Live sound and performance · updated 2026-08-16

FOH

Front of house — the main mix the audience hears, and the desk it's mixed from.

Live sound and performance — A front-of-house position at a concert venue before doors: digital mixing console, laptop and racks facing the stage — the live rig behind the FOH, monitor and PA terms here.

Key takeaways

Front of house — the main mix the audience hears, and the desk it's mixed from.
The FOH mix has to work with the room's acoustics, the PA's coverage and whatever the stage is already spilling into the air.
A FOH position under a balcony hears almost no low end, which is why engineers walk the room during soundcheck.
Watch out: mixing entirely from one spot.
Sits under live sound and performance in this glossary, with 2 primary sources below.

Quick checklist

Can you define foh in one sentence without looking?
Can you point at foh in a real session, mix or contract?
Have you tried the practical move above at least once?
Would you catch the common mistake before it costs you a take?
Have you opened one of the primary sources below rather than a forum thread?

FOH IN DEPTH

Front of house is the mix the audience hears and the engineer who builds it, positioned out in the room rather than at the side of the stage. The FOH mix has to work with the room's acoustics, the PA's coverage and whatever the stage is already spilling into the air.

How it works in practice

A FOH position under a balcony hears almost no low end, which is why engineers walk the room during soundcheck.

The mistake people make

Mixing entirely from one spot. What sounds balanced at the desk can be unintelligible in the first three rows.

WHERE FOH SITS

FOH belongs to live sound and performance in the Sampled music glossary. The stage vocabulary: what the engineer means when they wave at you.

TERMS THAT DEPEND ON FOH

Monitor mix / IEMs
What the performer hears — wedges on stage or in-ear monitors, mixed separately from FOH.
Splitter and multicore
A split feeds one mic signal to both FOH and monitors; a multicore carries all the channels back to the desk in one run.

TEST YOURSELF

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3 quick questions on foh. Answers are marked instantly — nothing is sent anywhere.

1. Which statement best describes foh?
2. What is the mistake people most often make with foh?
3. In practice, which of these applies to foh?

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SOURCES AND CITATIONS

Free, primary references for foh — standards bodies, manufacturers, government offices and university course material. Each one lists the line of this entry it backs up.

Shure — live sound resources (opens in a new tab)
Primary reference · shure.com
“Front of house — the main mix the audience hears, and the desk it's mixed from.”— the claim this source supports
Why it counts: Published by the organisation responsible for the thing being defined, so it is a first-hand source rather than a summary of one.
Yamaha — live sound guides (opens in a new tab)
Primary reference · yamaha.com
“Front of house is the mix the audience hears and the engineer who builds it, positioned out in the room rather than at the side of the stage.”— the claim this source supports
Why it counts: Published by the organisation responsible for the thing being defined, so it is a first-hand source rather than a summary of one.

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