Jan 12
6
2012 Already
Wow, it is 2012 already. What happened to 2011?
As usual, we had several major installation/system upgrades in 2011. We had a major main speaker system update at Mount Zion Church. We also did a main mixer update along with a major change of the multichannel wireless system at Church of Joy. We installed a new speaker management system at Kenosha First Assembly (our home Church). We also have a major upgrade proposal at another Church in Southeast Wisconsin. We did several other smaller projects throughout the year.
Our live sound events included four Twilight Jazz outdoor concerts, one Snow Flake Jazz indoor concert and True Freedom outdoor event. We bought one large piece of gear for live events, a 200 foot main and 50 foot monitor split, 48×8 Whirlwind snake and snake trunk. It works perfectly with our Allen and Heath ML5000-48 mixer.
Well, Happy New Year and if you have any audio needs in Southeast Wisconsin, Northern Illinois or Surprise, Arizona, contact us! We are here to help your Church with it’s audio ministry, special events, training and all things audio so that you can focus on equipping the saints and reaching out to the unsaved in your neighborhood.
And that is what the sound/media ministry is all about!
Posted in Uncategorized by .
Jun 11
9
Working With Smaller Churches
According to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research which has several statistics regarding United States church sizes as measured by attendance.
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html#sizecong
Approximate Distribution of U.S. Protestant and Other Christian Churches by size
(excluding Catholic/Orthodox)
| ATTENDANCE | # OF CHURCHES | WEEKLY WORSHIPERS | PERCENT |
| 7-99 | 177,000 | 9 million | 59% |
| 100-499 | 105,000 | 25 million | 35% |
| 500-999 | 12,000 | 9 million | 4% |
| 1,000-1,999 | 6,000 | 8 million | 2% |
| 2,000-9,999 | 1,170 | 4 million | .4% |
| 10,000-plus | 40 | .7 million | .01% |
| TOTALS | approx. 300,000 | approx. 56 million | 100% |
Many of us sound consultants deal with the small end medium Churches that serve 94% of the church going attenders on a given Sunday. Most of these churches do not have the funds for many of the audio and technical solutions and ideas seen in many of the magazines and on-line resources that serve the market. Yet, they do need assistance and can make great improvements to their sound quality within a reasonable budget and guidance from many of us lower budget, yet knowledgeable sound consultants.
Let’s look at an example.
A southeast Wisconsin Church, Mt. Zion Christian Church, had been living with an antiquated speaker system that approached 20+ years in age. The fact that the system served them this long speaks well of the technical folks there that kept the system running and useful for this length of time. However, as their contemporary worship style continues to evolve, the limitations of the system were becoming obvious and they identified a need to make an investment for the future.
They contacted us and we arranged a visit. We have worked with them on a few minor items in the past, but it was several years since we last visited. Now, isn’t it true that when you walk into a church, sometimes the areas of improvement are obvious.
This is true to most churches we consult with that are this size or smaller. It does not take any of the latest “tools” to identify items, that within a reasonable budget, can make a huge improvement in sound quality. Could various audio measurement tools be used to analyze the acoustical space and identify the best system? Of course, but then our (the consultant) hourly fees would be higher, our time spent on the project would be higher and our design, while better, may not be achievable by most churches of this size. This may be one of those 80/20 areas. We can realize a large (80%)sound quality improvement by attacking the “obvious” issues. That last 20% improvement can be costly and out of range of many budgets.
Recently, we discussed some ideas with Jon and Stephen at Mt. Zion, identified their most important requirements regarding sound coverage, worship style, needs for special events (like youth concerts), possible speaker placement and related visual considerations. Jon agreed to take some measurements of the sanctuary (an octagon) and we agreed to have several design options available to them in a few weeks. We also asked the sensitive question, what is your budget? Cudo’s to Mt. Zion that they had a budget of $15,000 for a new speaker system (main speakers, subwoofers, amplifiers, speaker management and us).
Since we mainly deal with smaller churches, part of saving money is that the church agrees to run cables, fly speakers, etc. based on our design. We provide drawings, the design details, prices of all gear, any special info such as flying guidelines, equipment sizes and weights etc. along with pointers from past experience. We usually offer several options at various price points that meet, beat or sometimes slightly exceeds their budget.
Without going into great detail, Mt. Zion’s new system consists of four bi-amped Yorkville CU15’s (left and right two speaker clusters) and two JTR Growlers, all flown and powered by QSC PLXII amplifiers with a DBX Driverack 260 managing the whole system. The budget also allowed for a Furman power sequencer system (PS8R at FOH, Powerlink and MP-20’s at the amp rack area).
Jeff from JTR speakers hand delivered the subs and assisted in making sure they were hung appropriately.
We (mainly Brian) handled the Driverack 260 settings – EQ, delay, crossover, and parametric EQ. Again, due to budget, the 80/20 rule, and the incredible ears of Brian (spent 4 years at Columbia College of Chicago), the system sounds great after several hours of adjustments, playing various music styles, sitting in various areas, and using the very technique described by Dave Rat in the June Issue of Live Sound International and taught by Jack Alexander at Columbia.
For this system, they came below budget as far as the system cost and our fee. They did all of the installation themselves other than terminating cables and final connections. Since they did so much themselves, our fee was less than 8% of the cost of the gear itself. Also, since we don’t sell gear but just direct them to a low price vendor (usually the Kenosha Music Center Inc, where Brian works one day a week) or directly to the manufacturer (like Jeff at JTR Speaker), there is no “middle man” markup. The customer gets about as much value for their dollar as possible.
It sounds like (pun intended) that Mt. Zion is very happy with the new speaker system. We will be arranging some sound training sometime in the near future with them and whenever we revisit a church we did sound improvements for, it is always rewarding to see how they are serving the Lord with the equipment and how many people hear the Gospel message through the spoken word and music.
And that is what the sound/media ministry is all about!
Posted in Church Sound Worship by .
Dec 10
12
Preparation and Great Sound
I was sitting at our small front of house mixing position at the Kemper Center Simmons Auditorium for the Snowflake Jazz concert. The auditorium was built in the the late 1800′s. We were told that the acoustics and power were quite a challenge. They are!
We did our usual scouting trip and noted the challenges. Wood was on all surfaces so it was a lively room. One positive is that we wouldn’t need much power. We found a variety of power sources, some of which were old two prong outlets. Those are simple to steer away from. But we did find adequate and properly grounded power.
Due to a forecasted snowstorm we set up our sound system the night before. Did I mention the 14 steps we had to climb to get our gear in? But we got everything set up that night, did a line check, room main speaker EQ and solved a few hum and buzz issues.
On concert day we arrived early and found a few more noisy channels. Seems like our 100 foot sub snake we were using to simplify the setup (we really just needed an extra 10 feet) was picking up some electrical noise. Nothing serious but still worth eliminating. So a few 20 foot direct to the main snake cables solved that. Then we found a bad connection if the connector “moved” at the mixer itself. So we moved that channel. Something to check out this winter! A bit more system equalization (interesting settings in the mid frequencies due to the room – many cuts), ring out a few monitors and we were ready for the band.
We still had time for a fairly relaxed fast food meal which doesn’t happen often on event nights. Ask Brian about the moon!
The John Crawford Band arrived plenty early and are great to work with. Everything (except sax who came a bit later) was sound checked and dialed in well before the doors officially opened.
The event sounds great. The John Crawford Band puts on a great classical and pop jazz show with quite a few Christmas songs sprinkled in.
The main message today – preparation and time are needed to have great sounding event in challenging acoustical and electrical venues. Of course this holds true for any venue the first time you are there. If we do this event again next year we’ll still be plenty early but already have some settings saved and have the power situation figured out pretty well. By the way, we put in about 5-1/2 hours into load in, setup, troubleshooting, system tuning and soundcheck. By the reaction of the audience and the band, it was well worth the effort!
Posted in Administration Jazz Live Sound Mixing by .
Nov 10
14
Becoming One With the Band
Soundman/woman, what are the main skills you need so that the overall service or event is as best as can be technically achieved?
We tech folks typically really concentrate on tech things and can easily get absorbed into the gear, settings, and tweaking everything. Some of this is needed to achieve excellence. But those non-tech human beings that are creating the wonderful sounds that we love to recreate usually need some attention to attain the level of excellence they are reaching for.
So, technical competence is obviously a key skill for mixing sound. That is a given and an absolute skill that we need to continue pursuing.
Almost as important is an understanding of how to interact with and assist the artists. They need help with gear, monitors, cables, accommodating their space needs, stowing cases, tools, drum keys, batteries,…… Once the soundcheck and practice starts, keep asking if they need any changes in the monitors or anything else for that matter. For them to play their best and lead the congregation into a higher level of worship, they need to know that they can ask for changes and that we will try to accommodate them. So we keep asking them throughout soundcheck and practice if they need any changes. Yes, a few people will constantly ask for minor tweaks, but most will ask for a few. The key is that they know that they can ask.
Once they are comfortable as a worship team/band and can play to the best of their ability, our part of creating excellent sound becomes much easier.
If you deal with the same artists every week, then over time the relationships can be developed further and every musician needs to know they can ask for literally anything and that we will respond with what we can do and sometimes saying no if it is not the best for the overall group – but then explaining why in terms that the artists can understand.
When you work with a new group, make sure they know that they can ask for anything. That starts the moment they arrive and you work with them to get plugged into the system. During soundcheck and rehearsal keep asking.
Only when the artists and tech crew are working as one team can the worship service move in any direction that the Holy Spirit leads.
And that is what the sound/media ministry is all about!
Oct 10
11
Macs….They Just Work!
Computers….computers….computers!!! We love them and we particularly love one particular brand. Let me tell you a little story….
You know those Sunday mornings or Saturday evenings when you are going through your last minute tech setups for Sunday morning services and you know that you need to do a special setup for the computer? Well, this particular Sunday we were doing a live poll where people text an answer to a question we put on the projection screens and the poll would display the results on the screens in real-time. The Media Director tested everything on his MacBook laptop and everything worked great the whole week prior to the service. However, come Saturday evening (the night before) he found out that the poll software would only work with Snow Leopard (the latest version of the Mac operating system) which he has on his MacBook, but on the iMac at the church we only had Leopard (the previous version to Snow Leopard)….and, of course, that won’t work for the real-time poll software that we were going to use the next morning.
The Media Director was okay with this and didn’t do anything until Sunday morning when he arrived at church. He arrived about the same time he normally arrives which is about 7am or so and decided to upgrade the whole OS on the computer right then and there. For Windows users….this is like upgrading from Vista to Windows 7. I know what some of you are thinking…. WHAT? ARE YOU CRAZY? Well, though we are crazy, he did the install as well as some software updates that were released since the OS was released and he had everything fully up and running by 8:15am with absolutely no issues!!! This was just in time to project lyrics for the full band rehearsal and for the service that started at 9am.
Two points here….first one of course is the fact that a full OS update and other software updates were installed and worked perfectly in just over an hour. Second, is the fact that no one was really worried about if it would work or not……that’s the beauty of Apple computers….they just work!
And this is why we LOVE Apple computers!!!
Posted in Mac by .
Sep 10
21
Back to 81/19
Below is the answer to one simple question. Now this puts the 80/20 rule back into perspective!
From Brian:
We talked about most of this on the phone, but HH2 will also give you a compressor for Marcus! 
I would assume Marcus will come out front (and is ideal to get him separate from the choir mics) in which case yes to the front floor monitors. If he asks for the choir in the front monitors, don’t give the choir to him, but give him a little bit of the frontline mics (some of the soloists ask for this and I either give them frontline vox or if it is a split track I give them some of the vocal side of the split track). Give your best guess to the frontline in-ears as far as Marcus goes. Now, one other thing (I know what your thinking…..oh no….lol!), is that sometimes the band asks for the choir in their in-ears, in which case the appropriate sends would have to be turned on for the choir mics (leave them post-fade and only assign them to the band in-ears for the choir song). They should already be close as far as levels go, but may have to be tweaked. Or if this adds too much room ambiance for the band members, then add some of the other frontline vox. That is, if the band even wants the choir in their in-ears anyways.
So, if the band asks for the choir, then the only changes that need to happen once the settings are all set during practice/rehearsal, is to change the mix of the band for the choir song (band levels brought down), turn on the choir mics or frontline vox in the band in-ears, fade-in the front monitors, turn on HH2 for Marcus, fade-in the choir and frontline vox, and reverb (may not want reverb on Marcus?? Depends on how he is doing the solo stuff). That’s it….lol!
Let me know if there are any questions with this…..
Blessings,
Brian
Posted in Church Sound Live Sound Mixing Worship by .
Sep 10
16
The 80/20 Rule
What does it take to come up to speed for everything, sound wise, to flawlessly execute a large churches contemporary worship service? Much more than most people realize!
My wife and I joined the church this past May that Brian is the Audio Director for. I ran sound under his watchful eye for the first time on Jun 27th after observing the fast paced flow for several weeks. Even then, Brian does some of the behind the scenes stuff and some of the setup for all of the sound volunteers. Also, the choir had off all summer so that portion of my training has not happened yet.
I’m at ease with mixing. The worship team is very experienced and this of course makes mixing them a breeze. I’m fairly comfortable with the monitor mixes. There are 10 in ear monitor mixes and depending on the leader of a song, some changes need to be made on the fly. But I’ve done that a few Sundays already.
Then getting all the wireless mic’s and in-ear body packs all setup (batteries) and checked is fairly easy.
So at one point I told Brian that I was about 80% ready to handle everything in case he ever couldn’t make a Sunday. Well that time is coming on September 26th when Brian will be in Seattle doing live recording of several worship services.
Now, everything he does gets added to what I need to know and comfortably do. Six to seven vocalists on wireless each Sunday that frequently change personnel and therefore gain and EQ settings. CD recording setup, mixing board setup and shutdown procedures.
Just when I think I’m getting close to the 100 percent point, another 20 percent gets added. This weekend we add the choir with four choir mics, the accompaniment iPod tracks, and the choir monitors and front floor monitors.
I am back at 80 percent again. After this weekend I will be close to 100 percent. But next week when Brian is gone, one more variable will be added – the worship team will accompany the choir. This isn’t as easy as it sounds to get the choir volume high enough over the band volume.
I have the 50+ item checklist ready for next Sunday and hope that after this Sunday the 80/20 goes to 95/5!
Hopefully the service goes well and the sound portion of the service enhances and does not detract from the Worship service.
And that is what the sound/media ministry is all about!
Posted in Church Sound Live Sound Mixing Worship by .
Aug 10
22
ML5000-48 YES! YES!
Freedom Fest on Saturday August 21st was the first event that we used the Allen and Heath ML5000 48 channel mixer. Multiple bands with many styles are perfect for a higher channel setup. We setup stage with six channels of DI, six various instrument mic’s, ten drum mic’s and six vocal mic’s. We had five monitor mixes on five powered wedges.
We used all channels except for one small condenser microphone. With our smaller mixer we’d have to do many swap out of various mic’s on stage to a accommodate the various instruments you encounter at a church festival. But with this setup the biggest changes were unplugging a DI and plugging into a bass amps balanced out.
The feature set of this mixer of course is great. Simple things that our smaller mixer doesn’t have – mute groups for example simplified band transitions. One button and all channels are muted except for the speaker/announcement mic. Then more advanced with VCA’s. One can almost mix the whole band from them. Probably 80-90 percent of the adjustments made while mixing can be handled with the VCA’s. One other great feature – a PFL/AFL CLEAR button. You don’t have to find the soloed channel that you left on. Did we mention LED metering AND VU metering on the aux sends!
Getting our gear rack connected to the mixer is a bit of work. Only a few cables reached to the connections on the mixer. This is a big board at almost seven feet long. Our snakes also can’t expand across the mixer so we had to add some short extensions to three channels.
Then we had to completely redo how we pack the trailer. Unfortunately Friday night it rained, so we ended up testing our tarps.
The EZ Tilt mixing console stand we ordered is still on order. So Nate Aguilar from Sardis Media let us borrow theirs. Without the stand there is no easy way to get a 400+ lb. mixer and case on a stand.
The most important aspect though is that the worship times were awesome, people were ministered too, lives were changed, and Christian music flowed in downtown Burlington, Wisconsin.
AND that is what the sound/media ministry is all about!
ML5000 and Brian at Freedom Fest
Posted in Live Sound Mixing Mixer Sound Gear Worship by .
Aug 10
10
My First and Last Day in Video Venue
This past Sunday was the first day I was assigned to do sound in our churches Video Venue service. This service is held in the youth auditorium, the H2O Auditorium which is named after the youth group. The Video Venue service has it’s own worship team and then we watch a video recorded earlier in the day from the early service in the main sanctuary.
The worship team was a bit larger this time with two electric guitars (normally one), acoustic guitar, bass, keyboard, drums and a flute along with a total of four vocals. The room is somewhat acoustically challenging (although with youth it is not bad) with little sound deadening. The drums, especially cymbals, even with a Clearsonic drum shield with no top though, are LOUD. The sound system has plenty of capability with an Allen and Heath GL2800-48, the usual reverb and delay gear, 8 channels of compression, four double 18″ subs, and adequate main speakers. In ear monitors are mixed from front of house.
The worship time was awesome. The worship team did a great job. The congregation was engaged into a beautiful time of worship. I love it when we add specialty type instruments. The flute was perfect for one of the more calmer worship songs along with the acoustic guitar and keys. And we had plenty of guitar/percussion power when songs built in volume. We ran between 85-94 dBA (slow), but it didn’t sound too loud.
The end of August is the one year anniversary of the Video Venue service and the church has decided to discontinue the service and see what direction God has in store as the Church continues to expand – maybe a Saturday evening service or ?
So, this was my first and last day running sound for this service. Even after one time (and several visits to previous services so I was prepared), I will miss the Video Venue service, but I look forward to the next opportunities for ministry.
This coming Sunday is my one day a month (approximately) in the Main Sanctuary for the two services there – so I should get ready for that soon (did I ever say that I love Planning Center? – another blog post in the future).
Always remember though, it is not about the ministry. It is about what you can add to the time of worship, by striving for excellence with the gifts that God gave you, so you can contribute to the goal: “The congregation (including YOU) engaging in a beautiful time of worship.” and Our Role!
And that is what the sound/media ministry is all about!
Posted in Church Sound Live Sound Mixing Worship by .
Aug 10
1
ML5000-48 YES!
For the last several years we have discussed getting a larger mixer based on the larger events we’ve run sound for. We also need to expand our speaker system, but we have rental options if needed for that and our system hangs in there for most events.
We started with some basic requirements:
- 48 channels or greater, with 4 stereo channels
- 12 or more aux sends with a minimum of 10 prefade. We really wanted more than this if possible since we will be running the monitor mixes from front of house (FOH) for some years yet.
- Direct outs – we do a fair amount of live recording with an Alesis HD24.
- VCA’s – 8 would be great
- Mute groups
- And the usual features you usually get with a mixer of this caliber (variable high pass filter, variable Q mid range EQ, etc.)
- $10k or less
- A good quality used board would be great.
- Road case with dog house.
The next big decision is analog versus digital. We’d love digital if we could meet these requirements with good sound quality and within the price range.
We searched mainly the Pro Sound Web Marketplace and eBay. The general consensus after reviewing these areas was that we probably can get a quality analog mixer with these requirements including a case with dog house!
So we had on our eyes on several Allen and Heath ML5000′s, an APB board and that was about it. The APB on the Pro Sound Web Marketplace sounded interesting but did not meet our aux send requirements and would be pushing our budget. We did find on eBay an older but seldom used Allen and Heath ML5000-48 that looked great and met our requirements. It also had two Power Supply Units in a rack with a Furman Pro Series Power Conditioner.
We are happy with all of the Allen and Heath gear we have (current mixer is a GL2200-24) and we have installed multiple mixers in several churches. We heard some negative comments on-line, but mainly from one source only.
So we purchased the ML5000 and had it shipped from San Francisco. We also now have an EZ Tilt on order so the two of us can get the mixer “up” for use.
Allen and Heath ML5000-48
The board looks great – absolutely no evidence of any wear or tear. The case is a bit banged up on the outside but the inside is immaculate.
We checked the board out in the garage. This took awhile. We ended up with it on some metal buckets and a couple of punching bags laying on the floor (no EZ Tilt yet). We needed three of us to get it “there”. We then checked every connection and setting and combination of settings on the board. This required the use of a headphone amplifier and another small mixer, condenser microphone, iPod, etc. We also attached part of our speaker system to make sure the noise levels were ok. We also updated the operating system to the latest version. This required the use of a USB to RS232 converter, running Windows XP on my Mac using Parallels and then using the Hyperterminal application (memories of modems came forth at this time). The update worked as it should. All of this took about 14 hours.
Once the EZ Tilt comes we can do more and determine what event we will use the new board at for the first time. We also have some connection issues to solve to our rack of gear, plan for short term and long term snake connections etc.
Over the next months we will be ready to handle larger and more complicated events and as usual, most of these will be Christian worship related that minister to many people.
And that is what the sound/media ministry is all about!
Posted in Live Sound Mixing Mixer Sound Gear by .