Behind The Mixer

Learn Church Audio Artistry | Church Sound

Topics: ,

People can to hear the message so enable them to understand it. Photo provided by amslerpix

People came to hear the message
so enable them to understand it.
Photo provided by amslerpix

There is a huge advantage of mixing music over mixing speech; you can blend sounds when mixing music.  That is to say, if you have one instrument or vocalist you can’t quite get right in the mix, you always have the other instruments and vocals to fill in and blend in with that particular problem channel.  When it comes to mixing speech, i.e. the pastor’s voice, you don’t have that benefit.

Consider these eight tips for mixing the pastor’s voice and improving the clarity of their voice.

BEFORE TOUCHING THAT KNOB!

The below are general tips.  I’m not saying to do all of them together.  I’m not saying each one is right for the particular voice that’s being mixed.  Much of the mix work depends on the frequency characteristics of the voice.

Note the order as the tips build upon each other.

1.  Before doing anything, think about the pastor’s voice as that’s your foundation.  I worked on EQ’ing a vocal that had a lot of low-end in the voice but also, surprisingly, had a noticeable amount of upper mid-range frequencies.  Therefore, a wide mid-range boost made their voice sound worse.  It wasn’t until applying a massive cut under the 350 Hz range, a narrow cut to a lower mid-range area, and a narrow boost to the upper mid-range that their vocals obtained the desired clarity.

2.  Consider volume and frequency. Vocal clarity comes from changes in volume and frequency manipulation.  A pastor that’s hard to understand might only need a volume bump.  Regarding frequency manipulation, clarity is found primarily in the upper mid-range frequencies. The typical frequency ranges used in the spoken word are; 150 Hz to 6,000 Hz for men and 350 Hz to 8,000 Hz for women.

3. Cut before boosting.  A vocal will often have too much of something.  Resolve issues with those “too much” areas before focusing on improving clarity via boosting.

4.  Use a high pass filter (HPF) for dropping out sounds below 80 Hz.  While a male’s voice *might* have frequencies in that low of an area, it’s nothing that’s going to help their clarity.  Start with your HPF around 80 and slowly increase it up to the 125 Hz range. Wherever you find a noticeable change in clarity is the spot you need.

5.  Boost in the mid-range.  The important frequency range for speech intelligibility is in the 1,000 Hz to 4,000 Hz range. Often, a boost of 3 to 5 dB in this range will increase the clarity.  Start around the 3,000 Hz point.  If you have Q (bandwidth) control, use a wide bandwidth. In the cases where the 1,000 to 4,000 Hz range isn’t giving you the clarity you desire, consider going up to 6,000 Hz.

6.  Add warmth to the vocal.  A voice can sound clear but have no feeling behind it.  This can happen with a voice that’s crystal clear but have little to no low-end.  Add a 3 dB bump in the 160 Hz to 400 Hz range; lower for men, higher for women.  Beware that low-end frequencies can also muddy up a voice so be careful.  If you add a bump in this range and it doesn’t sound right, take it out.  It might be a cut in the mid-range is more what is needed.

7.  Remove sibilance.  Sssssssibilance in vocals is when the sound of the letter “S” sounds more like a hissing snake.  You can accentuate vowel sounds / add presence by increasing the EQ in the 4,500 Hz to 6,000 Hz range.  However, the “S” sound lives between 5 kHz and 7 kHz.  Therefore, be careful when adding presence because you can easily go from a great sound to a hissy sound.  A de-esser can be used for dealing with sibilance but I prefer first trying EQ changes.

8.  Avoid distortion by adding compression.  A pastor who is known for suddenly talking significantly louder is one that would benefit from compression.  The problem with those outbursts is theycan cause distortion or simply the voice takes on different frequency characteristics as it gets louder.  A compression ratio in the 2:1 and 3:1 range would be helpful.  This way, their volume stays within a reasonable range.

Want to learn how to get a great mix for the pastor?

If so, check this out:

 

Reader Interactions

Thought? Questions? Comments?

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

Comments

  1. Great article. I am 75 yr old and trying hearing aids because difficult to hear speech in noisy backgrounds. The HA’s have a lot of Sibilance or Hssssssss and you say it’s in the 5-7k Hz range whereas Speech Intelligibilty needs a small db boost in the 1k to 4k Hz range. I will take your info to the Audiologist to see if the HA’s can be adjusted for these Hz ranges.

    Thanks and Regards

    Reply

  2. You never mentioned the room or room acoustics in which the audience is listening. The system needs to be tuned using pink noise or other methods to optimize how it sounds. Speaker placement is also critical. This should be step number one before trying to EQ one channel. Ask the question…is the room EQ’d first. Trying to EQ one channel when the house curve isn’t done is like seeking your oven to 350 F to bake a pie for one hour as per the recipe, but your oven isn’t calibrated and it actually is 400 F.

    Reply

  3. Hello there,
    I want say something about my self. I am working for radio studio. And my voice is not well. I want to need improve my voice for soft and malady voice. Because in this field, I have to more and more soft voice. I was helpless but as you share with us eight tips. it’ll very helpful for us. Thanks

    Reply

  4. 3 and 4 both HIGHLY concern me, especially 4. I can think of probably twice maybe three times in 40 years of mixing that I needed to boost anything in the 160-400 range with the exception of bass guitar… Sometimes a 400hz boost can add some presence to a decent bass. The low side of this is extremely boomy, right in the middle is muddy and 315-400 is getting on the verge of honky sounding. As far as #3, while a slight boost at 3k can be beneficial sometimes, this is dangerous ground and the reason SO many people leave an event with ear fatigue, even if the volume was not bad. 6k can feel like someone is shoving an ice pick in your ear.

    Some posters were talking about recording while mixing live as well. PLEASE leave your headphones off, forget the recording and make the live event your priority… Especially if it’s in church.

    Steve mentioned not trusting anyone else, especially broadcast engineers… I can second that notion. Mixed an abc Christmas special this last year. Since they decided to skimp on budget and not bring in a truck, I gave the engineer individual tracks PLUS a feed of my house mix and room mics. Watching the broadcast Christmas Eve, I was sad that my name was even in the credits, what a pathetic mess. 100+ voice choir that ROCKED the house, ruined completely. During worship, he put so much of the room mix in that it was nearly unintelligible. Then during the pastors message, apparently he turned the room mics off… Months of pre-production work down the drain in a moment. How do these people even get jobs. He could talk shop, but had ZERO clue about mixing.

    Didn’t mean to make this a rant, sorry

    Blessings to all

    Reply

    • Jimmy, sorry to hear about your Christmas Special event. Every time I watch a live event on TV and the music sounds butchered, I assume it sounds great at the venue. It’s two totally different types of mixing.

      As for your comments on the spoken word mixing, I took a moment to re-read my article and I’ll be making some updates including the important “it depends.” I’ve boosted for some, cut for others, and left flat in other cases. The person’s natural voice makes a huge difference in what needs to be done.

      I’ve edited and re-order the numbers so the tips build in good order instead of being random. Also made some other notes.

      Reply

  5. Speaking of speaking, here are some post production thoughts regarding dialog clarity.

    Quaid’s idea of using a DAW to analyze and perfect the live event is good one. I don’t sense that he is saying to use the live process on the record chain, but I fear that some might think so.

    Being more of a ‘post live event’ guy, I’m hoping that the common effort out there is to achieve two, simultaneous, products during a live event.

    The most immediate concern wold be the live sound, which should be clear, intelligible, and NOT(yes I yelled…sorry) fatiguing, as is being discussed here and I agree, and love the live mixing info available here. But the live mix has a different set of outcome goals than does the final recording. Chris and all other committed live sound people who do this well have my full respect and appreciation.

    The second, and everlasting product of the live event is the recording. A different process. This is what will be left of the spoken, contemporary perspective of the Word, after all the preachers are otherwise ‘occupied’ with future events.

    Is that important? I would love to speak to the faithful scribes of past, who’s entire life’s purpose it was to never loose or mis transcribe a single jot or tittle of the scriptures while preserving them. How much more should we? etc… Should we be making the Penny Saver, or the Dead Sea Scrolls?

    To that end, please consider movie and tv production ‘mixer’s (they’re actually field dialog recordists). They’ve been indoctrinated to never use compression, eq, or even peak limiting in the recording chain. They instead, usually choose to use a second channel recorded 10dB down from the first, for a protection copy in case of a distorted take.

    I agree with most of this, but to me, the worst peak limiter sounds better than the best overload distortion, so, in leu of having a second channel path available for recoding a second lower signal, I would always opt for a protection peak limiter in the recording chain.

    Therefore, aside from some peak protection, and maybe some mild compression, a recording signal path is best sent to the recorder as “raw” as possible, with the intent of using a later process to deal with level and intelligibility issues. That process being; post editing/mixing and mastering for broadcast, podcast, and final archive. If you are applying the processes that are used for the live event to the recording process, it will work…kind of… and it’s maybe the norm, but why? Although some things can be ‘unwound’ later in post, some things can’t be…owe!

    Another quick example in the large scale world is a live/recorded concert event…two consoles(live and recording)…two mixer peoples…two completely different approaches…even the monitors have their own crew and yet another console.

    Every situation is different. If a sound person in a congregation has the political juice to dictate the record chain (which they should…it’s a Church brother! it’s not Warner Bros. or MGM), I hope they will think in the above terms, so that future consumers will have a pleasurable experience listening to inspirational, recorded teaching.

    On a practical level, it just means; send the signal post trim/post limiter(if you want one) and pre everything else. . Then, set a solid(protected), safe level for the recording, let it go, and then pay attention to the live mix. Maybe you’ll have another body/person to watch the recording go down, and make some general, minimal, technical changes if needed.

    Speaking to the “all in one”er’s, if you do the live and the post, forget about the live mix after it’s done and you’re in the post process. It has been done, and it’s job is gone. Make your final mastered product a thing of beauty on it’s own, and something that your grandmother will love to listen to using her ear buds(…no scowls during loud transients).

    One more note of cynicism/experience: Don’t trust anyone before or after your process, including broadcast engineers…including YOU. Check and QC everything you can. They do it in the “World” wold, why shouldn’t we?

    Would love to elaborate if anyone has thoughts, if not…do the right thing.

    All in Love

    Reply

  6. Great knowledge, i was looking for a way to prevent feedback in conferences, when using tie mics, and that certainly helped.
    thnanks.

    Reply

  7. Yes, it helps you fine tune things.
    I found that, in Audacity, a cut in the mids was helping. So I changed the settings of my high-mid eq control, based on that knowledge.
    Every time I edit a recording, I use a low-shelving cut @4100 Hz. in the software (again, back to #8). However, I can’t duplicate that on my analog board, so I have to make the eq change whenever I do the production work.

    Reply

  8. Let mye clairify something: I was going to mention something in the 1st. post, about the bass response of our system, but chose not to. So that’s what I was in reference to when I wrote “…boosting around it.” I wouldn’t boost bass on our pastor. That’s what I was doing on another channel.
    I didn’t edit that sentence before hitting submit.

    Reply

  9. I’ll add that it’s helpful to be able to do post-production work on a recording of a service. I’ve made EQ changes in Audacity that improved the sound, then later adjusted the mixer’s channel EQ based on what I did in the software.
    Then there’s the issue of the speaker system’s frequency response. Our church’s system has been installed and in operation for just under 2 years. In fact, tomorrow is the 2 year mark. I was recently looking at my channel EQ settings, and decided to cut 200 Hz. on the House speaker’s graphic EQ channel. It certainly helped.
    Going back to point # 8, I solved a problem by cutting the offending area, instead of boosting around it.

    Reply