Recently, I’ve been hearing some discussion on the way to handle mixing a member of the praise band that is not peforming well. Should the person be muted from the mix? Should they be included the same as everyone else? I’m going to TRY to not open a can of worms, but it’s more fun if I do.

Does your church have one of these guys? Maybe it’s a girl- someone that really wants to be a part of the praise band, but they are very weak at their instrument or singing. They are usually the person described as ‘having a good heart.’ As the audio engineer, how do you react to that though?

Can you hear the can opening? Look at all these worms! A pet pieve of mine in the church, is that just because someone is willing, they are allowed to contribute. It goes beyond music. The person that slops paint all over carpet wants to help redecorate the lobby. The mid-life-crisis guy wants to hang out with the teens. And the 55-year-old person who played tuba in highschool wants to play in the praise band. The short answer, is that the music director needs to make the call and tell them no thanks.

If you find yourself mixing the audio though, and someone gets on stage that is detracting from the overall mix, it is your job to bury them in the mix, even if they do have a good heart. It may not always been on purpose or just bad talent either. If someone is playing in the wrong key or an instrument is out of tune, you should make them aware of the problem. However, if it happens during the service, and you cannot alert them of situation, then pull them out of the mix!

Earlier I did talk about how your job is to not make judgement calls on instruments’ tones, etc. I said that it is the job of the audio engineer to make each input sound in the house as it does off the stage unamplified. I hope you see the difference. Those items belong in the mix, even if you personally don’t like them. In the case of wrong notes/ keys/ etc., they do NOT belong in the mix, so don’t include them. Hopefully you have a good relationship with the music director AND band to talk about these items after the happen, and even avoid them in the first place.