I was listening to some classic music today. I don’t mean classical music, but some stuff from the 60’s. I was admiring the sound of the drums, and it got me thinking about most of the drums I see and hear at churches. Drums seem to be the enemy of a lot of church audio volunteers. They try to tame the drums by confining them to cages, putting tape all over the heads, and telling the drummer to use small sticks and play ‘jazz’ style. Let me offer a different approach to the drums.

This past summer I did a few shows that were outdoors in a festival set up, and the production was provided by fairly large companies. It’s not uncommon to have way more gear than needed for these types of shows, and one thing I typically see is gates on all of the drums. As you may already know, I want to keep things as simple as possible, yet on the rider I use most often, I ask for at least 4 gates, but preferably 8. My logic is simple. I’m going to use as little as possible, yet if I need more, it’s nice to know they are there waiting for me.

A lot of church sound engineers do not have the luxury of mixing 5+ shows a week, and most church musicians do not have the time to do a full soundcheck before each rehearsal. What this means, is that the average church sound engineer does not get to a chance to experiment with gear, learn EQ, understand gates, or tweak good compression. So, I present UNFINISHED sounding (on purpose) sound check audio files for you to use in your sound system and get more alone time with your gear.