Sound Sanctuary

Not every house of worship has the luxury of selecting from multiple locations for its front of house speakers. Some of you have but one place to position or mount your speakers. However, it goes without saying that the placement of your speakers — their location and where they are aimed — is of monumental importance in how your system performs in your sanctuary.

One of the greatest things about being the head of the audio department at a large or medium sized church is that there are usually a lot of people from the congregation who want to volunteer their services in the audio department. One of the worst things about being the head of the audio department at a large or medium size church is that there are a lot of people in the congregation who want to volunteer their services in the audio department.

A correct audio mix in a house of worship usually means keeping a tight rein on the overall decibel level, the SPL (sound pressure level), volume or just plain loudness of a service. But have you ever asked yourself how loud is loud?

It is very common to see the use of in-ear monitors in many houses of worship today. That said, I still want to have floor wedges on my stage when I am mixing, in-ears or not. I don’t think I am so old school that I need to have floor monitors in my mix. I just believe that wedges provide a different way for the band to hear the mix and interact with each other. I am a fan of traditional floor monitors, but not to the exclusion of in-ear monitors. This month’s installment of Sound Sanctuary is not floor wedges versus in-ears. If anything, I want to celebrate floor monitors and the joys of mixing with these speakers.

Do you know when the lavalier microphone was invented? Well, lapel mics date back to 1932. Back then, any small microphone that could be hooked in the buttonhole of a lapel of a coat would qualify as a lav mic. Various models included condenser, ribbon, moving coil and carbon button mics.

At my church, reaching out into the community is one of our biggest callings. The concept of outreach can range from visiting an elderly shut-in person to putting on a concert in the local park. Of course, if you plan on having a concert, or any outreach event that needs a sound system, the system you use will need to be easily portable as well.

When Jesus went out preaching, I am pretty sure everyone could hear him. Whether he spoke to five people or 5,000, every word went directly into the ears of his followers. I guess we could call that a miracle. Anyway, fast-forward 2,000 years, and we find out that a lot of people just can’t hear what the preacher is preaching.

When I first began working in the world of worship, audio subwoofers were not very common in a typical church sound system. However, that was two decades ago. and a lot has changed in worship music. For that matter, a lot has changed in how we all listen to live music in general. The bottom line is that we have more bass frequencies in our music than ever before. Or, perhaps, we just have speakers that will reproduce bass more efficiently and pleasantly.

My first experience miking a piano was about two decades ago. The Sunday school teacher at my church decided she wanted her first and second graders to perform in the “big church.” So, five volunteers carried a vintage Kimball upright piano into the main sanctuary and placed it in front of the platform. I had one rehearsal with the teacher and her children’s choir. During that rehearsal, I simply opened the top of the Kimball and positioned a Shure SM57 microphone (on a mic stand) slightly inside the piano at the middle of the harp. To my surprise and joy, it sounded pretty authentic.

Essential Rules Church Volunteers Need to Know

If you go to church regularly, you probably know The Ten Commandments. Even if you don’t know them all in order, you know they exist. With that in mind, I would like to introduce some audio commandments for you. Actually, the word, “commandment,” is a little presumptuous on my part. So I will simply call them “suggestions” or “rules.” The fact of the matter is, there is no one single thing in audio production that is really difficult to learn. And if we break down all the tasks individually, the entire process becomes simple and fun. Okay, let’s get on with it.