much of the stage bleed and even PA bleed. You’ll have to play with the positioning because small changes make a big difference in what parts of the crowd you hear, but I think they would probably help regardless of the size of room. Ours are entry-level Audio Technica from Sweetwater – $225 or so a piece.
Great Post! Thank you for all of this great information!
What song is being played in the second sample?
Thanks!