Church sound

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One of my biggest pet peeves is bad sound at church worship services. I've been in big churches, small churches and just about everything in between. Nothing hurts my ears more than hearing a band which has been poorly mixed, weather it's a rock band, a pop music group or a worship band.

And by far the consistently worst sound that I experience is in church worship services. I think it's because the people behind the mixing boards at the vast majority of churches are not properly trained. It seems that anyone with even a slight interest in sound can work the sound board at church without having to go through much, if any training. It's an unfortunate reality, but I think it's overcomable.

So I want to ponder this for a moment. Why is it that churches will spend tens of thousands of dollars on sound equipment but then not spend anything (or very little) on training volunteers on how to use the equipment with skill? It's true that churches will generally train their people on the mechanics of how the stuff works. We can all go to church and the stuff is on and functioning, and sound comes through the speakers which is passable as music. But I've rarely been to a church where the mix is excellent (or even close to excellent). I think the answer is one. I've been to one church where the sound and mix blew me away. But that was after I spoke to the sound tech and asked him to turn the whole mix up. The raw sound of the band was overpowering the quiet mix. He was hesitant, but then did it and his eyes got really big with excitement as everything came to life.

Case#1
I was I was recently at a large Church for Sunday service. The worship band was composed of college-educated musicians and the music was meticulously composed and played with an abundance of heart. The sound system boasted an array suspended high in the middle of the stage and two directional loudspeakers to its left and right. Two large subwoofers flanked the left and right of the stage floor. The soundboard was all digital, and the list goes on. By many accounts, this was a premier set up.

But as things got rolling I could hear that the acoustic guitar was overpowering both of the vocalists, there was a fatiguing bright quality to the instruments, and the bass guitar sounded a bit like a honking duck. The drum set was caged in plexiglass with only the kick drum being sent through the console. The snare sounded mushy, like it was a kilometre away and the cymbals were washed out and the kick was all over the place, but the the toms rang just about right.

In short, what a mess!

There are four comments I can make about this scenario which I think would clean up 99% of the problems.

#1 - In a large church, everything needs to go through the soundboard. Mute things only if they are crisp and loud enough on stage to be heard across the entire auditorium with the band playing. And I wish we would stop putting drummers behind plexi glass. There's no need, unless you are doing church in a living room or the drummer is so loud that real hearing loss is possible.

#2 - level balance everything using the faders before messing with EQ or compression. Use EQ to first clean up rumble (High Pass 100hz on everything except the bass guitar and kick drum), then clean up mud (scoop somewhere in the 200-400hz range), then add clarity in form of a couple dB in the 3-5khz region (if necessary). Remember that a cut in the low mids is perceptually the same as a boost in the upper mids. Therefore, use carefully selected eq boosts and cuts to help things poke through the mix.

Hot tip: Sweep the EQ spectrum with a medium to large boost to find the most obvious problem areas for each channel in the mix. Turn the boost into a cut and listen for the sweet spot where things seem to almost magically get cleaner sounding. This works exceptionally well with vocals.

#3 -  Get it right at the source. Instruments must be tuned with a tuner, unless the musician can prove they have perfect pitch. Even then, I'd say just use the tuner for initial tuning and use your perfect pitch to correct issues as you hear them on the fly. Using decent quality instruments and amps is also important, but it's not vital to break the bank. 

#4 - Onboard EQs for acoustic guitars should be set flat or set up so they will work with (not against) the consol. Nothing is worse that an acoustic guitar clipping it's own internal preamp. The goal is to get things sounding natural and balanced right of the bat, before you even have to touch the EQ knobs. Microphones also need to be properly selected (there IS a tonal difference between an SM58, an SM58Beta and an Audix OM7). Guitar amps NEED to be set at a proper distance from the players and at a good volume for the room (guitarists and bassists need to be pushed to spend time getting their tone right ... if they don't,  they will usually just sound bad).

Case #2
Christmas Eve. My favorite day of the year. Except when there's bad Church sound. I was at a wonderful Church with a fantastic worship band and a great teaching pastor one year. They had a phenomenal sound system set in an excellent space which was acoustically treated! The natural sound in this sanctuary was ideal for recording. As ideal as case #1 was, this was even more ideal. They had a similar digital sound board and the gibson/fender logos abounded on stage. All in all, very high quality stuff.

And then the band began to play.

Once again the drums were caged off behind plexiglass (sigh). This time the entire drum kit was being sent through the soundboard, which was good. However the mixed sound coming out of the speakers was problematic.

The kick drum sounded like the drummer was hitting his foot against a piece of cardboard. The snare was lifeless and mushy but loud, and the symbols were crushingly loud. In contrast, the toms were just barely there. I could especially hear over-compression in the snare. 

The bass guitar had the low-end rumble of a 747, very little mid-frequency information and lots of brittle string noise. The piano was quiet but actually was well balanced. The Rhythm guitarist had a "memories of Black Sabbath" grainy sound. The vocalists wavered between being way too loud and too quiet, and were brittle in the 2-3khz range. The only redeeming quality was the lead guitarist who had clearly spent a lot of time perfecting his tone. Unfortunately he was too loud most of the time.

The same three comments above would also serve to clean up most of the issues. Here they are again, but condensed:

#1 - Send everything through the mixing console, unless you are in a small room. If channels are a problem, send just the kick and snare to the console and remove the plexiglass. Build the mix around that sound.

#2 - Get a balanced sound using the faders, making sure you can clearly hear each element of the mix. use EQ to make things pop only after you have achieved a decent rough mix. I'm not kidding when I say that 80% of the mix happens in the faders and the HP filter buttons. The other 20% of your efforts will take the mix either to 100% awesome or a 25% blowout.

#3 - Wisely choose microphones, make mic placement decisions, and make sure instrumentalists have got their tone down pat.

I will add a few more things to this list: 

Use compression sparingly. It often only takes a couple dB of compression at 4:1 ratio to make things really pop out of the mix. If the compressors have auto functions, use them.

If you are putting reverb on a snare drum, please, please used Gated Reverb (or none).

Use a bit of analog delay instead of reverb to thicken up vocals and electric guitars.

I'll be back soon with more specific advice for each instrument in the mix!