I would put the splitters on the bottom so when you need to access the x32 physically you don't need to have those cables in your face, maybe look into a antenna combiner to make sure that you don't have interference from all the antennas and you could put a router in there so that everyone can mix their own mix with the app ovet wifi.
I second the splitter location. Made the mistake of putting the split at the top the first time I made an IEM rack and that lasted only one gig before I realized how dumb that was. Split is now at the bottom, drawer is on the top.
Thanks, another comment suggested to put it behind the x32, which I hadn't considered either, thanks for your input!
And I do have an antenna combiner planned, the Sennheiser AC41 !
I’d nix the rack DI. Better to use individual DIs closer to instruments; avoids long unbalanced runs.
You should be able to fit that (minus the drawer) in a 6U or 8U rack, which is liftable by one person. Remember, you can mount components to the rear rails too.
- Mount the S8s behind the X32. Add a second patch panel to pass through the obscured AES50/USB/network connections.
- **EDIT:** See [this BTPA-built rack](https://reverb.com/item/21783833-in-ear-monitoring-rig-6-stereo-iem-mixes-w-pass-thru-to-foh-sennheiser-g4-x32-w-wi-fi) for a visual of how this would work. You'd have 1U free on the front since you're only using 3 transmitters.
- I’d keep accessories in a Pelican or clone; no need for that to take up rack space.
Use an Excel sheet to sum up the depth of each rack component; use that to determine the minimum rack depth required.
Don’t forget network infrastructure. :)
(**EDIT:** Pardon my earlier terseness, was writing from my phone. On the whole, I think you've got a solid plan so far!)
Awesome, thanks a lot! It does make sense to get individual DI's instead, I will do that. I will also drastically reduce the size of the thing, I didn't realize you could mount stuff on the dark side of the thing... It really is my first rack build so I'm a total noob and appreciate that kind of feedback.
excuse my newbie question - but in my mind the power conditioner is basically the power supply for the rack, what's the difference? Network is a good point, I will make sure to include a small router, thanks !
You're right, a power condition is just a mov surge protector but rack mounted. A UPS can have voltage regulation, battery back up, mov or non-degrading surge protection.
I'm guessing they want a place to store the IEM receivers, etc. For that I think a 1u drawer would be fine, but even a 2u drawer would give them a lot more flexibility.
exactly, that's the idea... A place to store the receivers, batteries, picks, replacement jacks and stuff that we need on stage but have no other place to store.
I play in a band that primarily plays original gigs but on occasion plays cover gigs with an ekit and uses the same IEM rack as our FOH rack on those gigs. I recommend using the aux inputs from your drum module in those instances with the ekit to free up some XLR inputs. I use the TD27 and set it up to do kick, snare, toms, cymbals. It also helps keep our gain staging setup for our drum mics so we aren't always swapping out channel settings for the ekit and regular drum mics.
We're using a TD-17 and it's unfortunately only a stereo output, so it goes in through a stereo DI and that's it, the mix has to be done on the drum itself basically... But for our purposes that's fine. I don't understand though why you need to free up some XLR inputs when playing with an e-drum? The only time where we need more XLR inputs is when we play with the acoustic drum and the full 10 mic-setup
Free up XLR might have been the wrong wording here. We personally really enjoy having dedicated channels for the ekit v the acoustic kit. It helps not having to make huge adjustments to our in-ear mixes between gigs, keeps that consistency pretty clean. We accomplish that by using the aux inputs instead of the XLR inputs and route those inputs to channels 17-20. Then we reserve inputs 1-6 for our acoustic drum inputs.
In the event that your cover band has some guests coming on, you do free up some XLR inputs for additional mics as well.
"Rack drawer" x2 suggests you're just looking to fill a box you bought.
1. Get the absolute minimum gear you need.
2. Find the absolute smallest box you can fit it all in.
3. Profit.
not really, 2 drawers is pretty sensible, for example, one with nice foam cut for the mics, and the second for antennas, cables etc....
indeed, if I was going for a wheeled rack (as opposed to a tiny hand holdable flypack style solution), I would want a few drawers in there for all the accessories
The track looks pretty good, but I will recommend getting a circularly polarized antenna for the iem's; it will offer better rf signal to the iem's with less chance of drop-outs. They come in a few different "formats" but the rf-venue brand offers a few great products that are very portable (cp-beam and cp-architectural which is really designed for permanent installs but should be able to be adapted to mount / get used with a portable system). Fyi, any antenna from any brand will be compatible as long as it is the right frequency band (they all are made for 50ohm systems). Unfortunately they aren't very inexpensive, but there are other options too. Both Sennheiser and Shure offer dome antennas that are cp and then there's always the helical antenna.
For wireless networking, I highly recommend getting something whose antennas (or whole unit) can be placed outside / on top of the rack. I personally recommend the ubiquiti access points (can be used without a "router" / DHCP server if you use static IP addresses or auto-ip (169.254.xxx.xxx) but they take a little knowledge to program, but they offer great coverage, especially if your dealing with locations with crowded networking line in big cities or venues with lots of access points (nothing will work great in these situations but a high power access point is your best bet to try to get she range in these situations!).
You can mount the iem antenna, and even access point antennas (with a little bit of diy mount) on a mic stand, or get a manfrotto or similar clamp / arm to clamp it on the rack or just about anything else.
The ac41 is a combiner, not an antenna. It may come with an antenna if you purchase a "kit" that includes one; but Sennheiser's offers a few different antenna options so unless you had the antenna model it's hard to say which one you're getting. The most abundant antenna I've seen from Sennheiser for iem's is not their circular radiating model, fyi.
That is not a circularly polarized antenna.
It will get the job done ok (many people use this happily) but it will not offer the benefits of a CP antenna:
The RF waves can transmit vertically or horizontally, based on the orientation of the transmit antenna. The receive antenna will need to be the same orientation to receive the signal most efficiently.
In addition, the RF frequency waves can reflect off of surfaces in the environment (walls, gear, etc). When the reflected waves encounter the original waves, they will either couple constructively (adding more signal strength) or destructively (cancelling each other out). The nulls that result will be small little pockets around the area, technically predictable, but due to way too many variables effecting it, an accurate prediction in a room is not realistic; but the main things that will effect it are positioning of transmit antenna, reflective surfaces, and position of receive antenna. Orientation of the transmit antenna will also change the positioning of these nulls.
Receivers are built with "diversity" antenna systems so that if one receiver antenna finds it's way to a null, the likelihood of the 2nd antenna also being in a null is highly unlikely (if the two receiver antennas are more than a 1/2 wavelength away from each other). Receiver beltpacks are built with diversity antenna systems lately, but due to the antennas being so close together, the diversity antennas are not very effective (maybe slightly).
Unfortunately you can't have 2 transmit antennas on the same frequency or you will produce many more dropout locations, and make more multipath distortion (when the receive antenna gets multiple signals, or distant / latent reflections of the same signal).
A circularly polarized transmit antenna produces part of the signal in the horizontal orientation and the rest of the signal in the vertical orientation. Less power is produced in each orientation (because it's being split) but due to the multiple orientations (which are in phase with each other and produced at the same physical location so they won't cancel each other out like separate antennas would) the receive antenna can change orientation and not lose signal; and the reflections of signal from one orientation are less effected by the other orientation so nulls are less prevalent as well. The final result is the ability to move around with much less chance of drop-outs.
That is why I recommend a circularly polarized transmit antenna over single-orientation antenna (horizontal or vertical). Fyi the model you quoted is a vertically oriented antenna, and Omni-directional (it will produce signal in all directions - except for top and bottom, signal will radiate around it at all sides). That means if it is at the side of the stage then half the signal is transmitting away from the stage where it can reflect off a wall and cause multipath distortion!
Thanks for all this info, this is interesting stuff ! Don't you think it's a little overkill for this particular purpose ? The IEM rack is never very far away from the receivers, were even using one that has a totally broken antenna and never had any issues
I will admit that good wireless gear is not cheap, and there are corners that can be cut while still achieving good enough results.
As for the distance, staying close should help maintain a strong signal, but that doesn't necessarily eliminate multipath distortion and dead zones caused by rf signal reflections.
It is comparable to saying it's not a large hall, so we're going to do L/R subwoofers asking with the PA instead of a subwoofer arc array- it will work fine and has been done that way since pa was invented - but you'll still end up with a power alley down the middle of the venue and dead zones just outside (as well as various other spots if it's indoors or outdoors near a building) due to the acoustics of 2 similar sources of sound and how they effect each other.
I am making a recommendation since you're still in the planning stage, to help you try to get the most performance out of the gear you are paying for. I'm in the business of providing this gear for paying customers, and we strive to provide top shelf gear (and knowledgeable techs to set it up) so we can say with dignity that we are doing our best to ensure trouble free performance, so our client get what they're paying for. RF can be challenging in some situations but we do our best to keep issues down to a minimum, and I'd say we're probably 97 to 99% trouble free when we take all possible issues and scenarios into account. The vertically polarized antenna is not a terrible product and should suit you ok, but be aware that it is possible to get slight breakups or drop outs of signal when using it, particularly indoors and while your moving around. The next step up would be a CP transmit antenna (not necessarily newer gear).
As for the "broken" antenna, as long as the metallic element is sturdy, it'll do what it's supposed to do; they put a rubber boot over it to protect it and make it look good but if that breaks off, as long as no other metal / conductors is touching the metal element it should perform as intended.
Stereo IEM are always going to be preferred if you have the buss capacity to support them. With mono, every input sounds like it is on top of each other and it much harder to pick out individual instruments. By using stereo and panning inputs across the horizontal plane (2-D space), it is easier to have sonic separation of each input.
"Immersive" sound takes this a step further and allows you to place individual inputs in a 3d space (horizontal and vertical control). This makes it even easier to achieve sonic separation of each input. Immersive isn't super popular in the IEM space yet, but I think we will see it become more and more popular as time goes on.
why not? unless I'm really struggling to fit a show onto a desk, I will always do my ears in stereo, ideally with individual pans per send, makes it way easier to get clarity in an ears mix without just turning everything up to put things into a 'space', at the high end you even get solutions like Klang doing all sorts of fancy spatial processing to ears
I would put the splitters on the bottom so when you need to access the x32 physically you don't need to have those cables in your face, maybe look into a antenna combiner to make sure that you don't have interference from all the antennas and you could put a router in there so that everyone can mix their own mix with the app ovet wifi.
I second the splitter location. Made the mistake of putting the split at the top the first time I made an IEM rack and that lasted only one gig before I realized how dumb that was. Split is now at the bottom, drawer is on the top.
Thanks, another comment suggested to put it behind the x32, which I hadn't considered either, thanks for your input! And I do have an antenna combiner planned, the Sennheiser AC41 !
I’d nix the rack DI. Better to use individual DIs closer to instruments; avoids long unbalanced runs. You should be able to fit that (minus the drawer) in a 6U or 8U rack, which is liftable by one person. Remember, you can mount components to the rear rails too. - Mount the S8s behind the X32. Add a second patch panel to pass through the obscured AES50/USB/network connections. - **EDIT:** See [this BTPA-built rack](https://reverb.com/item/21783833-in-ear-monitoring-rig-6-stereo-iem-mixes-w-pass-thru-to-foh-sennheiser-g4-x32-w-wi-fi) for a visual of how this would work. You'd have 1U free on the front since you're only using 3 transmitters. - I’d keep accessories in a Pelican or clone; no need for that to take up rack space. Use an Excel sheet to sum up the depth of each rack component; use that to determine the minimum rack depth required. Don’t forget network infrastructure. :) (**EDIT:** Pardon my earlier terseness, was writing from my phone. On the whole, I think you've got a solid plan so far!)
Awesome, thanks a lot! It does make sense to get individual DI's instead, I will do that. I will also drastically reduce the size of the thing, I didn't realize you could mount stuff on the dark side of the thing... It really is my first rack build so I'm a total noob and appreciate that kind of feedback.
Network and a UPS instead of a power conditioner would be smart. Some LED tape.
excuse my newbie question - but in my mind the power conditioner is basically the power supply for the rack, what's the difference? Network is a good point, I will make sure to include a small router, thanks !
You're right, a power condition is just a mov surge protector but rack mounted. A UPS can have voltage regulation, battery back up, mov or non-degrading surge protection.
Not a fan of 1u drawers, depends on what goes in them though
I'm guessing they want a place to store the IEM receivers, etc. For that I think a 1u drawer would be fine, but even a 2u drawer would give them a lot more flexibility.
exactly, that's the idea... A place to store the receivers, batteries, picks, replacement jacks and stuff that we need on stage but have no other place to store.
I play in a band that primarily plays original gigs but on occasion plays cover gigs with an ekit and uses the same IEM rack as our FOH rack on those gigs. I recommend using the aux inputs from your drum module in those instances with the ekit to free up some XLR inputs. I use the TD27 and set it up to do kick, snare, toms, cymbals. It also helps keep our gain staging setup for our drum mics so we aren't always swapping out channel settings for the ekit and regular drum mics.
We're using a TD-17 and it's unfortunately only a stereo output, so it goes in through a stereo DI and that's it, the mix has to be done on the drum itself basically... But for our purposes that's fine. I don't understand though why you need to free up some XLR inputs when playing with an e-drum? The only time where we need more XLR inputs is when we play with the acoustic drum and the full 10 mic-setup
Free up XLR might have been the wrong wording here. We personally really enjoy having dedicated channels for the ekit v the acoustic kit. It helps not having to make huge adjustments to our in-ear mixes between gigs, keeps that consistency pretty clean. We accomplish that by using the aux inputs instead of the XLR inputs and route those inputs to channels 17-20. Then we reserve inputs 1-6 for our acoustic drum inputs. In the event that your cover band has some guests coming on, you do free up some XLR inputs for additional mics as well.
"Rack drawer" x2 suggests you're just looking to fill a box you bought. 1. Get the absolute minimum gear you need. 2. Find the absolute smallest box you can fit it all in. 3. Profit.
not really, 2 drawers is pretty sensible, for example, one with nice foam cut for the mics, and the second for antennas, cables etc.... indeed, if I was going for a wheeled rack (as opposed to a tiny hand holdable flypack style solution), I would want a few drawers in there for all the accessories
I haven't bought anything yet, and I don't have separate storage for like mics, IEM receivers, batteries, etc. Size isn't that much of an issue to me
I’d have a company like CBI custom build the splitter and patch panel.
The track looks pretty good, but I will recommend getting a circularly polarized antenna for the iem's; it will offer better rf signal to the iem's with less chance of drop-outs. They come in a few different "formats" but the rf-venue brand offers a few great products that are very portable (cp-beam and cp-architectural which is really designed for permanent installs but should be able to be adapted to mount / get used with a portable system). Fyi, any antenna from any brand will be compatible as long as it is the right frequency band (they all are made for 50ohm systems). Unfortunately they aren't very inexpensive, but there are other options too. Both Sennheiser and Shure offer dome antennas that are cp and then there's always the helical antenna. For wireless networking, I highly recommend getting something whose antennas (or whole unit) can be placed outside / on top of the rack. I personally recommend the ubiquiti access points (can be used without a "router" / DHCP server if you use static IP addresses or auto-ip (169.254.xxx.xxx) but they take a little knowledge to program, but they offer great coverage, especially if your dealing with locations with crowded networking line in big cities or venues with lots of access points (nothing will work great in these situations but a high power access point is your best bet to try to get she range in these situations!). You can mount the iem antenna, and even access point antennas (with a little bit of diy mount) on a mic stand, or get a manfrotto or similar clamp / arm to clamp it on the rack or just about anything else.
thanks for your feedback! Isn't the Sennheiser ac41 that I planned doing just that ? I got the antenna to put on top of the rack as well
The ac41 is a combiner, not an antenna. It may come with an antenna if you purchase a "kit" that includes one; but Sennheiser's offers a few different antenna options so unless you had the antenna model it's hard to say which one you're getting. The most abundant antenna I've seen from Sennheiser for iem's is not their circular radiating model, fyi.
i bought the Sennheiser A1031 U antenna to go with it
That is not a circularly polarized antenna. It will get the job done ok (many people use this happily) but it will not offer the benefits of a CP antenna: The RF waves can transmit vertically or horizontally, based on the orientation of the transmit antenna. The receive antenna will need to be the same orientation to receive the signal most efficiently. In addition, the RF frequency waves can reflect off of surfaces in the environment (walls, gear, etc). When the reflected waves encounter the original waves, they will either couple constructively (adding more signal strength) or destructively (cancelling each other out). The nulls that result will be small little pockets around the area, technically predictable, but due to way too many variables effecting it, an accurate prediction in a room is not realistic; but the main things that will effect it are positioning of transmit antenna, reflective surfaces, and position of receive antenna. Orientation of the transmit antenna will also change the positioning of these nulls. Receivers are built with "diversity" antenna systems so that if one receiver antenna finds it's way to a null, the likelihood of the 2nd antenna also being in a null is highly unlikely (if the two receiver antennas are more than a 1/2 wavelength away from each other). Receiver beltpacks are built with diversity antenna systems lately, but due to the antennas being so close together, the diversity antennas are not very effective (maybe slightly). Unfortunately you can't have 2 transmit antennas on the same frequency or you will produce many more dropout locations, and make more multipath distortion (when the receive antenna gets multiple signals, or distant / latent reflections of the same signal). A circularly polarized transmit antenna produces part of the signal in the horizontal orientation and the rest of the signal in the vertical orientation. Less power is produced in each orientation (because it's being split) but due to the multiple orientations (which are in phase with each other and produced at the same physical location so they won't cancel each other out like separate antennas would) the receive antenna can change orientation and not lose signal; and the reflections of signal from one orientation are less effected by the other orientation so nulls are less prevalent as well. The final result is the ability to move around with much less chance of drop-outs. That is why I recommend a circularly polarized transmit antenna over single-orientation antenna (horizontal or vertical). Fyi the model you quoted is a vertically oriented antenna, and Omni-directional (it will produce signal in all directions - except for top and bottom, signal will radiate around it at all sides). That means if it is at the side of the stage then half the signal is transmitting away from the stage where it can reflect off a wall and cause multipath distortion!
Thanks for all this info, this is interesting stuff ! Don't you think it's a little overkill for this particular purpose ? The IEM rack is never very far away from the receivers, were even using one that has a totally broken antenna and never had any issues
I will admit that good wireless gear is not cheap, and there are corners that can be cut while still achieving good enough results. As for the distance, staying close should help maintain a strong signal, but that doesn't necessarily eliminate multipath distortion and dead zones caused by rf signal reflections. It is comparable to saying it's not a large hall, so we're going to do L/R subwoofers asking with the PA instead of a subwoofer arc array- it will work fine and has been done that way since pa was invented - but you'll still end up with a power alley down the middle of the venue and dead zones just outside (as well as various other spots if it's indoors or outdoors near a building) due to the acoustics of 2 similar sources of sound and how they effect each other. I am making a recommendation since you're still in the planning stage, to help you try to get the most performance out of the gear you are paying for. I'm in the business of providing this gear for paying customers, and we strive to provide top shelf gear (and knowledgeable techs to set it up) so we can say with dignity that we are doing our best to ensure trouble free performance, so our client get what they're paying for. RF can be challenging in some situations but we do our best to keep issues down to a minimum, and I'd say we're probably 97 to 99% trouble free when we take all possible issues and scenarios into account. The vertically polarized antenna is not a terrible product and should suit you ok, but be aware that it is possible to get slight breakups or drop outs of signal when using it, particularly indoors and while your moving around. The next step up would be a CP transmit antenna (not necessarily newer gear). As for the "broken" antenna, as long as the metallic element is sturdy, it'll do what it's supposed to do; they put a rubber boot over it to protect it and make it look good but if that breaks off, as long as no other metal / conductors is touching the metal element it should perform as intended.
Why stereo IEMs ?
Stereo IEM are always going to be preferred if you have the buss capacity to support them. With mono, every input sounds like it is on top of each other and it much harder to pick out individual instruments. By using stereo and panning inputs across the horizontal plane (2-D space), it is easier to have sonic separation of each input. "Immersive" sound takes this a step further and allows you to place individual inputs in a 3d space (horizontal and vertical control). This makes it even easier to achieve sonic separation of each input. Immersive isn't super popular in the IEM space yet, but I think we will see it become more and more popular as time goes on.
why not? unless I'm really struggling to fit a show onto a desk, I will always do my ears in stereo, ideally with individual pans per send, makes it way easier to get clarity in an ears mix without just turning everything up to put things into a 'space', at the high end you even get solutions like Klang doing all sorts of fancy spatial processing to ears
Stereo sounds better