Monitor Mixing - Do This to Make Your IEM Mix Better! 19kHz Pilot Tone Issues 

Your videos are so good. So informative. Please keep doing these.

Love it! I would be interested in a video on troubleshooting common IEM mix complaints from band members. Also - special considerations for mixing for people with existing hearing damage and others that insist on always “taking one ear out”.

This video is gold! Thank you so much for all the videos you do. I had no idea about this and this video comes in super handy for me as I'm going on a tour in 2 days. Thanks again!

Loving this new series! Would love to see some more stuff on applying fx while using in ears!

i've been in the industry a long time, and i've never been truly happy with wireless IEMs. This was an awesome video, thanks for sharing!

Definitely didn't know about pilot tone. So much knowledge for such a young guy! Awesome vid as usual!

Thanks so much for all the work you do for the audio community Mr. Brashler. This is absolutely fantastic info that you provide to us so regularly.

This is great! I have experienced this issue before when dealing with a drummers IEM's when they ask for a lot of overheads. I was un aware of the reasoning but this makes so much sense. Thank you!

Thank you for this video. You explained this better than I've heard before. very helpful!

I love this Drew. God bless you and yours

This was a great video. Never heard about this, thank you!

Extremely helpful, thanks Drew 🙏

Drew, this is so helpful!

Great to know and apply to my setup, thanks for the tip!

Absolutely brilliant!

This was helpful. Thanks Drew!

That was so so explanatory thanks maestro.

I never realized this, thank you so much!

Not only explaining, but showing as well (!!!) is so, so good. Learnt a lot! Legend!

Thanks Drew. Great again.

Drew, this is freaking brilliant. We have two wireless IEM (PSM300), and was having trouble with the signal clipping on the transmitter with the AUX send on -12 db. On my Presonus 24R, I have all Aux for all 4 IEM (the other two are wired) eq'd to match the Harman Kardon curve from Github. I threw a GEQ on the two PSM300 Aux and got rid of everything above 15khz and below 35hz. Much clearer, no clipping of transmitter or dropouts. Thank you so much for the information!

Great video!!!

The best thing I ever see about IEMs. This help me a lot

I can't thank you enough for this video. We've been having Wireless IEM dropout issues at our church and I'm now thinking it's because we have Avioms feeding our transmitters that have a ton of high end on the vocal and drum overhead mic channels, probably clogging up the pilot tone. I can't wait to test putting some EQs in between to see if it fixes the issues - Appreciate your extensive knowledge and heart to teach, Drew!

Thank You!! I'm applying this right now!

Played my first show with the updated in ear rig after adding this eq, and the occlusion eq for my vocals. Sounded incredible!!!

Should this EQ curve not just be handled in the transmitter then? Because as I understand it from this video, the transmitter/receiver are also the components that are limiting the frequency response and adding the 19Khz pilot tone. It figures they would then also apply the EQ curve on the signal to be transmitted to make their system work more reliable.

Ur the best because u help me with your video.

Hi Drew, One thing i didn't get is why you have to use High cuts twice ? If you use the 15Khz alone wouldn't make the trick by itself ? What's the reason for using 2 Hicuts ? Thanks

Thanks Drew, these videos are really helping out church

You rule Drew! Would love to get your thoughts on polarity in respects to being a monitor engineer! Flipping polarity on wedges, sidefills, IEMs etc...cheers!

Very interesting, Drew. Thanks.

Hello Drew! Super useful videos, keep it going! I was wondering if you could explain, how to make it so the Music/Sequence/Click Track, or whatever is being played from the USB recorder, can be recorded into a DAW as if it was a regular IN Channel, I have tried a couple of routing options but I have not been able to make it function. Thanks in advance!!

Thank you!

Looks like they are using the same FM Stereo matrix modulation scheme with 19Khz pilot tone. Thanks for the demonstration.

Very helpful and informative! Does a wireless mic have a similar freq that the mic and receiver use to communicate? Any special considerations there?

Hey there! Thank you so much for this IEM specific video series! One maybe a little bit random question: Do you know if the Sennheiser ac41 would work with their XSW IEM?

... i had mistakenly believed/assumed that the rack-mount IEM transmitters had low-pass filters on their inputs to filter out 15khz on input as well..... wow i'm wrong, thank you for correcting my ways

Hello Drew, 1st - great Channel.Thanks for your work on it. 2nd: Is it the same with Wireless Transmitters for Instruments(Sennheiser EW etc.)? They also have Pilot-Tones...do i have to eq this typical frequencies as well?

thank u Mr. Brashler from sri lanka

The IEM transmitter has a limiter that is sensitive to high frequencies. The analog transmission has a 75 microsecond pre-emphasis high frequency boost. The receiver in turn, rolls off the highs and this results in less FM noise.

Love the videos bro , can you do a video on the p16’s next and how to send a perfect signal. Where it is super clean , whenever my sounds man turns me up or down , I feel it in my in-ears .

If there's an FCC limitation on high frequencies you can have in your audio signal, then why are the transmitters ignoring it and transmitting it anyways? The only way it could interfere with the pilot tone is if it were being transmitted, right? Why don't transmitter manuafacturers just put a super steep low pass filter at 15khz before encoding the signal for transmitting, if the receivers can't handle the higher frequencies? I don't know, something doesn't add up.

I already download your video.

Love this! How would you approach this with p16 that are wired to psm300?

Excellent channel Drew! This technique also applies to IEM systems in the 2.4Ghz band?

You are remarkable.. I am new to the Behringer x32 compact. I am trying my best to find way around it. Just a few days ago I cannot get any audio feed to go to the monitors. The two main speakers work great but my 3 floor monitors have no feed coming through them from the console. What advice can you give me? Thanks

Hey Drew. Could you take some time to run through a video of similarity. I'm using 2 HUB4s, 8 DP48s, and 8 PSM 900s. How would I apply this with these components?

Hi Drew! You are the boss, and help me a lot! Can you please answer one question. Do you know if Sennheiser or other brands have a limitation on they systems, how many receivers you can use on one transmitter? Is two the maximum when you buy a twin system or you can buy even more receivers and have same mix output on all of them. Thanks a lot!

Maybe I missed it, but I was under the impression that the 19kHz tone was to signify a stereo signal to the receiver so that it was aware to decode the multiplex signal on the carrier channel, which is why the frequency range should only go up to 15kHz to prevent interference of the pilot (and interference with the decoding process). In a mono signal, the pilot is absent, telling the receiver that the signal is not stereo and does not need decoding. Regardless, limiting the output bandwidth to 15kHz on a wireless system makes sense.

It would have been great if you tried the 19k tone test after the EQ changes were made.

Makes a lot of sense from how you explained it but I have two questions: 1. If these packs only support up to 15khz and the pilot tone sits at 19khz why do they not come prebuilt with a low pass filter set on their input - surely this would avoid the issue in the first place? 2. The explanation around FCC seems confusing. If they insist that audio is not transmitted above 15kHz then how are the devices able to send and receive at 19khz (surely this is outside the allowed spectrum)? Not saying there is anything wrong with your explanation or observation just seems confusing to me?

I used to be a broadcast engineer. The 15 KHz low pass filter is an integral part of the stereo generator in broadcast transmitter systems, so regardless of what you feed into the transmitter input, the audio will be filtered so it does not interfere with the 19 kHz stereo pilot. I'm surprised that IEM transmitters do not have in-built 15 kHz lowpass filters, as do broadcast transmitters.

New to iem do you set up the PA system volume first ie for the crowd and once the volume is correct plug in your iem ? Many thanks Keith

If you have a high cut at 15kHz why do you need a 19khz notch cut as well. Great video btw.

Audio Technica's 3000 series transmits up to 19khz according to their spec sheet... although I've only been able to achieve these results when in mono. It drops out at about 15-16khz in stereo.

I have a couple questions: we use a x32 and for in ears have the Behringer HA8000 and Shure P3ra and transmitter. We are hearing the “pilot noise” which sounds like static. Is this video demonstrating how we can remove that?

Great info Drew....... Thanks!

Interesting that on Sweetwater, the audio frequency response is 20-19k, but the Shure spec sheet says 35-15k. Seems like a large oversight. Glad you pointed out this intormation

So, do I understand correctly that Sennheisers statement in their manual of the EW G4 IEM (AF frequency response 25 to 15,000 Hz) cannot be true because of the technical limitations of the used FM multiplexing (MPX) technology limiting the AF frequency range to 30 Hz-15 kHz?

Why do you have to cut those frequencies at the board when your wireless system is already doing/limiting it for you?

@drewbrashler This is really interesting. One thing i have encountered, as an EG player, is my tone is not representative to what i am hearing at my source. My amp tones that i am getting are phenomenal. My eq for EG is flat, sometimes a hi-cut is added to take off any fizz. I have adjusted mics, etc. We run our ears on a digico sd7 (this is used for both FOH and monitors actually) . psm 900 and i have 1964 A6-s ears. I have spent so much time trying to finesse this and get an accurate sound from what i hear from the source. Do you have any wisdom? or more questions that i can answer to help me get there. Thanks.

Any wireless iem ambient mic EQ / set up

I'm wondering why IEM manufacturers don't put a hi-cut at 15kHz on their transmitters inputs if the frequency response won't go up further anyway. Easy thing to do and they would get rid of that issue with the pilot tone. Tbh i always thought they wouldn't let me send anything on the same frequency as the pilot tone by cutting it out on the inputs but you've proven me wrong.

Does this also apply to systems that use 2.4 like Xvive?

Hi sir, Am using an AKG inner monitor. I can apply that same EQ to the AKG inner monitor????

I have an m32c(IEM) and x32c(FOH) that share an s32 stage box. can you help explain how to send my talkback to the m32c(iem) from my x32c(foh)? I can’t seem to find anything on it.

Is 19kHz the pilot tone for Shures as well as Sennheiser?

Thanks for the video. Why cut 19 if you’re already cutting at 15?

Is that a Sound Bullet plugged into input 5?

This is an off-topic question. When I'm recording through the x32 into Reaper, I only have the option to record the first 8 tracks. how do I get it to record and playback all 32 channels?

In out put ill use 2 cables or one and that one will give sterio or ?

Isn't a Matrix Mix for the In Ear output the better way to place the EQ? But very interesting to fix the Problem with an EQ curve.

Is it possible to burn the Tom Piloto when I abuse the 19khz frequency excessively?

Most folks can't hear up to 19k anyway.

A workbench tutorial would be epic

-42 on sensitivity on the transmitter, why?? I always use -23, How do you calibrate that?

I think that if you put any signal above 15k at high level, you will get this effect, so it's not 19k problem only. (just bc iem input is overdriven) So, yeah, hi-cut on output is nice, but i don't think that 19k filter will make things better.

I knew a monitor engineer trying to resolve similar dropout issues. Another audio human guessed it could be the mix clashing with the pilot tone, but the monitor engineer said the wireless systems should already have a notch filter/LPF in place after the mix but before the multiplexing, so adding filters on the output shouldn't make much difference. Taking a quick search of wireless monitor systems, they don't seem to publish many specs of their audio frequency response. Is '25hz to 15khz' a -1dB or -10 dB measurement? Is there a LPF already applied that has any significant effect at 19khz? Could you possibly take a transfer measurement of the Sennheiser so we can see exactly what's going on at those really high frequencies?

Where he connect the iem wireless?

hello, i have 2 questions: 1. is the pilot tone fixed at 19kKz across all brands or is it specific to senheiser (we are using LD systems) 2. why PEQ in combination with hi-cut?

👍

Wouldn’t it make sense for mfgs to put an input filter on the transmitter to eliminate this issue?

If you're rolling off everything above 15khz, why would you need a -15db notch at 19khz as well?

Does this apply to like the xVive 2.4ghz IEM system and others that use 2.4ghz?

On IEM?

WOW! For what these microphone companies charge for their transmitters. You'd think they'd throw a 15KHz filter on the input. Sheesh! The engineers should be slapped. As for the flood of 19KHz on the input. I suspect you're hitting the limiter on the transmitter. It HAS to have that to prevent the modulator from 'splattering'. That's when the modulation deviation exceeds channel bandwidth (100% modulation of ALL components). You'll either be outside your ~200KHz channel width or generate harmonics beyond your channel (like 3rd order harmonics greeter then -60dB) Not hard to flood the 19KHz pilot either. It is only 10% of the modulation. If they are using the same matrix modulation scheme broadcast FM uses. The other 90% is split 45% over the mono signal (L+R) on the 15KHz baseband and the 38KHz stereo component (L-R). The ~35Hz limit is there to prevent the Automatic Frequency Control circuit from acting as if the carrier has drifted off center frequency and either shutting down or dragging the center frequency back to center and causing the modulation to go wrong. This is from someone who knows a little more about RF then an audio engineer. Having spent some study in broadcast engineering back in the early 80s when I had to take an FCC test for. And a licensed ham radio operator. Next chance I get I'll have to see of our PSM300 does this while looking at the signal with my SDR.

I'm not a hundred percent following this idea, you say that a test tone is transmitted at 19k so that the receivers can mute, but you also said that there's no point in transmitting anything above 15K because the transmitters can't receive any signals above that. How can the belt pack receiver get the test tone at 19k if they can't receive anything above 15k.

How about a video on how to set up a x32 rack as a stage box if for example your S16 dies. Not a monitor mix box.

i can't hear anything over 18khz anyways haha ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is in fact absolute bullock of course

no one hears 19khz after the age of 12.

Is this pilot tone, some of the reason that my in ears (carvin em 900) is hitting the limiter on some of the peaks? Like, the transients of the rack/ floor Tom.. think stick attack.. or maybe a rim shot on a snare?