I have a memory from my youth — probably sometime in the early 1980s. It’s a fuzzy memory, of the type experienced by people of an advanced age (like me). I remember seeing a girl on a stage singing into a microphone that had no cable attached to it — but it had a telescoping metal antenna emerging from where the cable would have normally been. My young electronics-addled brain put it together… “Yes, that antenna is just like the ones on my walkie-talkie set, so the microphone is transmitting to a receiver somewhere, and that’s how we can hear her sing.” And I saw a guy playing a guitar, but it didn’t have a coiled black cable leading to an amp. I deduced that the little black box attached to his belt was also a transmitter, enabling us to hear him play. The first thing that struck me was that these musicians and vocalists had to be very happy, because they could now move much more freely about the stage, with no leash to constrain them to a small radius. And they did look happy, singing and playing and dancing about. Wireless is a good thing, but how much do you really need?
Wireless does a lot of things, chief among them that it replaces cables, and cables are less than optimal for a number of reasons. For one thing, they’re straight-up ugly, dangling all over the place, cluttering up the joint. Blech. They also present a tripping hazard. If they restricted their domain to just laying there on the floor, it wouldn’t be so bad. But they don’t — they arc up from the floor to the input jack of your big loud guitar amplifier. And that’s when they’re at their most dangerous; seemingly reaching out and grabbing at the shoes of the guitarist. Tripping and stumbling over a cable while playing an otherwise perfect 64th note diatonic run just isn’t a good look. And in the modern age of in-ear monitors, cables are not out of the question as the means by which signal is delivered to those custom-molded plastic earpieces, particularly for stationary musicians. But let’s face it — even then, it just seems wrong to be tethered to an IEM. In fact, the musicians (and vocalists) from the pre-wireless days of yore were restricted roughly to a hemisphere centered wherever their cable plugged into an amp or a stage box. Consider this: the pastor’s pulpit may be portable, to be moved into and out of position at the appropriate times. If it features a microphone with a cable, its movement is limited in the same way the movement of musicians and singers is limited by cables. And while we’re busy counting off all the less-than-desirable attributes of cables, let’s note that they project an image of a church that is “behind the times” or “so last century.” And such low-tech images don’t necessarily inspire musicians, technicians or even parishioners.
Wireless Yays and Nays
Let’s draw a contrast between cabled and wireless operation. The first fact to address is that, when going wireless, each cable must be replaced by at least two components — a transmitter and a receiver — and this pair is typically much more expensive than a simple cable. Compared with cables, wireless systems are substantially more complex to deploy, configure and set up. It’s also substantially more challenging to keep an RF system operational. Cables don’t occasionally fail to power-up. Nor do cables ever show a “CATASTROPHIC FAILURE” message. In fact, cables don’t even have a display. It’s much easier for an untrained volunteer to troubleshoot a cable than a complex wireless system. If a cable fails five minutes before our Sunday morning service, we can typically get it replaced and maybe even have a minute or two to spare.
If a wireless system fails five minutes before the service, a lot of extra prayers will be said, probably along with a few words God would prefer us not to use. Sometimes, simply replacing the transmitter/receiver pair with a cable may not be a plausible solution — there simply may not be a workaround that can be achieved in the allotted time. Wireless systems require us to engage in the management and/or charging of batteries, and despite our best efforts, we’re not always successful. Another difficulty wireless systems must face is the ever-shrinking bandwidth available for us to use. We’ve been forced to get pretty clever about using the slivers that still remain, but those slivers grow more slender every day. Sharing bandwidth is another challenge that plagues wireless systems. They’re more likely to result in police band radio making an appearance in your pastor’s ebullient sermon. Note that I said “more likely,” since cables can also tune in the conversations of our first responders, but not as frequently as wireless systems. We alluded to cables perhaps being somewhat unwieldy for IEMs, but for musicians in fixed positions (drummers, keyboardists, etc.) wireless is also unwieldy, just in a different way.
So, How Much Wireless Do You Really Need?
Returning to our original question, I respectfully submit that an honest assessment of your needs and your resources — bearing in mind what’s been said here about cabling versus wireless — will give you a reasonably definitive answer. One key question is whether you have a trained audio professional at your disposal, paid or volunteer. It’s important, because even if a contractor handles the initial installation and configuration of your systems, it’s a certainty that problems will arise that will require skills beyond what untrained volunteers typically possess. While it’s true that volunteers may be able to read manuals (and/or Google potential solutions), if we do get that “CATASTROPHIC FAILURE” message, they may not be able to get a system back online quickly enough if the problem emerges five minutes before a Sunday morning service.
Budget is another major consideration. Wireless is, unfortunately, a domain where the strategy of “let’s keep it inexpensive at first; we’ll invest in a nicer system later” causes numerous problems. One potential solution is to determine where in the system wireless is beneficial and worthwhile. First invest in quality technology for that purpose, then add additional wireless as budget permits, as opposed to going completely wireless with a cheap system. And indeed, as was stated above, there are some places in the system where it just makes sense to do cables and forego wireless. It’s silly to suffer the expense and increased potential for failure so stationary drummers and keyboard players can have wireless IEMs and mics. Using cables in these applications is the practical and responsible approach. And, for that matter — depending on your church’s typical platform plot — you may be able to eliminate the complexity of wireless for other musicians too. Vocalists typically need to move around a bit more, but instrumentalists tend to be at least a little less mobile.
Look at your budget, look at the sophistication of your staff, and limit your wireless investment to that which is truly important. And exhibit some patience. If you can’t acquire all the necessary wireless immediately, you can add a piece here and a piece there, and eventually build up to what you need. Invest in what you need — but only that.
John McJunkin is the chief engineer and staff producer in the studio at Grand Canyon University.
