For the past 14 years, I have been working with live sound. For 10 of those 14 years I was also in full time student ministry; serving 4 different churches. While the churches’ worship styles varied from being 100% traditional, blended, and split services with one traditional and one contemporary, one thing was constant; all of the sound engineers were volunteers.
It’s not uncommon to find an accountant or two on your finance committee. The same goes for lawyers and business owners being asked to serve on the administrative board. However when it comes to one of the most important positions for your worship service, most often the person asked to volunteer is the person least likely to be stressed out by lots of buttons, knobs, and faders; not the person with a background in sound engineering. Why? The main reason is that sound engineers are few and far between here in the South Georgia area.
In larger cities like Atlanta, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, and Macon the pool for qualified sound engineers is a little deeper for churches to pull from, however, most sound engineers are on the road the latter half of the week and travel home on Sundays making it hard for them to attend church on a regular basis. Here in South Georgia, the pool is very shallow and most qualified engineers have already been gobbled up by churches who were blessed enough to find the needle in the haystack!
The vision for Live Sound Consulting is very simple: “Confidence in your sound system.“
When it comes to the speakers and components that make up the most recognizable half of your sound system, often budget dictates sound design. Church sound systems can range from high end line array systems to Radio Shack speakers on tripod stands connected to a powered head. No matter what your sound setup the question is, do you have confidence in your sound system? If your system was installed in the early 90’s while the install crew was listening to the “Ropin’ the Wind” album by Garth Brooks on repeat, it may be time to start looking at an upgrade. If you have more modern equipment but still can’t quite get the sound you are looking for, perhaps you need to invest in the forgotten half of your sound system.
The forgotten half of your sound system is the sound engineer. Having a solid sound system is great, but even the best sound system can sound horrible if the person behind the sound console doesn’t have the proper experience or training. Volunteer sound engineers are great assets for a church. For starters, they are generally members of the church and are invested in seeing the church succeed. Secondly, volunteers are great for the budget! Volunteer sound engineers in churches can be properly trained to have the confidence and ability to mix a worship service; whether traditional, blended, or contemporary.
You can build confidence in your sound system in two different ways. First, invest in training for your volunteer sound engineers. No matter the experience level, everyone can learn something new from training. I take every opportunity I can to ask questions and look over the shoulder of the Nashville based sound engineers I work with to see what they are doing and what I can learn from their mix and techniques. Secondly, take a look at your current equipment. Time and, sadly, audio abuse, can take its toll on your equipment; it’s not meant to last forever. I don’t suggest replacing everything without having a qualified individual checking the system first. Just like bad alternators selling lots of batteries, bad cables and dysfunctional processors sell lots of speakers. There are multiple points of failure between the input and output.
I am here to help you with both sides of your sound system. I have training sessions for beginners who have never operated a sound console before and training for those who want to take their knowledge of sound engineering deeper. I also provide guided mix training which helps train your sound engineers on where different instruments, vocals, and effects should sit inside their mix. I can also help you diagnose, repair, and replace equipment that may be the root of your sound problem. If you need sound for a new worship center or want to do a complete renovation, I can help design a sound system that will meet the audio requirements for your venue. The bottom line is I am here to help and see your ministry succeed.
Please contact me to schedule a free sound assessment so we can start building confidence in your sound system!
Brant Pickard – (229) 539-8566 – LiveSoundConsulting.Com
