Sound Sanctuary

Hello FRONT of HOUSE readers! I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Vince Lepore, and starting with this issue, I’ll be writing the “Sound Sanctuary” column. I live in Orlando, FL with my beautiful wife Carrie and our two pugs Louie and Miles. Carrie and I both work at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, where I’m the technical director and Carrie is the graphic designer. I also teach live production full time at Full Sail University, a position that I’ve held for almost a decade. So, let’s get started…

Ten years before I got into mixing worship sound and installing church audio systems, I worked as a recording engineer. Now I have been working in the house of worship sound biz for 20 years so, if you do the math that would put me back in 1985 when I was freelancing as an engineer. I learned a lot about audio during that time of my life.

As mixing engineers, we want our churches to sound as good as they possibly can. And even those who are not part of the audio team still want your house of worship to sound great. But how many of you think much about the other spaces? You know, the cry-room, the outbuildings, fellowship halls, etc. Not all worship houses have additional spaces or buildings, but if yours is one that does, these probably need attention.

Happy New Year to all of you, and I hope you have big plans for 2015. I love the New Year. It gives us all a fresh start at doing better and being better in the coming year. I will assume we all want to improve (myself included) as audio engineers. Whether in the worship world or in the secular world, we all want to mix the best we can.

No, I won’t be presenting any clever parodies of Clement Clarke Moore’s famous poem, “A Visit From St. Nicholas.” But I don’t have to tell you that we will soon be celebrating Jesus’ birthday. Whether you live, work and play in the worship world or the secular world, Dec. 25 is the biggest day of the year for most of us and a busy time for sound crews. This season always causes me to reflect a little more on my life and the world than at any other time of year. Do you ever wonder what was going on at Joseph and Mary’s house during those first birthdays? Historically we know that they traveled to Egypt, but did they have a birthday party at year one, two, three and on? Was everyone invited? I am sure if there was cake there was certainly enough to go around. I am just throwing out a few different things to think about in between working events during this holiday season.

We all take monitors pretty much for granted. Whether you use in-ears or floor wedges at your church, they are as common as your main front of house speakers. But did you know that, in the early-mid 1960’s, many bands hit the road without the benefit of monitors of any type. Before floor wedge monitors became popular and commonplace, speakers were simply placed on either side of the stage and turned toward the performers.

As a worship sound pro, the top three questions asked of me are, first, How can I make my system sound better? Second, How can I make my worship band sound better? And third, How can I make my choir sound better? This month, my friends, we will investigate some suggestions on question three.

Self-powered speakers have been around a lot longer than most people think. JBL was building self-powered studio monitors back in the 1960’s. In the early 1990’s, John Meyer (of Meyer Sound Laboratories) devoted his manufacturing, research and development solely to active (self-powered) speakers. As a matter of fact, Meyer once hired an ad agency to research how people felt about powered speakers for sound reinforcement. After a survey, they came back saying “nobody wanted them.” That said, Meyer released the MSL-4 in 1994. This was the first powered loudspeaker intended for concert touring. Meyer obviously made a success of it, and the company hasn’t looked back since.

It has been my general experience that many — though certainly not all — houses of worship will wait until their house sound systems are completely falling apart before they consider investing in a new one. Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to wait that long to upgrade (or completely replace) your church system. For that matter, you simply have to use your ears and check the worship house bank account and you will know whether it’s time. That said, you sometimes only have to upgrade a single piece of gear or two to make a huge improvement in the sound of your system.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by politics. Especially the all-encompassing presidential elections that seemed to dominate the TV of the day. When I think back to president Jimmy Carter’s inaugural address, I remember he spoke at a podium into two microphones. I really wasn’t a Carter fan, but that really doesn’t matter for this article. What does matter is that president Carter was speaking into two microphones. It seemed like a rather obvious move now. One mic goes down, and you still have another one on-line. However the big question in my mind was what manufacturer supplied those two microphones for the inauguration? I didn’t get the answer to that question until much later in my life. In the meantime, Ronald Reagan was elected president and was inaugurated. At his big speech he used three microphones. I figured this guy had to be more cautious than Carter, or he just wanted to make certain that every word he spoke was heard.

As the title suggests, this month’s column is all about miking of your instruments, vocalists and/or choir to enhance the overall message delivered to the congregants at your house of worship. I am not concerned with what make or model of microphones you’re using. I do have a list of manufacturers I like and use myself, but this month’s column is not about those companies. I am more interested in where you place your mics and how you use them.

My first introduction to personal monitors was about 20 years ago. I was playing an acoustic guitar and singing worship music in front of a Galaxy Hot Spot monitor mounted on a mic-stand. The thing was turned up so loud I almost lost a filling, but in a few minutes after adjusting the EQ and volume, I had my own personal monitor mix. That experience really has very little to do with the in-ear personal monitor systems that I use today, but we all have to start somewhere. By the way, Galaxy is still alive and still making very potent small Hot Spot monitors.