Don’t let the silence on the blog fool you, there are a lot of exciting things going on! First, we have a new home page and great, new license information. Another big change is that I am no longer on staff with Buckhead Church. I will still be contracting and mixing at Buckhead, but it was time to make room for you, OwnTheMix! This will give me time to focus on developing new content for OwnTheMix.com and explore other training opportunities. I’m still mixing daily, spending my summer in Panama City Beach, Florida, at BigStuf Camps!

New Content. We’ve been working with Meyer Sound on some very exciting system tuning videos. Simply put, system tuning is the process of EQing and time-aligning your PA system to make it sound best and provide the best coverage. This is a very deep and difficult topic, but we think that we have discovered a way to make it easy to learn for everyone. So far we’ve spent two full weeks filming content, and we have another week of filming to go. We are hoping to start releasing this new content in August, so be on the look out!

Onsite Training. We also are excited to begin doing on-site trainings. These on-site trainings will be custom-tailored to your specific needs. It can be gear-specific, general mixing, system tuning, band workshops or anything else you need. You can also team up with other churches in your area to host an event. In addition to the training, I also will be available to tune your sound system. Here’s another cool part about these trainings, you will get a free 10-person license to OwnTheMix.com for your church when you host! That means you get short-term personal training, and long-term supplemental training. If you are interested in this, please email info@OwnTheMix.com.

-Dustin

We’re really excited about making Audio training even more accessible to churches across America and the world. We believe our new (lower) pricing, license levels, and lifetime memberships are going to bring quality Audio training to the furthest-reaching places on the planet. So, you’re likely thinking…”what changed?” Here are the two biggest changes:

(1) Lifetime Memberships. Every member, past, present, and future is now a LIFETIME member. Yep, not a whole lot of explanation needed on that. Once you’ve been with us one year, there is an small, optional upgrade fee (10% of license price) to get the new content for the next year. Even if you choose not to upgrade, you’ll always have access to the videos you’ve always had and our great forums.

(2) Pricing. We’ve been listening closely to you to discover how to create the most value for you and your church. The biggest change in pricing is that we’ve made our blanket license, which gives you up to 10 licenses for your church, only $499! Yep, that’s right, you can train up to ten people, FOR LIFE, for less than $500. (You probably pay your worship leader more than that for one Sunday!)

As Dustin mentioned, we’re really excited about the upcoming System Tuning series. We’re confident that this subject matter, which previously has only been understood by the pro’s and academics, can now be learned by anyone. We’ve employed some state-of-the-art gear, camera shots, and demonstrations to show you how sound works…visually. Stay tuned for that.

We’re really excited about the future of OwnTheMix.com, and we really appreciate you telling your friends and colleagues about it!

-Chris

As technicians, there seems to be a tendency to turn every knob on the console. I’m not sure where that temptation comes from but it is something we all seem to face. Even on the simplest consoles, you still have EQ knobs that you can dork around with. On the higher end consoles, you have EQ, compression, gating, and a vast sea of plug-ins on every channel. Technology has done great things for the world of audio, but it does have some unintended consequences.

I think there are a few things that we as mixers need to consider before turning every knob on the console.

1 – We need to fix the source of the problem. Fixing it at the console can work sometimes, but the temptation to be lazy there will hurt you over time. Work with the artist to get a tone that works in the room. Move the mic around if you can or try a different mic all together. If the sound system isn’t tuned right, do something about it. Once you’ve done all you can on these fronts, it’s time to proceed to #2.

2 – It seems to me that the more we tweak something, the more we suck the life out of it. This is especially true when it comes to compression. Let it breathe! It’s ok if the vocal almost gets too loud at times; it can release emotion! If the artist on stage is trying to express an emotion through singing or playing, we need to do our best to convey that emotion, not control it.

3 – Start fresh. Treat each mix like you’re in a new venue with a new band. Test your assumptions regularly, are they still true?

4 – If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! If you push up the fader and think, “wow that sounds great”, leave it alone! Simple enough.

The more I think about it, the more I think that this may be my “secret weapon” at times. I regularly have people asking me how I got X to sound so good. My most common response seems to be, “I really didn’t do anything to it”. No really, nothing at all, I just turned it up. Well that’s not totally true, I picked the right mic, placed it in the right spot, worked with the artist to get a great tone, tuned the speaker system and then I “just turned it up.”

-Dustin

A big reason I love this blog is because it allows us to write out the discoveries we make in the Audio/Music world. We fight the same temptations as many other churches to control the mix in every way, especially dynamic range. You might be facing this scenario…in an attempt to get your PA to its loudest and most comfortable capabilities (if your room is underpowered), sometimes we compress, EQ, and detail to death. The vocal jumps out; well, we better squash it. Noise complaints come in…then, let’s compress it harder. I don’t know where to start with this instrument; then let’s automatically apply EQ and compression, and start turning knobs.

We get into a rut of efficiency. I know this worked last week, so let’s do the same thing again. We do it, too. This isn’t our soapbox. This is a call to take a fresh look at the music every week, and really start listening to what’s coming at you from the stage. When a guitar sounds muddy or too bright, let your first instinct be to run to the stage, not the EQ knob. If your vocalist is highly-dynamic (very loud and later very soft), let your first inclination be to have a polite conversation about mic technique, not an automatic 10:1 compression ratio. By interacting with the musicians, you are helping to make them better live players. It’s an investment in yourself, your musicians, and your church.

We laugh at ourselves all the time when we realize that our EQs are pretty flat, compression is barely in use, and it still sounds amazing.

By now you’re likely thinking…but what if my band isn’t great, and the source sounds stink? As Dustin mentioned, you’ve got a little work to do. If we, as engineers, leave the console to work with the bands on their tones, then I think we’d all be amazed at how much better our results will be. There isn’t a week that goes by that I’m not kneeling down at a pedal board tweaking something, asking a bass player to give me more hi-end, working on vocal blend, or finding keys patches that suit the mix. It’s hard work, and you don’t have to be a Music Director, or carry a “title” to do something about it. Perhaps the greatest thing working for you is this secret: your band wants to sound great! Your feedback and perspective is something they will depend on. Own that.

-Chris

Soloing instruments is a pretty common practice. You’re trying to improve or fix something in the mix, so you go down the console and solo different instruments. You listen to it for a second to see if you think everything sounds OK and then you move on. This is a great approach if you’re trying to find a strange noise or stop a hum. It can also be useful in identifying mix issues but I think that there is another method that is often more useful. Enter moloing!

Moloing could be described as muting in place. Instead of soloing something to see how it sounds by itself, you mute it to see how it affects the mix. And yes, we made up the term “molo.” If you’re struggling with your mix in general, or even a specific part of the mix, the problem isn’t always obvious. It often has something to do with how different instruments are interacting with each other. When this is the case, soloing probably isn’t the best way to find the problem because you aren’t hearing how the input is affecting other inputs. If you instead mute inputs one at a time, you will be able to hear what each input contributes to the mix. Sometimes it’s good, other times it’s bad.

Let’s say you’re having a hard time getting your vocals to sit right in the mix. You could solo the vocals to see how they sound alone, and this is not a bad idea but I wouldn’t stop there. This is a perfect opportunity to molo. Try muting other instruments to see what might be interfering with the vocals. A good guess might be electric guitars or keyboards. Try muting one or several instruments at a time until you can identify the problem. Now you’re well on your way to getting your vocal to sit right in the mix. It’s time to use those valuable relationships with the musicians to help create room for the vocal in the mix!

I think that you will find that by moloing along with soloing, you will get to the root of the problem more often. Knowing how instruments interact with each other is much more important than knowing how they sound on their own. So remember, if you solo, molo.

-Dustin

From a musical perspective, soloing illustrates what, and moloing illustrates how. As if you needed further explanation, consider this. When creating music arrangements, it’s sometimes difficult to figure out how each instrument is working together in a mix. With all of the sounds flying at you at once, it can be hard to hear the detail inside the wall of sound. I typically make music and instrumental decisions not by musical theory, but by Audio theory. I listen to what the band is playing and how instruments are working together based on the audio spectrum. I’m really listening for how the instruments are spread across the frequency range.

When I want to know “how,” I molo. You can really experience the impact of an instrument when you molo. If you need a great example…mute the bass in a mix. It’s sometimes hard to hear it when it’s mixed in, but when it’s gone, you know it. Rhythm electric guitar is another great example. Most of the time, rhythm is just a texture in the mix filling up the crucial low-mid frequencies. It’s sometimes hard to hear it at all in a mix…until you mute it.

Ironically, muting trains your ear to hear detail. And, trains your brain to learn how certain instruments affect the frequency balance of your mix. Try this with hi-hat and acoustic guitar. They both produce rhythm notes in tempo with the song (both playing eighth or 16th notes together), and usually produce the same high frequencies. They provide crispness to the mix, and need to be balanced (and usually panned opposite to achieve that balance).

My favorite example is electric guitars. When I’m trying to provide players with direction, I’m listening to how their choice of voicings work with each other. Muting one player allows my ear to hear what frequencies are missing from the music and the mix, as well as dream of what could be there. If the muted player is a lead player, the missing frequencies are usually the melody parts higher on the neck (since rhythm electric is providing the lower chording parts). Since arranging and mixing can be boiled down to achieving balance, then moloing is the tool that helps me discover how things could improve to achieve balance.

Have we sold you on moloing? If we have our way, there will be a molo button on every future console. Oh wait…it’s the mute button. Nevermind.

-Chris

I’m sure that this will be the first of many posts on this topic, it is probably the one thing that we are most passionate about! Mixing musically to me is quite simply about viewing audio through the lens of music. Every technical decision I make must filter through the lens of music. Ok, so this is all great but now it’s time for some practical advice. In order to better focus on the music, sometimes you need to focus on the technical stuff more. I know, it seems counter intuitive at first but hear me out.

I think that by focusing on being technically proficient, it frees you up to focus on the music when it counts. It’s kind of like when you were first learning how to drive a car and it took all of your attention to just start off smoothly and not hit anything. Once you became proficient at the basic skills of driving, your attention was freed up to focus on cooler things like talking to a buddy or finding a good radio station. Then, one day you had to learn to drive a manual transmission and suddenly your focus was back on driving skills again. With a little luck, you eventually mastered that too. I think that mixing works much the same way at times.

Remember that first time you used a sound board? Remember just trying to figure out how to use the gain knob and push up the faders without making any strange noises? Once you figured that out, you could shift your attention to the music. That is until you realized that you needed to learn how to use an EQ because the vocal sounded funny. Eventually you started to figure that out and your attention was freed up again.

This really is a never-ending process, I hope that you never stop learning. The key is to be intentional about sharpening your skills at the right time and then leaving margin for focusing on the music. Try to spend time before Sunday learning and practicing new technical skills so that when Sunday comes, you can focus more on the music. Eventually you will be able to spend more and more time focusing on the music during rehearsal as the technical realm becomes second nature.

Be very focused on learning new technical skills at strategic times so that you can free up you mind to focus on the music when it counts.

-Dustin

I think most people intuitively understand the concept of “mixing musically.” Because it is a broad philosophy, I’d like to offer a practical step to aid in your journey toward musical mixes.

My goal in any mix is to create emotion from the music. Emotion is the currency of music, and the intangible factor (in tandem with the Holy Spirit) that compels a person to make life-changing decisions. As Dustin mentioned, you have to build off some technical knowledge before you can free the emotion from the mix. The journey toward finding the emotion is a process…like in marriage, it is not immediately or romantically achieved. Let me explain…

Wednesday night band rehearsals are challenging for our audio volunteers. At Buckhead Church, we eat at 6pm, soundcheck at 6:40pm, and begin playing songs by 7:10pm. On a good night, with several well-known worship songs, we may only need to run the songs once before we record them. (We record songs for the band to review, and for production volunteers to prepare for Sunday.) The consequence of this tight schedule is that the audio volunteers rarely have time to get all of the instruments in the mix, and they definitely don’t have time to learn the arrangements, and mix them in exquisite detail before we record them.

However….after rehearsal, our audio volunteers comb through the rehearsal tracks to discover what’s happening in the music in any given moment. One way to achieve emotion in your mixes is to study.

By Sunday morning, they know the music as well as I do. Their reward is a mix abundant with life, because most every second of time represents a fader moving to promote or demote a part entering or leaving the music. Their attention to detail amplifies dynamics; the lifting and lowering of the human spirit. And, the payoff is emotion.

Emotion is the currency of music. With it, we can leverage music to lead our church attendees to make decisions for life-change, or simply warm them up to hear the Word. But, it takes work. Consider committing to a process of studying.

-Chris

My nature is to constantly refine what I do in search of a better mix. I try new mics, new mic placements, a new way to EQ something or maybe even start my mix with a different instrument. One of the reasons that I love mixing is the excitement of pursuing a better mix. I love the excitement of discovering new and better ways of doing things and even the let downs when something doesn’t work. There is however one fail safe way that I have found to improve a mix. Serving.

At the heart of most great mixers that I know is the heart of a servant. There is something powerful about serving those around us. For me personally, this is a characteristic of Jesus that I find myself focusing on often. It seems to bring out the best in people when you serve them. It takes the focus off of you and lets people know that you’re about something bigger than yourself. It creates a sense of team and this is where your mix begins to improve. When a guitarist knows that you’re on the same team, they will not only listen to your input on tone, they might actually ask for it. When you serve a musician by giving them the perfect monitor mix, it allows them to hear how their instrument is interacting with the other instruments. Suddenly musicians stop playing all over each other and the house mix cleans up!

-Dustin

Dustin is speaking of an intangible quality of great mixers that is often over-looked, perhaps by accident. I remember walking onto the Buckhead Church stage as a wet-behind-the-ears audio volunteer in early 2004. As a musician, I empathized with the pressures our musicians were facing being forced to relinquish control of their in-ear monitors to someone they hardly knew. Knowing very little at the time about mixing monitors, I quickly grasped for what strengths I could offer the band members on-stage. I couldn’t yet tweak a great mix, but I could serve them with all I had. I could give every effort ensuring each musician’s requests were met, that their mixes were as close to amazing as possible, and that no need/want went unfulfilled.

I found myself hurrying to fetch cables, fielding “petty” requests for small mix changes (with a gracious smile), passing out bottles of water in-between songs, and bending over backwards not only to meet their needs, but satisfy their wants. My goal as a volunteer was to take every potential distraction away from the band being able to lead people well. I knew that if their mixes were great, and they felt cared for, that would be reflected in how they played and led our church attendees. I saw fruit from that quickly. Even for my own development, I had even more opportunities to mix, because musicians began to request me, specifically, to mix their monitors. And in turn, they returned that grace to me as I (slowly) learned how to mix better.

As audio volunteers and staff, we have an opportunity to lead the bands before they ever lead our church attendees. My level of service may directly correlate to their quality of performance. Are we taking this seriously?

-Chris

One of the most important things we can do as mixers is gain control of the instrument sounds coming from our stages. Electric guitar amps are perhaps the easiest, and highest impact instruments to move off-stage. We’ve found a piece of gear that makes this transition easy, all while retaining the quality of the guitar player’s tone. See the video for more details on how we set it up.

The Radial SGI is about $250. For more information about the Radial SGI, click here.

There are a million things going on in the mix at any given second during a song. It’s easy to get tunnel vision, you focus on one instrument, then the next, then there’s a strange noise, this song is ending, who’s next, did I change those batteries? It never seems to end and if it does, you just want to zone out and enjoy the moment. It’s very easy to focus on the urgent issues when mixing, and I want to challenge you to focus on what is important to the music. The things that give the music life, character and depth.

What is the most important thing happening in the mix right now? This has become the creed among our volunteers. If you find yourself thinking “this mix is just boring” or “it just sounds like noise,” it’s time to start digging for what is important. Look for ways to breathe life into the mix by looking for things that are interesting. Be wary of the perfectly-balanced mix where everything is the same level. In many songs, there is one instrument that really makes the song shine. Figure out what it is and let it stand out. You will find that the song suddenly has a new life by making a few small mix changes.

Oh, and if you’re having a hard time deciding what is the most important thing in the mix or finding something interesting, it’s a great opportunity to talk to your Music Director!

-Dustin

As a Music Director, I can tell you that our team of musicians works very hard to craft a polished set list each week. Some of our efforts are focused on picking engaging arrangements of songs; and, ample time is spent piecing the music together on-stage at rehearsal. It’s important for each musician to know his/her role in the music, and to know when and when not to play. When music is performed strategically… said another way… each part is played completely on-purpose, there should be room left for one interesting musical element to shine in any given moment.

In modern worship music, the “most important” element is often the lead vocal. It also can be the melody line on electric guitar, an interesting bass riff after a vocal phrase, a piano melody soaring over the bridge, a background vocal repeat of the lead vocal, or a memorable drum fill. It’s rarely rhythm electric guitar, acoustic guitar strumming, or quarter note chording on piano. (In most cases, I consider these elements “textures.”) If you’re mixing or playing, and there is nothing interesting happening, this may be a warning sign that something in the music needs to change. (If you need help discerning this, these are the moments when everything sounds like mush.)

On the other hand, if each band member is riffing on top of one another, someone needs to organize the chaos. It’s crucial. If you need answers for how to play songs, reference the recorded versions of music. They are often produced and played very well. Copy them note-for-note. There’s no shame in borrowing great production.

If you get the music arranged well, then there is still one important step: communication between the Music and Audio teams. Chat about what’s happening in the music, who’s singing what/when, where the interesting parts are in the arrangements. Make sure your mixer knows the arrangements as well as you do. It’s a law of good music: there is always something that is most important. Find it, amplify it, and sense your worship environment come to life.

-Chris

There’s no doubt that the issue of volume is the most dreaded topic of conversation for a sound guy. It may start as a kind “Do you think it’s too loud?” or a not so kind “It’s too LOUD, turn it down!!” Either way, I always start the conversation the same way. I take a breath. A DEEP breath. I remind myself to take a step back and not take things too personally. I choose to trust that the person with the concern has the best interest of the worship experience at heart. Then, once I realize this isn’t a personal attack on me and my mix, I can objectively move on to helping solve the problem.

Many times the volume complaint is really more of a tone complaint. They’re just trying to tell you that something in the mix is painful, they just don’t know how to articulate what it is that is hurting them. If it is fitting, ask the person to help you identify what it is that is offensive. The usual suspects tend to be the snare drum, cymbals, guitars and vocals. Ask yourself if any of these things may be a little shrill or painful in tone. It may even be a combination of instruments that are causing the pain.

Once you have identified the problem instrument, you have a couple of options. The first is to manage the overall volume of that instrument using the fader or by using a compressor to tame the spikes in volume. The second option is to use the EQ to remove the most painful frequencies from the instrument. The actual frequency can vary greatly but I would start cutting in the range from 1k to 4k.

You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned any dB SPL measurements. That’s because I honestly don’t put much stock in metered levels, if it hurts, it hurts no matter what the meter says. A bad mix may get volume complaints at 85 dB while a great mix won’t get a single complaint at 110 dB. You also need to consider the style of music being played, and your target audience. Who are you trying to engage? Too soft can be just as disengaging as too loud. If you aren’t sure who your target audience is, ask!

-Dustin

Volume is one of my favorite topics to discuss. It’s probably the most controversial and polarizing topic around the proverbial Church Audio water cooler. I don’t think we have the perfect answer, but we have developed a philosophy that allows us to deal intelligently with complaints, and make the best decisions for our worship environment. As Dustin mentioned, it’s extremely important that noise complaints not be taken personally. In addition to runaway frequencies, noise complaints might actually be linked to something less obvious: music selection.

In my experience, doing a wide-range of music, I find that more aggressive songs, especially the heavily-guitar-driven songs, tend to get the most noise complaints, irrespective of volume. Most attendees and non-production staff members do not have an audio vocabulary, and when it feels loud to them, they may actually being saying, “I don’t like that song.” It’s very important to ask clarifying questions of those who push back. If you discern that your complainer dislikes the music/song, then you probably need to handle the situation differently.

It is crucial that we know our target audience(s); who are we trying to reach? Without that knowledge, your decision-making, song selection, and service programming is likely based on bad science. This information also provides the answers you’ll need for volume questions. Nothing diffuses a potentially awkward conversation like a well-supported strategy. You’re in trouble when you can’t tell naysayers exactly why you’re doing what you’re doing.

As Dustin mentioned, we never limit ourselves to a pre-determined SPL level, and frankly, limiting SPL is allowing the tail to wag the dog. If we get multiple volume complaints, then we can assume that the masses might be feeling the same way. We use common sense and humility to ensure that the environment we are creating is engaging and exciting for our attendees. How loud is too loud? Wrong question. Better questions: Who is our audience, and is what we’re doing engaging them?

-Chris