Bad Sound on Sundays? Here’s How You Solve It.

At almost every church I've either attended or served, there always seems to be a recurring issue:

The "sound" isn't quite dialed in. (Or, it's outright painful to experience.)

Now, it may seem that the problem lies either with the tech team or the band, but more often than not, it comes down to a collective "misfiring" that, when combined, creates a bit of a letdown in the final presentation. 

Here's how you go about fixing that.

Band Members: Give the Tech Team Your "Best"

There's a phrase that my college band director said countless times in rehearsal:

"You can't tune a bad tone."

In that statement, he captured the importance of maximizing all of MY variables as a player to deliver the best tone from my instrument. As a brass player, that meant:

• Proper posture to ensure fluid airflow from my core to my mouth, then to the mouthpiece.

• Shaping that airflow with my soft palate to create a warm, yet clear sound.

• Altering the attack of each note with my tongue into the mouthpiece, running through a spectrum of "crisp" to "soft."

For musicians in a worship band, the same broad principles apply:

• Singers need to stand erect and rooted to ensure proper breath support. You can move around ONLY if you can maintain a strong breath to support the vocal delivery.

• Guitar and bass players need to be in tune (obvious, but often overlooked) and set their amp's output to hit the sweet spot for great tone without overloading the channel running back to the tech booth.

• Keyboard players need to make sure their "patches" balance classic sounds with interesting effects, if appropriate. The same applies to guitar players and their pedalboards. 

• Drummers need to make sure their equipment is in working order AND carry a variety of sticks to achieve different timbres and attacks on the kit.

I would consider the above bullet points to be basics in delivering your "best" to the tech booth. If you want to take it up a notch, then dig into these points:

• Singers should know how to "work" a mic. The distance between your lips and the grille allows you to shape your tone alongside your volume. For instance, if you want to capture a more intimate vibe, sing soft but very close to the mic. On the opposite end, belting out loud phrases requires you to back off the mic. In between, you can still sing with full voice/volume, but backing off the mic can help you sit within the mix more appropriately, especially for BGV parts. 

• Guitar, bass, and keyboard players should know where their spot is in terms of register. The many options of registers sit in the mix differently, so choose your part appropriately. For instance, bass players need to mostly stay on the lower part of the neck, lower strings to maintain a solid low end, but you can also jump to higher frets/strings to play a fill. Guitar players and keyboardists can compliment a vocal by either supporting the low end, or "wrapping" the sound with a mix of high, middle, and low register playing.

• Drummers can shape the emotional delivery of an arrangement through orchestration and accenting vocal/chord-instrument features, chiefly in complimenting the rhythm of a melody or riff. Balancing that with a solid groove really locks the band together and strengthens their overall delivery.

Tech Team: Make the Band's "Best" Shine

For the tech team, please understand this: You are the GATEWAY between the band and the congregation. It's not simply enough to set volume faders for the front-of-house; you need to listen broadly to understand the hierarchy of parts within an arrangement and adjust settings to their respective channels as those parts change and develop throughout the song.

Generally, I would dial in the volume and EQ for your instruments, and then leave them be. Do this by referencing the "Pyramid of Sound" article, linked here.

For singers, set a proper volume and EQ, but then, you will need to pay attention to who is singing lead and BGVs. Then, adjust volume faders according to who is taking a prominent role versus a background role. I often hear unbalanced vocals more than I hear a pleasing, balanced mix, so make sure your BGVs aren't overpowering the lead, and be sure to keep the lead vocal in check with the rest of the band. 

There's a tendency to elevate the lead vocal above everything else, but generally, you can back the volume down and let the orchestration of the voices and the band do the heavy lifting. Still, it's a good idea bump up volume of the lead vocal and perhaps EQ with a bit more high end if it is getting lost in the mix, which is largely due to middle/low range singing, or singing with insufficient breath support. 

You can apply these same principles to some of your lead instruments, like electric guitar. If you find that the "hook" of a song isn't coming through, give that channel a slight volume boost, then bring it back down. 

From my experience, not too long ago, I had to work volume faders A LOT when running FOH for a gospel quartet, where the singers varied their delivery so much that it was hard to maintain a balanced mix. They would often trade lead roles in the middle of a song, but I had to bring faders up and down to compensate for an ever-changing volume and tone delivery from them. It required knowing the arrangement of the song, who was going to take leads, and getting a handle on the quirks of each singer, whether they tended to belt too close to the mic or backed off too much in a BGV role. 

Teamwork Makes the Dream... (yeah, you get it)

If you made it this far, please realize that "bad sound" doesn't always lie in the hands of a single person or group; it's often shared by multiple people who have not optimized their input and role to make the final result shine. 

BUT—there's always opportunities to grow, and that only comes through reps, tweaks, and consistently showing up. If you're faithful in following the path of continuous improvement, then all the pieces will come together. Your teammates will be inspired to follow suit, and together, you'll deliver something that answers the call to excellence in worshipping our Lord.

Drummers: Here’s What I Used to Improve My Playing

A couple months ago, we went through some turnover in our musicians roster at our church. We were down to ONE drummer, so I had to dust off the cobwebs on my drumsticks and get to work.

I played and studied the kit several years back, but in the last 10 years or so, I’ve exclusively focused on guitar. Still, I had to step up since I had the ability to play, but it required dedicated preparation to meet the requirement of the role.

But how did I go about doing this?

Enter: Abel Orta, Jr.

Abel is the house drummer for Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, and his YouTube channel is chock-full of play-throughs of classic and trending worship songs, all filmed from a behind-the-kit angle to show you EXACTLY what he’s playing.

Just watching his hand and feet placement around the kit totally calibrated my approach to getting back in shape, and after about 6 weeks of practice, I felt REALLY good behind the kit.

He doesn’t give instruction; it’s purely performance. But, if you pay attention, you can see the patterns the pop up in his playing and incorporate them into your own.

I would find a song on his channel that you’re working on (he probably has a play-through of it), and then focus on these goals:

• How is he playing the groove?

• Where is he placing fills?

• How does he use the kit to make the song shine?

Then, just pick one of these goals and focus your efforts on replicating that in your own playing. For me, it came down to locking in my time-keeping and transitioning to fills and groove variations seamlessly, just like Abel does.

Check out his channel by clicking the button below!

Be blessed 👊✌️