FOH mixing?

I actually run stereo every week but essentially mix mono except for the stereo instruments like keys and my guitar (when I get up there) due to my HD500 stereo outputs. I tried panning vocals and things but got complaints.

Quasi Mono, pan the Groups! Some guys put all their effort in to the Bass and Drums, people want to hear the vocals, get the vocal right and the rest falls into place.
Getting the vocal right buys you time to make the rest fit.
Spent way to many early years mixing collage acts and one nighters somebody is always on, follow their lead follow the grove if somebody is Rockin let them hear the guy who's on fire!

Remember Compression is your freind, compression is control!,

jcoutu1 ?

I can only really speak about my steady FOH gig. We host mostly blues and jazz gigs with solid players.

We run mono in our room. We have tables for sitting and eating all around the room and usually no dance floor. Certain shows we'll open up a small dance floor in the corner of the room or directly in front of the stage. The room itself is probably about 30' deep by 55' long and seats 136 (according to the fire marshall). We have 4 big passive EAW mains hanging from the ceiling over the stage, and 4 wedges on the stage for monitors.

At the end of each gig, we reset the stage so that we've got Kick, Snare, OH, line for bass stage left, mic for guitar stage right, 3 vocals across the front of the stage, and everything else gets put away.

Before each show, I show up between 5:30 and 6 to set up and sound check. The only mics on the drums are Kick, Snare, and OH, unless it's a big rock show when we might mic toms. Guitars, harp, vocals, horns, upright piano, and leslie all get mic'd. Bass and keys usually get DI. We try to bang out a quick sound check and the doors open at 6:30. Sound check usually is just getting some basic level in the monitors, getting the vocal eq in the ballpark, basic levels, and one song. Some bands will just do a line check as they arrive, others will just show up and go on knowing that I've got everything in the ballpark. The first couple songs of their set are spent really getting everything dialed in. Once we're dialed in, it's mostly just fader rides for the larger bands. Trios or quartets don't usually need anything once we're dialed in, just set and forget. We've got a lot a pro players and they usually do a great job controlling their dynamics, so rides aren't necessary for the smaller bands.

For gear, we're using a 24-channel Soundcraft GB4. We have graphic's on each monitor and a graphic and limiter across the 2. That's it for outboard. All of my eq'ing is done on the board and no compressors for the individual instruments.

I view our system as a sound reinforcement system and build everything around the vocals. I try to get as much juice out of the vocals as I can, then boost the stage volume of the instruments with the mains. The majority of the instruments is coming from the stage, with the mains just filling out the sound for the room.

90% of my EQ work is with cuts. HPF is on for every channel except bass and kick. Low cuts and high cuts pretty much across the board with varying amounts. There is usually a bit of top boost and upper mid boost on the drum tracks (cymbals, snare crack, kick crack), upper mid boost for some brightness for the bass, and sometimes the guitars need a boost for some bite or body. Everything else is normally being cut to fit the mix.

All in all, I've got a pretty good gig. I show up at 6, the shows usually end between 11:00 and 11:30, it's 20 minutes from home, and I don't have to haul anything. Beyond that we get a lot of top flight players, drinks are cheap, free Chinese food, and I make some cash doing what I love. If any of you guys are ever in RI, you should come check out a show.

Hey, anyone do a default dip near 3K to alleviate harshness with high volume levels?

Jess, has any drummer ever come in with his own mix/mics and handed you the 2 out of form his little mixer? I'm thinking of setting something like this up so sound guys cant destroy my sound lol
(maybe i'll give them a Kick/snare direct out so they can play a bit, but i'll have friends keep an ear on so i can cut them off if they start ruining stuff lol)

Never. A couple cats have mics mounted in their kick...May System or Kelly Shu, but never anyone with their own drum mix. One drummer had a vocal processor for his vocals that was awesome. He could make his voice sound like Barry White or a Chipmunk. It worked great with this little funk group, but that's a different story.

Keyboard players often have their own mix through. A lot of guys play a Yamaha or similar for piano and a Nord/Hammond for leads/organ. Those usually split to their mixer and one feed goes to their powered PA speaker that they carry and one feed to my house.