Any reason why I should not run my CM4s on stage lip? I’ve read that these mics need a little breathing room away from ceilings. I gather this might also apply to a stage floor as well.
And for running my stage mics to the board, do I need XLR cables long enough to extend to the board, or will the FOH guy have that covered? And if so, how much length would I need to have a high likelihood of reaching the board in a 200ish capacity club?
My go to in smaller clubs is to run mics at the stage lip and recorder back by the board.
(1) Use a couple of empty snake channels to run the signal to the back and record from the relative safety of the FOH. Take your SBD patch back there.
(2) If no empty input channels on the stage snake there is often an empty send from the FOH. Ask the FOH to send your feed to the front and take it from the stage box. Run recorder off to the side.
(3) If no other options I'll just run mics and recorder at the FOH position.
Things I always prepare for in this scenario -
Short desktop stand gets mics high enough to point over the monitors but oriented low.
Plenty of XLR cables and adapters. A pair of TRS > XLRM has saved my bacon more than once.
A kickdown for the FOH engineer. Amazing how many times this has changed someone's tone when I need a favor from them even if they said no thanks.