For many of you, this month’s installment may seem a little redundant, as I’ve written about this subject in the past. But before you turn the page, hear me out. Our main job as audio technicians is to make the service sound as good as it possibly can. In reality, almost all my Sound Sanctuary writing is designed to that end. Making great sound is important to me, as I am sure it is for you.
That said, I’m attempting to put some of my experience and knowledge in a form that can easily be referred to now and in the future. Hopefully, this will be used as training material for those of you who are mixing this coming Wednesday or Sunday, and for the next group of audio techs who will work in your house of worship. The goal with this information is to make your job more effective and fun. Okay, now that I have made my case, let’s get to it.
Back to Basics
We know that every member of our congregations wants to hear the worship music balanced and the message clearly understood, but we don’t always know how to make that happen. Well, my friends and believers, I am going to tell you some of my personal methods for improving the sound of any house of worship.
Before we dissect things into steps, we need to think a bit about sound waves, measured as cycles per second (known as Hertz, or Hz), which make up the spectrum of sound frequencies that we hear. Generally speaking, sound systems in houses of worship produce sound frequencies from about 60 Hz to 16 kHz (thousand Hertz). A perfect human ear can hear a wider range of frequencies (20 Hz to 20 kHz), but it’s my experience that a typical house of worship does not want their subwoofers to be pumping at 40 Hz and the high-end horns sizzling up to 20 kHz. By the way, if it didn’t seem obvious earlier, my intention with this guide is to keep it simple, without making you over-think anything.
The First Step: Listen!
You need to really know how your worship space sounds. Get to service early (God will already be there), or you can go in on an off day with the permission of your pastor. Play a CD or any music through your sound system and just listen. Try listening from as many different areas in your worship house as you can. Walk up and down the aisles and check out the balcony (if you have one). Listen from one side of your room and the other. Find the areas where the music sounds best (the sweet spots). Listen carefully in these sweet spots and try to identify why it sounds good. Is the music exceptionally clear? Can you understand the lyrics more easily, or are the instruments more defined?
Besides determining those areas that sound best in you worship house, you’re also training your ears to be more discerning. Now find other areas where it does not sound so good, and do the same (with your ears). Try to identify why those areas sound bad, or not as good, and whether the cause is the sound system itself (such as the placement of the speakers) or the acoustics/design of the sanctuary.
For example, under-balcony areas are notoriously difficult to adequately cover with a single speaker system at the front of the room. Also, many worship spaces have a reverberant nature that might add a nice fullness to the music, but create problems with vocal intelligibility and clarity of the spoken word. Large, classic-style cathedrals are often notorious for this.
A Little EQ
Let’s try adjusting the equalization of the music. If you have a graphic equalizer that controls the main speakers, push each band (one at a time) up and down and listen to the changes it makes to your music. As you are adjusting the individual frequencies of that equalizer, listen carefully to what instruments (including the voice) are affected by the different frequency bands. You goal is to readily identify these frequencies and know how they sound in your church — and, of course, to make the music sound as good as possible to your ears. If you do not have a graphic EQ, adjust the equalization knobs on the individual channels of your mixer. Try making that canned music sound as good as possible. If you have another sound tech available, this is the perfect time to get a second opinion. Sometimes, two sets of ears can be better than one.
You should keep in mind that the sound of an empty worship space will probably be different than the room’s sonic “signature” when the pews are packed with worshippers. Even so, after completing your listening/EQ tests, you should have a better idea about some of the deficiencies in your sanctuary that may need to be addressed. Once you have got your worship space equalized to your satisfaction, move on to the next step.
It All Begins at the Microphone
We will now focus on the microphone used by your priest/minister/rabbi/imam/etc. The goal of any house of worship is to deliver the word of God to its congregation. So, optimizing the sound of the preacher’s voice should be your number one concern. With that in mind, we will assume your speaker uses either a wireless or wired microphone to deliver the message. This method will work equally well if you have a lavalier or headset mic.
Turn on the wireless mic and speak into it from various locations in your space. Walk around and listen to the quality and clarity of your own voice. (Avoid walking in front of the main speakers with your mic.) Use your mixer’s channel EQ to adjust the tonality of the mic until you can hear your voice clearly and distinctly almost everywhere in your worship room. (I say “almost,” because you may have areas that simply don’t sound very good.)
If you have another tech in your worship house, this is a great time to get them involved with this process. Have the spare tech speak into the mic from the platform as you listen and adjust the EQ accordingly. Should your preacher deliver the message through a wired microphone, have your tech assistant speak into the wired mic. If you don’t have a helper, put an extra XLR cable (or two) on the wired mic and walk through the room, testing the quality of how the spoken word sounds. Make that microphone sound the best it can in every location.
Listen and Learn
It is can be this simple, my friends. The first step in optimizing the sound of our houses of worship is improving how we hear and identify sound. As you follow these steps, your ears will become trained to listen in your space — and other spaces for that matter. You may wish to repeat this exercise as many times as you want. As your ears improve, the sound of your services will improve.
