It seems as if everything in life continues to evolve and move forward, leaving tradition and history behind. And in many cases, it’s good for us to move on. We find new, better ways of doing things and leave the old ways behind. In some cases, however, some of the old ways are maintained, perhaps the result of nostalgia, or perhaps because the old ways have attributes that render them desirable even despite modern advances. We still ride horses even though we have automobiles. We still play vinyl records despite having access to high-resolution digital recordings of music. There are things in life for which both modern and traditional modalities are legitimate and worth pursuing. In my mind, church services fall into this category.
Most churches offer contemporary services, deploying cutting-edge technology and presenting the latest worship music with modern lighting, sound and visuals. There’s so much modern technology deployed in this process that there’s debate over whether it’s too much. We won’t stray into the middle of that debate here, other than to note that some of the churches who use high technology have decided that there’s value in also offering services that strip away all the dazzling tech and return to more humble roots. And to be sure, there are also churches who have chosen to maintain that level of simplicity all along — never having adopted highly advanced tech as part of their services. Either way, we’re going to examine the notion of handling audio for traditional services in the best possible way.
The Traditional Space
First, let’s address the scenario in which the traditional service happens in a traditional space. Here’s what I mean by that: in the modern era, churches have not only sought to modernize the technology and the content of their services, but also the spaces in which those services happen. In many cases, they have purpose-built modern sanctuaries that resemble performance spaces from the secular world like theaters and concert halls. Usually, these spaces are designed from the outset for high quality acoustical functionality, ready to accommodate modern audio technology. In these cases, we can usually just present whichever kind of service we like without any consideration of the acoustical environment — it’s already pretty well buttoned down for us in advance.
However, in the case of traditional churches, the acoustics may require a bit of consideration. Imagine the archetypal church from days of yore — a long, rectangular room — probably with a high ceiling, maybe even with exposed beams. There’s an altar at one end of the large room and pews filling up most of the remainder. Some of these churches will have been designed well before the age of line arrays or even simpler point-source P.A. systems, possibly with some consideration of acoustics. There are cathedrals in which the acoustics were developed to deliver marvelous natural reverberation and help to ensure that what’s said or played at the altar end of the room is heard as clearly as possible throughout the entire space. However, there are also some churches designed without much thought about acoustics at all.
The bottom line? If the room is properly designed to suffice without amplified reinforcement, you’re probably best off to not use any. And don’t misunderstand me — if you normally use an amplifier with your acoustic guitar or if you must have an amp because your keyboard has no speakers or amplification of its own, please use them, by all means. When I say to avoid using a P.A., that’s exactly what I mean — don’t bring in a P.A. system. This will be a relatively uncommon scenario, but it is legitimate in some cases.
A somewhat more likely scenario will be a traditional space with good acoustics, but requiring a bit of a P.A. assist. In my mind, there are two considerations here: first, do no harm — one might be tempted to overdo the system. If you’ve got a space that’s reasonably solid from an acoustical standpoint, you probably don’t need a portable line array with subs and delay towers. Think more like small speakers on sticks — they can be brought out when necessary and put away when they’re not. The other consideration is aesthetics. Big ugly black speakers may stand out a bit in a traditional church. Either find some way to tuck the speakers away or cover them with tasteful acoustically transparent cloth. They shouldn’t call attention to themselves visually or aurally.
Of course, we also need to consider the aforementioned sanctuary space that was either purpose-designed from the beginning for proper acoustics, or a re-appropriated performance space like a community (or movie) theater. Spaces such as these are usually designed to rely on a P.A. system of some kind to evenly distribute our sound throughout the entire space. Since our acoustics and the P.A. integrated therein are already squared away, we can just jump right in.
The likely traditional instruments we should be thinking about are piano, organ, maybe acoustic guitar, and of course vocals. It’s possible we might have strings or wind instruments too. There’s a multitude of ways to mic a piano, and this is not a treatise on that art. The one thing I’d encourage you to consider is whether you’ll present the piano in mono or stereo. If it’s the only non-vocal element, I would personally go stereo. If it’s one of several elements (to include organ, guitar, percussion, etc.) you may keep it to mono. In fact, that’s largely true across the board — if an acoustic guitar or organ is the only instrument backing vocals, think strongly about presenting it in stereo. If you’ve got 4-5 instruments, you could keep them all mono and pan them within your stereo image.
Vocals: A Key Element
Vocals are almost certainly going to figure prominently into your traditional church service. This column has examined choir-miking techniques, and I’d recommend taking some care to do that properly. A smaller group (think barbershop or acapella style) might benefit from mics on individuals, but you might be able to get away with a stereo pair or even a mono omni mic — that approach used to sound pretty amazing for radio and television. All the same rules as usual apply — if you are using a P.A. system — even a small one — you’ll still need to take some steps to avoid feedback. If your space is moderately large to very large, you’ll need to consider monitoring, and in the case of well-appointed modern churches, you may already have a nice IEM system in place — don’t be afraid to use it! We’ve also discussed at some length the topic of presenting the voices of clergy in these pages, and you’ll need to think about this too. Again, all the usual rules apply — some clergy prefer handheld, others are fine with a headset, others yet might prefer a lavalier, and some may want to have a gooseneck-mounted mic in the pulpit. Give them what they want and engage in best practices vis-a-vis feedback suppression and maybe a bit of light EQ and compression to achieve consistent levels.
Consider the Mix
On the note of processing, let’s discuss the mix for just a fleet moment. This is one domain in which traditional and modern services will differ radically. We mix modern services like rock concerts… lots of compression, radical EQ, modulation processing, pitch correction, parallel processing of all kinds, etc., etc. We should not be doing this for a traditional service. Don’t misunderstand me — a bit of EQ to correct resonances in a vocal or a touch of compression will be OK, but it shouldn’t be overdone. Here’s a hypothetical example of why we should not overdo it: imagine a scenario in which we have a small- to medium-sized space in which a vocalist can be heard both directly and also through the P.A. No big deal as long as we don’t have a lot of latency. But imagine then that vocal pitch correction is available at front of house. Our engineer applies said correction, and the corrected version intermingles with the unprocessed voice heard directly through the space. The larger the pitch discrepancy between the two, the worse the nasty chorusing will sound… and you see what I mean.
If there’s one takeaway I’d have for you, the simplest rule of thumb is this: the term “traditional” is sort of interchangeable with the term “historic,” and when we’re producing a traditional service, we should do our best to try not to use technology that did not exist during the period we’re honoring with our service. If they’re done well, services like this can have a nice impact.
John McJunkin is an adjunct professor at Grand Canyon University.
