Questions about upgrading wireless in ear systems...

SteveGlitch

SteveGlitch

Banned
Well-known member
Admittedly I don't know much about the topic, one of our church branches, a much smaller church, uses old in-ear wireless packs and I want to buy new ones. Let's stick to around $3200ish budget. I need a system that supports up to 6 packs.

The sound guy said it would have to be compatible but when I asked "With what?" He said he didn't know. I'm not sure if he was talking about the program, the board, etc. I'm a guitar, amp and pedalboard guy but I have no clue on the soundboard stuff.

Any help would be appreciated!

Something like https://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro...fKL0pQFeU9sZd1imCi5eVWJ8MGLuhd6waAtFREALw_wcB

But up to 6 pack support. No clue if I would have to buy 3 of those or what.
 
I used the exact ones you linked on a 24 date US/Canada tour earlier this year, we had two of those bundles so two transmitters (they come with rack kits and you can have two units side by side attached to each other to only take up 1U), four total body packs.

These transmitters all have 1/4 inch jacks for their inputs so if your system is all XLR you’ll need adapters or cables that are xlr on one end and 1/4” on the other.

Each transmitter has a Left and right input, so we would run Mix one to unit 1 left input, mix 2 to unit 1 right input, mix 3 to unit 2 left input, mix 4 to unit 2 right input. Then two packs were sync’d to unit one other to unit 2, then one was panned left, the other right, repeat for the other two packs. This would give you 4 completely separate mono monitor mixes. You can also pair more than 2 body packs to the transmitter units as long as people are fine sharing mixes. If you need 6 separate mixes then you’ll need 3 of these combo units. Assuming you’ll be in the same space and location each “performance” you probably won’t need to channel scan each time, just set it once and then you’ll be good to go.

If you’re just running 1 or 2 mixes and everyone is sharing, you might be able to get away with one transmitter and 6 total body packs - but just double check if that would work. For a few shows we ran 4 of the receiver packs to 1 transmitter (two monitor mixes, two units panned left, two panned right)

Range on these units are good but we always had our transmitters more or less center stage in a rack on the drum riser and more or less almost always had line of sight. We also weren’t using a combiner with a dedicated antenna array setup, just the stock antennas. They worked fine offstage / backstage but once you started getting very far away with doors/walls in between you’d get signal interruption or no connection at all. We played a number of gigs in big cities with a lot of interference (and there were 2 other bands on the bill with each band all having wireless IEMs and wireless guitar/bass/key setups) and they performed well enough. These PSM300’s are kinda the top consumer or hobbyist level on the Shure line, the PSM900/1000 are the actual pro level units - they fit the budget for the tour we did and I’ve used them since for shows with another band as well as a separate fly out gig. Make sure to look up your zip code in the Shure frequency / band lookup to make sure there is plenty of availability in your area as different bands have different use

I highly recommend getting a bunch of rechargeable batteries and a larger 16 battery charger rig because the body packs just run through batteries quick and the last thing you’d want is them to go dead while onstage.

Also keep in mind unless one person is going to be the only person using these people will need to bring their own headphones. The Shure ones included are fine but even cheaper $40-60 IEM’s from Amazon sound better and have better seals / isolation. KZ AS16 Pro IEMs are a good cost to quality ratio, and if you need to get a better seal / isolation getting some double flange eartips will make them even better - I’m sure some of the folks on here would balk about getting these ones but they’re hard to beat at the price, especially considering people will damage / destroy them eventually.

Once you settle on what you’re buying a sales rep should be able to get ~$100 off on that bundle for you, maybe more? I’d just say message sweet water and musiciansfriend and see who will get you a better price. If it’s for a church you might be able to get some extra discounted pricing too.

If you have specific questions about the units let me know
 
Inearthed said:
I used the exact ones you linked on a 24 date US/Canada tour earlier this year, we had two of those bundles so two transmitters (they come with rack kits and you can have two units side by side attached to each other to only take up 1U), four total body packs.

These transmitters all have 1/4 inch jacks for their inputs so if your system is all XLR you’ll need adapters or cables that are xlr on one end and 1/4” on the other.

Each transmitter has a Left and right input, so we would run Mix one to unit 1 left input, mix 2 to unit 1 right input, mix 3 to unit 2 left input, mix 4 to unit 2 right input. Then two packs were sync’d to unit one other to unit 2, then one was panned left, the other right, repeat for the other two packs. This would give you 4 completely separate mono monitor mixes. You can also pair more than 2 body packs to the transmitter units as long as people are fine sharing mixes. If you need 6 separate mixes then you’ll need 3 of these combo units. Assuming you’ll be in the same space and location each “performance” you probably won’t need to channel scan each time, just set it once and then you’ll be good to go.

If you’re just running 1 or 2 mixes and everyone is sharing, you might be able to get away with one transmitter and 6 total body packs - but just double check if that would work. For a few shows we ran 4 of the receiver packs to 1 transmitter (two monitor mixes, two units panned left, two panned right)

Range on these units are good but we always had our transmitters more or less center stage in a rack on the drum riser and more or less almost always had line of sight. We also weren’t using a combiner with a dedicated antenna array setup, just the stock antennas. They worked fine offstage / backstage but once you started getting very far away with doors/walls in between you’d get signal interruption or no connection at all. We played a number of gigs in big cities with a lot of interference (and there were 2 other bands on the bill with each band all having wireless IEMs and wireless guitar/bass/key setups) and they performed well enough. These PSM300’s are kinda the top consumer or hobbyist level on the Shure line, the PSM900/1000 are the actual pro level units - they fit the budget for the tour we did and I’ve used them since for shows with another band as well as a separate fly out gig. Make sure to look up your zip code in the Shure frequency / band lookup to make sure there is plenty of availability in your area as different bands have different use

I highly recommend getting a bunch of rechargeable batteries and a larger 16 battery charger rig because the body packs just run through batteries quick and the last thing you’d want is them to go dead while onstage.

Also keep in mind unless one person is going to be the only person using these people will need to bring their own headphones. The Shure ones included are fine but even cheaper $40-60 IEM’s from Amazon sound better and have better seals / isolation. KZ AS16 Pro IEMs are a good cost to quality ratio, and if you need to get a better seal / isolation getting some double flange eartips will make them even better - I’m sure some of the folks on here would balk about getting these ones but they’re hard to beat at the price, especially considering people will damage / destroy them eventually.

Once you settle on what you’re buying a sales rep should be able to get ~$100 off on that bundle for you, maybe more? I’d just say message sweet water and musiciansfriend and see who will get you a better price. If it’s for a church you might be able to get some extra discounted pricing too.

If you have specific questions about the units let me know
Click to expand...
Thanks for this, this is great feedback!

It would average at 1-6 people every week at the same place, the soundboard is in line of sight to the stage (smaller place, smaller church building that's a product of our larger parent mega-church). They rotate between 3 teams so the rigs are always changing but everyone always brings their own in-ear monitors to plug into the ancient wireless packs they currently have. They are very outdated packs.

So these are mono? There's no ability to pan channels (individual instruments or vocals) to left, right or center?

We use Planning Center and they have an app that let's people make their own personal mix on the fly with digital sliders, on screen.

Also, where do I find out what bands are used in my zip?

Thanks a heap!!!
 
SteveGlitch said:
Thanks for this, this is great feedback!

It would average at 1-6 people every week at the same place, the soundboard is in line of sight to the stage (smaller place, smaller church building that's a product of our larger parent mega-church). They rotate between 3 teams so the rigs are always changing but everyone always brings their own in-ear monitors to plug into the ancient wireless packs they currently have. They are very outdated packs.

So these are mono? There's no ability to pan channels (individual instruments or vocals) to left, right or center?

We use Planning Center and they have an app that let's people make their own personal mix on the fly with digital sliders, on screen.

Also, where do I find out what bands are used in my zip?

Thanks a heap!!!
Click to expand...
You can't buy bad frequencies anymore. If you get new units, they will be good. The Shure stuff is good. We took those on the road for years and never had a problem with them. Really, the worst problem we had was with the Behringer mixers that fed them, and cycling the power always fixed it.
 
Using wireless systems was always a pain. We'd invest so much money into a new system, tour for a year then before the next tour cycle starts the FCC locks the band your on and you have to buy a whole new system to stay compliant. Small club tours or local gigs I guess it wouldn't matter but when you hit those festivals you have to run everything by a wireless manager and they assign the frequencies you can use for the day.
If you're using them in one place every day and the range is limited you can afford to scale down and not have to buy something crazy expensive. It would be wise to buy a frequency scanner prior to ordering any wireless gear. Just because the frequencies are available to the public doesn't mean the band they sell you won't be completely populated by users around you.
Good luck
 
SteveGlitch said:
Thanks for this, this is great feedback!

It would average at 1-6 people every week at the same place, the soundboard is in line of sight to the stage (smaller place, smaller church building that's a product of our larger parent mega-church). They rotate between 3 teams so the rigs are always changing but everyone always brings their own in-ear monitors to plug into the ancient wireless packs they currently have. They are very outdated packs.

So these are mono? There's no ability to pan channels (individual instruments or vocals) to left, right or center?

We use Planning Center and they have an app that let's people make their own personal mix on the fly with digital sliders, on screen.

Also, where do I find out what bands are used in my zip?

Thanks a heap!!!
Click to expand...

The PSM300's are stereo, they have a Left and Right Channel, but if you have six separate stereo mixes customized by users that need to be used all at the same time you'll need to have six PSM300 units each with their own body pack, that's going to exceed your budget since each of those units run a $900 + tax. If there isn't a situation where you're using all 6 at once and its just 1 or 2 people you could probably get by with just 2 or 3 PSM300's

The way the band I toured with used them was mono mixes for each member, each PSM300 had 2 mixes running to it (one mix to the left channel, the other to the right), then we had 2 body packs synchronized to each PSM300, and then we panned the audio on body packs themselves so one would only get the left mix, the other only the right, this way we were able to cheat and get by using just two PSM300 units and four total body packs in 1U on our rack. We also only had 6 mono outs for our mixes from our digital mixer so even if we had wanted stereo only two people would've had it, in SteveGlitch's case it sounds like their mixing board/unit is far more robust and probably can support a lot more.


Frequency wise --- Link to the Shure Frequency Finder - https://www.shure.com/en-US/support/tools/frequency-finder

BeZo said:
You can't buy bad frequencies anymore. If you get new units, they will be good. The Shure stuff is good. We took those on the road for years and never had a problem with them. Really, the worst problem we had was with the Behringer mixers that fed them, and cycling the power always fixed it.
Click to expand...
Anything that Shure or Sennheiser is selling new won't be "bad" per se, but the frequency bands they cover in some areas might have high traffic and could have interference if you go with them, example Seattle, WA the J13 band from Shure has no available channels, still might be usable but you might have have interference and if you're locked into in ears with nothing on stage having cut outs due to interference is going to get old very fast. To me if you're sticking in one area taking the extra step to just double check what the frequency finder says is worth the effort. When I looked the G20 band devices typically had the most available channels.

1724802625346.png
 
Inearthed said:
The PSM300's are stereo, they have a Left and Right Channel, but if you have six separate stereo mixes customized by users that need to be used all at the same time you'll need to have six PSM300 units each with their own body pack, that's going to exceed your budget since each of those units run a $900 + tax. If there isn't a situation where you're using all 6 at once and its just 1 or 2 people you could probably get by with just 2 or 3 PSM300's

The way the band I toured with used them was mono mixes for each member, each PSM300 had 2 mixes running to it (one mix to the left channel, the other to the right), then we had 2 body packs synchronized to each PSM300, and then we panned the audio on body packs themselves so one would only get the left mix, the other only the right, this way we were able to cheat and get by using just two PSM300 units and four total body packs in 1U on our rack. We also only had 6 mono outs for our mixes from our digital mixer so even if we had wanted stereo only two people would've had it, in SteveGlitch's case it sounds like their mixing board/unit is far more robust and probably can support a lot more.


Frequency wise --- Link to the Shure Frequency Finder - https://www.shure.com/en-US/support/tools/frequency-finder


Anything that Shure or Sennheiser is selling new won't be "bad" per se, but the frequency bands they cover in some areas might have high traffic and could have interference if you go with them, example Seattle, WA the J13 band from Shure has no available channels, still might be usable but you might have have interference and if you're locked into in ears with nothing on stage having cut outs due to interference is going to get old very fast. To me if you're sticking in one area taking the extra step to just double check what the frequency finder says is worth the effort. When I looked the G20 band devices typically had the most available channels.

View attachment 336081
Click to expand...
If I buy just the one system with the 2 packs, can the rest of the team continue to use their old packs just the same? The old ones are all the same but the electric one is the messed up one, they are all the same brand/model. If I can upgrade 1 or 2 and just upgrade the rest later, that would be great!
 
SteveGlitch said:
If I buy just the one system with the 2 packs, can the rest of the team continue to use their old packs just the same? The old ones are all the same but the electric one is the messed up one, they are all the same brand/model. If I can upgrade 1 or 2 and just upgrade the rest later, that would be great!
Click to expand...
Yeah, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to use the two in tandem, one of the bands we toured with had a mixture of IEM units, three different model Sennheiser transmitters each with different packs.
 
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