The Best Church Audio Advice Received

The Best Church Audio Advice

What is the best church audio advice you ever received?  I asked that question to my newsletter subscribers as part of a recent giveaway.  The responses were all over; some were technical in nature, others were about working with other people, and others were about dealing with their own mental state. I've pulled together 25 of the responses. What is the best advice you ever received as it relates to church audio or live audio production? My response: Leave the room for five [keep reading]

Mixing Tricks: Easier Band Volume Balancing

Mixing Tricks: Easier Band Volume Balancing

"One [button] to rule them all, One [button] to find them, One [button] to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." Ok, so the mute button doesn't have the same power as The Ring from the Lord of the Rings trilogy but it can be your greatest tool when it comes to volume balancing. Volume balancing is the process of setting sound levels in proper relationship to each other to create the desired overall sound.  In the church environment, volume balancing is performed for the vocals [keep reading]

Remixing; You’ll Never Look at Mixing The Same Again

Remixing; You'll Never Look at Mixing The Same Again

You are a live music remixer.  Think about it, the majority of songs performed during a church service are interpretations of the original.  They are new arrangements.  They are played with more musicians, less musicians, different instruments, no instruments, or in different music keys.  It's your job to take this new arrangement and make it sound great. I hadn't really thought about it as remixing until recently.  A few days ago, I was thinking about a Hillsong song that I'd heard on [keep reading]

Mixing for the Moment; What My Last Day Mixing Can Teach You

Mixing for the Moment

Growing up in the 1980's, a memorable commercial was for Memorex cassette tapes.  A man was sitting in a chair while looking at his stereo.  Only it appeared a huge wind was blowing back his hair, face, and clothes.  The wind was supposedly the music from a high-quality tape in the stereo system.  The tagline; "Is it live or is it Memorex?" Those were terrific advertisements, portraying the high quality one could get from the Memorex cassette tapes.  To this day, I still have a box of [keep reading]

Three Methods for Adding Depth to Your Mix

Three Methods for Adding Depth to Your mix

I couldn't believe my eyes!  The sound check was over and the sound guy had all the volume faders set at zero and all the EQ pots set at the noon position.  Listening to the music during the service, it was obvious there was no depth to the mix. That was probably 20 years ago but the memory has stuck with me. Mix depth is the mix arrangement of sounds in a spatial manner so instruments and vocals are perceived as having aspects of dominance and distance which can provide clarity in the [keep reading]