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 »

Reverberation and delay are two methods of signal processing that are often incorrectly equated.  The confusion comes from the fact that they are so closely related.  read more »

The djembe (a type of drum) is a great musical instrument that blends well into the church worship setting.  However, microphone placement for the djembe is not a hard and fast rule.  Here are the guidelines you can use for providing the best amplification.  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 »

I stumbled on this book about a year ago.  I was out-of-town and happened into the local public library.  I came across the book "This is Your Brain on Music" and was immediately excited about it after reading just part of the first chapter.  The next time I was at my local bookstore, I tried to find the book but couldn't remember the name of it!  Today, I found it.  read more »

I'll stuff leaves into trash bags.  I'll stuff a turkey.  I WON'T stuff cables into anything.  Did you know a speaker cable can act as AC power cables in high-power situtations?  Properly running cables both on stage and within your rack components will increase the life of the cables as well as prevent problems such as audio hum.  read more »

Wedding horror stories abound.  They remain in the memory of the bride and groom.  Those memories might be of anger, frustration, or anxiety.  When something goes wrong in a regular church service, you fix the problem and move on.  People might remember, but it's usually no big deal.  The difference is a wedding is a one time event.  read more »

I was visiting a church to check out their Aviom system and noticed the funniest thing.  An Aviom unit (personal monitoring system) was close to the front of the stage and had a long cord leading into the first row of the congregation.  Unless a musician was going to play from the congregation, I couldn’t imagine why it was there.  "We use it to power headphones for a person who is hard of hearing."  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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The first part of knowing how to run church audio is knowing the equipment.  In the simpliest form, a person sings into a microphone.  The microphone then sends the audio signal to the sound system.  The sound is then processed and amplified and sent out to the speakers which then turns the audio signal into sound waves.  Therefore, there are input devices, processing devices, and output devices.  This article covers the types of input devices.  read more »