It’s a great thing that technology has become more and more affordable. A console 3-feet wide can now do more than all the gear you could cram in a 20′ x 10′ FOH area! Digital boards, smaller circuitry, computer-assisted all means many more sophisticated tools right at your fingertips, for the church audio guy to either masterfully shape your worship band mix… or destroy it by trying to use every tool available! This topic alone could be a book, but I’m going to focus in on one specific tool that I think gets waaaaay overused: Mute Groups, or Scenes (depending on your board).

Last night I attended an awards banquet with my wife. She teaches at a charter school with multiple locations, and all of the Ohio schools came together to honor the honor-roll kids. In a 1,000 seat ballroom at a downtown hotel, I heard some very unprofessional audio mistakes, and it reminded me, sometimes it can be about what you don’t hear.

Being in the back of the room, typically slightly higher than the congregation, you probably can see who is paying attention, who is sleeping, what new youth group couple is holding hands, and who is texting during the service. Seems a lot of people don’t pay attention, and I seem to find a lot of sound engineers pay too much attention during church.