Wednesday 5 March 2014

In Ear Monitors (IEM) - Part II

Taking it to the next level ...

I've already Shlogged about IEM's, building on this I'm attempted to create some 'custom moulded' IEM earplugs to round-off the experience.

Now, I'm no stranger to custom moulded earplugs.  When I was motorcycling I had a pair made for me by an audiologist, so I know the benefits of having proper custom made ear protection - even though they are not cheap.  I use regular cone-type earplugs in rehearsals to protect my hearing, and as mentioned in my other Shlogg post I've used a few 'universal' makes of IEM earplugs for several years.

They work well, for most people.  But, like any "one size fits all" device they never fit anyone absolutely perfectly and do have a tendency to slip out when they get hot and slippery with sweat at gigs.  Once you break the seal on an IEM - you lose all protection and 99% of the mix being transmitted.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm standing on the shoulders of giants here.  There's a lot of posts in the Bloggosphere and videos on YouTube about making your own IEM's - with various levels of success.  So I've read all the material on the subject I could find, and settled on this excellent guide.

http://www.howtogeek.com/57481/how-to-make-custom-silicone-ear-molds-for-your-in-ear-monitors/



For the ear kit, I was all set to use the Ahead kit (I'm a big fan of all the Ahead gear), but since found out that the Radian kit is exactly the same and 2/3 of the price.  I had difficulty finding that in the UK, but settled on the ProGuard kit from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Proguard-MYO-Mould-custom-earplugs/dp/B006ZLF9EU/ref=pd_sim_MI_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0D4R53XRSFMK9CQMVNY9


I know it's stating the obvious, and it is mentioned in the guide, but note the following:-

  • DO read the guide more than once
  • DO read the instructions with the kit
  • DO be careful when shoving anything smaller than your elbow in your ear
  • DO be careful when using sharp things like knives


For the earphones, I'll be using my ACS universal earplugs.  They are single driver, relatively inexpensive for an IEM, but offer a pretty good sound quality.  Also, if anything went wrong I wouldn't be absolutely horrified that I'd ruined my precious earplugs.

The initial trial worked okay-ish.  The problem I had was being able to push the earbud into the ear plug.  It just would barely make a dent.  This stuff goes off fast!  For the second attempt (using the half of the mix that was left) I wrapped some of the mix around the earbud first, stuck that in my ear, and then packed the rest of the mix around it.

Given that I only had half the mix for both ears, this second method worked well - but the resulting plug didn't 'seal' the ear very well ... although it was quite usable.

In summary, you can do a lot with a DIY kit.  But if you're used to a custom fit from a trained audiologist - you probably won't get quite the same result from a DIY kit :-)



No comments:

Post a Comment