The soundman is our friend
Do you know your sound engineer or is he/she just a voice at the back of the room that you shout to when you need something? Do you know what they do or is it all mumbo jumbo black magic that really doesn’t concern you. You should know your sound engineer as well as anyone in the group. They are ultimately responsible for how we sound and have the power to make everything you do a moot point. You need to understand what they go and why they are doing it. The sound engineer controls what is heard and how good-or bad- it sounds. They are constantly making adjustments to increase the quality of the sound. Chances are they also control the monitor mix, so they have their hands full. Here is how you can help them and ultimately yourself.
1. Think about what you need when you make requests. Sure you can’t here yourself/the drums/ lead/keyboards/whatever. Asking for more of what you can’t hear may not solve the problem. Is the guitar too loud and that is why you can’t hear the drums? Often times turning something down will solve the problem.
2. Sing/ play as you would during the performance. Usually, the first song during sound-check is not a energetic as the live show. If you don’t sing with feeling and the sound engineer makes adjustments based on that, the mix will be off when you really do belt out the song. Often musicians will not turn their instruments up all the way so they can turn up later, thinking the sound engineer is not going to notice, or they don’t trust the engineer to have them up in the mix and they falsely think this will fix it. A sharp engineer will notice and adjust the gain, so the only thing accomplish is you will destroy any trust relationship that you have with the engineer.
3. Give the engineer the best possible signal. If is sounds bad on stage, it probably sounds bad in the mix. Don’t try to second guess what the engineer needs or wants. They will ask you for something if they need it. Don’t add some extra crunch to your distortion so it will”cut through the mix”. Don’t add some extra bottom end to fill it out. These types of changes create imbalances that may not be possible to adjust at the board. A good sounding guitar will always be easier to mix than a thin screechy one. It’s hard to take the boom out of the bass at the board, it’s easy to add some bottom to a great sounding bass.
4. Listen to your sound engineer and trust them. They will at some point ask you to do something you won’t like- turn down, change this, do that. Trust them and just do it. They are asking this to make the mix better and not to punish you.
Welcome to the Church Musician
There thousands of blogs. One of the rules of good blogging is to write about something you have a passion for and love to do. I am so involved in music and my church that at first I didn’t even see this, sort of a can’t see the forest for the trees kind if thing. My church, like many others, uses contemporary christian music in it’s service. This creates lots of situations and issues that we either have to solve or deal with every time we play. I want to impart my years of knowledge and experience to help you, educate you and entertain you. I will attempt to address all aspects of performing in a christian environment that I experience, from playing weekly at my church to playing out with the christian band CFW.
Enjoy the ride.
The Church Musician 