For those who have tried both the Me 1 or Me 500, which do you prefer and why. Other than the obvious of all channels and sub groups are there other advantages to the bigger Me 1 to justify a $200 difference? We are in need of up to 12 units and the cost difference really grows.
I am leary of giving everyone the more difficult to use Me 1, am I right in this thinking?
I have used both. If anything, I think Me-1s are the easier to use for the musician because the Me-1 gives more information about which signal you are editing (importing channel names from the mixer) while the Me-500 just provides a generic, “let’s see, what was that signal in channel one…Was it kick drum or lead vocal?”
I think the street difference in price is closer to $150.
You say you need 12 units. What really makes a difference for Me-500 is how many of these 12 units are going to how many different Types of Musicians. Let me see if I can clarify this with some examples. . . I have a singing drummer who needs good monitoring control over his individual drums and his own vocal other individual vocalists. What if this same drummer is in a band that has a bunch of horn players who want control over individual horns, and a bunch of singers who want control over say 5 lead and background vocals. In order to meet the needs of all these players (AT THE SAME TIME), I’m trying to fit 5 vocal mics, 4 horns, 8-9 drums … wait a minute, I’m already over 16 and none of musicians get reverb, nor are any of them hearing bass, keyboards, ambience mics, talk back, etc, and I haven’t even begun to have mixes for the actual bass player, keyboard player, etc. Yes, with Me-500 you can create groups on your mixer, like Drums, Horns, Vocals, Keys, Rhythm Section, but your mixer may not allow you to make all of these groups at the same time. The 40 inputs of the Me-1 begins to look much more appealing, as does the ability to create groups on the actual Me-1 unit.
I think Me-500 makes sense for bands who can really work easily within that 16 mono or stereo inputs limit. Let’s say a band that only uses 4 drum mics, bass, 1-2 guitars, 3-4 vocals, one reverb, 2 keyboard channels. But if you need 12 units, you are already saying you got 12 people, so it quickly begins to sound like Me-1 territory to me. But if six of these units are going to a choir or horn section, that is different than if all twelve units are divided equally among very different musicians. Tell us more about your situation.
Yes, you could get some Me-1s and some Me-500s and dedicate the Me-1s to those with more complex monitoring needs. But the Me-500s would then dictate which inputs are in slots 1 thru 16, a lowest common denominator. That might or might not be a problem, depending on the flexibility of your mixer’s routing and the number of inputs you actually have (e.g., local plus stage boxes).
Musicians also like the local ambiance mic that is only on the Me-1. I could make the me-500 work in larger contexts, but it made my head hurt, and the monitor engineer really has to master the mixer and pre-think through the routing. If you only need to do this once, that is a whole different situation than if you need to reprogram the whole thing often for different bands, musicians, gigs, etc.
For me, that $150 difference seemed trivial in hindsight, but I only bought two, drummer and keyboards. My other current players get wireless IEMs from Aux mixes and do phone editing of their mixes.
If you go with the Me 1, better get an extended warranty, they are known to go on the blink, for no rhyme or reason, and the repair is over $300.00,each. I have two that have the same issue (no power) and was told they need the complete main PCB. If you search here you’ll find others with the same problem. A&H will not give out schematics, nor admit the issue, and wont sale the PCB, and are usually out of them anyway, probably dew to repairs? Fact is, I talked to a tech, I was in hopes of getting a used PCB, to troubleshoot as to look for a pattern/cause and was told they had just threw out a trash can full, because they were non repairable. To me, it’s as if they bricked.
Correction, I was mistaken, They do sale the main pcb, it cost $309.11, I’d just forgot. But that would be a DIY. So a repair would be a little more, if sent in.
We have 2 guitars, bass, piano (keyboard), secondary keyboard, flute and 5 vocals and a lead vocal (12). In the church I’m at, the monitors have been a consistent issue due to communication from the sound guy. I generally try to help each person with the app but once we start my hands are tied up playing guitar. I feel things would greatly improve if everybody could tailor there own mix and let the FOH worry about that end of things.
I thought of going with a combo of Me 1 and Me500, but what you’ve described would be a headache I think.
I’ve also considered giving the vocalists wireless iem’s and let them use the app since we’d free 4 aux mixes up by going with the me 1’s for the musicians. I just don’t want things to get overly complicated
blynn894,
Which A&H mixer are you using?
Are these generally the same players and singers each service?
My rule of thumb is go ahead and make it complicated at first for me, but I’ll learn more and more each week, but let’s keep it simple for the others. I gotta learn it all, but they only have to learn Phone App or Me.
Qu32, same musicians, alternating singers
OK, given your exact situation, I think Me500 would be fine. With QU32, you do have the flexibility to set the first sixteen monitor outs on the I/O page of QU32 for
2 guitars
bass
Piano (mono or stereo)
Alt keyboard (mono or stereo)
Flute
5 singers
Lead Vox
This is 12 monitor inputs. Inputs 13-16 could be four of…
a stereo reverb return (Id suggest not the same return used by FOH, so that FOH changes in reverb do NOT impact amount of reverb in IEMs)
an Audience mic
Pastor’s mic
a talk to the musicians Mic that only goes to IEMs and Not Foh (“everyone, skip song 9 and go straight to song 10”)
a Guest Mic for the occasional additional singer or player that is invited to play
a stereo in for listening to tracks for rehearsal
If this sounds like all you need, you in fact could do well with Me-500s. Not having 8-9 drum mics really changes my thinking.
Even after you have set this all up, you still have the option of 6 STEREO mixes on QU32 (Mix5-6,7-8,9-10, group1,group2,group3). If your singers do not need Wireless mobility, the Me-500 will do great. If some of them need wireless, I absolutely love MiPro Mi-909 (please check these out before you buy anything else).
www.springtree.net is very church knowledgeable. Go to Me-500, and email/ask for their price. Make sure to tell them that you want 12 of these babies. Shipping is extra, but the net cost is very competitive. Jade there uses QU-SB himself and loves Me systems.
Another site sound pros really like is www.audiopyle.com Mike Pyle in the CA wine country.
If you do have 12 Me on stage, I would look into 1-2 gigabit Ethernet switch to provide both POE and audio signal to the MEs, rather than having all those wall wart power supplies on stage. That’s a whole other discussion, but those switches only cost about $100. I could see where 12 MEs would overly tax a single switch, and more knowledgeable users might help you with that.
You will want to get Cat5e or better shielded Ethernet cable with Ethercon connectors on the any side of cable connecting to QU or Me. If you are using a ethernet POE switch instead of wall warts, that side of the cable would probably NOT be ethercon, but, instead, standard RJ45. You could do a search here on cables, but the A&H products play well with a wide variety of Cat5e or better cables, and you DO NOT need to pay huge amounts for the most expensive brands, especially since you are in a fixed install where the cables probably stay put, rather than a tour where they are rolled up every other day. But buy one cable first and test it before you buy the additional 12 or so cables you will need.
On the Me500, save a preset for each singer who shares the Me on different dates.
Hope that helps,
Barry
promo on me-500. I don’t think it matters where you buy…
https://www.americanmusicandsound.com/en/pages/promos/allaboutmeME500
Thanks for all the info Barry, I really appreciate it. I’ll let you know what I go with, the ME U at $1799 was a hard pill to swallow so I already assumed I’d be shopping for a PoE. I’ll have to try one out like you said before committing to one.
Thanks again