I love the New Year. It's a chance for us all to do better than we did during the last year. This is true for all aspects of life. However, I am discussing live worship sound and how you can improve yourself in that arena this New Year. As for everything else, there are plenty of TV and radio shrinks to help you there. So, where do we begin?
200,000 Opportunities
There is no doubt that worship sound has continued to be a growing and very lucrative market. There is more room for growth in this niche of live sound than any other that I am aware of. Let me give you a few statistics; right now there are approximately 38,000 Baptist churches, 37,500 Methodist churches and 23,000 Catholic churches in America. If you add up all the religious groups that have gathering places you will find that there are close to 200,000 houses of worship in the U.S. Compare that to about 15,500 high school auditoriums and 7,000 Catholic schools. As you can see, this is not only a big niche, it is the biggest. There really is no limit to how much sound can be poured into these houses of worship.
That said, I have been in this biz for a decade, and I have seen not only a lot of growth but also a lot of changes in what a congregation wants from their sound system and engineers. I know many of you are volunteering your time as a worship sound mixer rather than installing sound systems and working at a variety of worship houses, so these statistics may not be of that much interest to you, but you still need to keep up with what is new and exciting (and many times better) in the live sound world.
Ahead of the Curve
Let me give you a quick example. Just a few days ago, I used a matched pair of AKG C214 microphones on a choir and was really pleased with the overall improvement in sound quality that the mics delivered. The AKGs were simply better than the mics I had been using for the last few years in that particular church. There will always be new gear to check out (or at least read about), and staying up on the latest and greatest should be part of your job description.
Actually, the fact that you are reading this magazine is a good sign that you already instinctively know this. I realize that you may not be able to purchase every new sound toy that you want in your worship house. But when the time comes, it will be easy to choose a new piece of gear if you have kept up with what is available out there in the audio world.
Besides keeping up on what is new, having a good reference book (or two) is always helpful in your quest to do your job better. My book, House of Worship Sound Reinforcement, is one example, and it's worth checking out, (even if the author is not above using his column in FOH for a shameless plug!).
Get Out Much?
Now that you have decided to sharpen your overall knowledge of sound and equipment, you may want to dial in on the needs of your own worship house. How many of you visit other worship houses to listen to their sound systems? If you are an installer, you listen to various systems out of the necessity of your job. However, you may simply volunteer and mix at the worship house of which you are a member and nowhere else. This is great if you want to become proficient in the operation of your house system, but at the same time you may have separated yourself from the rest of the sound world. It becomes the goldfish in a bowl syndrome. You are only aware of the environment immediately around you.
I suggest you get out and listen to some other worship sound systems as well as check other house environments. Visit the church next door (or down the street) and exercise your God-given ears. There is no doubt that you will learn something. You may find out that you rock as a worship house sound mixer. Or you may hear tones and frequencies that you never knew existed. Whatever the outcome, you should find it enlightening. The more worship systems you can listen to, the more objective you can become about your own house system. Besides, all the listening you do will just improve your ear training and frequency discernment.
I realize that this exercise will take extra time and effort on your part, but we already decided we want to do a better job this year. Right?
H.O.W. Improvement
Back to your own worship house. One of the most common areas of improvement in any church is the acoustic environment of the building itself. This will involve discovering what materials were used in the construction of your space and how those materials react to live sound and all the frequencies that are produced. Whatever condition your space is in, I am sure the acoustics can be improved. And just like new and innovative audio gear is always being produced, new sound treatment materials are regularly introduced into the sound market. The understanding and treatment of sound wave frequencies in any space can be a very deep study. So, you have your work cut out for you in investigating your own house of worship.
I think that in the next few months I will write something on the latest ideas on acoustically treating your worship space. For those of you who work with a variety of worship houses, you need to read up on what materials and items are currently available for sound treatment. As a matter of fact, the more you know about sound and controlling it, the better you will be able to do your job and serve your clients.
If you make a plan to increase your personal knowledge this year, you will become a greater asset to you yourself and to your house of worship. Good luck!
