How did we get here … musically …

In the olden days (back when I had hair …), music was simple: one person played and sang, and they adjusted their own mix: can’t hear the instrument, play it harder; can’t hear the vocals, sing louder or play softer … simple.
When two or more musicians formed a band, things got a bit more complicated: the person with the biggest voice and the loudest instrument won … Houston, we have a problem … the loudest instrument wasn’t necessarily the one that should have been the loudest. So you needed a conductor to tell which instrument to play louder and softer, which vocalist to project, and there was peace in the land for a bit.
Then they invented electricity, and tubes, and amplifiers and loudspeakers, and mixers, and electric guitars, and transistors,and things got a bit more complex. You see, in the day of the semi-conductor, each musician could control his or her own volume: can’t hear yourself – no problem – just turn up the volume on your amp; and if 10 isn’t loud enough, get an amp that goes to 11! And that may work in the garage, but when you go to a bigger venue, your amp may not be big enough.
Enter the House System: this was a system, built into the “house”, with a conductor (soundman) who controlled the levels of everything. Every instrument was miked or plugged in, and each vocalist had a mic; that should solve the problem. The soundman would adjust the instruments so that that the house sounded good, but we had a feedback problem. So we moved the speakers forward, and the mics back and eliminated feedback, but now, no one could hear themselves.
So, let’s foldback some of the mixer to speakers pointed at the musicians and singers, and it should be ok. Now the problem is, the soundman has two mixes to worry about: the house and the monitor. And then, the musicians and singers started complaining that the person next to them was too loud, and they could hear themselves, so could they have their own monitor? And then another, and another, and suddenly, the soundman is spending his time frantically trying to appease everyone, and trying to keep track of house mix, record mix, monitor 1-6 mix, as well as run the multimedia presentation …

Musicians still played together, and each one wanted to be heard, and so they all bought amps and turned them to 11; back to the same problem. So, for the past 50 odd years, the solution has been to add more speakers to the mix, and, as a result, we have often been adding to the problem, not solving it. The problem is usually not the volume of the instrument, it is usually the relative volume of the instrument with respect to everything else. If we could just have more of me for me, and they could have more of themselves for themselves, all would be happy. So, mixing boards started to add more Aux. Sends or Foldbacks, or Monitor Sends, so that there could be more diversity in the mix. And for a while it was good … and then the band got bigger … what to do – analog boards were running out of real estate, and snakes were bloating …

So, enter digital. In the early days, the price was steep and the sound was … different-ish … now, times have changed. Someone had the bright idea to marry computers and audio, and then, multi-track digital recording, and then suddenly, we are sending multiple streams of audio in realtime.
There are many systems that can do this, but, for the average musician, it behooves you to take a look at the SamePage Digital Performance Station System: 16-32 channels of digital audio; digital music display; online manipulation of your music; planning … dig around this site – I think you will like what you see …