“It’s too quiet”

“It’s too trebly”

“It’s too boomy”

“All I hear is the guitar”

“I can’t hear the guitar”…Yada, yada, yada…

 Is it a picture of a vase or is it two faces looking at each other?

Perspective and Perception

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve gone into a church and heard 3 or more different perspectives on the way things sounded I’d be pretty well of by now. Every church thinks that they’re unique in the sound problems that they have. I’m here to let you know that your church is no different than any of the other churches in the district. So take heart. This isn’t an unsolvable situation. In fact it’s a very common problem, not only in the church sound world but in the secular world of touring professionals. See, sound is very much a matter of perspective and perception. No two people will hear the same thing. It can be close but because hearing is one of those senses of ours that is in use every minute of every day, the environment that we’ve been a part of all these years plays a huge role in what we perceive in what we hear.

Likewise, the perception of what we hear depends significantly on the emotional impact of what we hear, especially when it relates to worship music. Because worship music, by its very nature, is designed to get you in the very dark recesses of your heart and soul, what we hear when we listen to worship music is very, very personal. What one person likes in a worship song performance can be totally different than what someone else hears in that same song.

People hear different things. You can play the exact same song through the same equipment sitting in the exact same spot and get different perspectives from every single person. As church technicians we’re used to thinking in terms of bits and bytes. This thing called sound throws us a paradigm shift in that we have to feel instead of think. We go from digital, 1′s and 0′s, black or white thinking to analog, wavy, lots of gray feelings. It’s a tough thing to do because of our personalities. But it is something that we need to conquer if we’re going to be good at what we do and bring the congregation into transparent worship.

Part of the uniqueness of the church environment is that volunteers are often thrown into the deep-end with the technical as well as the worship side. No one really knows what to expect from the other so they each form their own perspective of what they need, or feel that they need. After a while of back-and-forth (for want of a better word) wars between the two areas a perception appears that both sides don’t care about other side. From the perspective of the techs, the worship team is a bunch of prima-donnas that always want more of themselves in their monitors and don’t understand what the techies are trying to do. From the perspective of the musicians, the techs never listen to their needs and only want to hobble the worship team.

Neither perception is accurate. But because each side is only looking at the situation from their perspective, feelings get hurt, animosity builds and the transparent worship that is needed to draw people into Christ is lost. Solving this gets relatively straightforward. Here’s what I do when I have to intervene and help resolve the issues. Gather the team leads together with the pastors.

1. Pray as a team for guidance, unity and resolution. NEVER start a meeting like this without praying first. At the very least it helps to set the expectation that we’re doing this for God’s glory not for us as individuals.

2. Sit both sides down and listen to what each side’s perspective about the issue appears to be. With this step it’s important to have everyone be as honest as possible, knowing that only through honest communication can the issues be put on the table to be solved. The idea is to focus on the issues, not on the personalities. This is where the pastor can be a big help. He can help steer the conversation back to the issues so as to remove the personal confrontations. Each side needs to be respectful and just listen while the other side speaks. Remember this is about understanding the perspective and perception of the other side. I’ll usually make notes of both sides point of views.

3. Reaffirm the commitment to work this out as a team for the good of the congregation and for the glory of God. Whatever it takes to get to that point is what both sides need to agree on and being to work toward as their only goal. Without this level of buy-in the resolution is doomed for failure.

4. This is where the perspective aspect comes into play. I usually ask the question of the tech team, “Have you been on the stage listening to what the worship team is hearing while they are practicing?”. I ask the same question of the musicians, “Have you heard the full band play while you’ve been in the audience and in the soundbooth?”. 95% of the time the response I get is “No”. So the initial step in achieving perspective is to have the tech team go on the stage at each musician position and listen to what the musician is hearing, both from front-of-house and from their monitors. Then I have the musicians each come out into front-of-house and into the soundbooth to hear what the techs hear. It’s important that there is a replacement musician playing the same position as the musician who steps out so that they can hear what they would sound like.

By altering the perspective of the teams the perception starts to change. Now having “walked in their shoes” each side can understand the balance that’s needed between the worship team needing to hear themselves clearly and the tech team needing to have volumes on stage low enough to provide good, clear sound in the house without having to blast everyone out of their seats.

5. Here’s the fine tuning stage. Now that everyone’s perspective has been altered now they can start working as a united team to fix what’s broken for the good of the congregation. Turn everything down to zero. No monitor volume, no amp volume, no front-of-house volume. Have the band play a song that they are familiar enough with that they don’t need to hear each other. Get the front-of-house level and eq set first. Turn up the house a bit louder than normal. The reason for doing front-of-house levels first is that if you bring them up first the musicians also hear some of that mix so they won’t need to have their wedge monitors as loud as without the front-of-house.

6. Now start with the worship leader and his instrument. First make sure that his amp and monitor are set up so they point directly at his head. If he can’t see straight down the speaker it’s not in the right spot for optimum sound reproduction. Once the speakers are properly positioned have him bring up his instrument amp level until he can just barely hear it. Do the same with his vocal. Now eq the monitor feed to get the signal to cut through the mix. For every other monitor send bring up the worship leader vocal and instrument. Everyone needs to have that combination in their monitors. At this point step back and listen from the audience perspective. Is the house sound louder than the monitors? If yes, then that’s good. If the monitors are coming through more than the front-of-house then you’ve got issues with room acoustics or front-of-house speaker placement and that’s more than you can reasonably handle. Best bet at that stage would be to call me for advice.

7. Assuming that the front-of-house is sounding good, now we start with each musician and bring up what they need to hear in their monitor. You do not want or need to put everything into each monitor. My rule of thumb is only acoustics and vocals unless there are no amps or the amps are off-stage. Backing vocals only need themselves and the worship leader/instrument. Every other instrumentalist only needs the lead vocal/instrument plus perhaps their instrument. If they have an onstage amp it should be barely loud enough for them to hear. Remember the goal here is to provide clean sound to the audience. No matter what you’ve heard or been told, the front-of-house system is usually more powerful and better sounding than any of your amps or monitors. Along those lines, everything should feed into the sound board to let the tech team mix all sound signals together. Amps should not be used independent of the sound board because it muddies up the sound.

8. If you’ve done your job right here you should have a pretty good balance between the stage volume and front-of-house levels where sanity has been restored. Keep in mind I’ve geared this toward worship teams that are still using speaker monitors as opposed to in-ear monitors. This is also geared toward churches that have either electronic drums or drums treated with a drum cave where the drum volume is easily controlled.

9. Walk the room. Listen for any hot spots that may not have been noticeable. There will be areas where the bass will be substantially bigger than other parts of the room. That’s okay and it’s the nature of the frequency wave in rooms that aren’t acoustically treated. The goal is that the bass isn’t overwhelming the music all over the place. More importantly compare the sound at different parts of the room to what it sounds like in the soundbooth. You need to mix for the sweet spot in the room not for what it sounds like in the soundbooth and the only way to do that is to notice what it sounds like in the booth when it sounds right in the audience. Remember it’s a matter of perspective and perception. You’re not mixing for you. You’re mixing for the congregation.

10. Once you get things sounding properly and the pastor agrees, then have the worship team come out one by one and have them listen to how things sound using a replacement for the team member who’s out listening in the audience. The worship team’s perspective and perception of what things sound like when they’re playing and the levels are set properly is critical to getting them to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing in the booth.

The takeaway: Only by understanding the other person’s perspective, and by doing that, understanding their perception of sound, will you be able to achieve a harmonious working relationship between the worship team and the tech team. Each side brings unique talents to the table that the other side doesn’t. Respect that and work as a team and worship will become more than a sum of its parts.

  stew·ard·ship

  [stoo-erd-ship, styoo-]  Show IPA

When I first became a Christian and heard about the term “Stewardship” I believed, and I suspect most of us do, that being a good steward meant saving every possible penny and cutting costs to the bone to maximize the money that God wanted us to use for His ministry. So I dutifully did that. Fixing up old, obsolete equipment, McGiver’ing up ways to do things without having to spend any money. And I patted myself on the back for a job well done.

Boy was I wrong. In my rush to pinch pennies I was ripping off God. How egotistical was I that I thought that to do things for God’s pleasure meant cheaping out on the one sacrificial gift God gave me to please Him! And to think I used to brag about how much I DIDN’T spend! A few years ago God opened my heart and opened my eyes. It is impossible to outgive God. It is also impossible to outsave God. If we really, really mean what we say and what we tell ourselves then we cannot look at money as the sole object of stewardship.

It’s not about the money. Or more precisely, money isn’t the most important facet of the complex face of stewardship. Read that quote at the top of this post from John Wesley. It’s a great quote that exemplifies what proper stewardship is all about. Do what we do with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our resources, all for the Glory and Honor of God. “Do All The Good You Can, By All The Means You Can, In All The Ways You Can…”. Man, what a call to action that is!

Proper stewardship means the responsible overseeing and protection of something considered worth caring for and preserving. Read that definition again because it’s a profound change from what we think stewardship is all about. It doesn’t say anything about not spending money or finding the cheapest alternative possible, even if it means replacing that cheapest alternative in a few years because it was, well, cheap. Proper stewardship means using someone who knows what they are doing and has the experience to back up that knowledge that can balance the church needs against the church funds. Even if that means telling the church that it would be better to wait until they can afford the proper equipment. It means telling the church that what they want to do can’t be done for next to nothing.

Good, reliable, professional equipment costs money. There’s no way around that. It’s expensive for several reasons. It’s been around for years and gone through the hands of a lot of pros. While there is a certain amount of brand name overhead involved there’s a reason that these brands have been around and can get top-dollar. It doesn’t mean that there’s only one right piece of equipment but it does mean that you need to look at equipment purchases from a value proposition instead of a cost basis.

Here’s an example. You can buy a 24 channel audio mixer for about $500 on the low end and go up to $4,000 on high end. That’s for an analog mixer. If you don’t know what you’re looking for and just took a cursory glance at the specs chances are that they’d look similar and you’d be justifiably right to question why the church should spend more than the $500 mixer. What you wouldn’t know is that the reason that the $500 mixer costs that little is because it’s cheaply made, it’s a ripoff of other designs, it only sounds good in a very narrow range of parameters and it will (not may) break in a quarter of the time that other mixers service lives have. At the other end of the scale the $4,000 mixer is probably going to be way too much mixer for your church unless you a) either have a worship team that’s as good as Hillsong and/or b) have the rest of the equipment that will complement and do justice to the fine signal that the big-bucks mixer is feeding into the rest of the signal chain.

A similar situation exists with churches that are planning a building expansion project. I’ve seen churches that have a multi-million dollar budget for a new building but never budgeted for an acoustical consultant to come in at the plan stages of the building to help analyze and adjust the dimensions and properties of the proposed building to mitigate the cost of retrofitting acoustical material that may be necessary if no priority was given to the acoustical signature of the building. An acoustical consultant isn’t cheap. Figure on about $2,000 – $5,000 or more for a qualified one to accurately model the building and present recommendations. These recommendations can range from building dimensions redesign to materials changes to acoustical treatment. On the face of it that amount of money seems like a decent sum of money. It is. But in the scale of a million dollar project it isn’t. And getting an acoustical consultant in at the beginning of the design process can eliminate costly retrofitting later when the new building sounds like a ping-pong ball.

Proper stewardship means building a realistic budget for the most expensive area of the church outside of the building itself. The technical ministry by its very nature is expensive and complex. Don’t put people in charge of it that don’t know anything about the ministry or the equipment. You wouldn’t pick someone out of the congregation and give them the responsibility to pastor the church every week, would you? You certainly wouldn’t want someone in the pulpit who didn’t have the right training and experience. So it’s not okay to just throw some well-meaning volunteer back with the most expensive the church owns without some training. Invest in the people. Invest in creating a budget that includes training and includes replacement costs. Know the acceptable lifespan of equipment. Budget for repairs or preventative maintenance. That also means budgetting for downtime for the equipment while it gets maintained. I can’t tell you how many churches I’ve visited that have mixers that haven’t been cleaned in years and aren’t covered. Do you know how much dust is in that mixer? Enough to inhibit proper functionality. A proper yearly maintenance cleaning of a mixer takes about 2 days of a qualified repair tech’s time. It will cost about $150 -$200 for the cleaning. Expensive? Not from the big picture viewpoint that a new, decent mixer will cost about $1,000.

Money and funds will always be a concern for the church, especially small ones. But by creating a yearly budget and putting small amounts toward that budget every week you can build up to a working budget without having to have crisis moments. This will also allow you to involve the congregation. They need to know that there are fixed costs with the equipment and equipment wears out. Involve them in the success or failure of the ministry. We are all in this together, for better or worse, to bring people together to know the love of Jesus. Let’s promote proper and responsible stewardship!

Weren’t expecting this, were you?  In the midst of all the technical stuff we do and in the controlled chaos that is a worship service how many times have we purposefully stopped prior to the start of service or even at the end of service when it’s just you and the pastor and give him encouragement? A pastor’s job is one of the most isolating, difficult and emotionally draining ministries there could be. A pastor is expected to be the one who gets the phone calls or people coming up to him unloading their problems and getting prayer. They are the ones who have to keep a stiff upper-lip when every fiber in their being is screaming and crying out in emotional pain. Pastors are not allowed to have an “off” day. I know pastors who work 7 days a week. Even when they take a day off they aren’t far from the congregational yoke that they gladly wear to serve the Christ that brings us salvation.

I had the great fortune to attend the Gurus of Tech Conference 2012 held at Willow Creek’s Crystal Lake campus last week. It was an extraordinary event geared toward the technical artists within the church. The production team at Willow is unbelievable, both with their technical proficiency and their willingness to answer questions from a critical bunch of fellow techs. There were a lot of great sessions that talked about everything from burnout to vision. But the one session that stood out in my mind was when Todd Elliott, the Production Director for Willow Creek, sat down with Senior Pastor Bill Hybels of Willow Creek and talked about what Bill as pastor needs from the Tech Team. I’m not going to paraphrase Bill’s comments. Instead I’m putting the link to the full video here. Please take some private time and watch the whole video. There is amazing insight in what a pastor of probably the largest church in America interacts with his production team.

Here were my takeaways:

1. Production matters.

2. A pastor needs you as much as you need him.

3. If a pastor gets an audible from the Holy Spirit at the last time, help him to make whatever changes are necessary enthusiastically and professionally. It doesn’t matter if it’s at the last minute if the pastor feels God is requesting the change.

4. A perfect service doesn’t mean one that didn’t have problems. It’s one where the power of God becomes evident in the room and people are touched by the Holy Spirit.

5. A pastor is often emotionally raw after a service. Support him by letting him know that you thought he did a good job or pray for him. Tell him thank you. It makes a world of difference and helps him to know that you’re on the same team.

6. Make a mistake once. Then figure out how to avoid making the same mistake again.

7. Ask for honest feedback from your pastor about how he viewed the service. Do this on a regular debrief basis.

8. Your pastor loves you and wants the best for you.

Our pastors live in a world of gray areas. We, as technical types, tend to live in a black and white, 1′s and zeroes world. If we can start to view things from his viewpoint we’ll be able to serve him better. That will make him more comfortable and be able to get his message out better. He needs us to get things right so he can get things right.

Audio Essentials For Church Sound is written by my good friend and fellow blogger, Chris Huff (www.behindthemixer.com). Chris Huff is a sound tech passionate about teaching live audio production through blogging and in-person training. His teaching style is known for making complex concepts easy to understand while showing how these concepts can be immediately applied for improving sound quality. Chris got his start as a sound tech in 1990. He went from working as a one-man operation to heading up a church tech team and operating BehindTheMixer.com with over 20,000 visitors per month. His articles from BehindTheMixer have been featured on ProSoundWeb.com and in Religious Product News. Chris started BehindTheMixer.com in 2007 as a way of helping church sound techs learn the fundamentals of live audio production for creating the best worship experience possible. His unique insight into live audio production comes from his experience both as a sound tech and as a former praise band musician.

Chris has written a new e-book available in Adobe PDF format that is available only from his website. I’ve put the links in above. First things first. The cost of the e-book is $29.97 and is worth every penny. It is not currently available as a printed book but since you can print off the 336 pages it isn’t that big a deal and it would cost substantially more if it there was a printed version. I can hear you saying now, “Gee Brian that’s kind of pricey for an e-book isn’t it?”. No it isn’t and I’ll tell you why. What Chris presents in these 335 pages (along with a ton of equally useful free extras like mp3 files and reference charts) is pretty much a solid week worth of audio training that if you sent your audio tech out for it would cost you around $500 – $1,000.

This is the first audio training book that takes every part of the church audio process and breaks it down into easily understandable segments, starting with the purpose of the ministry and proceeding through each logical step of the process, leaving nothing out. Things are written in easy to understand language that anyone with any background (especially volunteers who have no audio experience or training) will be able to handle. Chris understands the typical church audio volunteer has a servant heart but was drafted into that role without any prior experience. Nothing is left to chance as Chris takes each chapter and breaks it down into the process sections that make up that chapter. He breaks down the theory and puts it to practical application.

Take for example the chapter on Setting Up The Stage. Here are the components:

Cables

Direct Input Boxes

Microphones

Amplifiers and Isolation Cabinets

Monitors

Safety

On-stage Communication

Optimal Channel Strategy

See what I mean? Because this book is written for the church audience there’s a lot of stuff specific for the church that you won’t find in general audio books. My favorite book that I used to tell my students to reference, Yamaha’s Guide to Sound Reinforcement, is a tough read. The first half of the book is all about sound theory and the last half gets to sound reinforcement strategies. It’s great if you’re planning on sound reinforcement being your career but it won’t be your best buddy if you’re the only one trying to set up the mixer. Audio Essentials For Church Sound will be your constant companion and reference guide at your sound booth. You literally can use this book as a audio novice and walk through each chapter and set up your church’s sound equipment without any experience and get a solid sound the first time.

Each chapter is laid out in the same fashion. Chris first goes through the details of the chapter. Then he summarizes the chapter. Then the next two things that make his book a great learning experience. Chris has a page of assignments (think of it as homework) that reinforces the learning of the topic. And finally he adds a quiz page for you to test your knowledge of the topic. What a great concept! And because this book is for the church audience Chris interjects a church-oriented approach to sound reinforcement, along with helpful chapters on how to deal with the various people in the church.

As previously mentioned. along with the purchase of the e-book you get scads of extra reference content like mp3 file samples for eq’ing and compression along with probably another 30 pages of reference charts such as frequency charts and a drum mixing e-book. The way I’d recommend for a beginning sound tech to use the book is this way: First I’d set aside a weekend to read through the entire book. Then I’d go chapter by chapter and go through the assignments and quizzes. Then I’d print out the book and bring it into the sound booth and use it as a reference guide to learn each process. After that I’d leave it in the sound booth for any time you have any questions or issues. Because of the way it”s broken down you can go to a specific section and find the answers quickly.

Audio Essentials For Church Audio gets a 5 STAR rating from me. I’ll be recommending this book every time I train church audio teams. This will make you a better audio tech and get a better sound out of your sound team.

The second item that I consider a requirement for the church audio tech is an app written by another friend of mine, Dan Comerchero. Quiztones is an app available on the Ios App store or on the Mac store (sorry PC and non-iPhone/iPad users). What this app does is to train your ears to recognize audio characteristics. The iPhone/iPad app costs $4.99 and the Mac version costs $19.99. Why the difference? Here’s why:

As you can see the Mac app has a few more quizzes that are included while the iPhone/iPad version has the expert-level and gain level comparison quizzes as in-app purchase options. I recommend getting them as you’ll end up wanting them to round out your training. There is a demo available from the www.quiztones.net website.

Here’s the way I recommend you using the app. Hook up your Mac or iPhone/iPad to your church sound system. Might as well use the system that you’re going to use on Sunday to train with! Then start with the quizzes. Do it as a group if you want to have fun with some friendly competition. This way you can also tell whose ears are better! It’s also an easy way to do a quick hearing test too. The quizzes are broken into sections:

EQ Quizzes Include Four Trainers:

• Easy Frequency Boost (+10 dB)
• Hard Frequency Boost (+5 dB)
• Hard Frequency Cut (-10 dB)
• Expert Frequency Boost (+5 dB) – 1/3 Octave*

Gain Quizzes Include Two Trainers:

• Easy*
• Hard*

* Included for Mac / In-App Purchase for iOS

Quizzes:

• My Music Library (choose your own source audio)
• Tones (sine waves)
• Pink Noise
• Piano
• Drums
• Strings
• Strings 2
• Orchestra
• Female Vocals
• Electric Bass
• Upright Bass
• Electric Guitar
• Acoustic Guitar

You’ve read all the stories about losing your valuable data on your computer. Maybe you’ve experienced a loss of data. Whatever the reason you’ve been convinced that backing up your data is the best possible protection against data loss. You’ve set up a scheduled backup either locally on an external drive/CD/DVD or you’re using one of the many online backup services. You keep multiple versions of the most important files and you check that the backup is running regularly.

But before you start congratulating yourself that your data is truly protected and recoverable I want to ask you this question. How do you know for sure?

I spent over 25 years in large-scale corporate IT environments working with distaster recovery and the one thing that I’ve learned is that a backup isn’t just about backing up your data. You’ve got to know without a shadow of doubt that your backup is backing up the correct data on an appropriate schedule and that you can recover the data at the level that you need it. In the corporate environment that meant on a daily/weekly/monthly basis we verified the backup process, and for our critical files we recovered them to test out the system.

How does that apply to your home or church computers? Let’s set up a typical computer scenario. Your church has some kind of tracking software or you’re using Quickbooks or other financial system. The data that is stored is crucial to the continued operation of the church. Or if you’re looking at this from your home computer viewpoint, you’ve got a ton of family pictures that aren’t stored anywhere else. Lose these and you’ve lost irreplaceable memories. Either way you’ve started running automated backup software (say Time Machine on Macs and Windows Backup on PCs) and you’ve determined that you only need to back up the files once a week. You determine that you need to keep 4 versions of the backup file (1 for each week). This gives you a month’s worth of backups that lets you guard against accidental deletion or file corruption. So far so good.

Backing up the data is only half of the data protection cycle. The other portion that isn’t talked about much is being able to verify that what you think you’re backing up is really what you want to back up and being able to recover the data properly. How do you do that? It depends on the software or backup service you use so I’ll discuss the general principles and you’ll need to check with your software or backup service on their particular way to do it. First thing is that when you set up the backup you’ll usually have an option to verify the data. What that does is that the software runs a self-check on the data integrity of the backup. It doesn’t mean that it checks the actual data (that’s your job). It checks to see that the backup file isn’t corrupt. That’s the first step. The second step is to manually verify that the data that’s backed up is correct. That’s done by looking at the backup file on the backup drive or service. Look up the file name that corresponds to the file name on your computer. The file size should be identical (unless you’re compressing data). If it’s not then you need to ask yourself what’s changed, especially if it’s just been backed up and nothing has changed.

The next step is to physically verify that the backup file has all the right data and that the restore procedure works. What good is backing up the data if you can’t restore it? If you’re using local software make sure that you have a copy of the software stored offsite in case something happens to your computer. Nothing’s worse than having a backup but don’t have the software to restore the data because you no longer have access to the computer you backed up. To verify the restore procedure you want to copy your local file to a different location or to rename it temporarily. Then run the restore portion of the backup software. Usually the restore process will ask you if you want to restore the entire backup (you don’t) or  a specific file (you do). Check the specific file that matches the one you’ve moved or renamed. Then the software may ask you which version of the backup do you want to restore. G0 f0r the latest version since if you’re verifying your files on as regular a basis as your backup that will be all you need to check. The software will probably ask you to be sure you want to restore the file and it may ask you if you want it to be restored to the original location/computer or a different location/computer. Once you decide where you want it the restore procedure takes over and run the restore process. After that completes (if all goes properly) you should have your backed up file on your computer. Go ahead and open it up with the software that you normally use with it. If it opens and everything looks good you know that your backup is truly a backup and you can rest comfortably knowing that you really do have a good backup. If not review what you’re backing up and how you’re doing it.

There are a lot of horror stories about companies, both large and small, that thought they were backing up their data only to find out that either their backups weren’t running or the data was wrong or corrupt. They couldn’t recover. Don’t let this happen to you. While it does take some time and effort to verify your backups think of it as an additional insurance policy. And, in the event you ever need access to the backup, you’ll look like a hero instead of a zero.

You say toh-may-toe, I say toh-mah-toe!

While there is no truly defined industry standard in laying out the channel assignments for live sound, there are general layouts that a lot of live audio veteran engineers utilize with minor modifications. Typically when you layout channels you start from Drums then Keyboard, then Acoustic Guitar, then Electric Guitar, then any other instrument not covered, then vocals. Throw recorded stuff like CD/DVD players, iPods and computers at the end. Within that general set here’s a more specific layout that I use. If you have a mic or more than the number of instruments coming in you’d add them into the corresponding sequence and shift the remainder of the channels down. For example: With 2 kick drums you’d use channel 1 and 2. Mic’ing a snare with a top and bottom mic would mean putting the snare in channel 3 and 4, etc. The following layouts are ones that I’ve standardized on and I find works well for me.

32-Channel Mixer Layout

1 – Kick Drum

2 – Snare

3 – Hi-Hat

4 – Hi-Tom

5 -Mid-Tom

6 – Lo-Tom

7 – Stage Right Overhead ( *Stage Right means looking at the rleft side of the stage from the audience/sound booth perspective)

8 – Stage Left Overhead

9 – Percussion 1

10 – Percussion 2

11 – Keyboard L

12 – Keyboard R

13 – Synthesizer L

14- Synthesizer R

15 – Acoustic Guitar

16 – Electric Guitar 1

17 – Electric Guitar 2

18 – Vocal 1

19 – Vocal 2

20 – Vocal 3

21 – Vocal 4

22 – Vocal 5

23 – Choir Stage Right

24 – Choir Stage Left

25 – Pastor mic

26 – Handheld 1

27 – Handheld 2

28 – iPod L

29 – iPod R

30 – Computer L

31 – Computer R

Group Assignments

1 – Kick/Bass

2- Rest of Drums/Percussion

3 -Keys/Synths

4- Rest of Instruments

5- Vocals except for pastor and handhelds

For a 24-Channel Mixer Layout I to reduce things from L and R configurations down to mono to cut down the channels:

1 – Kick Drum

2 – Snare

3 – Hi-Hat

4 – Hi-Tom

5 -Mid-Tom

6 – Lo-Tom

7 – Stage Right Overhead ( *Stage Right means looking at the rleft side of the stage from the audience/sound booth perspective)

8 – Stage Left Overhead

9 – Percussion

10 – Keyboard

11 – Synthesizer

12 – Acoustic Guitar

13 – Electric Guitar 1

14 – Electric Guitar 2

15 – Vocal 1

16 – Vocal 2

17 – Vocal 3

18 – Vocal 4 or Choir Stage Right

19 – Vocal 5 or Choir Stage Left

20 – Pastor mic

21 – Handheld

22 – iPod

23 – Computer

Groups

1 – Kick/Bass

2 – Rest of Drums/Percussion

3 – Instruments

4 – Vocals

For a 16-Channel Mixer Layout I to reduce things even more to cut down the channels:

1 – Kick Drum

2 – Snare

3 – Hi-Hat

4 – Overhead

5 – Percussion

6 – Keyboard/Synthesizer

7 – Acoustic Guitar or Electric Guitar 1

8 – Electric Guitar 2

9 – Vocal 1

10 – Vocal 2

11 – Vocal 3

12 – Vocal 4 or Choir Stage Right

13 – Vocal 5 or Choir Stage Left

14 – Pastor mic

15 – Handheld

16 – Computer

Groups

1 – Kick/Bass

2 – Rest of Drums/Percussion

3 – Instruments

4 – Vocals

Depending on the size and liveliness of the room I don’t have a problem with going down to 2 mics on the drums. A kick mic and a good quality overhead condenser mic placed in the right position will pick up the majority of the drum kit. Now if you’ve got a drum cage for your drums you’ll get better sound by mic’ing all the drums individually but it does eat up channels.

I’ve used this setup for years after seeing it on some of the touring productions. I’m not suggesting that this is the perfect layout as there are  variations and if your board layout is different and works for you stay with it. Don’t change just for the sake of change.

Now for digital boards that operate in layers you may want to arrange things depending on the number of active fader channels that are in use at any one time. So if your mixer layers faders by 8 make sure that you keep like items together without spanning layers if possible. On a digital mixer you definitely want to use the groups/DCAs/VCAs as your major controls with the individual channel faders as your fine tuners. This way you’re not driving yourself nuts hitting the active layer button just to get to a specific channel during the performance.

I hope this helps. Don’t really know the origins of this setup or why it became popular. To me it feels like a logical and natural layout. As usual, your mileage may vary!

At our District Conference we had a critical and important video that was going to be shown at our public event. Knowing the importance of the video to the people involved I had run the entire video earlier in the day to ensure that it worked properly. At this point it’s worth pointing out that the video was ripped to a .mpg file on the computer’s hard drive (I know better than to trust running a video from a DVD). This computer was an up-to-date Windows 7 PC that was a strong machine. The video ran through smoothly with no errors. With the computer left alone until it was time for the video we started the video and, lo and behold, no sound. We were watching a silent movie. As soon as that happened I motioned to the pastor that we had a problem and went into troubleshooting mode. Retried the video again (this computer had EasyWorship 2009). Same thing. We rebooted the PC and tried again. Still the same thing. Since I’ve had more than my fair share of embarrassing moments playing video files on a Windows PC I had taken the precaution of keeping my USB drive that I had transferred the video file to the computer with me. So while the congregation was doing a meet-and-greet we transferred the file from the USB to the computer and brought it back into EasyWorship. Then we fired it up and this time it worked. Crisis over!

So what’s the takeaway? One, when things go south in a hurry, don’t panic. I know this is tough when everyone’s doing the gopher neck thing and looking back at you. Know that you can fix it. Don’t react without thinking first. Two, have a Plan B. While I’ve never had a video issue using  a Mac, I have had a ton of problems with Windows and videos. Regardless I always have a backup of the video file in at least 2 formats in some other location than the target computer. So from a troubleshooting angle always suspect that a file could have been corrupted. It goes without saying that you’ve verified that the files on your backup media works. Third, make sure the pastor knows what’s going on. I spent a few trips going up to the podium during opportune moments to keep the pastor updated so he knew what was happening and could plan what to do we couldn’t get the video working. Fourth, and this is probably the most important. Keep a sense of humor about things. Keep the mood in the booth light but professional. Know that acting stressed out and grumpy won’t solve a thing and make the other folks that you are working with uncomfortable.

The best comment I heard after this hiccup was from one of the pastors at one of our churches who said to his assistant pastor, “See, it’s not just us who have problems!”. And maybe this was a way that showed that even the technical consultant for the district can experience technical issues. I had a good laugh with everyone when it was over. But being calm and working through the problem while having a sense of humor showed that it wasn’t that big a deal and gave the churches that have issues realize that even the pros have problems. It’s how you deal with the problem and how you prepare for the possibility of a problem that sets the level of professionalism. If I hadn’t had a backup of the video file we wouldn’t have been able to show the video. We did so what could have been a major deal turned out to be a minor hiccup and a good icebreaker for the congregation.

Always have a Plan B. It applies to audio, video, and to some extent lighting. For some churches, especially those that are broadcasting video live, having the mic go out on the pastor is unacceptable. I’ve seen a lapel mic inconspicuously positioned as a backup to a headset mic. The mics are fed into 2 channels so in the event the primary mic goes out there’s still a backup that can be transitioned without interrupting service. For vocalists always have a replacement mic on-hand as well as a plan with the worship leader in case a mic/cable/instrument/amp goes out .

For video, if you’re running Windows, plan that you’re going to have something hangup. Know how to troubleshoot it quickly and have a plan in place if a video hangs, including when to reboot. If your church isn’t huge (your pastor or worship leader can see the booth clearly without binoculars!) keep a white board in the booth along with high-contrast erasable markers. This way you can write a warning comment to the stage in the event o f a problem.

Had an exciting moment where a Plan B helped make it less exciting than it could have been? Post a comment.

But, and this is a big BUT, there are some hidden dangers with continuing to utilize Flash in your church’s website. The first is assuming that everyone in the congregation, or more importantly, first-time visitors to the site, use either a DSL, cable, or other high-speed connection to get to your site. Flash sites take time to load. While there are ways to pre-load pages and optimize Flash sites, they are still slower than regular HTML pages. Especially in rural areas there are a lot of people that are still on 56k dial-up connections. If your initial page doesn’t completely load within 5-10 seconds you’re going to lose people.

Here’s the second and more important danger. Over the last year to year-and-a-half there has been a dramatic shift from desktop and laptop computers to handheld devices such as mobile phones and tablet computers. The majority percentage of the smartphones and tablets sold in America are Apple products. The iPhone has over 65% of the smartphone market. The iPad is so ubiquitous that it is becoming the generic term for a tablet.

A significant portion of the population now use their iPhones and/or iPads as their main way to communicate and view the web. People between the ages of 18 – 30 view these devices as their primary web device. They connect either through a WI-FI connection or through a 3G cellular network. While WI-FI connections are relatively speedy, the cellular 3G networks aren’t as fast. And data limits come into play when the cellular network is used. The iPhone and iPad also do not use Flash. There’s no way to get around that. Apple is adamant that their devices will not incorporate or allow Flash to be installed.

Re-read the last two paragraphs and take a moment to let it sink in. If 65% of the population uses an Apple product to connect to the web and your church’s website uses Flash, then you are losing 65% of the potential population that might visit your church if they could view it. That means out of every 100 people that visit your site, 65 people won’t be able to view the content because they can’t install Flash on their device. Think people looking for a church will go through the effort of calling the church to find out information or just move on to another church that has an accessible site on their device?

The web is constantly changing and adapting to new hardware and software technology. Instead of Flash, HTML5 (which iPhones and iPads prefer to use) provides the new way to generate content-rich sites. But since it is relatively new it’s not that available yet. An option for existing websites is to add a mobile site module to your site. Several template sites have this as an option. Even if your site doesn’t use Flash it would be worth considering adding the mobile site option to your site. This option allows for reformatting of your site to a mobile-friendly version. Usually it’s a stripped-down version of the full church website and that’s okay. Just make sure you have pertinent information on the mobile site. You’ll want contact information, church location, church hours as well as your church’s doctrine and staff information. If you can shoehorn some fun facts about the church so much the better.

Websites need to stay organic and constantly change to keep up with advances in the way people access information. Churches need to keep a budget for maintenance and updates that need to happen to stay current with these changes. Don’t make the assumption that once your website is created you won’t need to spend any more money on development.

Every tech who runs the sound board is a musician, whether they realize it or not. Which is also why they are every bit a part of the worship team as any of the other musicians. The difference between the musicians on stage and the tech folks are unique. Most of the musicians on stage will have played their instrument for a substantial number of years. They also have at least one of their preferred instruments at home. Sound techs probably got recruited and have never worked on a mixer until they got to church. They also probably don’t have a mixer at home.

The other main difference is that while a musician on stage could probably flub a note or miss a cue and no one, unless it was really horrendous or there’s a musician in the audience, won’t really notice. If the sound tech flubs something or misses a cue EVERYONE notices and invariably will do the mongoose thing and look directly at you from their seats. So while the sound techs are every bit as important as the musicians on stage, their role, because they affect everything sound-related, is more critical to get it right.

So now that the sound techs have it in their noggin that they are actually musicians they need to understand what that means. Musicians practice on their instrument until it becomes a part of them. Muscle memory builds with practice and after a while their instrument becomes an extension of themselves. Sound techs need to do the same thing. The biggest problem for most techs is that their instrument is only at church. So how do you practice? If you can get into church you can always plug music into the system through a computer. Yes you’re only playing around with one or two channels but you can still see how adjustments in EQ or FX make a difference in the way the songs sounds, and more importantly, in how it feels.

You can also download software such as Reaper which is shareware that will allow you to bring in a multitrack recording and play back the different instruments one at a time or all at once so you can see how different instruments and vocals sound. If you don’t have access to a multitrack recording see if a big church in your area will give you a copy of one of theirs. If they’ve got a digital board they’ll be able to do it.

The other things that you as a musician needs to do is to rehears the music. If you don’t know the music and know how the worship leader wants the dynamics of the song to go, you can’t do the song justice. While you can leave the fader levels all at the same setting for every song and let the worship team handle the dynamics, part of your job as a musician is to enhance what the team on stage is doing with the song. For every song that has quiet and loud parts, you Mr. Sound Tech/Musician, can drastically enhance and fortify the dynamics, making the song that much more powerful for the congregation. Quieting the song during the quiet passages allows the intimacy of the song to come out and envelope the congregation. It also allows the congregation to hear themselves sing and draws them into the song. Bringing the dynamics up during louder passages allows the celebration of the song to ring out and also gets the congregation to sing louder and feel less self-conscious. Don’t believe me? Try it with Mercy Me’s Emmanuel(God With Us). Practice it with the recorded version. Leave the faders alone, close your eyes and listen to how the song makes you feel. Then do it again but this time bringing the faders down in the soft passages and bring them up in the louder passages. Now compare how that version made you feel.

Once you and the worship leaders build up the trust needed so that you become integral to the success of the worship team then you’ll be amazed and how well worship will sound.