[quote author="Mbira"] so any of you guys that are smarter than me know an affordable way to do this?[/quote]
Iam not sure if iam smarter than you but at least my diy inear system was cheap. :grin:
THE CHEAP IN EAR SOLUTION:
Years ago I bought an expensive inear system for about 600€. It worked but it sounded damn bad. The earphones are expensive and sounds like shit.
Then I bought cheap earphones "KOSS - THE PLUG". They sound soo good and have a great bass response. A local Hearing Aid Audiologist made an Otoplasty for me which fit into my ear and into the koss plugs.
Price for the phones 10€, otoplastic 60€.
THE CHEAP MIXER SOLUTION
I play keyboards and need to submix 3 stereo signals for the foh-mix. And I want to make my own in ear mix from the foh monitor signal (drums, bass, guitar, vocals), my keyboard signals and an extra guitar mic.
So I needed a mixer with 3 stereo and 2 mono signals, a headphone amp and aux with pre fader.
I bought a cheap behringer mixer. The problem is that I wanted to be able to switch off any monitor signals (monitor from foh mix and guitar mic) from the main mix. Some modifications were needed.
1. I replaced the panorama pots with switches. This will seperate my monitor signals to the main output. (I could just set the potentiometer to zero, but who knows... its just cheap behringer panasonic pots) :wink:
2. I changed the aux post fader to pre fader.
3. I installed another switch which mutes the main output. I can check the volumes and if I have choosen the right sounds for the next song/solo. And... more important... I can check If I can play the next solo correctly. :green: (psssssst) :roll:
I can adjust the volume of the headphones with the aux send pot and make my own in ear mix with the aux pots.
Because don't have the same volume I have a 2x60LED peakmeter plugged into the monitor output (Left) and the other input (right) is connected with the DI-box. So I can check the levels and see if the mute switch is not switched off.
It works fantastic since years!
I ever wanted to have a FM transmitter for the inear and tried to use those cheap home-fm transmitters... but either I bought a very bad one or they are generally not very useful for the stage.
Frank.
Some pics: