Last night I ran the sound board for the praise band again. We are preparing for the Christmas Eve worship service and needed to chase a few gremlins away from the system.
Last Sunday, I was not happy with the mix. The lead singer was muddy and lacked definition, and the back-up singers did not harmonize well. I also heard second-hand that there were significant dead spots around the sanctuary where the vocals were even worse than what I was hearing (and I was chasing the settings all service to fix...). Unfortunately, we got a late jump on Sunday (due to the previous service running long), and could not do as thorough a sound-check as I would have liked.
Anyway...last night's practice went well. I had a chance to get the parametric equalizer adjusted properly, and the vocalists were much more clear as a result. I also had some time after getting the mix nailed down to adjust the side-fill monitors' levels and angles. As a result, I think the dead spots and muddy zones are all but eliminated. We'll see Saturday night.
Finally, I was able to get a board graphic from the lead tech, so that I could map the settings. We have different sound techs during each different service. Several of the channels get used for different things during the earlier service, and I need to be able to replicate my settings in the brief period available to me pre-service. Now that I have a base mapping to work from, it should be easier to spot the issues going forward.
The praise band likes working with me on the board, which is a nice compliment. So far, the congregation is pleased with the changes (even if I am unhappy with some aspects of them). I hope that our Worhip on Saturday goes well. Having the production be transparent lets the message come through much more clearly.
Pax,
Newbius
3 comments:
My son used to run the sound board for our little tiny church. Ours was small, so it didn't take much, but he enjoyed it.
Quality sound definitely adds to the worship experience.
Sounds like you are a man of many talents:guns, sound, pizza...
Diverse interests, diverse talents. :)
During the youth group meetings, I run a Mackie Onyx 32-4. Worship service has me on a Mackie SR32-4-VLZ Pro. The boards are very similar, yet different enough to make it a challenge. I think I prefer the Onyx for ease of use and the post-processing capabilities, but the SR32-4 is a very nice board (and easier to trim).
That is a nice board to run. It's good to hear that you're working out common problems, and base-settings for ironing them out.
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