Since I have been writing Sound Sanctuary, I have spent a lot of time in houses of worship, mixing live sound, installing sound systems, tuning up systems and interacting with the people that operate and volunteer at worship houses. The one theme that seems to be common among the different houses that I have visited is the lack of volunteer training.
I certainly understand why this phenomenon exists. Worship volunteers generally have limited time to give, and that time seems better used in ac-tual doing rather than learning. Please don’t think I am being critical, I am just stating what I have observed. The fact of the matter is that I admire anyone who will give freely of his or her time. That said, let me get into this months installment of Sound Sanctuary.
Every sound in your house of worship that is amplified must travel through your house mixing console. Some of you may have a good understand-ing of how your house mixer, signal path and gain structure work. But for a lot of you that console is a very scary piece of equipment, and how sound travels through it is a mystery. However, it is simpler than you think.
The microphones or direct boxes on your worship house stage pick up sound from you preacher, choir, worship band, etc., and send it to your snake or directly to the mixing board through a balanced XLR cable. This is the path that the signal takes, commonly known as the signal path. This “sound“ (now in electric form) enters your mixing board at the channel or channel strip input. If your house console has a 16-channel board, you will have 16 channel (mono) inputs. Some manufacturers will refer to their stereo channel inputs as two channels, but for this discussion we will only examine the mono inputs. The input channel can only be entered through a female mic input or a ¼-inch line level input. Take a look at the backside of your board and you will see what I am referring to. While you are looking back there you may see another ¼-inch female jack named “insert.” Don’t worry about it for now.
An Audio Godsend
At the top of that input channel strip you will have a knob titled “gain” or “trim.” This knob adjusts how much the channel pre-amp boost the in-coming signal. If you crank it up too much you will get distortion (clipping); however, if the incoming signal is too low you may experience un-wanted hum or hiss. The idea is to set this level just right. You can use your ears, LED indicator lights or meters to set this level. If the incoming signal is really hot (usually a keyboard, iPod or computer) you can engage your mixer’s “pad” button. If you don’t have one, sorry, but if you do it will knock down the incoming signal by 24 to 30 dB (give or take). In the same area as the gain knob and pad button you should find a high-pass filter button. This handy item will roll off the low frequencies of your incoming signal at 80 or 100 Hz. This button is a godsend if you need to eliminate boom from a mic or instrument.
Next you will enter the EQ section of the channel strip. I believe I covered equalization in-depth last month so get a copy of FOH or go online and read up. Keep in mind two EQ rules: 1) Less is more. Don’t over EQ a mic or instrument and 2) Generally, you will want to remove offending fre-quencies, not add frequencies.
Twist Some Knobs
After we leave the EQ section, we come across the Aux sends. These knobs, sometimes labeled “monitor” or “effects” allow you to send the signal to another place without interrupting the signal traveling through the channel input strip. The aux signal can be used for onstage monitors, effects processors or recording devices. The aux signals from the individual channels are sent to the aux master bus in your consoles master section. I will not be getting into master section until next month just because a lot happens there. Let me just say that from the aux master buss the aux signals can be sent to the aforementioned destinations (stage monitors, etc.). Your house board may have a pre/post fader button in the aux area of each channel strip. The pre-fader position means the signal is sent to the aux buss before the fader. Your channel strip fader will have no effect on the aux signal. The post fader button means that the fader will affect the level that is sent through the aux send. Pre-fader is usually reserved for moni-tor sends and post for effects processors.
Leaving the aux sends, we encounter the pan control knob. In its simplest form, the pan knob will send the channel signal to the left or right output of your mixing console. If your board has a sub-group section, the pan knobs function is greatly expanded. Now you can choose to send the signal either to the right or left mixer or to an individual subgroup. I promise I will expand on the concept and advantages of subgroups next month.
After the pan knob, your board will either have a mute button, on/off button, solo/PFL button or all of the above. The mute button cuts the channel (just like the mute on your TV remote), on/off is self-explanatory and the PFL/Solo sends the channel signal to your headphone jack (then to your headphones). By the way, buy a good set of headphones or have your house of worship buy some. They are invaluable.
Lastly, we come to the channel fader. This slider is the output volume control for each individual channel. With your gain structure set up properly the fader should be set at the “0” spot to begin with. There you have it. Study your mixing console and don’t be afraid to twist some knobs. It gets easier every time.
You can e-mail Jamie at jrio@fohonline.com
