Wonderful Sound Tech's Got to Love them

When I play in church I love it, there is no better time to play guitar or in my case guitar/sax, I feel like I am in my zone but my church has one problem, not only does most of my congregation not like the prasie team but we have some seriously inexpirienced people who work on the sound system, most weeks the praise leader can't even hear the guitar or bass or even her one piano but she goes upstairs and changes the setting so that she can hear what she wants and what the singers need to hear,then one of our amazing sound guys goes up and changes it all around and it sounds like junk, the singers on the praise team can't hear the band so we have a tendency to not be as together as I would like, we still have our churches original main speaker which constantly is cutting out but they refuse to replace it because of our churches funds, what should I do? :confused: We can't afford to pay someone who knows what they are doing to run the system.

P.S. I don't know anything about the sound system and I play plugged straight into the system so I don't have to much contol over my own guitar I am told turn it all the way up and the sound guy will change it from there, which usually means he will turn it almost completely off:mad:. I don't play lead becasue I don't know how, I just play rhythm, I am self taught but have been given some oppurtunities to play lead thats when I switch to the sax. I know I skipped around alot in this post so I hope someone can follow what I have said and help.

I hear ya.

I like to pretend that the musicians are the Israelites and the sound techs are the Egyptians. Only the hand of God can save you. :shock:

Or some well timed plagues.

Never thought of it like that

Let's not criticize our sound techs too hastily :wink:

As a musician, I find that the sound tech is one of the most important parts of the team. They shape what the congregation hears, and also the stage mix. No one's perfect, so sometimes you will have to stop and work on the sound with your tech a little bit. I can tell you that oftentimes, the musicians themselves do a poor job of helping the sound tech because they're turning up, turning down, playing louder, playing softer, etc. all in the same set, or even the same song.

In any event, it might help to know more about your instrumentation. Primarily, do you use drums, and if so, are they acoustic or electric? Do you use monitors (floor, in-ear, etc)? How many musicians do you have, and what are they playing?

-jm

Having been both a sound guy & a guitar player, I know it is a difficult situation. You also have to deal with the congregational members who want to add their 2cents to the poor sound guy. But if the team leader adjusts levels for the stage mix (hopefully in the monitors) the sound guy shouldn't mess with them.

Just pray that you have divine intervention during the services.

The instrumentation in my praise band changes from week to week, there are four instrumentalist that are there every week: The praise team leader on Electric Piano, her son on the drum set(non electric), a bass player, and then me on sax and guitar. Each week though we put the youth on the praise team some play trumpet, clarinet, flute, acoustic guitars, alto sax, and our interum pastor sits in on some weeks and plays the trombone. It is a great setting and the praise team leader God bless her heart writes out individual parts for the instrumentalists. The only monitors we have are one really old main speaker which cuts in and out and two floor monitors where the singers are supposed to hear what the band is playing but most of the time the band is turned down way to low. I think our sound techs main problem is that they never really got trained right, when we have a problem with the levels in the service they call someone to come adjust them and it sonds good for about a month then it seems to drift back in to the old mix. We alternate sound personel everyweek and sometimes when the PT leaders husband is up there everything runs smooth everyone can hear and we have a great week but the rest of the month we have a prblem with one guy who can't hear high frequencies so when the system begins to scream someone has to run upstairs and let him know, another one of our sound guys who used to get a really nice balance but it would be to quiet even for the congregation to hear just quit because his family is moving to Wisconsin, then we have a problem with one sound guy who has a wife who sings on the praise team and turns his wife up about the PT leader and the lead singers. I know it is not the sound guys fault and they do it without pay so I thank them for their time but man it is just hard to sound good. I blame it more on the old system than the people working it, when they replaced some older parts the music director/organist at my church said that they didn't do it right and the company that installed it refuses to come back to finally make it right unless we pay again. This is frustrating.

I think we should just go back to a banjo, 3 singers, and a jug...the way Jesus would have wanted.



Good thing Jesus has a sense of humor. :wink:

The instrumentation in my praise band changes from week to week, there are four instrumentalist that are there every week: The praise team leader on Electric Piano, her son on the drum set(non electric), a bass player, and then me on sax and guitar.

So you've got a rhythm section every week (drums, bass, piano). That's great. You can do a lot with that.

The only monitors we have are one really old main speaker which cuts in and out and two floor monitors where the singers are supposed to hear what the band is playing but most of the time the band is turned down way to low.

Has anyone looked to see why that speaker cuts out? Could be a simple mechanical or cabling issue.

Do you mean the stage volume is too low, or the audience volume? Your stage volume really shouldn't be very loud. Just loud enough for everyone to hear everyone they need to hear comfortably. Meaning less than 110 decibels :wink: If you've got acoustic drums, which personally I think are ideal, then your drummer needs to be able to control their dynamics really well.

I think our sound techs main problem is that they never really got trained right, when we have a problem with the levels in the service they call someone to come adjust them and it sonds good for about a month then it seems to drift back in to the old mix.

Maybe the person they call in can provide some training for the sound techs? In order to be able to adjust anything effectively, the band needs to be playing anyway, so you might as well have one of your regular techs there to take in what's going on.

You have mentioned having to "run upstairs" to the sound board. Where is the board placed? If it's in a bad location, it makes it a LOT harder for the sound guy to mix the house well. People think they can just toss the board in a corner or behind a wall and expect a good mix.

We have one of BC best trumpet players sometimes play on PT and you never know what he will bring and put into the music, he has brought everything from a cazoo ,to the old brown jug, and we did a interesting arrangement of Trading My Sorrows featuring him on crash symbols(they didn't quite fit in the mix and the PT leader didn't know about until the set began in service, he just pulled them out and started crashing away man my ears were ringing for days).

Our sanctuary is about 75 feet long and the balcony is at the back up about 15 feet, sitting up there you really can't hear what the congregation hears to well, they say it sounds fine to them but then the audience says that from the third row back you can't hear hardly anything. The drummer is a freshmen in highschool and is still learning but he can keep a steady tempo if he puts his mind to it, he took over when one of our best drummers left to head off the State (Go Spartans). The probelm is that the singers don't ever sing the same, during sound check they sing normal but once the service comes so does them trying to sing opera and then the sound guys really get to work. Will post a little more later I have to leave now to go to church.

I reckon the best sound guys are musicians themselves, because they know what we want to hear.

Though tonight, our sound person didn't turn up, so I asked a 14 year old guy (who is keen on playing guitar in the near future) to have a go. He did such a good job! Seemed to just click into understanding how it all works really quickly. He needed a little bit of help with stuff like adjusting monitor levels etc, but as soon as I showed him, he got it.

What a champion.

I'd rather just run the sound from the stage. If a couple of the musicians are wireless, they can walk to the back of the auditorium/church and communicate to the soundboard person on the stage what is needed during setup and soundcheck. If that's not possible and you have to have a sound man at the back of the room, keep it as simple as possible. Hopefully, you can use the same basic settings every week and control some of the dynamics yourself on stage instead of relying on the sound person too much. I kinda like Goldielocks' idea! Oh, and I agree.... "Go Spartans".

Thanks for some of these ideas, recently the pianist will stop playing during practice since I am giving the singers the chords and she will get up go to the back and see how it sounds, most of the time it is the same thing, "(Insert Name Here) can you turn up the bass and guitar." Sound guy replies "I can try but it is already past where it is supposed to be." PT Leader "Well turn them up I can't here them back here, and can you turn down the lady's we need more men in the mix." It might help if the sound guy for that Sunday would come to both our rehearsals but the problem is they work. This Palm Sunday the sound was great, of course the praise team took the week of so there wasn't to much micing to do. It seems like everything in the service except the praise team sounds good, we never have problems during special music even when the praise team does a sound for special music, it is like the service from 10:45 to 11:05 are cursed to forever sound bad. I have learned a little about the sound board and have had to run it for some weddings in the past but I never knew what I was doing, I know it is complicated so more power to the sound techs I just wish I knew what I was doing so I could help them.

Does anyone know of a site that could help teach someone how to properly operate a sound board? I don't know anything about it except it is a Mackie?

Man, I'm not very fond of sound guys. I think one of the bigger problems we have is our soundguy isn't at practice and eq's the whole band during the first song using some cheap monitor head phones. Then he doesn't change anything after that for the whole service and every week it changes.

On top of that the guy doesn't even listen to the music we play. He's not a fan of Christian contemporary music. I doubt he's ever heard half the recorded songs we do. Without understanding how the song is supposed to sound how can he do? Some days we only have a guitar, a bass, and three vocals, how do you mess that up??????

Sorry for ranting

Man, I'm not very fond of sound guys. I think one of the bigger problems we have is our soundguy isn't at practice and eq's the whole band during the first song using some cheap monitor head phones. Then he doesn't change anything after that for the whole service and every week it changes.

On top of that the guy doesn't even listen to the music we play. He's not a fan of Christian contemporary music. I doubt he's ever heard half the recorded songs we do. Without understanding how the song is supposed to sound how can he do? Some days we only have a guitar, a bass, and three vocals, how do you mess that up??????

Sorry for ranting

Ranting is understandable sometimes :wink: Let's just not lump sound techs together and judge them all based on the maybe- (or definitely-) not-so-good ones.

Anyway, I wonder why your guy even does sound. Not being at rehearsals, and having a "set it and forget it" approach when he is there, would be two strikes in my book ... yech.

- jm

Ranting is understandable sometimes :wink: Let's just not lump sound techs together and judge them all based on the maybe- (or definitely-) not-so-good ones.

Anyway, I wonder why your guy even does sound. Not being at rehearsals, and having a "set it and forget it" approach when he is there, would be two strikes in my book ... yech.

- jm

Yea sorry, I did get carried away, I've played with some very good sound guys at other churches.

It's more of a 'nobody else wants to do it' kind of thing. On top of that there is a lot of politics in any church setting. This guy has been there for years and has boughten much of the equipment. We have all Carvin equipment now. Not saying its bad but.....

I have a friend I introduced to the church years ago that will do it for me every now and then. He did sound for another church when their youth ministry collapsed but he has alot of other obligations to the the church.

Our sanctuary is about 75 feet long and the balcony is at the back up about 15 feet, sitting up there you really can't hear what the congregation hears to well, they say it sounds fine to them but then the audience says that from the third row back you can't hear hardly anything.

That's probably the biggest problem you have. It is VERY VERY difficult to mix to a part of the room you can't hear. Solutions: 1) Move the sound board downstairs in a halfway decent spot. That's a lot of work and probably won't fly with the powers that be. 2) Get a pair of monitors for the sound guy. They will probably need to be put on a delay because the board is far enough away. You can probably get some behringer unit to do speaker delay for no more than $100. You will want to set the levels so that the volume at the booth matches somewhere downstairs, like one of the first few rows. A dB meter would make this task easier.

Thanks for the replies, giantslayer we have given some thought to actually getting a few monitors so that the band can hear themselves(not even the PT leader can hardly hear the band) maybe a few monitors for the sound guy would be good also.

Jenix our sound guys are the same way, most the time they get what they want and then leave to go get McDonalds or something. They set it to what ever levels they want not even what could sound good and walk away. Like you said your problem is at our church it is "nobody wants to do it" we have a problem with that kind of thing. Then our pastor comes out of nowhere every service when the trustees come up to talk about our money situation and in his deep booming voice says "Don't you people love God" thats when a few people sink into their pews. I just sit there and laugh.

Time to wade my considerable girth into the fray.
I've been doing church sound for over 10 years in a variety of venues, from the built in 1810 shoebox to brand new sanctuary with a custom sound system. Earned my stripes as a roadie in the '90s. They've all got their challenges. Right now I'm "Tech Guy" for a new satellite plant, which means if it's got electricity running through it and it's not a coffee pot or lights, I'm responsible for it (and the people that run it as well). I also play lead guitar on one of the three worship teams we rotate through the place, which means I'm training some 25+ people how to make the switch from house band to gigging road warriors. WOO!! I was in rotation yesterday, but my tele sat alone on the stage while I made sure everything else worked. <sigh> All things in good time, I guess.

YES, we have to work with non-professional volunteers. I started doing church sound out of self defense - my ears couldn't take it any more! The issues here are many - our sound folks normally don't know what the band members need monitor-wise, don't know how EQ works (esp. sweep EQ for mids), and don't know how to fix the problems they encounter. Heck, we had one sound guy who was tone deaf! (Before you start laughing too loudly - he's an electronics engineer who mixes by sight and does an incredibly good job because he can "see" what it should sound like and understands the physics that produce the sound).

We have also made our sound folks part of the worship team they are assigned to. That helps a lot to remove the us-vs-them attitude that so easily creeps into the mix.

I guess it all comes down to having a teachable spirit and training. Anyone in a position of leadership (and yes, as worship leading community we're leaders whether officially recognized or not) who isn't soft and teachable shouldn't be there. And yes, I have to be humble enough to train my techs what I need when onstage and teach them how to give it to me. It ain't easy.

One final thought - nobody gives the sound folks a second thought until they screw up. Give 'em a little love once in awhile and it goes a long way.

Peace!

We have also made our sound folks part of the worship team they are assigned to. That helps a lot to remove the us-vs-them attitude that so easily creeps into the mix.

One final thought - nobody gives the sound folks a second thought until they screw up. Give 'em a little love once in awhile and it goes a long way.

That advice is gold.

Our church has a meeting for our band this sunday, to work out a new roster for the next few months, and I was thinking of inviting the sound people along (even the 14 year old!) to have them on the same roster and help them be on the same 'team'.

When there's a sound guy who is good, or who is learning and trying, I won't say a bad thing about him. I will be friendly, I will be thankful for them. Helpful when I can. We need them.

When there's a sound guy who demonstrably hates guitar, who zeroes the guitar out of the mix when it's playing the intros to half the song, then I start praying for them.

Man I had a experience like that who loved the contem. scene and he loved bands like Demon Hunter, Skillet, Thousand Foot Krutch, etc... but he constantly was turning me off:mad: so I went and asked him if he had me turned off and he said "no I just have you turned down because I want to hear my daughter." :confused: His daughter lets just say didn't quite have the kind of gift that needed miced. They were such a nice famliy but man everytime he got on the soundboard I was tempted to just unplug and sit there because I knew I would be turned almost off.:mad:

A little OT, but it should lighten up the thread. Played on a team a few years back that didn't have enough ports on the stage. I joked we looked like the Outlaws - 2 strats, 2 acoustics, a bass player, keyboards and GOK backup singers. Our worship leader played piano and one week during rehearsal complained to the sound guy that she couldn't hear MY guitar (one of the acoustics). It weren't plugged in! I was just jamming with the band getting used to how they played what as I knew they were planning to birth a second team. :lol:

If you look, there are ALOT of willing people to volunteer for things like that...I tried for so long to find a church to let me run sound so I could get some resume experience (I'm college student). Anyway there are a lot of cool (old and young) people looking for experience, or just to volunteer, that are EXTREMELY good at running sound.
check your local college ;) especially if your church is willing to make some sort of an internship type thing. paid and unpaid.

We recently installed an AVIOM personal monitor system. It allows the band members to control their own monitor mix. The band members and singers decide what they want to hear in the monitors and the sound man can worry about the front of house sound.

One of our Avioms controls the monitor wedges for the singers and the other units are used with ear buds for the musicians.

Unfortunately even if you get the mix on stage just right, you are still relying on the soundman to mix it for the congregation. And if he has no sense of what is a good mix, you are out of luck.

One of the problems you run into is that anyone interested in the praise team wants to be on stage. So you are let with non musician volunteers running sound.

I beg to differ, my dear Wanker - although I will admit that currently 80% of our sound techs (both campuses) are also musicians. Personally, I started doing church sound out of self-defense: my ears couldn't take it any more. :mrgreen:

Forgive me for making such a broad generalization. I was speaking about small churches. Chances are there is not a sea of musicians in a small church. I can see how a larger church would have more to choose from. In our case and in the case of several local churches that I know of, the sound people are non-musicians. Only because any musicians that show up are put to work on stage.

Point well taken. In our case we have an abundance of musicians for a fellowship of our size (I'm guessing 350 adults total). I still wish I had a few more who'd belly up to the mixing console, get trained and get 'r done. Does your church offer training for the sound techs, and if so, who does it?

If your question was geared towards me we used to have some really knowledgable guys around and for a short six month period we had a amazing sound team and visual team. We had a group of people who were well trained but as you probably know people die and move away and you loss contact. The older team of people running sound before I started on praise team was amazing but after I started playing the soundmen slowly drifted away from our church and went to different staes for business reasons. We used to have the retired pastors son in law do sound and he had perfect pitch and had a great sense of balance and how the mix should sound. He could mix like there was no tomorrow but he took a job at a college teaching a doctorate class in piano studies( I think?). In our congregation every youth plays a instrument or sings so we have a abundance of musical talent but the problem is that most of the youth don't want to learn the sound board, most don't even like playing on the praise team (they must be crazy). We have been trying to rope some new people in to learn and since the first post the mix has gotten better maybe it has to do with the temperature changes, all I know is that the for the past few weeks it been amazing how much the PT sound has changed, hopefully it continues to get better. As long as the PT directors husband is up on the board I know we are in good hands, hopefully some of the other members of the church and including myself can learn a little from him so no matter who is up there it sounds good. Even the music director has been impressed with the PT in the past few weeks, he has said it has never sounded so balanced. Thank God finally we are sounding good.

WOOOO!!! Glad to hear things are working out. I had training a couple of weeks ago for my team. Printed out the section on the channel strips, explained how sweep EQ works for the mids, then grabbed a mic while they all had fun taking turns and seeing how sweet or horrid they could make me sound. I think it was a good session, the feedback from the team members was positive also. We had a rookie going solo for the first time at our main campus. Haven't heard yet how that went, but again, she's a pretty good acoustic guitarist/vocalist (about 19), so she's got good ears.

I'm very pleased to hear things are getting better for you folks. My wife and I really like MI, may venture north of the border later this summer.

I finally gave up after playing in churches for 22 years. Unteachable and inept soundman. The stage volume having to be so hyper-low so there can be no dynamic changes or musical expression. I found it much safer to play in a bar or nightclub than in church. I still go to church every Sunday but will not play there anymore. I would prefer to play in church but got tired of the games concerning sound. Love God and play for Him no matter where I am at. Wayne

...stage volume having to be so hyper-low so there can be no dynamic changes or musical expression...Hmm... sounds like you maybe were at the wrong church. The place across the street from me has NO problems with low volumes.

Of course, they still have no truck with such bizarre notions as "dynamic changes," but whaddayagonnado...

I would love a church that would let me play my Hammond B3, a real piano, P-Bass, and my Tele. Soundmen seem to hate the Leslie because it fills the room with sound and is harder for them to control. If you turn down the Leslie it effects how the expression pedal responds on the B3. Ear monitors and Leslies do not seem to mix too well together either. Ah perhaps someday I could play again in church without being in trouble. Have fun, Wayne

I LOVE the B3 sound! They have an M3 at a church across town, but, alas, no leslie.

I am a sound tech/guitar player. Our church has 2 consoles, one front-of-house, one recording, our rotation gives me 4 weeks off (when I play guitar) then one week in "the box" on the recording console, then a week on the FOH console. Our typical band is a worship leader, playing rhythm on an acoustic, grand piano, keyboard (depending on who is playing, it ends up just being a duplicate piano :( ) acoustic drums, bass, electric lead guitar, second acoustic (usually me) usually arpeggiating (is that a word) chords or finding little nicey nice parts to add, and typically 4 worship team singers. Most instruments are on individual avioms (love love love them) the worship team gets one mix from the FOH console and the worship leader gets a mix from FOH.

It all depends on if your audio team is willing to learn, if they aren't, well, then you need to pray, hard. If they are, there are several seminars that happen around the country that teach church audio. I know that one of the local audio/video companies here did one for several years and there are others as well, Peavey sponsored a touring seminar series a couple of years ago, I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head. One resource that pops into my head is an email list, church sound check http://www.churchsoundcheck.com/ have your sound tech's subscribe and learn all they can. Maybe buy them the book from that site (I have no affiliation w/ Church Sound Check other than as a subscriber to the daily email digest). One thing I would caution against is having someone from the worship team run up to the sound board all the time and especially if they are going up to adjust levels. There are a few reasons for this: 1, it is an insult to the audio tech, most musicians wouldn't appreciate the sound guy coming up and messing with their instruments (I know if most any of the other sound techs at church (my Dad being probably the only exception, and only cause I trust his ears, not casue he is my Dad) came and starting messing with my effects processor, I'd be a little miffed) 2, usually the stage isn't a real good place to hear how it sounds in the rest of the house. What I would recommend, is to try to get your good audio tech to sit with the other ones for a few months and spend time teaching them how to do audio right. Also, spend some time working out a clear communication system between the musicians and audio techs, sometimes a lot can be solved by just learning what to ask for and what a musicain wants when they ask for something. Anyways, that is my free advice, take it for what it is worth, hopefully its worth more than you paid for it :)

Thanks for the website, I will definetly mention that one to our soundguys, I have been suprised with the way the sound has been the last few weeks, ever since the music director moved the monitors around a little bit the sound has been pretty good. It is like one the guys working sound at my church is reading this forum ( . )( . )(which one of you is it? Just kidding). Lately the guy who usely is up there has gotten really into it, he is actually getting really nice balances. He has began really going indepth and changing what needs to be changed 80% of the time without anyone telling him to change it. Onec again praise Him for all he has done in my church's worship, it seems like everyweek we are having more and more young people coming to church praising God. That is SSSWWWEEEETTTT!!!

By the way welcome to the website, it rocks here and you will never find a better place online.

Bottom line.... the "sound guy" is part of the team. Work with him, not against him. Help him do his job well. He may even do the same for you.

I do not understand this problem, but have been thru it too, One time, I got a guy to come visit our church because I told him I played in the worship team, He told me He could not hear me, The sound man knew what he was doing, He gave me whatever I wanted in the monitor, but did not run the guitar thru house, left it off. You would think that sound engineers would want everyone to be heard, so it would sound good, I was younger than most of the other members, It was a weekly event, I did have one good 6 month period, where the leader let me lead, he just wanted to play lead, so I did what I was told, the next year I was told that I could not lead anymore, if I wanted to play guitar, it was ok. I became sick, and cannot drive that far now, so problem solved
God Bless.
Jim

I finally gave up after playing in churches for 22 years. Unteachable and inept soundman. The stage volume having to be so hyper-low so there can be no dynamic changes or musical expression. I found it much safer to play in a bar or nightclub than in church. I still go to church every Sunday but will not play there anymore. I would prefer to play in church but got tired of the games concerning sound. Love God and play for Him no matter where I am at. Wayne

I had that problem too. But rather than give up and quit playing at church, I learned (hostile takeover) the soundboard and fought to control it. Now I can always be heard through the mix because I run things. Yeah, sometimes people ask me to turn my guitar down but if it's a part in a song where I know the guitar should be leading, I ignore them. If it's a part that I can understand is quieter and the guitar doesn't need the lead, I turn myself down. No one can do anything about it because they're busy singing or playing instruments.

Yeah, I'm still a little upset over past treatment but hey, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. I'm done wasting my time bringing in my gear to church only to be sidelined and silenced by a cocky audio person who won't turn me up cause i'm not their personal friend or something wacky.

:roll:
Dm

In my church we have a similar problem, multiplied by 2! we have 2 bands, 2 sound techs, and 1 system. I play in the sunday morning services and practice on Thursday nights. The other band plays on sunday nights and pratices on wednesday night. So every time we plug in to play, we have to adjust EVERYTHING again. It has put a considerable strain on the relationship between the two bands. Which is a shame considering how lucky we are as a small Methodist curch to have enough musicians to fill two bands.

Each band has 3 guitars, 1 keyboard, drums (electric), Bass. and normaly 8 singers.

When you add in the 10 monitors, house, indivual amps, and all of the other equipment it becomes a nightmare when you have to spend the first 30 min. of your pratice adjusting everything.

But the moral of the story is that we are blessed to be able to worship in this way and no matter how difficult it becomes to sound good, the fellowship is always a blessing and the music uplifting.

. So every time we plug in to play, we have to adjust EVERYTHING again. It has put a considerable strain on the relationship between the two bands.

Look at it this way - they have to readjust everything, too! We rotate three bands through two campuses (one mobile) every week, and we have a total of 7 (soon to be 8) techs. WooHoo!!

emiller45 made a great point - the techs are part of the team. Personally, I don't think we should have dropped the term "band" for "team". IMHO, we're all on the same TEAM, but may play with one or more bands. That distinction might help to alleviate some of the us v. them attitude that more easily divides us than unites us on our common cause - returning the blessing of our talents to bring praise and glory to our King!!

In my church we have a similar problem, multiplied by 2! we have 2 bands, 2 sound techs, and 1 system. I play in the sunday morning services and practice on Thursday nights. The other band plays on sunday nights and pratices on wednesday night. So every time we plug in to play, we have to adjust EVERYTHING again. It has put a considerable strain on the relationship between the two bands. Which is a shame considering how lucky we are as a small Methodist curch to have enough musicians to fill two bands.

Each band has 3 guitars, 1 keyboard, drums (electric), Bass. and normaly 8 singers.

When you add in the 10 monitors, house, indivual amps, and all of the other equipment it becomes a nightmare when you have to spend the first 30 min. of your pratice adjusting everything.

But the moral of the story is that we are blessed to be able to worship in this way and no matter how difficult it becomes to sound good, the fellowship is always a blessing and the music uplifting.

You could take some pictures of the board or draw a little diagram showing where all the knobs were set to give you a starting reference for each week.

We've done similar things, usually around christmas and easter when we have musicals and the school uses the auditiorium for things, just go from top to bottom and either use a clock designation (eg 12 o' clock is straight up) or draw a circle with a tick mark through the circle to mark the pot position. It's a little bit of a pain, but without going to a digital, automated console, its about the best way to get back in the ball park

I kinda found out the whole problem of what was going on with the sound system, since I have been sick, it is just my Bud Richie and he plays the same 3 or 4 hymns every other week. Last year, one of the upper echelon folk did not like country music, and when Richie and I play together, we were sounding country.Anyway, Things are changing and am not able to make it to
that church that often, The Lordcwu

Ranting is understandable sometimes :wink: Let's just not lump sound techs together and judge them all based on the maybe- (or definitely-) not-so-good ones.

Anyway, I wonder why your guy even does sound. Not being at rehearsals, and having a "set it and forget it" approach when he is there, would be two strikes in my book ... yech.

- jm
Man I can relate! Don't get me started. We have a guy who is awesome, but he felt led to work with the youth. So we are left with the guy who is awful.

I finally gave up after playing in churches for 22 years. Unteachable and inept soundman. The stage volume having to be so hyper-low so there can be no dynamic changes or musical expression. I found it much safer to play in a bar or nightclub than in church. I still go to church every Sunday but will not play there anymore. I would prefer to play in church but got tired of the games concerning sound. Love God and play for Him no matter where I am at. Wayne

It went for awhile there where I could barely hear my bass in my in ears knowing the folks out front could. And we do tons of new material. After first service one morning I told our leader not to look for me second service, I was done. What do you know, the monitors were working like a charm from then on. A jerk is a jerk, even if he is an elder.

A good sound tech is definitely part of the team, We have one that is good, he likes us, I used to complement him, and he said you guys do the hard part, being a good sound tech requires a lot of knowledge and patience.
Jim