Recently, I’ve been able to work a couple shows, and it has reminded me how much different the church world is from the ‘real’ world when it comes to audio and production. I’ve had a few thoughts stick in my mind that I want to share, and some insight I’d like to impart after a conversation or two with some production company owners, roadies, and musicians. The 1st lesson I want to share is one that I hadn’t planned on mentioning or focusing on when I started this blog. However, this aspect is one of the most important areas you can focus on to become the best possible audio engineer.

Lesson 1. Understand your relationship with the band. You are there to support them. I know. I know… and you’re right. They need to help you help them. I’m encouraging you to do your part though. As a buddy recently posted on his blog:

If you work for the production crew, your responsibility is to help the artist put on the best show possible.  The artist is there to entertain the audience.  YOU are there to help the artist entertain that audience the best they can.

Lesson 2. Sound check is just as important as rehearsal. It’s amazing to me how many church bands expect to walk in 30 minutes early on Sunday morning, expect the monitors to be perfect, complain that their time is ‘wasting’ away when the monitors need set, then blame the sound crew for a bad performance. It blows my mind that you might have to explain to a band that they need to give you time to work on a mix or their monitors, but alas, you might.

Lesson 3. I remember a while back doing a show with a certain classic rocker. His mixing console had blown up or something, and they had to bring in a new one. It meant we (the opening band) had to wait for a full-blown sound check by the headliner, and I was sympathetic for the FOH engineer since the other board was already dialed in for the most part, of the 40+ inputs. A comment he made really stuck with me though. “Oh well. It happens. Besides, the mix was getting too clean anyway.”

Perhaps this would be a good exercise for your crew: Once every 4-8 weeks, but no longer, zero out the console and start over. Yes, it’ll take time and you’ll need the band to be patient and do a full sound check, but I bet you’ll find the result as positive. This idea came from a friend of mine who does a fair share of church audio system installs. He was telling me how often churches, clients, call him months after the install complaining that something is wrong. Most often, when he goes to investigate, the gain structures and EQs are all out of whack.

Lastly, I’d like to encourage you to listen to more live music than just Sunday mornings. Does a local coffee shop have a singer/ songwriter play on the weekends? Is an old favorite band coming to town? Does you youthgroup band play on the evenings? Listen to a wide range of music styles, on good headphones, and listen critically. Do you hear the individual drums/ cymbals? Can you pick out the bass, guitars, keyboards? Think about your inputs on your console and compare that to what you’re hearing. All of this, over time, will help you deliver quality audio to your audience, and they won’t even notice, until something goes wrong. Good thing we don’t do this for the recognition! Right?