I recorded NRPS in Richmond Tuesday night off the SBD, mostly out of laziness. I had my mic rig, and so did Lynnz, and we almost pulled out and went for it FOB, but the ease of not guarding a stand won us over that night.
Wish we had gone with our instincts and ran mics, because the SBD, while crystal clear, has the vocals punched up far too loudly compared to the instruments. It's simple, the backline amps pushed out enough gain from the stage that they were not pulled into the PA as much as the vocals. Also, no compression was used on the vocals, and that would have tamed them in the SBD feed.
With acoustic acts in clubs, SBDs are usually fine because there is no backline, so everything has to run through the PA, making the SBD mix very nice and even usually. I think I will stick to the SBD when able to in those acoustic situations, but will try and always go with mics for full electric bands in clubs. This is a lesson I already learned many years ago, but I ignored it like a fool.
I wonder if there is anything I could do to improve the mix in post? I may try compression, but I don't want that breathing effect where the instruments are made louder when there are no vocals, and when the vocals start the instruments fall into the background. Any advice?