One Time You MUST Upgrade Your Equipment (and the reason for the new site design)

May 2, 2013 Mixed by Chris
Photo provided by libbym78

"We have been running on this mixer for 20 years." "It still works." "Most of the channels still work." "We've learned to work around that issue." "The musicians are used to it."  These are just a few reasons you might give for not upgrading your equipment, financial issues aside.  But refusing to upgrade equipment also comes at a cost.  And it might be the musicians or the congregation who are ultimately paying the cost each week. The stories of one web site, one church, one band and how [keep reading]

Filed Under: Gear, Ministry Tagged With: ,

Picking the Right Vocal Microphone: Why Diaphragm Size Matters

April 23, 2012 Mixed by Chris
Picking the Right Vocal Microphone: Why Diaphragm Size Matters

Vocal microphones matter.  Picking out the right vocal microphone means looking at several microphone properties including the diaphragm size. The typical microphone properties that come to mind include; Microphone type (dynamic, condenser, or ribbon) Polar Pattern (omni-directional, cardioid, super-cardioid, etc.) Frequency Response  You can think of those microphone properties simply as; Level of frequency sensitivity (type) Proximity of sound sensitivity around the [keep reading]

Filed Under: Gear, Mixing Tagged With:

How to Use the Praise Band to Clear the Stage

April 18, 2012 Mixed by Chris
How to Use the Praise Band to Clear the Stage

The musicians are your front line for getting things done.  Following up on this week's guest post by my pastor, I'd like to talk about teamwork, specifically work after the service. For those of us who have service in a multipurpose room or have a portable church, every Sunday consists of setting up the stage in the morning and putting everything away after the last service ends.  Working as the only sound tech, this can take significant amount of time.  And, you might have  family [keep reading]

Filed Under: Gear, Ministry, Non-Tech Tagged With:

Asking for New Equipment – Know When It’s Right

March 29, 2012 Mixed by Chris
Asking for New Equipment

In my early days of church audio, I would have asked for a piece of equipment and said, "We have to have this or the world will end!"  As you know, the Book of Revelation doesn't indicate any pro audio gear deficit as a sign of the apocalypse so my requests were denied.  Years later, I'm taking a multi-step approach. Every time I've wanted to buy new equipment or upgrade the existing equipment, I've felt there were two questions I had to ask myself; Can the church afford it? Do I want [keep reading]

Filed Under: Gear, Ministry Tagged With: ,

The Four Key Areas of Safety on the Stage

March 5, 2012 Mixed by Chris
The Four Key Areas of Safety on the Stage

You are responsible for creating a safe environment on the stage.  Don’t think of the sound booth as your only domain.  Your domain includes the stage.  It contains elements that can cause bodily harm just because of their existence.  For example, a microphone cable could be in the wrong place and cause the pastor to trip. You can keep environmental safety problems to a minimum by taking the proper steps to ensure a safe environment. There are four components to environmental [keep reading]

Filed Under: Church Audio 101, Gear, Non-Tech Tagged With:
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