electronic live sound advice needed: powered monitors and mixer etc

[goldenmean]

ive been doing live beats with mpc's and turntables for awhile now and i use 2 of those mackie powered 15's. they are pretty clear and good sounding and they work out pretty nice. im feeding 2 mpcs and a turntable into a basic mixer then into them. it always seems like a give and take getting beats to sound good live but all around its pretty good but i also noticed the highs were a little harsh when cranked and even though i do my best with mixing all the sounds live some things get buried under others and its hard to hear everything. i could just have too many things going on at once at times but i also wonder if some of the summing into the monitors is making things a little haphazard (ie different levels of heavy kick drums clashing over the samples etc). i have one of those art vla limiting comps and wonder if this would help things out a little before it hits the monitors? im not sure what a good compression setting would be for something like this so if anyone has some insight id appreciate it. i just want to take away some of the harshness i guess.

[surflounge]

have you considered:
dbx® DriveRack® PA

[teamsterjim]

If hardware is going to be used I wouldn't even buy one that didn't have Sidechaning capabilities.
You'll eventually want to use more and more gear.
Having routing options from all of your effects and mixer is crucial.
Even having routing options in your powered cabinets is important also.
Look at the Barbetta's, Crest mixers, and hardware with routing options.
6db insertion loss's can add up after a while.

[W-W-Int]

Originally Posted by surflounge

have you considered:
dbx® DriveRack® PA

+1

the drive rack is fairly common for live use. it has presets for most p.a. speakers for crossover points.

what you really need is a front of house sound person. someone to handle eq and volume levels of different parts you do that is sitting out there listening to what the audience is hearing. if your listening position is in the audience as in you hang in the dj booth during your performance then you need to pre-adjust your mixes and seperate what is problematic material from what is not giving you problems live. the problem material you need to have on a seperate fader with it's own eq settings to tame it down.

compression is only good for mic situations live or live playing of overly dynamic volume changes. if you have a pre-recorded track you're just mixing live you don't need a live compressor on it. just get the track leveled across the performance of it ahead of time and then adjust it's relative volume to the rest of your performance using the mixer live.

esoteric effects options and sidechaining is definately not needed live. if you need to sidechain compress a track do it ahead of time and mix it with the material driving the compressor for live playback later. you definately don't want to be trying to perform your material and adjusting the compressor and the sidechain's control signal level all at the same time.

[W-W-Int]

also there is a reason most performers do a sound check before the show. it's to adjust the mix and fix problems ahead of time.