[Stagesound]

Good advice there from Prof M - as he points out, the "right" sound is a subjective matter.

On the technical front, you should not be peaking with speech - the dynamics when you sing will be much greater than for speech, which means you will inevitably peak during your performance, and peaking means you have too much gain, and will "clip" the signal, which will sound bad, and could damage your speakers.

You don't say what your speakers are, but I'm a bit surprised that you have hi and mid cut, with bass boost on your mic channel - also, the gain would appear to be a bit on the low side, unless you are working really close to the mic and are a loud singer. (Though since you're using a radio mic system, its output is high relative to a wired mic - I don't know the KAM mics, but I'm guessing it's a line output rather than a mic level output from it. If you can, reduce the output level from the radio mic receiver and bring up the gain on the desk a bit more, to reduce the chances of clipping the desk inputs).

You should be aiming to have a good mix when both the mic and music faders are at the zero position. You say that "mic gain" is at "noon" for the tracks. Are you really plugging into a mic channel with your backing tracks? Channels 9/10 and 11/12 are the line input channels, and do have a gain control, but it's not mic gain.

Once you get the gains right, you shouldn't need to reset these on every outing - the relative levels , and correct levels to avoid peaking, will not change between venues. Actually the only things you should need to change are the graphic equaliser and the main fader. Since this mixer doesn't have a power amp gain control, you can use the power switch (100W, 300W, 500W)as a course control if you find that in a small venue you have enough volume when the main fader has only been pushed up a little way.

You mention a mid-frequency trim control - I'm not sure from the way you describe your settings what you mean here. The upper one of the two "mid" controls on this particular desk sets the cut or boost (effectively the mid "gain"), and the lower one sets the actual frequency at which the control operates - between 100Hz and 8kHz in your case. I'm guessing from what you say that you have about 9dB of cut at around 200Hz - which is a bit odd since you are boosting the bass end. I wonder how much that boost is really doing? It's at 80Hz, so unless you've got a really deep bassy voice, there's nothing down there to boost, and you are in danger of increasing pops and thuds from handling noise etc. by boosting the bass end of your vocals.

The "Smiley" graphic is a little bit worrying too - remember, a graphic is there primarily to fix poor room acoustics - if you need to consistanty boost both bass and treble, and cut the mid-range, then there is something badly lacking about your speakers. On the other hand, the punchy bottom end and exagerated top end may sound like it's cutting through background noise well, and particularly with backing tracks may make your system sound impressive, but unfortunately that's going to have an impact on clarity, since the bit you're not boosting is the frequency range where your voice is. The net result will be a system which sounds loud (and maybe is!) but needs to be excessively loud before your vocals are clear and sound balanced. The little 10 band graphic built into the desk is a rather blunt instrument, and I'd suggest using it as little as possible. (If you look at your user manual, you'll see that one of the suggested setups includes an external graphic, which is what you really need if you're going to do the job right).

My suggestion is as follows. Set your eq all flat. Bring the gain on the track channel up you can hear it to sing along (obviously you'e going to need the main output volume up as well). Now sing rather than speak, and turn up the mic gain until you peak - now back it off by about 15 - 20 degrees to give yourself some headroom. Now, with both the music and vocal faders set at zero, adjust the gain on the track channel until there is a good balnce between voice and track. (You need someone to help you here - you can't really judge this yourself). You really shouldn't need to eq the tracks at all if they have been recorded properly, so if the result at this stage sounds lacking in something (or too much of something) then your speakers are probably not "flat". You could make some adjustment with the graphic, but don't make excessive cuts or boosts.

Now if necessary, adjust the mic channel to sound right. The high frequency control should give you that sparkle Prof M suggested. You may need to keep the mid control for eliminating troublesome feedback frequencies in some venues, but experiment with it to get your voice sounding right - again, you need the opinion of someone who has an ear for music here - you can't sing and listen to the PA at the same time - at least not well enough to eq it properly!

When you're happy that you've got a good balance and eq, don't keep repeating this execise every time you go out. If you feel a particular venue is not right, fix it with the graphic (say it's a venue with a lot of heavy curtains etc. - you may need to add a bit of top end. Or if your speakers are sitting on a big boxy stage, you may need to cut the bass a little). Adjust overall level then with the main control, and the power amp switches.