UPDATE: This article appears in The Ultimate Guide to Creative Mixing on the Digico SD5.

I kept getting asked to turn the kick up, but it was never loud enough.

Eventually, it sounded like a kick drum solo with the rest of the band as backup.

I was struggling with how to make the mix work when I discovered the Audio Enhancer effect on the Digico SD5. Through experimentation, I found that if I inserted the Audio Enhancer on the SM52 Beta channel with a setting of 2.3kHz on the crossover and 1.45 on the drive level, I could mix the kick much lower. The kick could still be heard well, but with improved headroom in the mix.