How to set up a church sound system pdf
Achieving a solid mix in a church worship gathering can be a struggle for a lot of worship tech teams. Most churches cannot afford to hire a full-time or even part-time audio engineer. The responsibility of running sound is often left in the hands of well-intentioned volunteers who may be tech savvy but are novices to the art and science of mixing audio. Eric started as a volunteer on the production team at Red Rocks, and over the past couple of years, he served his way up to being a contracted audio engineer. I have heard his mixing on numerous occasions since he works at the campus I attend.
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Yeomkwang Church, South Korea
Doing church sound for worship — the ultimate guide part 1. Many churches invest heavily in audio and media systems, and others, unfortunately, do not. Audio church sound systems are, like any complex system, made up of many parts. The weakest link in the system would negatively affect the whole. However, replacing inferior or obsolete components of an existing system can bring it back to life.
So, what are some of the things to consider in this process? This guide will attempt to provide an understanding of what church sound systems are comprised of, the different environments they will be used in, and the level of skill required of those operating the system. Before you set up any audio system, you need to consider the environment it will be in.
Does the room have hard surfaces that can reflect the sound? In a more traditional setting with a piano, an organ, and a choir, a more reflective, lively, and ambient environment works well think singing in a tiled shower. However, when a modern worship band with drums, electric guitars, and floor monitors plays in highly reflective space, it can be a very difficult thing to control.
Rooms that have been acoustically treated are much more suited for this style of worship. I am not saying that the room should be like the interior of a clothes closet —quite the contrary. In some cases, you may not be able to do anything to fix the room anomalies- a round, dome-shaped ceiling with glass walls, for instance. Many times, acoustic treatments that you can buy or build yourself can minimize the adverse affects of not-so-perfect sanctuaries.
This article is not a comprehensive guide to acoustics. I would highly recommend that you hire an acoustician to evaluate your church and to make recommendations before DIY doing it yourself.
They are worth the investment and can save you a lot of money downstream. Once you get the room to behave as best you can, with the resources available, the sound system will have the greatest potential to do what it was designed to do. If you happen to be in a small church, seats, the required skill to set-up a new church sound system will be less than it would be for 2, seat mega-church.
The equipment needed to cover a small space is typically less difficult to connect and operate. For instance, in a portable church application, simple connections are made from a powered mixer to speakers on stands.
Larger congregations in larger spaces will need to consider systems with more parts and control. What is the skill level of the one s who will be manning the controls? Are they former FOH front-of-house engineers for touring bands, or are they a full-time cop, plumber, or soccer mom with very little experience in audio, volunteering their time hours a week running sound?
Make sure that the audio components you are going to buy are going to be able to be operated by the assigned techs on your team. Please, please, please reserve a portion of your audio budget for training your tech team on a continuing basis.
Contact me for training opportunities, tech conferences and various educational resources that are available. Oftentimes, sound system quality can be improved just by replacing your old worn out cables with better ones. Many churches are using an inferior microphone, instrument, and speaker cables or the wrong cables entirely. Does it make sense to purchase a new digital mixer, high-quality microphones, and loudspeakers and then connect them together with the cheapest cables?
Evaluate your interconnections. Many cables look alike but are very different. Keep the distances from the source to the destination as short as possible, especially if they are unbalanced lines. This is especially important with instrument and speaker cables. If the distance from an acoustic guitar or a keyboard to the mixing console is more than 20 feet away, please use a Direct Box to convert the high or low impedance instrument input to a balanced low impedance output so that the signal integrity will not be diminished.
High frequencies will also be lost. However, they look very different on the inside. Without getting into the theory, suffice it to say that if you use an instrument cable as a speaker cable, you could potentially fry your amplifier and or harm your loudspeaker.
If your speakers are passive not self-powered and are far away from the amplifiers, try to get the amplifiers closer to the speakers to enable a shorter run. They come in a variety of lengths and channel counts. The outputs of the mixer typically connect to the snake as well and travel back towards the stage where the outputs of the stage box would connect to the amplifiers that power your loudspeakers and monitors.
For an in-depth look at what they are and why we may need them refer to the link below. Other digital snakes are a lot more universal in nature and connect with diverse brands over a network, making it much more flexible, scalable, and easier to troubleshoot.
Different brands of products can talk to one another. Before purchasing new audio gear, determine if the equipment you are considering has this capability. The network protocols, Dante and AVB , allow you to send and receive audio and the control data to the systems different components mixers, microphones, loudspeakers, etc over a common, universal network.
Although the two protocols are similar in nature, there are some inherent differences between the two that you investigate. A common question that I get asked is: What is the best microphone? I answer with another question: What is the application? Choosing the right type and pattern of a microphone will give the best result. The right microphone in the wrong place can wreak havoc on your audience and vice versa feedback. If you get the right microphone in the right place it can save you a lot of time than trying to fix it in the mix.
Take your time to move the microphone closer or a little farther away, on-axis or off. Distance and the angle will have a huge impact on the sound. The more money that you invest in you church sound system with higher quality microphones, the better the sound will be and the longer they will last.
Dynamic microphones are the most common and will work for just about every application on the stage: vocals, guitar amps, drums and percussion and Leslie cabinets. They have limited sensitivity and frequency response but can handle high levels of input. Condenser microphones are more sensitive. They require phantom power this is derived from your mixer and travels down the microphone cable to supply power to the electronics in the microphone , and are well suited for vocals and acoustic instruments because of their wider frequency response.
Better hand-held vocal microphones will have much less handling noise than a cheaper grade version. If you still want to use a condenser, use your head and either move away from loud sound sources or move to a quieter spot on the stage.
Use a head-worn microphone on the pastor instead of a lapel. Typically these will be condenser microphones. Lapel microphones work great for video, not so much for live sound.
Learn how to aim the microphone properly to get the desired sound and to reduce the undesired sound sources from being introduced to the system. Directional microphones can have different angles of acceptance and rejection:. Cardioid think of an inverted heart shape; the most forgiving, widest pickup, and less sensitive to sounds directly behind the microphone.
Super and Hyper Cardioids More narrow pick up pattern in front, on-Axis and less sensitive to other sounds about degrees off axis on each side. Learn some of the rules like the rule. The Inverse square law as it applies to microphones and loudspeakers and what proximity effect is.
Make sure the reasons for choosing wireless device over a wired one are valid and practical. The obvious and main reason for selecting a wireless microphone or monitor would be mobility: freedom to roam think free —range microphones. Traditional, analog wireless microphones and monitors operate in the TV Bands. Suffice it to say that there used to be a lot more room to operate our wireless stuff but the FCC has been selling off spectrum like hot real estate.
Recently we saw the FCC sell off the MHz band relegating many of our wireless microphones illegal or to the trash heap. This has caused manufacturers to research and develop innovative ways to combat the restrictions on current wireless technology and help customers who still require it. If the reasons are compelling enough, go for it, but be smart and stay away from technologies that are going to be affected by the rising tide of regulations sweeping away the spectrum.
Digital wireless systems typically operate in the 2. Adding digital systems to existing analog wireless systems usually requires no frequency coordination with TV bands or existing analog wireless. In other words, if you need to add wireless systems to your set-up, these are the easiest to employ. A digital wireless system that I really like and would seriously consider is the Audio-Technica System It employs a triple diversity arrangement to assure a robust signal with time, space and frequency diversity.
Analog systems are simplex. The transmitter only sends information to the receiver. This digital system uses duplex arrangement. A duplex arrangement means the transmitter and the receiver talk to each other bi-directionally. In the case of System 10, they are actually transmitting two different frequencies simultaneously at micro-second differences in time with spaced pair antennae.
All of this is to assure a consistent, dual transmission to prevent dropouts. It works very well. There are many digital wireless systems on the market but they are not all equal. Some digital wireless systems are not intelligent and may actually take over the whole spectrum negatively affecting other devices in this range, like iPads controlling your digital mixers.
You may want to refer to the article for a deeper dive into the subject. What is a mixer and why do I need one? When you add a contemporary worship band and more, you need an audio system, and the central component of an audio system is the mixer.
At a basic level, a mixer does exactly what its name implies: mix audio signals together. If you have more than one sound source say, five microphones, an electric guitar, a piano, and an organ , you need a mixer to combine all of these audio signals in such a way that you can control the relative balance between them and then send out your mix to one or more pairs of speakers, monitors, a recording device, and so on.
Think of the mixer as the heart and brain of any live sound system. Investing in a quality mixer as your foundation will save a lot of money on peripherals and potential headaches.
Church Projects
Modern worship demands flexibility and increasingly churches are using sound and projection systems to get their message across. APi Sound and Visual has been working in the church sector for many years. We take time to establish a rapport with those who will be the users, to design and install a bespoke system that meets their requirements and budget. Once a system is installed, we ensure that training takes place. Further information can be found on our church sound system website at: www. We are accustomed to working in historic buildings, and considering the aesthetics, so we will provide as unobtrusive an installation as possible.
Church Sound Systems
It involves replacing our mixing board, speakers, and other important sound equipment plus upgrading our security cameras, alarms, and safety monitoring. Worship and safety are high values of our church. Many of the primary elements of our church systems are from the previous millennium. Our current sound system was not designed for our facility, but rather is largely made up of components brought from our previous facility purchased as far back as The sound quality has been slowly deteriorating and our sound has hot spots and a host of other complications and limitations that inhibit a high-definition audio experience. Aging systems have an impact on our guests. Our security system cameras, alarms, etc.
How to do a church sound check + free checklist PDF download
Welcome to the LearnChurchSound. Here you will find interesting and informative articles on all sorts of church-sound related topics. Current topics include:. Setup Audio Effects Learn how to setup audio effects through send and returns on your soundboard.
Church Sound Training Articles
Unbalanced 1. Tailored and Feedback 6. Intelligibility 7. Mechanical Mixing Microphones 4. Shaped Response A.
Public address system
EAW Adaptive Systems map the room. They intelligently build a picture of the space. We design and build the hardware and software needed for every performance. Permanent or touring. Small room to large stadium. Places and people that are household names put their faith in our sound hands. Behind every EAW loudspeaker system is an advanced software application.
Indeogwon Catholic Church, South Korea
Start by marking "Audio Essentials for Church Sound" as Want to Read Discover the road map for navigating through the detailed work of audio production. This guide walks you through every step of church audio production, from when you walk in the door to when you leave. Forumulating remedies for several common booth problems from the outset. Como conectar equipo de sonido profesional para grupo en vivo, bocinas, crossover y ecualizador.
Audio essentials for church sound pdf
The LC is a passive line source speaker for fixed installations. It is optimized for excellent speech reproduction and is ideally suited to both indoor and outdoor applications thanks to its weatherproof aluminum enclosure. The renowned Fohhn line source speakers combine the advantages of line arrays — such as directionality, homogeneous dispersion and reach — in a compact system. The slim aluminum housing enables perfect visual integration into the room architecture. Product overview Series Linea LC
Church Sound Workshop
A public address system PA system is an electronic system comprising microphones , amplifiers , loudspeakers , and related equipment. It increases the apparent volume loudness of a human voice, musical instrument, or other acoustic sound source or recorded sound or music. PA systems are used in any public venue that requires that an announcer, performer, etc. Typical applications include sports stadiums, public transportation vehicles and facilities, and live or recorded music venues and events. A PA system may include multiple microphones or other sound sources, a mixing console to combine and modify multiple sources, and multiple amplifiers and loudspeakers for louder volume or wider distribution. Simple PA systems are often used in small venues such as school auditoriums, churches, and small bars.
From microphones to audio mixer to amplifier then speakers: this is the basic path that the audio takes in most live sound systems. Microphones capture audio, speakers and amplifiers reproduce it, and audio mixers serve as the "user interface". Often, audio mixers have the biggest impact; even with the best microphones and speakers, a knob in the wrong position can ensure terrible results. Mixing consoles combine a number of inputs, typically used to connect microphones and instruments, into just one or two outputs.
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