WorshipMIX Church Sound Articles

How Loud Is Too Loud pt 3

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:43:50 -0700

It's 10:02 AM: Time for a loudness attitude check. I don't like dwelling on the negative, but I think this is worth talking about.

How you approach the loudness issue is affected by your attitude. Sound engineers are a renegade bunch, and they get dumped on a lot. Not many people praise great sound, but they sure go out of their way to criticize when it's not to their liking.

So it's not surprising to find some pretty defiant attitudes around the sound board. I completely understand where that comes from, I've been there myself. Someone marches into the sound booth and my defenses are up 110%.

However, here's the hard part: put yourself in the shoes of the person that complained. It took a lot for them to get up out of their seat and confront you in the sound booth. They wouldn't do that for a minor issue - something is really irritating them!

Recently I was running sound for a worship conference. It was a great venue, there was a huge EAW rig that sounded great, and the audience was pumped. But on the first night a little lady came in the booth and told me that there was waaay too much bass.

My teeth clenched tightly together... from my perspective the sound was simply spot-on and there was nowhere near too much bass. How could she find fault with it? In spite of my feelings, I asked her to show me where she was sitting and then I walked with her to hear what she was hearing. (I left the board in the hands of an intern - a little scary, but she did fine).

Sure enough, when I got there I realized she was right. The subs were pumping a ton of energy into the room and overwhelming everything else. It didn't sound bassy at the booth, but it definitely sounded that way where she was. The booth was in some kind of subwoofer dead spot and I just didn't know it.

Another man in another seat complained too. He was an older grey haired dude, and I sure wanted to discount his complaint. He said with an angry tone "I feel it in my chest, it makes me feel sick". It would be easy to dismiss him on age alone. But again he was right.

After that session I walked the room and found that there were some serious coverage problems in the low end. The room also had sloped, stadium seating towards the back and the bass built up in those areas even more than at the front where the complainers sat. I was going to have to mix bass-lite in order to give most people a good experience.

The conference had several more sessions with music. After each session I looked for that man to ask him if I had fixed the problem for him. By the end he was giving me the thumbs up and we concluded on a good note.

I’m thankful those people were sent to knock my pride down a few notches. At the end of the day I want to be a conduit between the worship leader and the audience, not a source of distraction.

How Loud Is Too Loud pt 2

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:42:32 -0700

Here's another article on loudness:

http://www.churchsoundcheck.com/hlitl.html

We did the same thing at my church, trying different volume levels while the worship leader monitored complaints. Complaints went way up starting at 95db C weighted, slow, at the loudest part of the service. Average parts of the music peaked at 92db. When we went below 90db (peak), band members in the audience complained that it wasn't loud enough.

On the C weighted scale, bass influences the meter reading. So we let the level go to 95 if the bass was featured. Muting the bass guitar should bring the mix to 92 peak.

That's where the numbers taped to the front of the db meter came from (see pic).

How Loud Is Too Loud pt 1

Fri, 6 Jun 2008 17:24:53 -0700

How Loud Is Too Loud? Part 1

This issue comes up a lot. And the answer is often elusive. There are so many variables that go into the "feeling of loudness" for an audience.

If loudness is a constant issue at your church, you probably have a major problem. It's not a subtle issue of musical taste or style if people are complaining often. You have either a major technical or artistic problem.

Here's a summary of recent dialog on the subject:

• a bad band or bad mix will seem too loud at 85db. James Taylor and his top musicians playing the best instruments mixed well could run 100+ db and no one would complain. If you're running 92-95 and people are complaining the mix and/or band needs a tune up.

• It's important to note where audience comments are coming from. Speaker coverage is not perfect. Total volume as well as frequency balance will vary at different locations. Bass below 125hz often varies a lot, not counting the chairs directly in front of the subs. The soundman needs to mix for the whole room, not just for the booth, so it's important to get calibrated.

• Walk the room and listen for broken speakers or processor problems. If everything is right you should notice volume and frequency response smoothly changing as you pass in front of the different speaker clusters and delays. If there are any sudden changes something is wrong. The lack of uniform coverage can generate complaints.

• Stage volume can be hitting people more than is heard at the sound booth. A guitar amp pointed out to the audience can be pretty loud straight off of the speaker cones even across the room.

• Sometimes I mix FOH at worship conferences. One of them is held at a huge church and they have a 98 db speed limit on their sound level meter. However, at the conference the crowd singing and clapping was reading 98 db even before the first song kicked in! So the mix ended up at 98 or above just to be heard over the crowd. That's a different situation than at most churches, but it does play a factor. A more involved audience can take more volume. If the audience is disengaged (8AM service, it's raining out, recent death in the church, etc.) they may not be ready for a rock and roll sonic assault. it's better to error on the side of lower volume.

• It helps to take a long break between rehearsal and the service. Your ears get used to the volume of rehearsal, and it's easy to start the service where rehearsal left off. This will seem fine to you, but shocking to those who are just walking in. Lately I've been lowering the master fader 6db at the end of rehearsal before I go to get a donut - that seems like a good amount. When I come back in the volume feels just as loud as before, but it's really not.

• Mark your master fader settings for the songs early in rehearsal. Getting that first impression volume notated before your ears desensitize can be helpful to prevent volume creep.

• Pick points during the service to "gather back" some volume. Sometimes verse 1 or 2 of a song allow you to pull the master down a bit, giving you the ability to surge it back up for effect later on. This can also help with volume creep.

My own personal standard: If I can't hear myself sing it's too loud for worship. At that point it's a concert. If your worship team has decided to go in the "concert" direction that's fine, but if having everyone participate in worship is important then test by singing along yourself.

The Next Level

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:17:52 -0700

I was recently asked to help define what the "next level" would look like for a church's AV ministry. Normally I think of the levels as:

Level 1: everyone can see and hear
Level 2: distractions are eliminated (feedback, dead mics, P-pops, too loud, etc.)
Level 3: Music sounds good and speaking sounds natural
Level 4: Your team can deliver Levels 1-3 consistently from week to week

So then what's the next level? Do we even need a level 5? I'd sure love to put a stop to the constant striving for perfection and give everyone a break.

I asked some friends what they thought. There were lots of great ideas, like:

- Once you have a Level 4 team, multiply it by mentoring others
- Write down your methods to be used as training for future team members
- Concentrate new efforts on building relationships among the team.

I like all of those ideas, especially the last one.

Here's another one:

What will worship be like in heaven? When I think about the heavenly host singing "Alleluia" I don't picture those voices mic'd and sent through some line arrays while the angelic audio engineer struggles to control feedback. I imagine that scene being completely transparent sonically.

Once I had the opportunity to mic up a really good gospel choir for a recording. I was in front of the conductor fiddling with the mics while they were rehearsing and the sound was just unbelievable - I imagine the heavenly host sounding like THAT! The recorded choir sounded great too, but a lot gets lost in the micing, recording & playback process.

Have you ever been in a small group worship setting with a gifted worship leader? Being in close proximity really makes an impact. Small churches have an advantage in this. If the best worship experience is when you're within 10 feet of the leader, in a small church the first row of chairs might really BE 10 ft away!

Much is lost when technical systems are introduced. We need them to see and hear with a large crowd, but there is a big loss of immediacy.

Perhaps Level 5 is:

Level 5: Do everything technically possible to reduce the "distance" between the leader and the people.

At Level 5 digital sound boards, expensive line arrays, and HD projection systems gain importance. They are powerful tools for reducing the effective "distance" between the folks on stage and the audience. But they are just tools, nothing more. We don't need 'em for levels 1-4 in most cases.

You may ask: how then did anyone have a good worship experience before all this fancy stuff was invented? That's a good question! To me, the answer is: when the audience itself is worshiping, we are surrounded by worship leaders. Better than any line array is the experience of being in the center of a large group of eager worshippers. 100.1 surround sound!

In fact, therein lies the biggest danger of the improved systems: that of replacing the worship experience with the sizzle of the technical experience. How many times have you attended a service where the technical stuff distracted you from why you were there?

So part of Level 5 is reducing the effective distance without detracting from anything already achieved. Just because there is enough P.A. to serve 110db to each seat doesn't mean that we have to use it all each week. Just because there are 5 cameras doesn't mean we should use all, or even any of them during worship.

Sounds like a good topic for a future discussion ;)