hey
Yeah I'd agree with the people that take drums first, only ever worked with one engineer who didn't. Also tends to be the order that you go through it during sound check, so easy to work from left to right on the desk. So you end up with:
Kick
(Kick out if you have it)
Snare top
(snare bottom if you have it)
HH
T1
T2
T3
T4
(Ride if you have it)
OH L
OH R
Bass DI
Bass Mic
Guitars Stage Right to Stage Left (so left to right as you see it from FOH)
Keys SR to SL
Other instruments SR to SL
Acoustics SR to SL
Vocals SR to SL
Vocals drums
edit: However in saying that, there have been times when I've made changes for digital desk layers. Depending on how many channels I have to do and whether the desk has banks of 8, 12 or 16 faders per layer and how it all fits in, I have occasionally changed the order to keep all the money channels on one layer, so that once the show is running I can focus on that one and only occasionally flick to the others to change or check something.
k