I love the specs and looks of the ME-1 Personal Monitor Mixer but I cannot bring myself to pay the current asking price for it. For me it amounts to more than 1/3 of the price of what I paid for the QU-16. You can get a Zed 16FX mixer for about the price of a ME-1! Something is very wrong with that picture.
Does anyone have hands on experience with the several less expensive alternatives that are on the market? Better yet, are there any ME-1 group buys or discounts given to members of this forum? I would prefer the ME-1, but again, It’s awfully expensive for what you are getting (IMHO).
The only one I am aware of for less money is the Berry system - although that would require a 16 Channel input device, and would be limited to the outputs you can spare on the QU.
IIRC the Stageboxes are also Aviom compatible.
If you want to look at what I consider to be the next level up look at the Roland M48s - their biggest advantage is that they can be controlled from the console - or mirrored to another M48 sat by the monitor station. That means the mucisians can get help with the mix.
My solution is to use QuYou apps, and a decent headphone amp (would be really nice if the stagebox had selectable (physically or electronically) headphone amp to power IEMs directly - but it’s alot of hardware for a rare use case (although maybe the first 4 could have them?)
The cost is minimal, most musicians have an android/iOS device available, and they each get a mix to control, and you can intervene as well. That option is ONLY offered to musicians with IEMs.
Thanks! I would be using IEM’s (UE Reference Monitor). I will look into your suggestions. Any decent headphone amp suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I would also be interested to hear more about the IOS/IEM solution. What does that set up look like?
I won’t have the unit until later this week (according to FedEx). I have downloaded both the Qu-Pad and QU-You apps. They are impressive. It’s a shame the QU-You app doesn’t pass audio. How cool would that be to simply plug your IEM’s into you iPhone!
My “small” setup is a QU16, with a quad channel headphone amp, and a 4 channel mixer (one musician uses a stereo IEM, so we use this as a headphone amp - the diddy Yamaha desks are exceptionally good value for this).
We also run three wedges (IIRC one of the headphone amp channels is empty normally)…
So:
Drums/Bass/Guitar get a wedge each off Mix1-3, and I control those from the iPad (desk stays on stage)
3Vocalists get mono IEMs that they can control, although they get help from me (much less now as their mixes stay basically constant between venues)
1Keyboard(and Guitar) player gets Mix9/10 via a Yamaha desk
These last four all have QuYou apps available. In general I don’t need to do anything for them any more (except the lead vocalist who can get a bit lost - normally because he wants everything louder, so I tend keep an eye on his mix for clipping, and make subtle adjustments as needed)
Normally I run the show from an iPad (or two) and I also have IEMs, a UHF pack which I plug into the AltOut and feed with PAFL.
And for the lower price point, Qu-You is provided free of charge. As you mentioned previously, it inherently comes with the caveat that it does not pass or process audio itself.
