Running Sound in Church

I used to run sound in my church as a boy. I think we had about 3 channels or microphones to manage - 1 for the pastor, 1 for anyone else speaking, and one for the piano. We used a tape recorder to make records of the service. The hardest part of the job was setting up a conference call for 3 shut-ins at home, so they could listen to the church service. Sometimes they'd forget to flip the "mute" switch on their phone, so you could hear the football game or snoring in the background - but hey, they were shut-ins so you have to cut them some slack.


Anyway, I continue to serve my new church in Utah by running sound.  We have an older set-up, and typically run about 12 channels for a good-sized worship team and the speaker (we're currently looking for a pastor as my father-in-law retired after a gazillion years serving in ministry), plus CD's, DVD's, and a projector with audio from the computer.  And now, we make digital recordings of the service, instead of using a casette tape.

I really enjoy serving in this way, but I'm really frustrated by several problems.  Under the right circumstances (whenever the power switch is in the "on position"), we pick up a Sunday sports radio broadcast.  The radio is always there, but you usually don't hear it until a quiet moment - like during prayer.  And, there's usually an amazing home-run or goal scored during the prayer, so the radio announcer guy goes ballistic. 

The sanctuary electricity wasn't grounded correctly.  Once I realized this, I went through and grounded several outlets used for sound, but we still seem to fight a buzzing noise at 60Hz (I've been told by professionals at my work that this frequency is produced by the power flowing through the wires).

Several of our mics, including wireless, choose to stop working at random times even though they were working just before the service.  I'm convinced we have ghosts or gremlins chewing the wires under the floor.

We cram 8 musicians into the front of our tiny church, about 2 feet from the speaker mains.  For those of you who don't do sound, this means I've got mics really close to the speakers, which tends to create feedback.  Additionally, some of our worship team members (are they deaf?) need extra volume in their monitors (the speakers on the floor that face the singers, so they can hear themselves), adding to the cacophony blaring back into the mics.  Sometimes there's more volume coming from the monitors than out of the speaker mains.

I did drag a professional AV tech friend of mine to the church and work through a bunch of issues.  But he did finally say that this was a really difficult setting, even for a pro - this actually made me feel better somehow.

And lastly, everyone has an opinion - usually opposed in some way to the opinion of the guy running the sound...

All said and done, I do enjoy running sound for my church.  It's something I'm relatively good at, and unlike many people sitting in the pews, my brain can follow the service while I'm messing with a bunch of switches and dials (ADD - my spiritual gift?).  For the record, we really do have a great worship team, and we're blessed that out of a congration of 80 or so people, we have 8 with musical abilities. 

On the subject of church sound, check out the "sound guy neck crane" on SCL.  When I receive the "sound guy neck crane", I'm usually thinking "yes..... I surely would have missed that noise so loud that the roof caved in......yes....... thank you".