Anyone who has ever performed live knows you need some kind of stage monitors that will help you sing accurately and deliver confident performance magic. The mix of instruments and voices, the sonic envelope, ambiance and volume of sounds you hear in your monitors can make or break your performance, because your vocal apparatus responds to what your ears hear. Hearing too little of what you need will usually result in pushing your voice excessively, which can lead to vocal fatigue and damage as well as limit vocal control. Too much monitor sound, or the wrong mix of sounds, can sabotage confident breath support as well as control, and can cause you to sing out of tune, among other issues.
In my career, I have most often used stage wedge monitors, but finally made the plunge and got a set of in-ear monitors to use myself and to be able to advise my students.
…never use just one!
Santucci explains: “One danger from too much isolation comes when musicians decide to
“fix” the problem by wearing an earpiece in only one ear. When players
take one out, their brain loses its ability to do binaural summation,
where two ears together add up to a 6dB increase in your perception of
loudness. If you’re hearing 90 dB in both ears,
your brain thinks it’s hearing 96 dB. If you take one ear away, then
that one ear has to go from 90 to 96 to sound like 96. And now the other
ear is open and getting bashed by the band, the P.A. and the crowd. So
this loud sound coming into the open ear causes you to turn the other
ear up even more. In terms of ear safety, using one earpiece is a
dangerous practice — it could actually be worse than using none at all.”
Mike Dias continues the discussion: “There’s a common misconception that an artist can use just one
earpiece and still use stage monitors, but this results in the worst of
both worlds,” says Dias, who offers a simple experiment to demonstrate
this. “Have someone stand onstage with a beltpack using one ear and turn
it up to a comfortable performing level. Now shut the beltpack off and
run the stage monitor to a comfortable level. When you turn the monitors
and the single earpiece on, the artist inevitably thinks the in-ear
sounds weak and cranks it up to compensate. But when you turn the wedges
off, the artist will notice that the earpiece is too loud. In the case
of one-ear listening, you don’t get the benefit of hearing protection
and you don’t get the accuracy benefit of the in-ears.”
I don’t know about you, but I value my ears too much not to heed this advice from this authority. If you find yourself in the habit of dropping one of your in-ears on stage, and you have the budget, it might be worth an upgrade to ambient sound in-ears, which gives you the ability to ‘dial in’ just the right amount of ambient sound.
More In-Ear Tips:
- Don’t forget to clean them after every use! That wax build up can create problems.
- Be careful how much bass you have in your mix. Bass overtones can cause you to be pitchy.
- from the Shure company… https://youtu.be/Q_cQx6qd4VQ
- from audio professional at Kettner Creative… https://youtu.be/bfWeA0FP62A
Leigh Ann says
Important advice, and it makes sense. I'm sure if you don't heed it, you'll regret it when you're older.
Jack Kontney/Sensaphonics says
Great post, Judy! Just shared it on the Sensaphonics FB page.
Judy Rodman says
Terrific, thank you so much, Jack! And thank you for the great product:)
Mr. Goobers says
I had one in ear fall out during worship this morning and my ear is still ringing. Never making that mistake again. The band can go without my guitar for a minute while I fix it!!!
Judy Rodman says
HA… Mr. Goobers; glad you've decided that:) One must have good ears to continue as musician!
Judy Rodman says
You are most welcome!
Anonymous says
Thank you for the article. I found it helpful. I actually own a pair of Sensaphonics in ear monitors and, although they're great, they have been very persnickety over the years and needed repairs many times. I've tried all the methods you've suggested, and I found that allowing them to loosely be in your ears sometimes works best. Obviously, if you have a fabulous mix with your properly fitted in ear monitors, it can be a wonderful experience, but as a singing guitar player, sometimes the best thing for me is to hear the music bouncing off the walls, so to speak. I think the thing that is missed at times is the assumption that people will automatically start turning up they're in ear monitors if they pull one out may not be true. I often times play at my church where everybody wears in ear monitors, and I will take one almost all the way out while I have one in properly. I never turn them up loud at all, and there are no wedge monitors blasting back at me. I think it's important to note that nothings going to go wrong with your brain to my knowledge by only using one of your IEMs. But if you crank up the volume on the one that's in and get blasted by a loud PA with the one that's out, you may be in for a problem.
Judy Rodman says
I hear you, Anonymous, but please read the scientific findings I quote in my article. Your brain is indeed involved in binural summation of audio volume. When people damage their ears over time doing things like habitually wearing in-ears only on one side, they can be unaware until it's too late to do anything about it. You are of course free to do it at your risk, but it's been scientifically demonstrated to be dangerous to hearing.
Judy Rodman says
Mimi, tell you what if I were you I would consult with an audiologist about getting your monitors right, still protecting your hearing because I assume you intend to keep singing and I hope you do. I imagine you're not alone in this paradox. If you do consult a doctor who specializes in in this and you get your solution, please comment back and let us all know! Thank you
Anonymous says
This is interesting. I only use one iem but I have the opposite problem. No matter what I do they always feel or too low to actually hear anything or too loud that they cause pain and trigger migraines. (My highest setting is still usually way to low for most people.) I cannot stand using both at the same time because of the pain. I keep them very very low on volume, and I often turn them off to give my ear a rest or alternate ears. I generally keep my ears very clean, no excessive ear wax. I don't have any ear pain problems unless I'm using in ear anything. I can enjoy really loud concerts or music from speakers no problem. I miss using stage monitors so much, but sadly my church has decided that we all use iem's for worship.