Sound Sanctuary

As many of you know, I work in both the worship sound world and in the secular sound world. I am always looking for ways to improve my abilities as a technician and mixer in both of these worlds. And, of course, at the same time earn more money. Very often, the subjects that I discuss in this forum can be mirrored in the secular sound arena. My most recent income stream has been through renting gear to churches and worship events. As a rule, I always bring a few mics, stands, direct boxes and cables to any of my house-of-worship gigs. Being prepared for just about any eventuality has always seemed to be a good motto and, by the way, I am a former Boy Scout.

As I sit here writing this piece, it occurs to me that I really should be writing an article like this prior to the holiday onslaught. By the time you read this it will be spring and most of us will be looking forward to the busy summer season. But it wasn’t until this past Christmas/Hanukkah season that I had the types of experiences I will be sharing with you here.

Hello my friends. As I go through my daily work with houses of worship, I am always looking for something meaningful and helpful to write about. My recent experiences with a couple of churches may appear to be unique individually, but I think the theme has much wider implications. Let’s talk about “discovering” the sound level that is acceptable to a particular house of worship. 

When I think of worship sound, I generally put this end of the biz into two categories. First, there is the owner-operator guy like me, who installs systems in small churches and mixing services during the week or on the weekends. Then there is the large regional or national company that has the resources and ability to install large complex systems into any church or large venue.

Along with my writing efforts for FOH, I work with a variety of houses of worship. I guess that is more than obvious, since I am the guy who writes Sound Sanctuary. Well, I also own and operate a secular (nonreligious) regional sound company that designs and installs residential and commercial sound systems.

Generally speaking, I will hire anywhere from one to six techs for my secular or worship gigs. They are actually independent contractors. But rather than get into the legal qualifications of my employees, I will tell you what I need in terms of technical skill and physical attributes. Qualifying as a Rio Deluxe (my company) tech is pretty easy. You need to understand live audio setup (lift speakers and plug in the right wires), signal flow, EQ, compression, etc., and be strong enough to handle the big stuff, but smart enough to position the small stuff. Shower regularly and wear the company shirt. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?   

Over the last 10 years, we all have seen the market for self-powered speakers grow to the point where they are now at least as popular as nonpowered speakers. For someone like me, who has a small regional company and a relatively limited crew, using powered speakers makes my setup faster, easier and requires less thinking than a traditional passive speaker, amps and crossover system (the less-thinking part is very important for me and my crew). So, the next obvious question is: Why not use this self-powered speaker technology in a permanent house of worship installation?

The simple answer is that you can permanently mount self-powered speakers in any location where you would install nonpowered speakers (given that you have available Edison plugs). But why would you?

Are you familiar with the term outreach? If you work in the worship business, especially the Christian end of this business, you will recognize the aforementioned term as a description of reaching out into the local community, professing and often demonstrating the teachings of God. This outreach can take many forms. The act of taking meals to elderly folks or helping someone in the community (regardless of their religious beliefs) with the most basic aspects of living is a popular charitable act and sponsored by many churches.

Making good on all those promises

Since I began writing Sound Sanctuary, I often claim that I will get back to you on the results or the effect of a particular plan or project. Well, my friends, this is the month that I will make good on all my promises and catch you up on all the things I have written about. There is one small thing, in order for you to get the most out of this article, you will have to be familiar with the subjects I have been covering over these last months here at FOH. If you are not, you can check out the archive of issues at fohonline.com. 

And keeping your standards high

Sound Sanctuary is a unique part of FOH, but it shares a common thread with every column, article and review in this book: We all like working in this business of sound (at least I hope we all do). I have made this rather obvious statement because I will be writing about a subject this month that is at the center of every live sound and install company — the process of bidding a job. Particularly, bidding an installation job whether in a house of worship or any other place, for that matter. (I am not going to talk about live sound bids, even though I do bid shows for various worship houses. Because of what I am currently working on, I will stick to install bids.)

No miracle required, just hard work.

Most of the work I get with regards to worship sound comes from referrals. What I would like to talk about this month is how to get yourself into a position where you receive an abundance of referrals. It’s like Jesus with the loaves and fishes (John 6:10). Somebody had to give him the first fish and the first loaf to get the ball rolling. So, maybe I can help you get that first fish.

It may not be rock ‘n’ roll, but the band sure rocks

Over the last several months, I have talked to you about installing worship sound systems, dealing with the church hierarchy, training volunteers, getting paid, etc. What I have not spent any time on is mixing church, gospel and worship groups and going out on the road with a worship band.

This is the scenario: You contacted the right people at a particular house of worship, sold them on a sound package for their sanctuary, installed the system professionally and got paid well for your work. Now what? I would think that you included some training of the staff or volunteers in your bid. But what is going on with that sound system six months later? Or a year or two from your original installation?