To start, I’m writing this blog for Steve W., who posted a question on the Facebook page for A Sound Church. If you have questions, ideas, suggestions or just want to stay in touch, I invite you to that page, and also my Twitter. Being relevant to what you want to know is my #1 goal, so bring on the interactiveness.

A channel EQ will typically be either a 3-band (Highs, Mids, and Lows) or a 4-band (Highs, Hi-Mids, Lo-Mids, and Lows) EQ. The confusion starts when your board has 4 bands, yet there are 6, 8, 12+ knobs. Look at the photo in this post. This is a 4-band EQ. There are 2 knobs each for the highs and lows (red and black knobs respectively). There are also 3 knobs each for the high- and low- mids (green and blue knobs respectively).

My guess is, if you’re reading this, that you are the type that always readjusts the treble and bass in your car, trying to find that ideal setting. If you understand treble and bass and how it affects the sound, you can start to build on that and adjust the mids, or high and low mids as well.

Last Saturday, I was again running sound for The Elms. Side note- they released a new record recently, and I highly recommend it. Funny enough, they have a song titled, “County Fair.” The show last Saturday was at the Dekalb County Fair, just north of Fort Wayne, IN. I’ll get to the audio production portion, but let me show you what it’s like to be on the road. Our Friday night show ended and we rolled out at about 1:00am and instead of getting a hotel, we drove 4 hours across the state in a van and trailer, which goes slower than in your car. When we arrived at the hotel at 5:00am, they of course couldn’t find our reservation! Don’t worry. Happens all the time. We’re used to it.

One of the most common comments I get sounds something similar to, “We got this great sound system, and at first it was an awesome improvement from our old system. Now, though, it just sounds bad. I’m not sure what else we need to do!”

On one hand, I feel for these churches. They are right. They did invest in a good-sounding system. They believe the problem though, is with their gear. I think the problem, which is not the best word to use, though, lies someone else.

I just got done posting 3 sections of audio files in a new “Download” section. Before making my own files, I researched the web for a product out there that provided these type of tracks. I found none. The 1 product I did find was $80 plus shipping from the UK, and it was produced in a recording studio! My files are NOT produced, and it’s on purpose.

If you’re in the band, chances are you don’t always see eye to eye with your sound crew. If you’re in the sound crew, chances are you think your job is impossible since the band is too loud/ demanding/ unrealistic/ pre-madonna-ish (sorry for making that word up). My take, is that most audio engineers have the wrong attitude and often want ultimate control of the sound. The band though, also has to realize, that they have an ultimate responsibility!