In bluegrass, there's a pronounced trend for bands to go back to the old setup of everyone playing into one mike, and dancing in and out and ducking under each others' instrument necks to take breaks, etc., similiar to what was done in the early days of bluegrass (late 40's, early 50's) when sound equipment was so limited that there wasn't any other choice.

There are a number of reasons for this trend. Some people feel that the choreography involved makes for a more visually interesting show than a bunch of musicians standing in a row. It's also felt that the harmony singing is better when the singers are physically closer and projecting at one another. And there's an element of "This is the way the old masters did it, so it must be best!"

But one important factor in the trend is that it takes the control of relative levels away from the sound guy - who will screw it up every time if he isn't a specialist in bluegrass, and sometimes if he is, since he's likely to try and compensate for the changing levels as different musician take breaks, even though they wanted the levels to change - and gives it back to the band.

Peter.