Intro

Hey sound team! First off, thank you so much for your willingness to serve our church on the sound team. It is a TOUGH job that requires a lot of dedication and skill and unfortunately, it receives far more critique and far less praise than it deserves. Secondly, as the sound team has now moved under the Music Director’s leadership, it is important to me that I make sure you all are equipped with the knowledge and skills to do a great job on Thursdays/Sundays. That is what this page is. This will serve as a resource that you can come back to again and again to learn new things or just brush up on old skills.

Things to Know…

• Is creating a “good mix” subjective? Kind of…we all have different ears and preferences, BUT the key as the True Hope sound team is to have an OBJECTIVE and SHARED understanding of what we are shooting for. This is something I want us all to remember. The ideal sound we are chasing is modeled after the style of Hillsong, Bethel, or Elevation.

• So how do we come to an objective understanding of what our ideal mix sounds like? Two ways… First off, you guys have to become students of those bands and their sound. Listen to the original recordings of the songs that we sing at True Hope…listen again…and listen again…until you know the ins and outs of those mixes. Secondly, each of us has to become students of our board/equipment and the mixing process. I will be sharing some resources, parameters, and guidelines here below.

• I WANT to invest in the sound team. This is why I have worked with Jesse on cleaning up the gear closets, making needed gear purchases and upgrades, and bringing in a guy like Caleb Ingersoll to serve as a consultant and coach to us. If there is something you need to do a better job or if you have questions, please come to Jesse or me and we will do what we can to help.

Tips, Resources & Sound Guidelines

1. Know How Your Equipment Works

We can all grow and improve in our knowledge of our board, microphones and equipment. Church sound engineers must be the resident expert on all aspects of the sound system. Understand what each piece of gear does by reading manuals, asking Jesse Harbour or Caleb Ingersoll, or looking up tutorial videos online. Know the signal flow of your system. How does signal go from the front of house mixer to the stage for monitors, or to the main speakers? Parts of this system inevitably fail or malfunction. The sound engineer must be able to troubleshoot issues quickly. Here are some online tutorials that we all should check out!

2. Learn the Music

Audio engineers should know the music just as well as the worship leader. From the perspective of the worship leader or music team, it is a bummer when the guy or gal mixing the sound does not know how the song should sound. If you are an audio engineer, you must be listening to the songs your worship leader has up on Planning Center. Listen for important parts of the songs like guitar solos. Know how loud the pad loops should be. Know who is singing lead or harmonies. Listening to the worship songs that regularly play should be a part of your daily routine, not because it makes you super spiritual, but because you should be developing an ear for the genre of music we are aiming for. All of our current list of worship songs are on a Spotify playlist.

3. Gain Structure

The first step of sound processing as the signal from an instrument or vocal enters the board is setting gain structure. The important thing about gain is to make sure you have a strong enough signal coming to the board from your instruments or vocals, but not too high that it causes clipping and distortion. Here are some videos to help us all better understand gain.

4. Compression

Our Midas M32 board comes with a built-in compressor. When listening to professionally mixed music versus something you recorded on your phone with the voice memos app, you may notice that the volume levels of professionally mixed music are much more consistent whereas the levels on low-quality recordings are all over the place. Compressing vocals so that the lower volume sounds increased and the higher volume sounds decreased significantly increases the quality of a mix. In a live setting, your worship leaders vocals can drastically change volume if they move away from or toward the microphone, or if they are a variation of vocal parts that are high and low in their range. A compressor smooths this all out. It’s also a hand tool to use on instruments like the kick drum so that the loudness of each strike of the kick drum sounds consistent.

5. EQ

Equalization plays a huge role in achieving an excellent mix. The key here is to reduce bad frequencies rather than boosting good ones. Use tools like the high-pass filters to get completely rid of low muddy frequencies on instruments that never need them.

6. Effects

The most common effects you will hear in a professional environment are reverb and delay. Effects have the potential to both enhance and destroy a mix. Do not overdo it. If you are new to mixing, start with only applying a little bit of reverb with a second or two of decay. Delay can also enhance a mix, but be especially careful with it. Most mixers come with a tap tempo feature to allow you to set the tempo of your delay to match the tempo of the song.

7. Volume

The most intensely debated aspect of church sound is volume. People in our church will inevitably complain about the volume. Some complain it’s too loud. Some complain it’s too quiet. Make sure you and your church leadership are on the same page about the volume and stick to that standard. Often when people complain about the volume of church sound, they are complaining about issues of EQ or some other mixing parameter that you can quickly adjust. EQ is probably the most common because poor EQ can make instruments sound harsh or piercing. Before you turn down faders, examine the other parameters explained above. A few additional notes about volume. Make sure the vocals can be heard above the instruments so people can sing along. As we already mentioned, know the music so you can make slight adjustments to instrument levels based on the style of the song. Another volume standard that I want us to have is this: if you are back in the sound booth and the band is rocking out during one of our worship services, you SHOULD NOT be able to clearly hear any one individual person from the congregation singing somewhere in the room. If you can clearly hear someone else’s voice from the crowd, then our main speakers are just too quiet. I do like when we can hear and feel the presence of the congregation singing along, but that shouldn’t be at the forefront of the overall sound experience. We have a great sound system, and we are rocking full band sets - a lady in the back shouldn’t be able to be louder than us. :) My opinion is that when people can hear their own voice too loudly or clearly, most get insecure and stop singing. I’d rather have our main volume loud enough that people feel the freedom to sing out without worrying that their neighbor can hear them.

Vocals

Mixing vocals is an art, but it’s something I want us to improve on. My observation is that we typically have our background vocals too high in the mix. They should be “felt” more than heard. I have found that we also tend to set the levels and leave them throughout the set, but more and more now, we have multiple lead singers, so it’s important to know who should be up in the mix, and who should be brought back down between each and every song. It’s tough to get them right, especially hearing the lead vocal throughout the entire song without things getting too loud. To help you navigate the troubled waters, here is a short guide for mixing vocals.

First, set gain properly for each vocal.

Good sound starts with gain. Yet, most church sound techs are not quite sure how gain is different from adjusting the volume. If you do not quite understand gain, be sure to watch this video. You will discover the true purpose of gain along with a step-by-step guide for getting it set right each time.

Cut the lows out of all vocals.

If a vocalist is singing into a mic like they should (distance of an inch or less from microphone to mouth), you will get a nice, full sound. However, if you leave the EQ as is, there will be way too much low frequency noise, which makes it sound muddy and also gets in the way of instruments that belong in that space. To fix this problem you should first activate the low cut filter (aka ‘high pass filter’) on every vocal. This gets rid of low frequency pops and unwanted breathing noise by cutting low frequencies that shouldn’t be reproduced on a vocal anyways.

On an analog mixer, the high pass filter button is usually located by the gain knob and looks like /100. On a digital mixer (like the Midas M32), simply activate the low cut filter and set the frequency to around 120Hz. Although this takes care of most issues, you still may want to clean it up a bit using the low frequency knob if you have an analog mixer, or changing the frequency position of your low cut filter if you have a digital mixer. Simply cut out the lows until you get a nice clean sound that still has plenty of warmth.

Mix background vocals…in the background.

It is common for churches to mix all vocals in the foreground and bury all the instrumentalists. But, there is a better way. Your mix should have layers and contrast. On the top layer is your lead vocal followed by the instruments that create energy: bass and drums. Then your lead instrument which changes from song to song. For example, in a song like Wake, synth is the lead instrument. But in a song like Good Good Father, acoustic guitar is the lead instrument.

Then, simply layer in the background vocals and other instruments where they fit best. Keep in mind, you do not have to audibly hear every single instrument and vocal. But, you should notice a change if the channel is muted. (Read this last line again and commit it to memory. This is a key to great mixing).

Don’t forget about compression.

If you do not have compression on vocals, you are in for a bumpy ride! There is simply too much dynamic range in a vocal to let it run free. Compression takes the dynamic range and narrows it down, depending on how much compression is added. Then, you will not have to ride the fader up and down through the whole song as the vocal gets louder and softer.

On the other hand, too much compression can take the life out of a vocal. As a baseline measurement, make sure the vocal isn’t compressed more than 6dB on average. The goal is to narrow the dynamic range, not eliminate it.

Use reverb and delay, but not too much.

When effects (reverb, delay, etc.) are not used on a vocal, it sounds dry and dead. But, effects can also become a distraction when used too liberally. When in doubt, use a plate reverb to bring life and space to the vocal. Turn it up until you hear it, then bring it down to where it doesn’t stand out.

To help separate a lead vocal from background vocals, try using a plate reverb on the lead and hall reverb on the background vocals. This will put them in two different ‘spaces’ so to speak and add a little interest to the sound.

There really is no set-in-stone way to mix effects, so don’t be afraid to experiment. Different songs will have different applications. For example, there may be a song where you want to hear the trailing delay and another where you want the delay to be buried in the mix. Be creative, but don’t forget to cut the effects if the lead vocal starts talking instead of singing…

Drums

Drums (and bass guitar) are the foundation of a great mix. If the drums aren’t right, the mix lacks energy and loses its impact. With all the signal processing available to us (EQ, compression and gating), it is easy to get overwhelmed. The most important thing to keep in mind is to never use signal processing just because it is available, only use it to solve a problem. With that in mind, let’s go through the foundational EQ, Compression and Gating techniques for mixing live drums…

Simple EQ Techniques for Drums

For great sounding drums, you first need to make sure your drum heads are properly tuned, mics are placed correctly and gain is set properly (more on that here). Then, a few simple EQ techniques will take your drums to a whole ‘notha level.

Note: For all filters listed below that contain a range (i.e. 200-400Hz), use frequency sweeping to find the most appropriate frequency setting for your situation. Learn about frequency sweeping in this post: The Most Important EQ Techniques for Church Sound

Kick Drum

• Low Cut: 30Hz (only if subs are prone to overloading)

• Peaking Filter: 200-400Hz / Q: 1.5 / -12dB (to remove boxiness)

• High Shelf: 5-7kHz / +3dB (to hear more attack)

Snare Top

• Low Cut: 50Hz

• Peaking Filter: 100-150Hz / Q: 3 / +6dB (to feel the snare in your chest)

• Peaking Filter: 400-600Hz / Q: 1.5 / -9dB (to remove boxiness)

• Peaking Filter: 5-8kHz / Q: 3 / +3dB (to hear more of the attack)

Bonus: Download the Drum EQ Cheat Sheet

Snare Bottom

• Low Cut: 50Hz

• Peaking Filter: 100-150Hz / Q: 3 / +6dB (same frequency as snare top)

• Peaking Filter: 400-600Hz / Q 1.5 / -12dB (same frequency as snare top)

Only use compression with inexperienced drummers.

It is common for sound techs to put compression on almost every drum mic, but this is not necessary unless you have an inexperienced, uncontrolled drummer. Even in this case, you will probably only need light compression on the kick drum and possibly the snare.

The kick drum is something you want to stay pretty steady throughout the mix, so if you have a drummer that is inconsistent, use the following compression settings:

• Ratio: 3

• Attack/Hold/Release: 5ms/0ms/200ms

• Set threshold to where average gain reduction is around 3-6dB

Most importantly, only use compression to solve a problem with volume inconsistencies. Don’t use it just because it is available.

So, when should you use gating?

When the floor tom is mixed so that you feel it in your chest, even the slightest head vibration will be amplified through the sound system as low frequency feedback. This is a great use for gating. Simply set the gate so that the vibrations in-between hits are not heard.

Sample Gate Settings for Floor Tom

• Attack/Hold/Release: 5ms/1ms/~650ms

• Range: 20dB

• Set threshold so that light hits still come through, but any low frequency feedback is gated

If too much hi hat is coming through the snare mic, you may want to use gating. However, a better solution is to communicate with the drummer, asking him to lighten up on the hi hat.

Gating the snare is tricky business – do so with caution. Currently, I am gating the top mic of the snare so that it is nice and punchy without ringing afterwards. The bottom snare mic is left wide open (no gate) so that soft snare rolls are still heard even when the gate on the top mic remains closed.

Sample Gate Settings for Snare Top

• Attack/Hold/Release: 0ms/.05ms/150ms

• Range: 40dB

• Set threshold so that light hits still come through, but any ringing afterwards is gated

Mix Prioritization

There is a method to the madness when it comes to mixing. It is an art but it’s also a science. And it’s always something that we can improve on, as long as we are willing to learn. There is a hierarchy of what should be and/or felt within your mix. I want to give a basic list of what that hierarchy should look like…

1. Lead Vocals - Because we want the congregation to sing along, the lead vocal should be at the very front of your mix. REMINDER - the lead vocalist may change from song to song, so you have to make sure you know who is singing what on each song every time you run sound.

2. Drums & Bass - Other than your lead vocalist, drums and bass should always be in front of everything else in the mix. They create the drive and energy that lifts the sets. These are instruments that should be both heard and felt. I want to feel the bass and kick drum thumping in my chest. If that’s not happening, then our “energy instruments” just aren’t up enough in the mix - or - we’ve potentially EQ’d out too much of the low end that we want in there. Muddy is bad…yes. But full and warm is good! It’s a fine line, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

3. Lead Instrument - This one will change from song to song, so again, it’s very important not just to set levels and leave them. This is also another reason why our sound team MUST really know the ins and outs of each song being performed prior to run-through or Sunday, so that you can mix accordingly. Some songs are mainly led by the acoustic guitar. In that case, turn the acoustic up. Some songs are begun by the piano. In that case, turn the piano up! Other songs will have a lot of electric guitar lead lines that are critical to the song structure. Whatever the lead instrument of the song is, that should come next in the mix after drums and bass.

4. Layering Elements - This is where the rest of the items in your mix will sit. Background vocals should go here. The pad loops should go here. Your rhythm electric guitar might sit here. The acoustic guitar or piano may even go here if they aren’t lead instruments for the song. All of these items, as long as they aren’t “lead instruments” should be more so “felt” as opposed to “heard.” You may not be able to hear it super clearly, but you can feel it if you muted the channel. A great mix does not necessarily mean that you can perfectly hear every voice and instrument. It means that everything is in a mix position that best presents the song to the congregation. It’s okay if the acoustic guitar disappears during the biggest parts of a song. It’s more than fine if the background vocalist isn’t heard crystal clear through the speakers. Those elements are there to support, not to always be highlighted.

Live Stream Mix

So an exciting update is that we just purchased a second board (“Mini” Midas M32R), and we will be using it to have a separate mix for our live stream services on facebook, youtube, etc.. there are some unique challenges and differences in how to mix for live stream versus the in-person services. I’m going to link some videos and articles below that help to breakdown the process for us…

Article Links about Live Stream

• Sounds Dull

• Panning

• Compression

• Reverb

• Ambient Mics

Examples

Let’s take a listen to some of the songs we sing at True Hope and break down what we hear in their mixes…