Sound Sanctuary

The single most difficult part of being a church technical director is recruiting, training, and retaining volunteers. The technical part is easy, and if I could hire paid people to fill all of the different roles and responsibilities, the job would be a breeze. The church environment has changed dramatically over the past 10 years, and paid technical staff is more the rule than the exception. Nevertheless, from the largest church to the smallest church, volunteers are still a big part of what we do.

Sound system purchasing decisions are among the largest financial decisions a church has to make. Depending on the size of your worship venue, a new sound system can exceed $100,000 or even $200,000. Even if you’re working at a smaller church that is only in a position to spend $10,000 or $20,000 on a new system, that’s a major expense. As a church technical director, I feel I have a responsibility to spend the church’s money wisely, because let’s face it, we are ultimately spending the hard-earned money of our congregants.

In 2015, it’s a seemingly age-old question: Wedges or in-ears? Having been around for decades, and having been embraced by the world’s most popular artists, it almost seems like in-ear monitors are a foregone conclusion. They are the standard for onstage monitoring. Or are they? It’s still a question that a lot of churches wrestle with, and I for one have not transitioned 100 percent of our monitor mixes over to IEM’s. There are still some situations where wedges excel over IEM’s, and not everyone’s console is capable of generating 24 auxes worth of stereo ear mixes.

I started off my house of worship technical career almost a decade ago as a FOH audio engineer at the same church I still work at today. At the time, there was a different technical director, and I would simply walk in on Sunday mornings, mix and go home. It was an enjoyable, low-stress gig.

Let’s face it — most of us work in less-than-ideal acoustic environments. The main sanctuary at our church has a primarily wood interior, and while it is aesthetically beautiful, it can be an acoustical challenge. Our main sanctuary is used for traditional worship, so the longer decay time is acceptable for the typical choral and orchestra performances we do in that space. Our “Contemporary Worship Space” is another story — it’s a gymnasium. Sound familiar?

Many of today’s churches are struggling with how to best utilize technology, and are wrestling with how to best deliver their message via broadcast or Internet streaming. My church is going through many of these technological growing pains right now. Sure, we have digital consoles, a line array and LED lighting, but we have yet to make the leap into multi-camera video streaming of full services. Most of our discussions about delivering content online have centered on the video production aspects, such as cameras, switchers, graphics and recording.

I’m a technology fanatic. I love checking out A/V technologies. Looking at pictures of huge line arrays and big lighting rigs is a favorite pastime. I’m sure many of you would agree. Some co-workers make fun of me for constantly reading equipment manuals, and I’m sure my wife also has a few opinions on the topic.

Hello FRONT of HOUSE readers! I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Vince Lepore, and starting with this issue, I’ll be writing the “Sound Sanctuary” column. I live in Orlando, FL with my beautiful wife Carrie and our two pugs Louie and Miles. Carrie and I both work at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, where I’m the technical director and Carrie is the graphic designer. I also teach live production full time at Full Sail University, a position that I’ve held for almost a decade. So, let’s get started…

Ten years before I got into mixing worship sound and installing church audio systems, I worked as a recording engineer. Now I have been working in the house of worship sound biz for 20 years so, if you do the math that would put me back in 1985 when I was freelancing as an engineer. I learned a lot about audio during that time of my life.

As mixing engineers, we want our churches to sound as good as they possibly can. And even those who are not part of the audio team still want your house of worship to sound great. But how many of you think much about the other spaces? You know, the cry-room, the outbuildings, fellowship halls, etc. Not all worship houses have additional spaces or buildings, but if yours is one that does, these probably need attention.

Happy New Year to all of you, and I hope you have big plans for 2015. I love the New Year. It gives us all a fresh start at doing better and being better in the coming year. I will assume we all want to improve (myself included) as audio engineers. Whether in the worship world or in the secular world, we all want to mix the best we can.