Why I Like Bad Mixes When Performing

Recently I had a discussion with a worship leader friend regarding how we mix our personal monitors while performing.  Early in the discussion it became clear that our mixes would sound very different, and mine would not sound very pleasing to the average listener.  My friend leads teams by singing and playing guitar.  Naturally, in his mix he has vocals (including backing vocals) and guitars prominent.  However, most of the other instruments were relatively balanced compared to my mixes.  His approach was to “make it sound good in his mix” while being able to hear his vocal pitch for accuracy.  I tend to intentionally set my personal monitor mix in a way that most people wouldn’t find enjoyable to listen to.  Both approaches are valid.

You may be scratching your head thinking, “why would this guy intentionally make a bad sounding mix?”  I should explain that most of the time when I am performing in a band situation, I am either playing bass guitar (fretted, fretless), upright bass or acoustic rhythm guitar.  In all cases I mix quite differently.

When playing fretted bass, my mix will be more like my friend’s mix but I usually keep lead guitar and drums at a minimum.  I do this because most of my musical cues come from a rhythm guitarist and/or keyboardist.  The lead guitar won’t often help with this, so I keep it down in the mix.  The drums are usually naturally loud enough that I can hear them even through in ear monitors which block out most external sounds.

When playing fretless bass guitar or upright bass, my mixes sound particularly unpleasant.  In these cases I mix to help me hear the intonation of the bass notes as prominently as possible with reference to an instrument setting the chordal structure of the song (usually the keyboards).  So I tend to have a LOT of bass and keyboards in my mix at these times and almost all else minimized.  I find this approach to work  well as I work with talented soundmen who make the FOH mix sound great while i focus on giving them the best sounding musical channel I can.

The mix changes further when I play rhythm steel string acoustic guitar in a band setting.  In these situations I usually minimize the bass and lead guitar while keeping the acoustic guitar, drums and lead vocals prominent.  Again, to the average listener this would not sound very even.

So whatever your approach is to your personal mixes, I suggest you consider your strategy before a session and experiment.  Ask the soundman for his feedback after a performance to see if your strategy helped the FOH mix or made it more difficult.  Over time you will narrow your approach down and be able to focus on what matters most – giving an inspirational performance.  Oh and don’t forget to save or write down your settings for future reference.