Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?
Hey Nick.
Welcome to the forum!
My first thought is that your guitars may be too loud. The guitars are quite directional, and if pointed out into a small width venue as you described, will easily beam all the way back to the rear of the room.
See if you can get your guitars to get amp stands. Have them face the amp directly at their head with the amp in front of them on the stand (the amp stands angle the amp toward them). Most guitar players play with the amps behind them and the speaker pointed at the back of their knees. This has the effect of all the sound going past them (thus they think they are not loud enough) past their knees and blasting the audience.
Next, if you are going to mic the drums, get yourself gates for it. The kick and toms should have gates on them such that they don't ring all over the place and muddy up the mix. This one thing will really clean up your mix. In a small venue, you may not need to mic the snare .... and you should absolutely not need to mic the cymbals.
As for the bass, sometimes bass players have too much stage volume. This has the effect of having the bass get re-amplified by all the vocal microphones on stage (and drum microphones too).... and thus you get all that mud out front. You can get a fairly in-expensive quad gate to do this with.
I'll go with Tim here on the Thumps. Not my favorite speaker. What is your budget if you were going to replace the thumps?
