Nice information! Thanks! I had to say I dont like that "0" thing, because always when I have done that, I end up boosting vocals or solos to end of fader and still not hearing them enough, so I have to turn master fader bit up and that´s not a good thing :/
I understand what you mean about the '0' thing, it seems strange to begin with but there are a few things to keep in mind which may help.
A desk with 100mm faders will give you more room above '0' than a 60mm fader common on alot of mid range desks. TBH though you should not need that much gain to bring your vox or leads etc above the band. This is where the idea of gain structuring helps. Let me run you through how I do things.
Drums are normally first on the board for me. Even in a smaller gig I will still use a full mic up. I have 2 different setups I like for drums. Kick, snare, toms, stereo OH. This to me is the minimum amount of mics needed (pop, rock and metal gigs in mind!) For bigger gigs it would be 2 kick mics, 2 snare mics top and bottom, toms, stereo OH (X/Y centered between kick and snare) and hi hat. I get the drummer to hit each part of the kit that is miced one at a time.
I go through this mental check list assuming the desk is reset and all faders are at 0:
With channel mute ON.
PFL the channel, Bring gain up till the transient peak of chosen drum is occasionally hitting in the yellow above 0 but NEVER into the red. Set up basic compression taking off up to 4 - 6db. Check gain level on the desk, if it is lower than before, use the make up gain on the compressor to bring it back to where it was.
Un mute channel and listen though FOH to set desired eq. Recheck compressor settings. recheck gain. If gain is wrong adjust with the gain pot. Mute channel.
I do this for each kick, snare and tom mic.
OH is a little different, I hi pass, roll off a little more low end, no compression and adjust gain till the snare peaks at -12db-ish at the most.
Hi hat the same os OH and with more low end rolled off and maybe peak at -18db ish.
Un mute all channels and bring up FOH. Get the drummer to play a simple beat using the whole kit. Set your panning. If it sounds un balanced use your gain pots to adjust by ear, but always PFL the channel you are working on too. Clipping is bad mmmkay!
All of my drums are bussed to a stereo group and I use a stereo comp on this. Check this now. Add verb to snare and maybe smaller toms. This should take about 5 min.
Drums are the only instrument other than vocals that I use additive eq for, everything else is subtractive eq. (unless the source sucks serious balls I guess)
Bass is next and I go through the same check list as above but I bring the bass up to '0'. Comp settings are more like limiting. EQ will be different for different styles. High pass for metal, not reggae!
Guitars gain up to '0'. No compression. EQ here is interesting. I high pass, find the most annoying mid range frequency and destroy it. I put a small cut in the same area I boost the vocal, normally round the 3.5k to 4k. On most desks the 'high' eq knob is a high shelf starting round the 12k mark. I use this simmilar to a low pass to tame the high end and fizz. taking it back to round 9 oclock clears it up normally.
One thing I do to help bring guitar solos up is to use eq as a presence control. Rather than increasing the slider try setting your hi mid to 8 - 9k and boost it lke there is no 2moro! This will help bring the solo through quite a bit and between the boost knob and the slider there should be plenty of room for the guitar. After the solo return the eq to 0. This is the only time I will boost an eq on guitar live.
I will add more soon.
Cheers.
