I know people who work on dead bodies.  I have several friends who, after graduating from college, went on to medical school.  They were given cadavers (dead bodies) which lasted throughout much of their schooling.  They dissected the bodies so they could learn how the body works; where nerve bundles are found and how muscles are connected, among other things.  In time, understanding the parts of the body meant gaining a better understanding of how the body works together as a whole.  read more »

Setting EQ vocals is easy if you know what you're doing.  The good news is much of that work is rather formulaic.  Before I get to the "how" part, let's look at the "why."  It's important to know why you are EQ'ing a singer so you can produce the best result.  read more »

I'm a tweaker.  Not a twitter'er, a tweaker.  I just can't stop from tweaking the mixer during the first one or two songs.  Unless you have a band full of professional singers and musicians, it's probable their practice session and performance session (Sunday morning worship sets) are going to be different.  I usually hear the difference in how the singers blend and how loud they sing.  The musicians sometimes play louder - and occasionally softer.  Many times, if they sound sloppy during practice, they sound tight during the performance times.  All this to say, what I might mix during the practice to compensate for volume or "sloppiness/tightness" can be different during performance time.  But when do I stop tweaking?  read more »

Compression is a word that's tossed around but what the heck does it mean?  Compression means the different between a sweet sound and distortion.  It means the different between hearing soft sounds or nothing at all.  Compression means succeeding where sub-par equipment is present.  I've tackled compression and thrown it to the floor!  This article lays it all out for you.  Compression.   read more »

The acoustic guitar can produce a range of beautiful sounds.  This article covers how equalization can be used to bring out the tone, clarity, and depth of the acoustic guitar.

We also cover how the equalizer can be used to distinguish one instrument from another when they share a common frequency range such as between the acoustic guitar and a piano.

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A common approach to sound mixing is the four step approach; Set fader's at 0 point , set the gain, turn on the channels, and leave the board alone until the end of the service.  Looking at the fader's, they are all in a flat line. This is a good place to start but it's not the final answer.

Mixing the different sounds in a service is much more than that.  Read more to find out how you can bring your sounds to life.

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Mixing a worship team is more than just setting sound levels.  Mixing involves bringing out the particular frequencies in each voice and musicial instrument that, when combined together, present a high quality emotional sound.  A high quality sound means no low hums, no muddy sound, no high tinny sounds, and to better think of it, listen to a well eq'd classical music cd.  In classical music, there are so many unique instruments each with their own ranges and uniqueness.

Here is a simple 13-stage process to mixing;

Stage 1:  read more »

Could you EQ properly if your life depended on it?  I'm not talking perfect EQ'ing for CD quality recordings, I'm talking standard vocal and instrument EQ'ing that puts those sounds in the right ranges for a pleasant listening experience.  read more »

This sound engineer covers a lot of material regarding types of microphones, microphone placement, eq, etc.   read more »

A little vocal EQ goes a long way to providing a better sound.  Here are five little tips you can use the next time you are behind the mixer.  read more »