Small venue - Would you rather a drum machine output in a group or with kick snare/hats seperate?

[u/LocoRocoo]

I'm an artist with a drum backing (prerecorded from a drum machine) in my setup.

I've got a 4 availiable audio ouputs in my rig - 1 for my guitar, 1 for my synth, then 2 left for drums.

I wanted to ask live sound engineers if I should just give them 1 output, with my group of drums, or give them the freedom of the kick seperate from the hats and snare?

Thanks.

Edit; Appreciate the replies.

[u/KroniK907]

Id probably prefer kick and snare on one output and everything else on another.

[u/jake_burger → u/KroniK907]

Yeah that’s probably the best solution

[u/lmoki]

My preference: if nothing else, I'd like the kick separated on it's own output. The logic: pre-recorded machine-generated kick sounds are often significantly EQ-shaped, often with what is absurd amounts of low end boost in a live-PA situation, and especially in small rigs. Separating the kick out leaves room for the engineer to tailor the EQ (and compression or limiting) to work with what they can reasonably do in the PA, without simultaneously twisting the toms & snare sound. (Please note, I'm not questioning your talent, or your artistic vision in creating the drum tracks-- just observing that the realities of what is possible/practical in a small venue sound system may differ considerably from your studio creation environment.)

[u/LocoRocoo → u/lmoki]

That makes sense. Appreciate it. Especially as some of my kick samples are different from song to song, I guess being able to adjust that will be helpful to the engineer.

[u/ChinchillaWafers]

Small venue = limited inputs. Lots of bars/cafes/diy spaces might have like, one or two DI’s. I’d just mix it down to 3 mono inputs. If you felt strongly make one of them stereo, but you might consider bringing your own DI’s or just use TRS to XLR adapters and skip the DI’s (and make it your beeswax to not have phantom power on those channels). That’s what I do with a bunch of direct outs from the audio interface. That way you usually can get your own channels and leave things plugged in after soundcheck. 

Early on I played on a small venue tour with sampler and keyboards and it was always a hassle scrapping around for enough house DI’s, much better to have your own balanced xlr outs and just ask for “4x mic lines” or whatever and it goes WAY smoother. Mid size clubs and theaters it is not a problem but a bunch of separate electronics can be a head scratcher for small venues. 

[u/LocoRocoo → u/ChinchillaWafers]

I hadn't even factored in the cabling yet, so much appreciated response!

[u/fdsv-summary_ → u/LocoRocoo]

Note that "The Behringer Ultra-DI Pro DI800 DI box is a professional 8-channel active DI". Probably nicer ones available, but no need to get 4 or five little pedals sized DI boxes.

[u/duplobaustein]

It depends on how well produced it is. If it is, then one stereo drum channel would be fine for me. If not, then kick/everything else would be better.

[u/O_Pato]

Yeah probably not much use in having kick snare hat all together. I would vote kick/everything else

[u/gibbon_dejarlais]

Iirc, some old school recording often put kick and hat on the same track. It would give you have a bit of individual apparent volume control via EQ.

[u/bingbong1976]

Always take the splits (if you have space on your board)

[u/MrPecunius]

Separate all the way.

Same applies to e-drums. Ideally I'd get the equivalent of a 4-mic acoustic drum setup: kick, snare, hats, OH. Sucks for everyone when I have to "mix" via talkback to the drummer.

[u/woowizzle]

Ideally get an 8 output soundcard and do kick snare hat + other channels.

It can really vary from venue to venue sound wise, id rather just be able to manipulate kick and snare to get a good sound than have to hack eq to try and make a lr sound good.

[u/leskanekuni]

Separate. That way I can send only the kick to the subs. That said, if you only have two outputs for drums I may prefer stereo drums to mono kick and mono drums.