wee_merv Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 Very briefly this is my problem. Have an electric piano plugged into the PA system, the piano doesnt have internal speakers so in order for the piano player to hear himself I have him put through the foldback monitor beside him. All very straight forward so far but this is the issue, the band are tight together and when its just him playing he can hear no problem but when everyone else plays he cant hear himself. Second issue is that he shares a monitor mix and so turning it up more in the monitor just doesnt suit both people. The obvious thing then is going down the route of IEM but I do not want to do that as I cant justify the cost and there could be multiple users on a single night, So I was thinking is there anything on the market like small clip on speakers that could be put on the piano to give him the direct feedback closer to his ears? I know I can get a separate speakers on the floor for him but was wondering if anyone had any similar issues or any ideas of products I could use?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 I play piano in a band at church and suffer exactly this problem. I find that earbud type headphones simply plugged into the headphone output of the piano work well.If you get the looser fitting type (not the rubbery ones) you get enough ambient sound from the band not to need a monitor mix in the headphones. The only problem with this is you need to adjust the piano volume to change headphone volume which obviously changes your level in the mix. A personal headphone amp with volume control such as the Art MyMonitor (about £50) or the Behringer MA400 (about £20) gets you round this, plus you can feed in a band mix too. The max volume on the Behringer one is a bit wimpy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexadamson Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 I would suggest getting the keys player to invest in a keyboard amp, ideally one with a line or DI out. He can feed to the keys into the amp, and adjust the volume accordingly, then you get an independent volume to mix, not effected by the volume of the keys amp, and you can mix the keys in the wedge thats more suitable for the other guy its shared with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S&L Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 there IS another way to do this and I do this and we employ this solution with the keyboard player for a band I engineer with regularly.I take his Hammond and Roland straight to desk in stereo.they keyboard player takes his headphone outs to a baby behringer mixing desk and then to a studio near field monitor - and it works a treat - I mean seriously good results. If you are only using the electric piano you should be able to take a direct out, like a headphone out separately to the desk outs and run it straight to a single active nearfield monitor, I don't have a model number but from memory it's a single cabinet 5" speaker plus horn with built in amp - sometimes it sits at elbow level on flight cases etc, sometimes it sits at knee level pointing up at his ear - it also nicely fills the back of the stage where he and the drummer reside and so I only need to put vocals through the rear stage monitor for he and the drummer - he gets the benefit that he can control his own monitor level on stage, I get the benefit that at 40w or less it doesn't effect anything else on stage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnb Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 ...A personal headphone amp with volume control such as the Art MyMonitor (about £50) or the Behringer MA400 (about £20) gets you round this, plus you can feed in a band mix too. .... My wife is looking at an electric cello at the moment and so this caught my eye as a solution for her. The main issue I can see with both of these units (which would be the same for the OP) is that they are mic level in not line level. I can find line level tap boxes which allow a headphone feed off a single line level feed, but none have the monitor mix option as well. Does anyone know is there is a line level equivalent with both tap and monitor feed with headphone output? CheersJohn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wee_merv Posted July 15, 2012 Author Share Posted July 15, 2012 Thanks guys, I will probably have to go down the route of linking out of the DI box to feed a monitor speaker of some kind as a separate mix to what the monitor is providing so when the whole band is playing he can turn up his monitor. If anyone else wishs to give their input feel free!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albatross Posted July 15, 2012 Share Posted July 15, 2012 Try something like a small spot speaker on a microphone stand, just near the player. I've got a Mackie SRM 150 that I use for situations like this. You can take the line out of the device ( electric piano in this case)in to the SRM150 and the musician can adjust it to their hearts content. The signal can then go directly out of the SRM150 to your desk, effectively it can act as a DI as well with phantom power. A very handy little box !! http://www.mackie.com/products/srm150/ Cheers,Ric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted July 16, 2012 Share Posted July 16, 2012 ...A personal headphone amp with volume control such as the Art MyMonitor (about £50) or the Behringer MA400 (about £20) gets you round this, plus you can feed in a band mix too. .... My wife is looking at an electric cello at the moment and so this caught my eye as a solution for her. The main issue I can see with both of these units (which would be the same for the OP) is that they are mic level in not line level. I can find line level tap boxes which allow a headphone feed off a single line level feed, but none have the monitor mix option as well. Does anyone know is there is a line level equivalent with both tap and monitor feed with headphone output? I've used the MA400 mic input with line level out from the keyboard, it works ok. Anyway I would have thought an electric cello would be mic level? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted July 16, 2012 Share Posted July 16, 2012 They're not really line or mic level - but in between, to go into an amp suitable for guitars - hence why they don't overload mic inputs to badly if the gain is kept low, and are within the limits a proper line input with gain control can handle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wee_merv Posted July 16, 2012 Author Share Posted July 16, 2012 Im liking the idea of that makie unit on the piano, I think I maybe on to a winner, its just trying to make it as unabtrusive as possible. Think that could be an easier said than done thing. Thanks folks!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathan.1 Posted July 17, 2012 Share Posted July 17, 2012 behringer make virtually the same as the mackie monitor for a considerable amount less http://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_b_205d.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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