Big name drummers in concert. - victims of bad sound

Saw Santana at local Arena here in the UK a few days ago.

I was really looking forward to the show and seeing the mighty Dennis Chambers in action.

Unfortunately, the guy behind the mixing desk must have had cotton wool in his ears!

Dennis was way, way down in the mix. I could see Dennis doing sound great stuff, but couldn't hear him.

Even during his solo, he was doing some killer double bass ostinato and all you could hear was his over-loud snare.

I've seen other 'big hame' drummers suffer from bad mixing.

I just wonder if some sound engineers have a 'deaf' spot when it comes to drums...

I can't comment on your specific issue, but I've found that drum sounds tend to have "zones" in live venues. At some locations in the venue the drums will sound great, while at others they might barely be audible (or the kick might sound great at one location, while at another all you can hear is cymbals).

I'm pretty clueless when it comes to the properties of sound, microphones, frequencies and such, but I'm guessing it might have something to do with the big spectrum of frequencies that a drum kit covers (from the oomph of the kick to the crash cymbals and crack of the snare). In smaller venues you have the added thing of getting a lot of the drum sound from the drums themselves, not just the PA, which of course makes it even worse to try and get a good mix out to the audience (can't mix something that's not heard through microphones and the PA).

But the again, some sound guys might simply not like drums much

I think a bigger problem at large venues is the sound quality of drums...Stevie Wonder, the Motown 50th Anniversary tour, Billy Joel (I think), all had relatively bad drum sounds. Then again, all of these shows were at the same venue and I was in the same section each time, so maybe that was the problem.

It's pretty logical too, I suppose. A drum kit will have (at least) one microphone per drum, 1-2 overheads, a mic on the hihats and sometimes the ride (and on top of that, maybe a trigger mixed in, or separate microphones for other itsems on the kit). A guitar amp or a singer has a single microphone and that's it, and a keyboard player often goes straight into the mixing desk, with no microphones at all. Guess which instrument will be the hardest to mix

similar story seeing Dennis Chambers w/ Mike Stern (B. Berg, L. Goines) around 1990. rented drums & "rent-a-sound-guy" engineers. just student level sound...i think maybe they were students at this university & over-matched w/ the task of providing sound to this world class band. somewhere in central FL, maybe an hour north of Miami.

anyhow, the band was complaining the whole night (would yell during another guys solo)...i distinctly remember Mike or Bob Berg saying on the mic that "we prefer the alligators over the sound guys" during some story about delays thru Alligator Alley. Dennis would point out the sh*tty sound w/ his playing. on one tune w/ brushes, the snare / hi-hat levels were ridiculous. Dennis kept splashing the HH until they turned down the mic. then when his HH broke (no movement from the sound guys) , my U of M drum prof got up from the front row & replaced it himself...still, it was a great night to remember.

I think the key word is "local Arena".

Most arenas are not designed for music.

Some arenas sound better than others, regardless of the band.