Your #1 Tip for Getting a Great Live Mix – FOH Pros Weigh In

Every live show comes with its own challenges, which means another opportunity to get creative and find a new solution to a problem. FOH engineers grow in our skill by applying technical knowledge to practical problems that artists, musicians, and music directors throw at us. For example, when the stage production of Riverdance needed to clearly hear the taps of dozens of Irish dancers, the answer was to put mics in the instep of the shoes themselves and use wireless transmitters. While most live music mixers don’t encounter situations like that, we all learn tricks through the years to get the best sound for each show. The more shows we mix, the bigger our bag of tricks. 
I asked a group of experienced FOH engineers, including our customers and staff, to share their #1 tip for getting a great live mix. Here’s what they said.
Jeff Sandstrom
Chris Tomlin, Steven Curtis Chapman, North Point Community Church
Approach your mix as a musical, rather than a technical, exercise. Listen to a lot of great music. Have a sound in your head that you’re going for. Understand that the source matters more than any EQ or compressor setting. Treat the console as your instrument. (Yes, that’s more than one tip. Bonus tips!)
Steve Wilson
The Kentucky Headhunters
Gain staging for maximum headroom is critical for a great mix. My faders are ruler flat at unity. Gotta stress mic polarity — that’s hugely important!
Brad Divens
Enrique Iglesias, Kanye West, Mötley Crüe, Bob Seger, OneRepublic, Linkin Park
Always start with the source. If the source sounds good, then you have a great place to start, and it will make your job a lot easier. I also believe that less is more when it comes to getting a great live mix.
Scott Cameron
Greta Van Fleet, Jason Bonham, The Black Angels, Taking Back Sunday
Check the vocals first — after all, everything else onstage is going through those mics. Besides allowing better communication and speeding up soundcheck, it allows more time to build a mix. It also keeps the input gain on instrument channels lower for a cleaner mix.
Russ Long
Amy Grant, Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael McDonald
The vocal is king; once it is tweaked and placed on top of the mix, everything else will fall into place.
Brian Pomp
Macklemore, Macy Gray, Avenged Sevenfold
Create space for each element of the mix to sit properly while cutting through. It’s no different than studio mixing really. Everything has its place sonically. It’s a matter of keeping things that innately rub against each other — for example, vocals, guitars, keys — and finding where each belongs so they aren’t fighting each other for space. Panning, compression, and EQ are all factors and are often adjusted incorrectly. I believe there is a fine line between the logical and artistic side of getting a good mix.
Peter Keppler
David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Bonnie Raitt, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj
Listen to your mix; don’t look at it on a screen. Fewer plug-ins, more actual mixing with those faders! Don’t use too much compression — it’s live. Too much compression can induce fatigue, even if the mix isn’t that loud, and we hear too much compressed recorded crap these days anyway. I have found that using parallel compression is very helpful for not over-compressing. Also, do your best to make sure that the system you’re using is actually working properly. In the case of using an installed house sound system, try and get the house engineer to sweep (driver-check) the entire rig, check for polarity-reversed amp and speaker components (it happens!).
Kent Morris
Peavey, First Baptist Church Atlanta
Highpass everything! Set the HPF just below the lowest frequency of the signal on each channel, so a soprano will have the HPF set at 200Hz, since her lowest note is 220Hz.
Doug Gould
WorshipMD.com
Focus on the priority — typically the vocal. Mix looks like a pyramid — the top priority is vocal, which can change to an instrumental solo. The base of the pyramid is the bass/drums. Get that solid and strong. It doesn’t have to stop pacemakers, but musicians need the tactile feel of the low frequencies to play to. It falls apart otherwise. Fill in the middle with instruments and BGVs. If using a stereo system, you can pan these elements to keep the priority microphone alone in the center, sharing with bass, kick, snare. If in mono, you may want to try to push elements in the mix in the rear with FX/reverb and delay. Don’t overdrive inputs, and don’t mix with the trims. Gain staging is critical to a great mix. Unity. Don’t over-EQ. EQ is just a volume control and will affect gain. Ring out monitors and mains to prevent feedback distraction. Tame the stage of monitor/drum and guitar amp levels. This will help to keep your house mix clean.
Eddie Mapp
Paramore, Stone Temple Pilots, Papa Roach, Evanescence
Proper system tuning first, then good inputs from stage!
Josh Fisher
Jesus Culture
There’s a lot of variables that go into live mixing. Does the PA sound good, is there enough PA, is there good sound distribution, and does the room sound like a disaster or not? I don’t know if you can have “too much PA,” but most places don’t have enough. If all these variables are satisfactory, my number one tip is finding space for every instrument. I’ve found, starting a flat mix, that most mixes sound dull, dark, muddy, not exciting, and every instrument wants to reside in the same area of mids and low-mids. Even overheads can sound dark when cymbals produce a lot of highs and high-mids. So one of my tricks is to add some EQ on the master bus and on the overheads equally until the cymbals are brighter and clearer. For example, I might shelf up 2dB–6dB at 6k–8k on both the overheads and the master bus to taste. Once the overheads are bright, everything else that has brighter qualities will automatically come out of their dark, dull state and fit in its spot.
Jeff Barnett
Director of House of Worship Sales at Sweetwater, FOH Engineer
Highpass everything except those instruments that have a lot of low-frequency content. For the most part, any low-frequency energy picked up by the other mics onstage is just undesirable junk — handling noise, footsteps on a hollow stage, the air conditioner running in the background, bleed from the kick drum into the vocal mics, etc.
Shawn Dealey
Counting Crows, Production Manager/FOH Audio at The Clyde Theatre
Gain staging! Put your fader at zero, and then roll open that preamp. Keeping your faders at zero and your gain in check allows you to have the most precise control of your audio, because you are working in the fader’s sweet spot.
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