

With the rise of affordable digital consoles, the mixing experience has become increasingly visual. Listening to worship albums should be a part of your daily routine, not because it makes you super spiritual, but because you should be developing an ear for the genre of music. Know how loud the backing tracks should be. Listen for important parts of the songs like guitar solos. If you are an audio engineer, you must be listening to the songs your worship leader has up on Planning Cetner. As a worship leader myself, I am super bummed when the guy or gal mixing the sound has no clue how the song should sound. Learn the musicĪudio engineers should know the music just as well as the worship leader. Be intentional about the tone you use as you communicate with the band. Often the audio engineer is the liaison between the band and the rest of the tech team. The relationship between the audio engineer and worship and production teams is crucial. The sound engineer must be able to troubleshoot issues quickly. How does signal go from the front of house mixer to the stage for monitors, or to the main speakers? Parts of this system inevitably fail or malfunction.
#Mixing live sound church manuals
Understand what each piece of gear does by reading manuals or looking up tutorial videos online. Know how your equipment worksĬhurch sound engineers must be the resident expert on all aspects of the sound system.

Keep it simple by taking Eric’s advice outlined below. Church sound can seem complicated and overwhelming, especially for those new to the responsibility. For those of you who are seasoned worship leaders and audio engineers, these tips will seem basic, because they are! I am convinced that church sound would be significantly better if more tech volunteers implemented these fundamental tips. I wanted to create a simple guide for aspiring audio engineers or worship leaders responsible for training sound volunteers at their church. I asked Eric to share ten tips for better church sound. He has not even graduated college, but he is creating a fantastic mix for the 3,000 people that attend the Littleton campus every weekend. To say he knows what he is doing with a mixer board is an understatement. I have also played in the worship band at Red Rocks multiple times while he was running the front of house mix. I have heard his mixing on numerous occasions since he works at the campus I attend.

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 recently sat down with Eric Olson, one of the audio engineers at Red Rocks Church. 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. Most churches cannot afford to hire a full-time or even part-time audio engineer. It’s difficult to find audio engineers with the knowledge, experience and most importantly, ear for the craft of mixing a worship band.

Achieving a solid mix in a church worship gathering can be a struggle for a lot of worship tech teams.
