Hello all. I'm a 23 year old vocalist and I just bought a mixer. It's a Behringer eurorack 1204FX-PRO. It has 99 preset vocal effects built into it such as delay, compressor, exciter, etc. I have a few questions and any help that anyone could give me would be greatly appreciated. I'll just fire away:

1. Is there any way to run dry vocals through a mixer like this without effects? As soon as I turn it on, it's already preset to a certain effect...I can turn the effect to compressor or exciter and it sounds pretty dry, but I'm not 100% as to what those 2 settings are exactly. Would either be good for live shows where I would want dry vocals?

2. I know the basics of what gain is...and since my mixer will be basically just for running my vox through (and maybe someday some keys).turning the gain up or down makes the volume out of my speakers increase or decrease just as if I were to use the Main Mix volume. Should I use the gain at all to adjust volume or just leave it at a certain setting and just use the main mix volume slide?

3. What should I keep the HIs, MIDs, and LOs at? A friend told me the hi should be roughly 10 o'clock, the mid between 8 and 10, and the lo...lower than all. Our band is hardcore/metal so I'm not sure if a different setting would be better suited.

4. What's the best effect(s) for an intense live show? There's an effect built in that I read is a "classic" for a live show...it's Chorus and Reverb...but I don't dig it too much.

Any help? Write here or email me please. october_midnight@hotmail.com

Thanks in advance.