Church Sound Best Practices

Personal Standards

Timeliness

Please try to be on time, if not early. There are always things that need to be setup before anyone can begin playing, and so timeliness is vital.

Attitude

The job of a sound person is to be a conduit for worship for everyone. The goal is to "enhance, not distract". In fact, if no one notices what you did that week, that means you likely did a really good job, as people were so engaged that you were unnoticed.

At the same time, mistakes happen every week to every person. Roll with it, learn from it, and move on.

Setup

Basic Setup

After turning on the sound board, make sure that you remember to turn on the mic receivers.

Next, get the mics ready. Make sure to put new batteries in the mics, and quickly test them to ensure they have signal.

Next, set up any instruments that may need to be moved around, or wired for that service.

Item Specific Setup

Cajon

The low mic should be a condenser mic and gets put just inside the bottom vent. The high mic should be a sm57. Make sure to set it up so the drummer won't hit the high mic with their playing hand.

Sound Check

Process

There are many ways of doing sound check, with "top down" (starting with the higher frequency instruments or vocals) or "bottom up" being the most common. Both have their benefits, the only thing is to try to be consistent.

Order of Operations

It is always best if the performers are warmed up, and initially, to go person by person. If there is not time for this, then just have them play a song and quickly try to dial it in. This also has the benefit of having them focus on playing, so they may play at the level they will likely play at during the event.

Once that is done, have them play together to verify the gains and the levels. Once they have gone through a little, then you can have a conversation about where their monitor levels are, and they can be adjusted. Once monitors are being adjusted, unless absolutely necessary, please don't change any gain levels.

Settings

Mics

A safe starting point for the vocal mics is about 27db of gain, and adjusted from there.

Strike

Cables

Coiling Cables

Coiling cables properly makes things far easier for everyone. Please always follow the "Over/Under" coiling technique. If you don't know it, ask someone, or watch this short video:

How to Properly Roll Cable

Attaching Cable Ties

Cable ties should always be attached to the male side of any cable that is male/female. This is so that the tie is not near the mic or instrument, and is instead near where it is plugged in.

Always have the loop part of the cable tie toward the outside. This minimizes the hooks getting caught on carpeting or getting as much junk stuck inside it. It also is far more comfortable when carrying cables to not have the rough loops on your hands/arms.

It is sometimes helpful to put the cable tie a few inches away from the connector, in case the coiling ends don't quite line up.

Labeling Cables

Since cables can often be swapped out, it is better to label with descriptions that are not tied to a specific item. This way if a cable gets swapped, you don't have to worry as much about changing labels.

Labels, if used, should be put on both connectors for ease of tracing.