There’s a lot of information about mixing audio out there, but a lot of it is tailored to the studio. Live mixing requires a similar skill set to be applied differently. Whatever tools you use, whether they’re the same ones you use in the studio or completely new gear, you’ll need to know how to use them appropriately for your live setup, adapting to the room and ensuring you’re ready to make tweaks and changes in real-time.
Everyone has their own style, workflow, and equipment, but in our guide to live sound mixing, we’ll show you what you need, how to get a great live sound mix, and some extra tips and tricks.
Key takeaways
- Live mixing can consist of broadcast, front-of-house, foldback mixing, or all three at once
- The mixer is the central hub of live mixing and its abilities dictate a lot of what you can do
- It’s important to get microphones set up well to get a good sound going in
- The main issues you need to consider are good volume balancing, EQ to keep things out of the way of each other, and preventing feedback
- Monitoring is key to letting your performers hear what they’re playing. This can be through monitor wedges or in-ear monitoring systems
- Set your input gain and fader levels carefully to get a good balance
- Focus on cutting frequencies with EQ to create space between instruments where possible
- Graphic EQ and volume management can help prevent or eliminate feedback
- Be ready to tweak things when the set starts, problems can crop up suddenly!
What is live sound mixing?
Live sound mixing can mean a variety of things.
Broadcast mixing involves mixing audio for radio, news, livestreams, or TV shows as they’re being broadcast. Front-of-house mixing involves actively mixing a live performance for an audience within a venue or for an event. This could be a musical performance, theatre performance, music festival, comedy show, DJ set, or any number of other things.
Foldback – also known as monitoring mixing – can sometimes be done by the front-of-house engineer or a dedicated engineer. This type of mixing gives the performers on-stage a custom mix so they can hear their performance back in real-time, keeping the show on track.
For example, each band member might have their own mix with separate balances of each instrument, click tracks, samples and additional backing tracks created by the foldback engineer, which will then either be sent to the performers’ in-ear monitors or their on-stage monitor wedges.
Venues, festivals, and events may hire multiple engineers to cover these roles, but it’s not unusual for one engineer to be expected to fill all of them, depending on the setup.
No matter which form of mixing you’re doing, the fundamentals are essentially the same. Balancing the levels of individual sounds or instruments, applying EQ to control frequencies and compression to get a consistent sound where every element is clear and sounds good, and adding additional touches like reverb and delay to polish off key elements like vocals.
The benefits of a good live mix
What makes a good live mix, and why is it important? Firstly, everything needs to feel clear and balanced. You want your audience to be able to pick out every key instrument on the stage as the sound is amplified by the PA system.
While sound coverage by the PA speakers is a big part of this, the mix is also extremely important, with the volume balance, EQ, and frequency balance between instruments providing a clearer overall sound.
You also want to avoid reflected sound and feedback. This is majorly dictated by room acoustics, microphone positioning, and speaker setup, but there’s a lot you can do to improve this in the mix. Good EQ can help prevent feedback, for example, or remove the frequencies that are causing issues in a certain part of the room.
Plus, a good foldback mix ensures that the performers can hear themselves and each other, so they can stay in time.
What do I need to mix live sound?
Mixer
The heart of any live mixing setup is the mixing console. Whether it’s a compact analog board or a top-of-the-range digital console, almost everything is done on the mixer.
What your mixer is capable of can vary somewhat, but the core functionality of instrument balancing, through gain and output volume on faders, EQ, and (often, but not always) compression will be available in some form.
Analog mixers tend to have simple one-knob compressors with little control, and fixed three-band EQ, sometimes four-band EQ.
Most modern analog mixers for live sound also tend to have an effects section built-in with reverbs, delay, and modulation available, which saves you from having to worry about outboard multi-effects, but this isn’t always a given.
Digital mixers tend to have deeper and more flexible processing when they’re designed for live sound, with in-house-designed plugins for EQ, compression, and maybe even typical multi-effects that you can apply per channel.
Analog mixers tend to be smaller and more affordable for high numbers of inputs, but their feature set may require outboard to fill in for some of the jobs the mixer doesn’t have on board. The depth and flexibility of processing on digital mixers can give you a lot more, but they tend to be larger and more expensive or require remote control on apps.
Microphones and PA System
Good mic placement is key to getting a good live mix at the source. If your microphones aren’t set up properly, you can be the best engineer in the world, get everything right in the mix, and still have a bad end result. And if your mix isn’t initially captured well and coming out of a properly set up and good quality PA system, everything you do in between these stages matters a lot less.
Monitoring
A monitoring system is also extremely important for live sound. This can come in a variety of ways, but the two main ones are monitor wedges and in-ear monitoring systems. Monitor wedges are essentially PA speakers that are placed on stage and angled back at the performers.
These can be loud and powerful but tend to lose detail and it can be difficult to get every performer exactly the mix they want to hear when the number of members of a band can vary and their position on stage is always changing as they move around while they play.
Enter in-ear monitoring systems. These systems can come either wired or wireless, and utilising a personal mixer or a wireless system, each musician can get individualised mixes sent to noise-cancelling monitor earphones that they wear while they play.
This solves a number of key problems with monitor wedges, offering musicians the ability to move freely without losing their ability to hear the performance back, protecting their hearing, and giving everyone a personalised mix. If you want some that don’t break the bank, check out our list of the best budget in-ear monitors.
Depending on the setup and space you’re in, it’s not uncommon to see a pair of studio monitors at the front-of-house engineer’s mixing station, letting them hear their mix back in higher fidelity. Since they’re often in an offset position or can’t properly hear the PA system, this can help ensure that the mix is good.
However, this is a pricey solution, so sending yourself an in-ear monitor mix with a copy of the master that goes out to the PA system is another good option.
DI boxes
DI boxes are a live sound engineer’s best friend. It’s important to find a good, rugged model that sounds decent. Fortunately, that’s the vast majority of them. So the priority here once you’ve settled on a box you like is acquiring as many of them as you can.
Every DI box allows you to run a clean instrument signal out of any electric instrument: guitar, bass, electric string instruments, electro-acoustic guitars, stage pianos, keyboards, synthesizers, samplers, DJ decks – whatever you’re running, if it’s line-level, it needs a DI box that you can then run into your mixer.
Even if the guitar’s playing through a pedalboard and an amp, it’s a good idea to get at least one DI at each stage of the signal chain in case something goes wrong with the amp or the pedalboard. A lot can go wrong very quickly and without warning during live sets, and these little boxes can be an excellent reassurance that you have a good backup.
The features of a DI box can vary a little, but generally, DI boxes come in active and passive designs. You’ll want a blend of active and passive DI boxes and at least a few with thru outputs if your preferred model doesn’t usually have them, for extra flexibility.
The thru outputs are key for tapping the signal, so that, per my guitar example, you can keep the thru signal of the DI box going to a pedalboard for processing whilst taking the main output to your mixer.
Active DI boxes require phantom power to operate, which you can supply either from your mixer or from a dedicated phantom power box. They will boost the signal, great for lower-output instruments. Passive DI boxes don’t require power and simply balance the signal, which is better for louder sources like electric guitars.
Outboard
Outboard gear offers a way of extending the functionality of your mixer and filling any gaps in workflow. Instead of looking for “vintage analog warmth” or any such effect, we’re just looking for a breadth of features.
There are several important pieces to consider placing in a rack and bringing along on tour. Graphic EQs are a key part of shaping live sound, preventing feedback and managing the entirety of your stereo mix.
Usually, you’ll want two channels and 31 bands for full flexibility and control over the entire stereo mix on its way out to the PA system.
Generally speaking, it may not be worth investing in outboard compression for live sound if your mixer has any kind of compression on board. Maybe a stereo compressor to gently squeeze the master bus to prevent distorting the PA if you prefer working like that, or for controlling the drum bus in smaller venues and preventing the kit from drowning everything else out.
Good compression doesn’t often come cheap, so it’s not always a necessary purchase if you already have access to it. If you don’t though, it’s worth picking up channels for drums and vocals.
You will, however, need a crossover if the venue doesn’t have one or you supply your own PA system. This is how you can match your subwoofer and full-range speakers, especially if they’re different brands or don’t already have built-in crossover control.
Noise gates are also very useful, especially for the kick, the snare, and toms or any mics that particularly suffer from bleed. Any guitar or bass amp mics near the drum kit are at risk of picking it up on smaller stages, so having a few channels of noise gating to better control your channels can be very beneficial for preventing feedback and getting punchy, clear sounds.
Finally, reverbs, delays, chorus, and other modulation effects are really useful to have on deck, particularly if you’re working with an analog mixer that doesn’t have an effects block or has limited sends when you want to be able to set up multiple sends to multiple reverbs for different instruments.
Most modern analog mixers tend to have effects sections nowadays, or at least models that include an effects section, so you’re likely to have at least one or two channels covered. But what if you want a chorus and a plate reverb for guitars and a reverb and delay combo for vocals? Some mixers might give you that kind of flexibility and others might not. This is where investing in one or several channels of multi-effect units can be worthwhile.
One last note, stageboxes, also commonly referred to as “snakes”, can be very useful for smaller stages especially, keeping microphone cables out of the way of your musicians while they play.
How to mix live sound
1. Set up your equipment
So, you’ve got what you need. First things first, set up the mixer. Then, get your outboard gear racked up and plugged in. You don’t have to route any signals into it yet, but you want it in place and powered, at least.
Choose your mics for each source. Assuming a full band setup, you’ll need at least one kick drum mic, a snare mic, three tom mics, hi-hat mic (optional) drum overheads, and vocal mics for each member of the band. Depending on instrument setups, you may need to mic guitar and bass amps, but modellers and pedalboard-based amps are becoming increasingly common, which means you might not need a mic for it.
2. Position your microphones
Set up the mics on everything that needs to be miked up. Drums especially. You want your kick mic inside or close to the sound hole, and low to the ground. Snare drums need to be angled at about 45 degrees towards the centre of the snare but placed near the rim so it doesn’t get hit or knocked out of place during the show.
The same goes for tom mics. Clip-on tom mics are very popular in live sound for this exact reason; setup is easy and they stay out of the way. Drum overheads want to be placed on either side of the kit, positioned equidistant from the snare in a raised position. Vocal mics are easy, just place them on stands and make sure the stands are at a comfortable height for your performers.
For miking bass or guitar amps/cabs, try to place the chosen microphone central to the speaker cone as best you can for an accurate sound. If your amp mics seem in the way of the performers, it can be useful to angle them towards the speaker while shifting the mic stand closer to the side of the amp.
If you’re working with live amps, it’s a good idea to take a DI of the guitar or bass signal after the pedalboard and before the amp in case something goes wrong. Modellers and pedalboard amp simulators don’t need any microphones, so you might not need any microphones for these. If there are more instruments than you can put microphones to, try to take Dis of the ones you can’t mic up.
If you’re hearing a lot of electrical buzzing noise, you may have a ground loop, so engage the ground lift switch on your DI box to get a clean signal. Now, you can either run them into a stagebox for a neater setup or straight into the mixer.
3. Run your signals
Now that your mics are set up, plug every output into your mixer. Everyone has their preferred channel setup, so choose the order that feels right to you. It’s common to have vocals on the first few channels. I tend to start with drums, but depending on the mixer and the features it has on each channel, I may put the main vocals on channel one if there’s a compressor there and not on the other channels, for example.
Just keep things neat and organised and know what instrument is where. Then, send your master output to the PA system and run the outputs you need to monitor wedges or in-ear monitoring systems and make sure you’re getting sound.
4. Gain staging
This is a key tenet of all audio engineering, whether you’re in the studio or a venue. Set the gain of each channel roughly where you think it needs to be. If you know your mics well, you probably know what settings work already. If you don’t, set them to noon, push the faders up to unity, get your performers to play, and see how everything sounds.
To make something louder, push the input gain up rather than the fader. The faders are essentially an output volume control, so make sure your mic gain is correct first, your signal shouldn’t be distorting, it should be clear, full, and not too quiet. Once you feel like your mics are sounding good, now’s the time to move faders around.
5. Set your balance
It’s time to really mix now! Shift faders around to set everything where you actually want it to be in relation to each other. This will be wholly subjective, but it’s usually a good rule of thumb to make the elements you want to highlight the loudest, naturally.
Lead vocals should dominate the mix for most genres and styles. A good presence on rhythm guitars, snare, kick and bass, should help lock everything in rhythmically.
6. Refine your mix
It’s worth processing every channel. This will somewhat mess with your overall mix balance, but this is why we set it before processing, so you know what kind of baseline you want to return to.
Get every musician to play their instrument individually. Set corrective EQ. Depending on your mixer, your EQ options could be very limited with three fixed bands or far more in-depth.
Generally, you should cut frequencies that you want to remove from a signal first. This will help avoid muddiness and conflicting frequencies between similar instruments. For example, it may be best to cut the mids in a lead guitar while reducing the treble in the rhythm guitar to keep them out of the way of each other.
If you have any EQ bands spare though, it can obviously be good to enhance your signals with boosts once everything’s corrected. Whatever needs to pop, an EQ boost can do the trick.
Use your compressors to even out anything that’s too dynamic and varying in volume. Dial in noise gates to cut bleed, noise, and feedback from any problematic mics, and compress anything that varies heavily in volume until it’s more consistent and sits right to your ears.
Set up effects sends for vocals and anything else that needs a little space or reverb, usually guitars. Live drums tend to stay dry compared to studio mixes, but if you have a reverb you can use for snares and overheads to add some space, it can help!
7. Soundcheck
I’d recommend getting your performers to play the softest and loudest songs in their arsenal while you dial everything in to make sure your mix sounds good no matter what. While they’re doing this, shift your faders to account for any drops or increases in volume from your processing, make sure your EQs, compressors, and gates sound right, and reach your initial balance again.
Set up a master graphic EQ and/or feedback processor if you have these to hand, and it might be worth just walking around the venue floor where the audience is to make sure everything sounds good. Prevent feedback by keeping all microphones behind the PA system, turning down an offending mic, or EQing a problem frequency out.
8. Monitoring for all
Setting up your monitoring mix can vary depending on setup so we won’t go over it in too much detail, but you’ll want to use your mixer’s cue send functionality to send mixes to each of your performers. Some mixers will only be able to send a single monitoring mix, some will be able to send multiple. This is why many live setups will have a secondary mixer or even another engineer for monitoring.
Send individual ones to each musician. Talk to your artists, and send them primarily themselves so they can hear what they’re doing, and more of whatever else they request. Be aware that stage sound from things like live amps and drums can really mess with people’s monitor mix and make it difficult to hear whatever’s in the monitor mix.
It’ll need to be pretty loud, though, so keep this in mind! Just talk to the musicians and do what they want. Even if it seems wrong to you, they know what they need to hear!
9. Keep your ears open
In theory, you should be ready for the show now! Play some music over the PA as your audience begins to filter in. Maybe work on lighting if you handle lights too, or take a quick breather. Some engineers might not, but I’d recommend staying at your station once the set starts.
Things can change in an instant on the stage, so be in a position where you can respond to issues or just get creative with effects sends during the set. Sit back and watch the show, but expect to have to shift things a little, tweak some EQs, ease up the compression on something, and fine-tune faders to fit the different dynamics of a song.
FAQs
How do I mix for live sound?
Mixing for live sound requires balancing audio levels to ensure clarity and impact. Start by setting up the sound system and conducting a sound check. Adjust EQ settings to suit the venue’s acoustics and manage feedback. Continuously monitor and tweak the mix during the performance.
How do you get into live sound mixing?
Getting into live sound mixing involves gaining knowledge and experience in audio engineering. Start by studying audio production and working with local venues or bands. Hands-on practice with live equipment and networking with industry professionals can open opportunities in live sound mixing.
What’s the difference between studio mixing and live mixing?
The difference between studio mixing and live mixing lies in their environments and techniques. Studio mixing occurs in a controlled setting, allowing for detailed adjustments and multiple takes. Live mixing requires real-time adjustments, managing acoustics, and responding to immediate feedback and audience dynamics.
Final thoughts
So, we’ve covered everything you need to know about live sound mixing, from the fundamentals to the equipment to the techniques. All that’s left to do is for you to put it into practice!
While it can be intimidating to manage at first, mixing live sound is fun, gratifying, and challenging in equal measure; it’s well worth giving a try if you’re interested.
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