The Guide · Part 3

Starting Points by Source

These are starting points — somewhere sane to begin, not a target to nail. A close-mic'd screaming guitar cab and a jazz combo want completely different treatment even on "the same" instrument. Trust the tables to get you 80% there fast, then use your ears for the last 20%.

Vocals

Lead vocal

Vocals are the most compressed thing in most live mixes — they need to stay intelligible and consistent over a loud band. In worship this matters double: the congregation is following the words to sing along, so clarity beats "studio polish" every time. Keep the lead vocal sitting clearly on top of everything. De-essing (taming harsh "s" sounds ~5–8 kHz) can be done with a narrow EQ cut or a dedicated insert if it's a problem.

Backing vocals

Same shape as lead, but you can compress a touch harder (4:1, 4–6 dB GR) to glue them together, and roll off more low end (HPF 120 Hz+) since they don't need weight — they need to sit behind the lead. Pan them out to make room for the lead in the center.

Spoken word / lectern / MC

Priority here is intelligibility and consistency, not tone. Compress firmly so a presenter who wanders off-mic stays audible. In a service this is the sermon / pastor mic, and it's arguably the most important channel of the morning — people came specifically to hear it. Get it clear, consistent, and feedback-free above all else, and make sure it's easy to reach on its own (a dedicated DCA or fader) so you're never fumbling when they start.

Drums

Two very different worlds live under this heading: a mic'd acoustic kit (lots of channels, lots of bleed, gates matter) and an electronic kit (one or two clean channels, no bleed, almost no processing). Small and medium rooms increasingly reach for e-kits specifically to control stage volume — if that's your setup, you can skip most of this section and jump to Electronic drums at the end. The mic'd-kit sections come first.

Kick (in / out)

If you have an inside and outside kick mic, the outside mic captures more low-end body — blend to taste and check polarity between them.

Snare (top / bottom)

Bottom-snare mic is mostly there for wire "sizzle" — flip its polarity (it's pointed the opposite way from the top mic) and roll off lows heavily. Gate the bottom mic tightly; it picks up everything.

Toms

Toms sit silent most of the song, so open mics = pure bleed. A well-set gate (or the console's built-in tom-gating) cleans this up dramatically.

Overheads

Decide the OH's job first: are they there for cymbals only (close-mic'd kit) or to capture the whole kit's blend (minimal miking)? That changes the HPF dramatically.

Hi-hat

HPF high (200–300 Hz), no gate needed usually, EQ to taste (cut ~500 Hz if clanky, add sparkle ~8–10 kHz), little to no compression. Often you don't even need a dedicated hat mic — the overheads catch plenty.

Electronic drums (e-kit / drum module)

An electronic kit is the easiest drum setup on the desk, and a common choice in small and medium worship rooms because the stage stays quiet — the drummer monitors through in-ears and the room only hears what you send to the PA. There are no mics, so there's no bleed, no phase, and almost nothing to fight.

Most e-kits reach the console one of two ways:

• Stereo main out (L/R) from the module — two channels, with the drummer's internal kit balance already baked in. This is the usual setup.
• Individual outputs per pad (kick, snare, toms, cymbals) — more channels and more control, but rare in a volunteer rig and a lot more to manage.

Handling notes:

• If it arrives as a stereo pair, link the two channels and pan them modestly left/right — don't go hard L/R, and keep the kit feeling roughly centered so it still anchors the mix.
• The kick-vs-snare-vs-cymbal balance lives in the module, set by the drummer. If the kick's too quiet, that's usually a module fix, not a console fix (unless you have individual outs). Worth telling volunteers, so they don't chase it with EQ that isn't the problem.
• Because the signal is direct and identical every week, once you dial it in it stays dialed — which is exactly why e-kits are so volunteer-friendly. Save it into your scene and it recalls perfectly next Sunday.

Bass

Bass DI / mic / blend

Bass and kick share the low end — carve them so they don't fight. A common trick: let the kick own one narrow low band (say ~60 Hz) and the bass own a slightly different one (~90 Hz). If you have both a DI and a mic'd amp, the DI gives clean lows and the mic gives grind — blend, and check polarity between them.

Guitars

Electric guitar (mic'd amp)

Electric guitar is easy to over-process. The amp and player did most of the work — your job is mostly to fit it in the mix and cut anything muddy.

In a lot of worship rigs the "amp" is actually a modeler (Kemper, Helix, Axe-FX, or an amp-sim pedal) plugged straight in as a DI — no mic, no bleed. Treat it as a line source: gain it cleanly, skip the gate, and EQ even more lightly, since the tone is already finished. Expect lots of ambient, delay- and reverb-soaked swells with long tails, so don't be alarmed when notes ring on.

Acoustic guitar (DI and/or mic)

Undersaddle piezo pickups have a characteristic honky midrange — a cut around 2–4 kHz and some low-mid cleanup makes a huge difference. If you have a mic too, blend for a more natural top end.

Keys & other

Piano / keys / synth

Stereo keys/synths come in on two channels — link them, pan hard-ish L/R, and treat as a pair. Modern synth patches often need almost nothing.

Pads are a staple of worship — sustained, ambient patches that sit under everything to glue the mix together and smooth the gaps between songs. They're meant to be felt more than heard, so keep them low, wide, and mostly untouched; a little low-mid cleanup so they don't cloud the vocals is usually all they need. If a pad is making the mix feel muddy, it's often the culprit — pull it down before you start EQ-ing everything else.

Horns

Horns swing from soft to very loud, so compression keeps them from disappearing then blasting. A whole horn section can be summed to a bus and compressed together for glue.

Strings

HPF ~80 Hz, no gate, gentle EQ (cut ~250–400 Hz mud, tame ~3–5 kHz scratchiness, add air), light compression (2:1–3:1, 2–4 dB GR). Handle a section on a group bus.

Percussion / hand drums

HPF depends on the instrument (congas want lows ~80–100 Hz; shakers/tambourine want a high HPF ~300 Hz+), gate rarely, EQ for attack and body, light compression. Sharp transients — set gain with headroom.

DI playback / tracks / stereo sources

Backing tracks are huge in worship — often a laptop running Ableton or a MultiTracks-style player, feeding the console loops, extra instrumentation, pads, and (critically) a click and a guide vocal for the band. It's finished audio, so your job is level and routing, not processing.