As an audio engineer, your job is to take all of the material from the band and singers, and assemble it all together to make 1 collective piece… like a puzzle. Too often though, the “pieces” we’re given are from totally different puzzles, so you end up trying to get them all to fit together the best you can in the 4-minute soundcheck you have, right before the service… all while trying to change batteries in the wirelesses, tape down the cables running across the platform and setting up the audio-to-video recording feed.

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.

For eight years I was the full time audio engineer for The Elms. Touring was fun, but I made the decision to get off the road late last year. The guys were in Columbus last weekend and asked me if I could step behind the board for them again. It was a blast, I have to say, and it was good to see everyone again. There is a lot church bands and audio crews can learn from a show like this. I’m going to give you a peek at the gear that was used, what it’s like to be the opening band, and some insights into the politics of a show this size.

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!