Gig Gab - The Working Musician's Podcast

Monitoring the Artists' Monitors: IEM Wisdom from Kevin Glendinning

·1 hr 19 min·5 clips

A high school kid cold-emailed Metallica's sound company and got a reply that changed his life.

Host Dave Hamilton welcomes Kevin Glendinning, a highly respected in-ear monitor (IEM) engineer, to Gig Gab. Glendinning details his career origin story: as a high school student in the late 90s, he cold-emailed DB Sound in Des Plaines, Illinois, after seeing their address in the credits of a Metallica tour documentary. Despite an initial rejection, owner Harry Witz invited him to start by sweeping floors. He describes his early days as a 'junior junior' crew member, learning from veterans on tours for Metallica and AC/DC. The discussion shifts to the technical aspects of modern monitoring. Glendinning explains the extensive use of talkback systems, noting a current project with a five-piece band using 20 separate talkback channels. He addresses common challenges, particularly for guitarists transitioning from traditional speaker cabinets to in-ear monitors, emphasizing the need to manage psychoacoustic expectations and time alignment issues with vocal mics. A significant portion covers the misconception that IEMs isolate performers from room sound; Glendinning explains how reflective ceilings and room acoustics still bleed into open vocal mics and affect the mix. He advises engineers to 'tune' their IEM outputs like a PA system to achieve a neutral starting point. The conversation touches on equipment choices, mentioning brands like Sensaphonics, JH Audio, and Future Sonics, and the importance of the artist's comfort with their earpieces. Glendinning shares anecdotes about working with artists like Paul Simon, who rejected IEMs for being too detailed, and Lorde, whose current tour uses only one open vocal mic on stage. He concludes by discussing the intuitive, almost psychic relationship between a monitor engineer and an artist, and the value of simplicity when setting up mixes quickly under pressure.

As heard by us

Kevin Glendening turns in-ear monitor physics into a practical stage story, with guitar bleed as the sharpest lesson.

Gig Gab's conversation with Kevin Glendening makes monitor mixing feel less like backstage mystery and more like applied physics under pressure.

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Why you'd press play

Want a sharper ear for why a vocal mic near a Marshall stack can make your in-ear guitar picture less simple than it sounds?

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