So far this year I’ve been to a few church services that are more traditional- piano, organ, choir, hymnals, etc. In a way, it’s been a little nostalgic for me, as I grew up in small churches that only sang hymns with piano accompaniment. It occurred to me how a lot of traditional churches on the surface appear to not suffer from the frustrations of audio problems because they aren’t trying to amplify drums, electric guitars, etherial keyboards, pop-style vocals, etc. The reality though is that there are still issues that need addressed and sometimes, the simplicity of the mix can make problems even more noticeable.

One of the foundational principles I teach is that the goal of a mix is to replicate the sound that is being produced on stage. If a drum set sounds bad on stage without mics, then you’ll be fighting it as you try to fix it with all the knobs and sliders in your sound booth. It will benefit everyone if the problem can be addressed at the source- tuning the drums, or replacing the heads, or using different sticks, or replacing the drummer (ok, maybe that’s not an option!).

The same thing applies to your choir and piano mix. Remember that you are not the choir director. It is their job to conduct, blend and “mix” the sound of the group into 1 unified unit. It is the audio engineer’s job to capture and replicate that same sound to everyone in the listening area of the audio system.

Some common mistakes I see in traditional churches are as follows.

1. Just throwing a mic on a piano and then trying to EQ it. First, flatten the EQ. Then, move the mic around as the piano is being played until you achieve the most natural sound. Lastly, use your EQ only if needed to smooth out the high end or warm up the low end, etc.
2. Observe the 3:1 rule! This states that whatever the distance a mic is from the source it is capturing, no other mic should within 3 times that distance. For example, if your middle choir mic is 3′ from the front row, no other mic should be within 9′. Another common mistake is leaving the pulpit mic on when the pastor is preaching at the pulpit while using a wireless mic.
3. In a traditional setting, monitors are not common, but especially if many of the musicians are used to them from other venues, they may lobby for more and more, louder and louder monitors. Before you know it, the piano coming through the monitors is louder than the choir! It’s a slippery slope, and I recommend collaborating WITH your music director to reduce as much volume in the monitors as possible.

If you have other areas that need addressed or want to share any tips or tricks, please contact Phil at asoundchurch.com, via Twitter, or on Facebook.