I've got overheads and kick mics on the drummer, I mic my amp, the Bassist and Keyboard player D.I. into the mixer. The Keyboard player has his own amp. The full mix is only for the IEMs and the audience hear only the vocals and keys through the mains, plus the backline (and drums acoustically).
Does anyone put the full shebang through the mains ? If so, why ? (or why not !)
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With the PA we get a better spread for the guitars than using a guitar cab. Nowadays I'm using modelling so I don't even take a cab with me, just use a monitor.
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Why put it through the PA? Three reasons. We can set FOH levels independently of backline. We can get everything through our IEMs. We can record all channels from the desk, and match to gig video.
Hires I’ll try to follow a similar rule but accommodate whatever makes the band happy on stage and let’s me have a good mix out front - I usually run 4 monitor mixes so it’s not hard to give cr people what they need.
The answer partly depends on what gear you have - if it’s a decent full range rig with subs then your priority is to get the vocals nice and clear with enough kick, drums and instruments to give a good balance and whatever level of power and volume suits the gig. Often I find the guitars and bass don’t need much in the PA but can help give a more even spread to the sound.
If you have a pair of speakers on stands then get the vocals sounding good and bring up the back line to give a balanced sound only bringing them into the PA if you have a monster drummer.
We all monitor via IEM’s so everything needs to be Mic’d or on DI so we can hear it in our individual monitor mixes.
That gives me me the option of putting whatever needs to be in FOH. The monitor mixes are all pre Aux sends so they don’t influence the front of house mix.
Band one is the heavier of the two and we mic everything (guitars have direct feeds from Axe fx/Kemper). We do our own sound with a digital mixer that stores settings in memory going to two tops and one sub. Fairly minimal amount of bass and drums (more goes to monitor mixes than FOH), a bit of guitar for spread but mainly vocals.
Band two uses the same system but with a smaller desk and no sub. Bass drum, both guitars and vocals through the PA.
If you rely on backline you generally get some people not being able to hear it and the others getting blasted in the face with treble.
For a very small gig where the kit is not mic'ed at all I would maybe not put the instruments through the PA - there's something nice about the sound of a band mixing itself acoustically in a space, but you do still need to be aware of position and direction for the guitar amps especially. I usually have the guitar amp raised up and pointing at an angle across the stage so there's no-one directly in line with it.
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Then at the other extreme in the summer we did a big outdoor and had to use one huge 12KW PA at the front and another smaller 3KW PA 40 metres further down, delayed to match the front stacks in terms of timing. Not as good as a high array but it worked.
I'm not a fan of putting everything through the PA and having no backline in pubs. It does work further back and to the sides but the people at the front middle only hear the drums generally .... as bands don't think to put a middle fill speaker on stage as they generally won't have one. Saw the Ultimate Eagles at Portsmouth Guildhall a few weeks back, they were all using Kempers and IEM's and it sounded a bit strange at the front middle for that very reason. Also drums, if your gonna put a load of kick and toms in the PA then put a dash of snare in there as well ... even if it's only the reverb return otherwise you hear the toms miles apart in the stacks and the snare only from the stage which just sounds weird to me.
I think it's best to think of the PA at typical pub level gigs as sound reinforcement ... as @ICBM said, get something listenable onstage and then reinforce it.
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If the gig is big enough I'll mic my amp but so far it hasn't strictly been necessary.
I do wish our mixer was a little bit more featured as I'd quite like my own monitor mix rather than getting the singer's. I'm sure there must be a way of doing this as some sort of auxiliary from the main mix but I haven't really sat down to work that out yet.
Oh and I'm trying to work out how I could connect a stylophone direct to the mixer. It only has a headphone jack out and when you make a note, it makes a loud nasty popping sound. I guess it needs something to buffer/dampen the signal.
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...and now it seems that a lot of you have now gone "fuck this, this thing weighs a ton, chuck it though this computery box instead"!
What's going on?!!
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
Amps are not only more betterer, they're cheaper, louder and smaller than the crap I need to bring if I don't use one.