The sound engineer’s role in the worship team (and what makes it all worthwhile) Learn an innovative sound check method that makes musicians happy at 7am! A while ago I played at a festival where the most eventful memory of the whole day was the sound check!
Not that the event wasn’t good, its just the sound check was the best organised, well thought out and most efficient one I’ve ever been to despite taking place at 7am! (Quite frankly for any musician there should be only one 7 o clock time per day and it shouldn’t be before lunch!) Many sound checks can be time consuming, but the way this early morning check was organised meant that some of the unnecessary stages were cut out leaving much more time for rehearsing. Most sound checks have three stages. Firstly each instrument is line checked. Once everything is line checked the engineer would generally ask each band member what other instruments they would like in their monitor and crucially at what volume. The other outcome can be that volumes keep rising as everyone asks for a little bit more – especially when the congregation begins to sing.
The 7am alternative goes like this. Top 10 Do’s and Don’ts – Sound men/women. Sound men and women get a bad rap in churches.
Musicians spend about 70% of their time complaining about their stage sound, their monitor mix, the irritating buzzes, the front-of-house levels – pretty much everything really. Give musicians the slightest excuse and they’ll moan about the sound. They’ll behave like children if you don’t give them what they want. In normal circumstances you’ll only be a smidgeon away from giving them a hearty slap.
Sound Man. Church hero. SoundMan needs love.
The church sound person is almost always a volunteer. This is not his full-time gig. During the week he’s repairing cars, selling insurance, cub reporting, peddling groceries, and on Sunday he becomes something other than a car repairer, insurance seller, cub reporter or grocer. He becomes -voila! - SoundMan! Assuming that no local SoundMan wants to disappoint a frightened public that depends on him, I have some thoughts- the SoundMan Code- that will help him/her (yes, there is SoundWoman) do the job better and, when necessary, fake it convincingly. 1) SoundMan does best when no one knows his secret identity. 2) SoundMan looks like other humans but he is different. 3) Soundman doesn’t simply wait for evil to happen and fight it. 4) SoundMan knows his powers and uses them for good. 5) SoundMan is humble. 6) SoundMan knows how to use his equipment. 7) SoundMan has a sidekick.
This article originally appeared in Christian Musician magazine.