Tips for mixing Cajon

Hi all,

I mix sound at a small church venue (200ish). Historically, we haven’t used a drum kit due to space limitations, but we now have someone playing a cajon.

During practice this week, the cajon ended up sounding a boomy and indistinct in the mix. I’m looking for tips or advice on how to get the best sound out of it.

Any eq advice? Would you use compression, or parallel compression? They’re not using a kick pedal - just playing the box. Any suggestions to help tighten the sound and make it sit better in the mix would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: thank you all for your awesome advice. The Cajon has a 1/4 jack out. But I am going to switch to sm57 and adjust the placement as suggested and try to fix as much as I can source.