This past Sunday I was reminded of the place of the “soundman” (a.k.a. FOH engineer) as a part of the worship team, as previously blogged by Dave in this article. My point of reference for the demands and goals I’m going to speak about are of course influenced by the worship philosophy/methodology at my place of worship. I have also had visiting pastors comment that a [good] soundman was even more important than the singers; I’ll leave that for them to say. But in our times of worship my goal is to accentuate or facilitate the “mood” I sense happening at any given time. I’m not talking about hype, I’m not talking about emotional manipulation, I’m talking about sensing what the Holy Spirit is communicating through a given song and doing my part to represent that in the mix (not unlike what the worship leader is doing from his/her position.) There may be a particularly tender moment where everything needs to come down, and in our little space that often requires me to even pull back a monitor mix a touch, (I’m working through getting the keyboardists, mainly, to get a feel for this for themselves) to get the right “feel.” It may mean bringing up the kick and the sub in general on a song like “You are Good” in order to match what I sense happening spiritually, and that’s one way I’d like to portray it; matching sonically what you sense spiritually during worship. On some songs it might mean bringing up a pad voice on a keyboard to add “thickness” or density that doesn’t draw attention to itself, yet adds intensity. This is a poor example, but it’s the best that comes to mind and that is during the soundtrack of “Top Gun“, the scene after Goose gets killed and Maverick talks to Goose’s wife, there’s a nice crisp acoustic guitar (synth) sound providing the movement, but there’s a (brighter than some) pad voice that adds the density, that’s what I’m talking about; it adds an intensity without screaming for your attention. Again, I’m not talking about hype, I’m not talking about emulating a rock & roll gig (for the sake of doing so), I’m talking about responding to what the Spirit is “saying” at any given time during worship. It would be wonderful if you could set the faders once and leave it up to the band, but I don’t know that such a band exists – and from their vantage point they are not equipped to do so since they are not in front of the mains, they aren’t able to know how what they’re doing is coming off from the listener’s perspective (both by itself and it’s interaction with the people and the environment), which is precisely why the “soundman” (FOH engineer) needs to have control over the mix – because they are in that position physically and technically. It’s balancing sources, it’s adjusting texture, it’s adjusting level, it’s embellishing intensity, it’s exaggerating subtle nuances, especially in the quieter moments, at least in a small space like the one I live in, it’s helping people navigate the focus at any given time.
Archive for February, 2008
Mixing in the Key of G
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008San Francisco Fleetweek Photo Gallery
Friday, February 22nd, 2008These photos are by Bernhard Zee
BZs 07 San Francisco Fleetweek Photo Gallery
Couldn’t resist linking to this gallery, some sweet photos of the Blue Angels including a water-stirring high-speed pass by #5.
(Some) Church Sound System Essentials Part 0
Monday, February 18th, 2008So I can’t help myself when I start talking on a topic and before I know it I’ve drilled down and lost sight of the 30,000 ft view altogether. Here’s the post I meant to do first, hence the “0″ designation. Here’s a list of what I consider to be basic necessary components for most churches of 70 – 300 people. My emphasis is going to be on getting a good recording of the sermon. I’ll drill down in following posts so please bear with my brevity.
Mixing console (‘ll be speaking about analog consoles since that’s where my experience is) with slightly more channels than you think you need, and, 1) at least 1 band of parametric EQ per mic channel, 2) at least 4 pre-fade AUX sends, 3) at least 4 subgroups, 4) high pass filter on every mic channel.
House graphic EQ, preferably 31 band.
Wireless, cardioid pattern: lav, headset or hand-held condenser mic.
Compressor for at the very least your main speech mic (regardless of whether you’re recording or not.)
Digital recorder of some sort if you plan to record sermons.
Good set of over the ear headphones for monitoring your record mix and individual sources.
Speakers. Yeah, you need them. I’ve built all the speakers I’ve used for the last 17 years so I’m a bit out of touch with commercial speakers, but I can give you some guidelines.
Subwoofer. You don’t necessarily need one if you’re under 100 people and/or depending on your style of worship, but what I would suggest is maybe go a touch smaller on the “satellites” and buy a sub rather than buying slightly larger mains and no sub. Remember, I’m keeping this particular post high-level.
Mics. Spend more which should allow you to spend less in the long run because of obsolescence.
Monitors. I built my own monitors too, with this in mind; the smaller the room, the smaller the speaker.
Amplifiers. Yup, gotta have them too.
Crossover; depending on whether you go with powered speakers or not. Hopefully I can clarify at least one aspect of crossovers – what and how the slope (expressed in dB per octave) effects performance and usability.
FOH Engineer: Playing The Mixing Console
Monday, February 18th, 2008Great article on the FOH engineer as a member of the band.
(Some) Church Sound System Essentials Part 1
Sunday, February 17th, 2008My goal for this post is to talk about what I consider to be some of the essential components of a church sound system, for smaller-ish churches (50 – 300 people.) A mixer with parametric EQ (also commonly referenced as “sweepable mid” on many consoles), a high pass filter that’s at least 12 dB per octave around 75 Hz, at least 4 subgroups, 4 pre-fade (or pre-fade selectable) AUX busses and if you’re about to purchase a console you should buy more channels than you currently need because like digital files, they will expand into the space allotted – instruments and sources will expand into the channels available.
Here’s a classic example and the replacement for (or you could say latest incarnation of) the console we have, the Mackie SR32.4. I’ll drill down on a couple specifics and explain why you should care. Parametric EQ (a.k.a. sweepable mid), because as much as we’d like, all the sonic problems we’re going to encounter do not happen at 1k or 2.5k (they actually happen at 3k :~P) Parametric EQ allows you to select not only cut or boost, but which frequencies to cut or boost. Just bass and treble isn’t going to get the job done, you need at least one band of parametric to address most tonal issues, especially on voices. For a (male) pastor with a good resonant voice you may boost the low EQ a touch then dial the parametric freq down very near it’s lowest point and then cut a little bit. This will give you a little FM action without it getting so muddy in the mid-bass (150 – 250 Hz.) Here’s an exercise that should paint a picture for you of what a parametric EQ does. Set the cut/boost control to center or 0. Now, play a CD through this channel and slowly sweep the freq control from one end to the other. What did you hear? The correct answer is “nothing!” Now, set the cut/boost control to about 3 o’clock and now slowly sweep the freq control from one end to the other. What you’re hearing is the frequency band you are boosting slowly being moved in the frequency spectrum from lower to higher (or higher to lower depending on which way to turned the control.) When you turn up a fixed mid control or the low/high bands you always hear the same range being boosted, those have a fixed frequency band that they effect. A parametric is like having a 1,000 band graphic EQ, with only one slider – you can have any one of 1,000 frequencies to work with, but you can only pick one. Try setting the cut/boost to 9 o’clock and sweep the freq control. What you’ll hear will sound similar at many ways, and therein lies the crux of deciding whether to cut when trying to fix a tonal problem, or to boost. Because the absence of certain frequencies will have a similar perceived effect of boosting certain other frequencies. You have to deduce if the problem you’re chasing is a peak – an excess of something, or shear lack of content many times requiring a boost.
If you’re recording your sermons, simply put; you need a high pass filter somewhere in the signal chain of your speech mic, period. It’s just poor production to have thumps and bumps and pops in a speech signal. For 99% of people’s needs there is nothing significant below 75Hz for most voices – dump it, get rid of it, stop offending those of us having playback systems with horsepower in that range ;~) In fact, in my opinion and with very few exceptions, you should just clean house and turn on the high pass filter for every channel except electronic keyboards, the bass guitar, CD or other pre-recorded playback channels and the kick drum. Those are the primary sources that generate any meaningful content in the range below 75Hz. If you have a system where you can control signal routing to your subwoofer (if you have one) yes you can just not route the other sources to the sub, but if you’re recording at all I would still suggest engaging the HPF for the sake of the recording – absolutely on vocal mics.) We’ll get into subgroups and AUX busses next time.
How Much Is Too Much?
Sunday, February 17th, 2008I was just talking with a friend from church about what it’s like when our level (or lack) of excellence ends up distracting from worship. And we as tech people can fall into the trap of justifying things in the name of excellence that really go well beyond just achieving a reasonable level of performance, the longer we’re in the field of tech the more esoteric we can be tempted to become. We have to be willing to make ourselves accountable to leadership when making recommendations concerning spending God’s money. Do we *need* to spend $2,500 on abc widget when $1,000 will get us to a place where a) the item in question does not cause distractions with it’s operation or it’s unacceptable level of performance and b) is it a good investment i.e. is it *so* cheap that it will not have the durability required for our application and we’ll (within a realistic life span expectancy) need to replace it enough times to cost as much or more than the $2,500 option. I like this post by Colin Birch on Faithtools.net, he makes the point (of excellence and our purpose as church techies) well. The food for thought I want to offer is to press ourselves hard to not over-spend. It’s God’s money, can we see ourselves standing before God on that day accounting for our stewardship of His resources?
Less Is More or, “Who’s Got The Lead?”
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008I was thinking on the topic for this post awhile ago and Daniel’s post on the subject of reducing levels instead of constantly jacking things up reminded me of it. For me it’s the guitar/keyboard drag race. Since they’re so similar sounding (with Piano being the voice used 95% of the time on the Yamaha P-60 we have) and in the same range, I constantly have to assess which one is doing the more unique thing or which one is leading whether by drive or melody or what. So once I get the subgroup for instruments in its place (at any given moment) I keep an ear on what these two are doing and attempt to reduce the one that’s doing the less important or less interesting thing rather than jack the lead instrument. I’m realizing that with digital photography and mixing that even though you can take a billion images of the same subject, or you can bring the roof down with the kick drum, you have to constantly be asking yourself which instrument is doing the thing that’s unique or providing the lead (I mean, you could take 10 photos of the same antique car from the same angle, but you should be looking for the one that provides the unique character or angle that brings it to life.) And for us it changes even during a single song. Commonly we’ll come out of a song into a free worship where the keyboardist is doing something melodic and in that role they need to come up a bit (depending on where the mood is at) or the guitar needs to come back to make room for the keyboard. That’s another way to think of it is to “make room” for the lead or unique sound in the mix by moving the other sounds out of the way, it doesn’t have to be the arrogant American thing where you have to shove the lead out front necessarily, you can move the others out of the way. It mostly depends on the overall level; if the keyboard (for instance) is already in it’s “place” in the mix, then the others need to move out of the way. EQ is the same sort of thing – try cutting 3kHz first rather than boosting 150 – 500 Hz. Is there not enough high end, or just too much of something else masking the high end that you have got?
Reinforcing The Church Blog
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008You probably found Daniel Koster’s Blog long before mine, but just in case, here’s a link. I checked it out today and found good stuff there.
Apple’s Aperture Comes of Age
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008I had written off Apple’s Aperture, long in favor of iView Media Pro, until now. Not that I’m going to shell out the $$$ anytime soon necessarily (at this point I’m just an arm-chair observer), but, I never considered it previously because it insisted on having it’s own library system, which meant that I would either have to give up the way I had my images stored/filed, or, I would burn up twice as much space to store them by virtue of the copy Aperture would make. Perhaps I’m a version behind on this too, but the announcement today brought it to my attention – along with the $100 price drop. Now we’re talkin’ Apple!
Working With MPEG2 (.MOD) Files
Sunday, February 10th, 2008So you’ve got one of those hard disk based camcorders and you want to do something with the .MOD files the thing generates. They’re MPEG2 files, and you have to say the magic word to do anything with them. This free app which is a wrapper for this MPEG2 codec will get you home, on the Mac. It will allow you to do all sorts of magic with MPEG files, not just MPEG2.