It’s Thursday night, the church band is rehearsing for weekend services, and the musicians once again are struggling with onstage hearing:
- The keyboardist can barely hear the violin, but the bass seems too loud
- The wedges, adjusted to alleviate complaints from parishioners, now seem too low for the singers to catch their pickups and stay on pitch
- The bassist needs the drums to sound louder in the mix
- The volume, readjusted, is finally at a good level of loudness for the worship team, but now the electronic sound reverberates off the walls and creates feedback
- And so on
Enter in-ear monitors, small, inconspicuous devices that can wirelessly transmit the monitor mix to the worship leaders, musicians, and audio engineers, letting them hear exactly the vocals or instrumentation they want to hear and at the volume they need — onstage or in the recording studio.
These state-of-the-art devices, quite possibly a musician’s best friend, have significantly grown in popularity over the last decade or so.
Here are five reasons for your church to get each band member fitted with in-ear monitors, or IEMs, today:
- When customized to the individual wearer, IEMs allow musicians to hear all that they need in their own mix without bleeding into another’s sound.
- In-ear monitors eliminate the need for wedges, a source of ear-splitting feedback that can stop a service in its tracks.
- With the whole worship team using IEMs, engineers can set controls effectively enough for each band member without the risk of reverberation.
- In-ear monitors can save band members’ hearing, which could be at risk from noise-induced hearing loss when floor wedges pipe in the mix at high volumes.
- With IEMs in place, the pastor can set a maximum house volume that works for the congregation without negatively affecting the worship team’s performances.
Some churches live with the wedges, which are typically cheaper than fitting a worship team of as many as 20–30 musicians with in-ear monitors.
Still, other churches might opt for noncustomized in-ear technology or headphones in hopes of tackling the onstage hearing and sound problems.
To achieve the best overall experience for both the worship team and the congregation, however, nothing compares to the effectiveness of customized in-ear monitors for your church band.
Contact us today to learn more about the benefits of in-ear monitors for your worship team, or to schedule custom fittings. Our experts will answer your questions, listen to your concerns, and develop the best solutions for your unique needs.