Behind The Mixer

Learn Church Audio Artistry | Church Sound

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A sound tech from Washington writes regarding finding the right house volume levels, “It’s either too loud for the elderly or too soft for the youth, or too much electric or not enough bass, it’s just impossible to please everyone.”

My grandmother’s cooking immediately comes to mind.

My grandmother was a good cook.  I’m not talking “Paula Dean with butter in everything” or “Bobby Flay with everything jazzed up.”  I’m talking about good simple food.  Cooked ham, vegetable soup, you know; simple foods.  It was not food that was full of a lot of spices or secret ingredients.  But for her and her husband, it’s what they liked.

What would I cook for my grandmother?

Would I cook her a spicy pot of jalapeño-based chili or spicy Thai-shrimp?  No.  Not because she wouldn’t appreciate it, but because it’s not the type of food that brings her enjoyment.  It would bring pain, if anything.

But what if she was one of many people at a family gathering?  Then how much do I cater to her?  Do her needs take precedent over other people’s dining preferences? Yes!  No!  Maybe?!?

For whom are you cooking?

It’s a family gathering…you are in charge of the food for the event…your in-laws are hosting the event and your father-in-law just gave your $1000 to cover all your food expenses.  Now answer this question…who gives the final ok for the menu?  Your father-in-law, of course!  No question.  He’s fronted the money and you want him to be happy.  He’s also in a position of leadership (eldership) over everyone else.

For whom are you mixing?

The short answer is…the pastor.  Depending on your church structure, it might be the worship leader or an elder board or a creative arts pastor.  As much as I’d love to tell you, you are mixing for the congregation, when it comes to who ultimately has the final word; it’s someone in church leadership.  In cases such as this, you can talk with them about comments you are receiving but whatever they say, that’s what you do.

The drums rule…the drums are low key…the electric guitar solo’s rock out…the electric guitar sits back in the mix…it’s up to them.

What if there is no direction?

You might be in a situation where they say “whatever you think sounds good.”  [Gulp]  Now what?  I could come up with five different scenarios and none would be like your situation.  Therefore, I’ll tell you what I’d do…

  • Review the mix by overall volume.  How loud does it need to be to be worshipful?
  • Review the mix by volume of individual instruments.  Are they set in good relation to each other?  Do I have a good solid mix?
  • Watch the audience.  If the youth kids are singing with their hands raised but the rest of the congregation just stands there, then lower the volumes.
  • Look for a common ground.  This is the hard part.  You can’t please everyone all the time.  You want to please a majority of the people most of the time.  You can look at the ratio of demographics.  Twenty senior citizens and three youth kids?  You mix for the older crowd.
  • Ask for pastor-approval and recommendations.  There comes a point where you can create a balanced mix that’s good for the majority but you might still get criticism.  Talk with the pastor and explain the situation.  Somewhere along the lines, someone has to compromise.  The pastor might say, “Mix so the oldest lady in the congregation likes it” or “mix for the majority and send people with complaints to me.“

Summary

I never wanted to cook super-spicy food for my grandmother.  I wanted to cook food she’d love.  But in cooking for a larger audience with varying tastes, I have to recognize that she would be sitting and eating dinner with everyone.  Maybe I’d drop the spicy-shrimp and swap in something more savory.

It’s not about what we eat together, it’s about dining together.  That’s how you and the church leadership should look at the music mix.

Explore the details of mixing the right volume in this post:

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Comments

  1. @Ken E., you’re absolutely right about a church leadership needing to be on board with the vision of the church. The next step is to communicate that vision to the entire congregation.

    We do not put out earplugs at our services. However, I do believe that earplugs carry a stigma. “If there are earplugs available, it must be way too loud”

    I would ask the question, “Is it too loud, or are the ear plugs just for people that ‘think’ it’s too loud?”

    I’ve mixed at a church in the past at a level of 88 dB. I had a lady tell me it was too loud. Did I change the level? No. I kindly explained to her that it actually wasn’t too loud and that there were other areas she could sit where it would be more quiet. The normal procedure when I got to that church was, if you have a problem with the sound, go tell the sound guy. Really? That is completely unhealthy for the church. Your techs won’t want to serve out of fear of being reprimanded every time the make a change. I had many discussions with the pastor, even showing him recorded dB levels on a chart of the worship set. Guess what…the hymns were always just as loud (if not a couple dB louder) than the Hillsong/Matt Redman stuff. Every time. By using a chart that plotted the overall dB level over time, I was able to show which song were louder, more quiet, and the progression of overall volume. Don’t forget that the congregation singing can add to the overall dB level. This is often overlooked in talks about levels.

    It’s not always that they think it’s too loud. They simply don’t like the music or aren’t comfortable with it. So they interpreta that as “too loud” because they don’t know how else to describe what they’re feeling.

    Here’s the bottom line (as I see it, anyway). There needs to be an honest discussion in the leadership of any church on who their target group is, and what their vision is. My view on churches is that they need to be reaching out to young families and youth, while having the elderly support them in that mission. Otherwise, the church will literally die in a mater of 15-20 years. If everybody isn’t on the same page as to why that church even exists, there will be problems much bigger than whether it’s too loud or not.

    Reply

    • “It’s not always that they think it’s too loud. They simply don’t like the music or aren’t comfortable with it. So they interpret that as “too loud” because they don’t know how else to describe what they’re feeling.”

      Great psychological insight!

      Reply

  4. Hi Chris,

    Full and dynamic doesn’t necessarily mean loud and loud doesn’t mean full and dynamic. I’ve listened to lots of mixes where (I’m guessing) inexperience has had a technician chasing balance but making everything louder in the process. If you have the tools available like a desk that allows you to group inputs together and compressors to tighten up the sound, you can achieve “full” without blowing the db meter. After all, unity is not just a gain setting and a sermon title, it’s a way of living.

    Reply

    • David…I almost put in a section on quieter mixing. I think the mindset is common that mixing music can only sound great if it’s loud. I’ve got some classical albums that sound amazing at lower levels because they were mixed with the expectation of a certain volume level of the audience.
      P.S. Love your unity endline.

      Reply

  6. I visited a prominent church in the Northwest recently and was amused that on the guest center table they had Bibles, pens, church information brochures, and a bowl of foam earplugs. I knew we would get a lot of backlash if we tried it, with some of the older people saying, “if you know it’s loud, why don’t you turn it down.”

    I think a very important aspect of what style and volume of music a church plays is the target audience. If this is defined by the leadership, and communicated well and often to the congregation, then the music issues are pretty settled, as well as how you do a lot of things (like decorating the worship space).

    It then becomes part of the church’s identity, or DNA. If you want to reach a population that mostly listens to country/western, then that’s what you should play. And you will undoubtedly lose some that don’t go for that sort of thing.

    Bottom line is, define what you’re doing and why, do it intentionally and consistently, and you will have little explaining or apologizing to do.

    Reply

    • Ken, you said that very well. Intentionally and consistently.
      Wow, the idea of foam earplugs seems more an indicator of a problem than a solution in itself. Of course now that I’ve said that, I’ll get a comment that says “our church does that and people love it!”

      Reply

  7. Hey Chris! I’m posting :D lol (sorry everyone, very small inside joke lol)

    Every Church plays some soft songs, some louder songs, some slower, and some faster…. Why not depending on the song, say to yourself “I will make this faster song more for the youth….” and “lets make this slower song more for the seniors who like the 1800’s hymn style music” :D

    Theres no reason you can’t switch things up depending on the song. You can even talk to whomever tends to pick the songs and the order of the songs and ask them to do the slower set of songs first, then do a set of fast, then back to soft, then sermon, then a song somewhere in between….(set = 2 or 3 my suggestion)

    Songs are different for a reason. I play saxophone in 3 different groups. 1 sax quartet (4 saxes), and 2 community bands that range from 30-60 people. Each one of those groups have their own style of music. The Community Gold band is more for the educated music and really crazy hard music. The silver band is much tends to do obviously easier stuff, but they will do some more jazz peices and really slow stuff, not much for fast. Our sax quartet, well to me its all quite easy for the most part, but to the other 3 members, they find it much tougher and so we tend to play some slower stuff (some that I wish we wouldn’t perform, but oh well, 3 against 1 lol), and some simple Jazz pieces, we’ve got the odd semi-hard piece, but in general, its relatively easy.

    Each one has its only style. Church worship teams (if you have more then one) is no different, some teams are quick and high energy, some are slow and soothing energy. If you have multiple teams, go by teams, eg. this team I will always try to make the drums shine, for this team I will always make that girl shine on the backup vocals because people love her voice when they hear it (but of course making the leader shine too lol).

    Every sound missionary (I love that term for us) also has our own style. Maybe your church has 3 worship teams that match up really well with the style of mixing that each of your sound missionary volunteers.

    All styles are different, some are close, but they are all different, just like each one of us is different, none whom are the same.

    What is the style for (insert something here)?

    Reply

    • Josh, great to have you commenting again. BTW, I fixed the paragraph issue. CSS to the rescue.
      Back to audio. Looking at the order of songs…that’s an art that’s easy to never learn. Back in my broadcasting days, I learning about the proper order of songs in a playlist. Part of the ordering was the speed of the song.
      For example, song order by speed would typically be; fast, medium, medium, slow.
      Playing songs that are all fast or slow would burn out the listener. Same goes for live music. You might be able to put two fast songs back to back but a third would tire the audience. Therefore, in regards to your comments, yes, the order of songs in important and in the case of the reader with the question, setting a good song order can help as well.

      Reply

  8. My church went multi-site this year, and our new campus draws folks from more traditional backgeounds. The contemporary, drum-driven style at the original campus is very different for them, and was evidenced by comments the first month or so. I try to set the house volume lower and pull back the drums a bit to cater to this crowd, while still emphasizing electric guitar and synth keys. Our campus and worship pastors and worship leadrs are great at offering suggestions, and I do respond by testing their suggestions. Sometimes it works, and if it doesn’t, they ultimately leave the mix to the sound crew.

    Reply

    • MarySue, you’ve shown a great example of catering to different demographics. It’s great to read how you reviewed the comments and worked towards changing the mix to suit their needs. I believe the congregation appreciates it as well.

      Reply