I engineer for a large church and have some concerns with our sound reinforcement...

-Vocals (consisting of 5-10 praise team hand-helds, 2 lead vocal mics, and sometimes a few upright condenser mics) seem to blur together and not have the clarity I would like.

-Keyboards (consisting of a Motif, Fantom X8, Triton (sometimes) and a Second Motif) often Blur together as well.

-Drums (full acoustic set) are often out of control as bleeding occurs into each drum mic as well as some praise team microphones.

I have utilized my knowledge of EQ, compression, gates, etc. to its potential and have improved the sound greatly, however, I was wondering if anyone can share some advice for improvement.

We use a Yamaha PM5D sound board, all instruments and microphones are ran digital via Cat5.

Thanks in advance.

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-Chief Audio Engineer at Detroit World Outreach Church

The biggest problem in a church is the sound bouncing around like a grasshopper in a box. Get the speakers up high and angle them down at the congregation, and the sound is mostly going to be absorbed by people or seats. Something like this between your speakers and stands:

http://www.studiospares.com/stands-speaker/k+m-19672-speaker-tilt-connecto r/invt/478590

I suspect looking at the OP signature this isn't a couple of Mackie SRM450s on poles.

I suspect this is one of those big purpose built US churches able to house 4 figure congregations that bear more resemblance to a big municipal theatre here in the UK than to our churches, in both scale and design.

OP: It might be useful to know what the rest of your install is what speakers, etc.

Cheers

M

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New album 'Fantasy Bridge' available now!
Making of Fantasy Bridge Diary

Quote J.R.Burke:

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I engineer for a large church and have some concerns with our sound reinforcement...

-Vocals (consisting of 5-10 praise team hand-helds, 2 lead vocal mics, and sometimes a few upright condenser mics) seem to blur together and not have the clarity I would like.

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Define 'upright condensers'?

Are you utilizing panning? I assume you are EQing vocals, could it be part of how you are EQing them? What exactly do you mean by lacking clarity, do you mean you can't hear each individual voice well, or do you mean you can't understand them well? How are your vocalists with mic technique?

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-Keyboards (consisting of a Motif, Fantom X8, Triton (sometimes) and a Second Motif) often Blur together as well.

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This often has much more to do with arrangement than mixing, not always, but from the sounds of it you have three to four synths going at the same time and if you aren't very careful with patches and arrangement on the musical side it turns into mud quickly. We generally run 1 or 2 keyboards on stage but often times it is in a key patch and synth patch so that they are distinct sounds and filling in different parts of the arrangement.

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-Drums (full acoustic set) are often out of control as bleeding occurs into each drum mic as well as some praise team microphones.

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What micing setup are you using? I assume you are using gates at least? Are you using compression, and if so how heavy? If both what is the patching order you are using? Do you have a drum shield to help cut down bleed into your vocal mics? Are you having to have a lot of gain on some vocal mics due to quieter singers?

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I have utilized my knowledge of EQ, compression, gates, etc. to its potential and have improved the sound greatly, however, I was wondering if anyone can share some advice for improvement.

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It is EXCEEDINGLY difficult to give such advice over the internet without hearing anything or seeing a performance. We can start with the questions in my post and above and go from there, but keep in mind we haven't heard what you are doing.

From the pics on what I assume is your website, a couple of things stand out to me. One it looks like you might be in a gymnasium? Two your drums are in their own little world it seems, have you considered a booth if needed? And on the topic it seems like your drums and stage might be under a balcony maybe? If that is the case is the underside of that balcony treated at all to stop reflections off it back onto the stage?

Seablade

Do you have sound acoustic treatment in the building?

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revelationsoundstudio.com

Quote seablade:

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-Keyboards (consisting of a Motif, Fantom X8, Triton (sometimes) and a Second Motif) often Blur together as well.

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This often has much more to do with arrangement than mixing, not always, but from the sounds of it you have three to four synths going at the same time and if you aren't very careful with patches and arrangement on the musical side it turns into mud quickly. We generally run 1 or 2 keyboards on stage but often times it is in a key patch and synth patch so that they are distinct sounds and filling in different parts of the arrangement.

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Amen brother..amen...

I can only speak for the situations I've played in... depending on the style - e.g. Hillsongs vs Kirk Franklin the band can get bizzy, and not in a way that benefits the sound..

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C.LYDE
http://soundcloud.com/c-lyde

Maybe too many congregants dressing loudly. May have to ask them to tone it down.

I am at a rehearsal now and will take some pictures of the setup from the sound booth and make sure the situation can been seen via the images. Perhaps this can help with the advice.

Thank you for the replies.

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-Chief Audio Engineer at Detroit World Outreach Church

I am a sound engineer for my church. There are a lot of factors to go through that affect things.. Do you have a the vocals on a group channel? When the group practices you should be there, and spend the time with just getting the vocalist balanced. Lead vocal up front,and background vocalist a little lower. I always put the hp filter on the vocal tracks. Then have each vocalist sing solo and adjust the Eq. Listen to the vocals on the headphones as well as listen to the group of vocals with headphones. Have the vocals in front of the instruments.

I use a sound meter to control the sound level of the music. 90 db is what i usually keep it at. Make sure drums and bass has hp filter on as well. Hope that helps a bit.

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revelationsoundstudio.com

Hi JR.

If you are indeed responsible for the DWO in your sig, Google Images gives a few ideas of your HoW space
Seablade is (as usual) right- your setup is more like a live auditorium for gigs, than a traditional smaller UK church.

Acoustic treatment up front was presumably put in at the time of current tech install- or hopefully before that?- but if not, it is expensive to retrofit to a fenue of the size JR is describing, particularly as the balance needs to be just right- too much, and the venue is dead for singing: too little, and the acoustics vary wildly depending on congregation size.

Depending on your stage setup, a quick look at the rear stage wall might reap dividends if the stage is just too reverberant. Perhaps an acoustician might be able to advise re: bringing a cyc cloth a foot or so further forward, to give some hidden space behind for a decent depth of absorbent material behind your drum position- for example.

Given your described expertise, one option might be to consider spending a little money and getting someone with a knowlegeable stage ear in to your venue for a couple of hours during a service? The cost of three hours' expert listening and advice is likely to be considerably less than a set of new mics (for example) and potentially of much greater benefit to you and your team.


-edit- one other minor tweak- you mention 'full acoustic mic' kit for drums, which I presume means a full closemic setup? Do you need this for recording /later mixdown purposes, or is the stage noise so great that close-micing is the only way to go? Unless the setup and playing style is remarkably similar week to week, I might struggle to get a live drum kit nicely balanced and sounding pretty with more than six mics to play with, _and_ get it to sit with the sort of high energy band you're describing, in a venue like yours. I am sure you have already, but I might try a few more minimalist ways of micing the kit, just to see if I could get a nice sound that bit quicker; particularly if you've got access to a drum booth, a kick/snare/tom/OH with sharp gates, might clean up easier to start with.

Edited by turtles (04/08/12 10:01 PM)

Thanks again for all of the feedback. Here are some images of our setup so you can see what I am working with. Overall, it does not sound bad, but it can sound better (more clear, less muddy, clearer instruments)

The image below is taken from the sound board where I work


The image below is taken from the middle of the congregation and displays the house speaker setup. There are also subs that are not seen.


The image below is taken from the choir stand and gives you a view of the band/praise team perspective as well as amp/monitor/instrument/vocalist placement.


We are a very active church with events almost daily, vocalists often change for particular events. Microphone technique needs to be brushed up on from the vocalist side, however, I am looking for ways that I may be able to brush up on sound reinforcement from my end.

Perhaps some EQ/Compressor/Gate tips for this setup would be beneficial?

Thank you very much in advance.

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-Chief Audio Engineer at Detroit World Outreach Church

Quote turtles:

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one other minor tweak- you mention 'full acoustic mic' kit for drums, which I presume means a full closemic setup? Do you need this for recording /later mixdown purposes, or is the stage noise so great that close-micing is the only way to go? Unless the setup and playing style is remarkably similar week to week, I might struggle to get a live drum kit nicely balanced and sounding pretty with more than six mics to play with, _and_ get it to sit with the sort of high energy band you're describing, in a venue like yours. I am sure you have already, but I might try a few more minimalist ways of micing the kit, just to see if I could get a nice sound that bit quicker; particularly if you've got access to a drum booth, a kick/snare/tom/OH with sharp gates, might clean up easier to start with.

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We utilize a close mic technique on the drums, have never tried a different mic setup on the drum kit. Any advice for minimizing this set? I understand you said Kick/Snare/Tom/OH my questions I guess would be which placement would be optimal for the toms (to catch tom1/tom2/floor tom)?

I appreciate your time.

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-Chief Audio Engineer at Detroit World Outreach Church

Quote Glenn Bucci:

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I am a sound engineer for my church. There are a lot of factors to go through that affect things.. Do you have a the vocals on a group channel? When the group practices you should be there, and spend the time with just getting the vocalist balanced. Lead vocal up front,and background vocalist a little lower. I always put the hp filter on the vocal tracks. Then have each vocalist sing solo and adjust the Eq. Listen to the vocals on the headphones as well as listen to the group of vocals with headphones. Have the vocals in front of the instruments.

I use a sound meter to control the sound level of the music. 90 db is what i usually keep it at. Make sure drums and bass has hp filter on as well. Hope that helps a bit.

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Thank you, I also use a hp filter set around 132hz on the vocal mics. All of the vocalists are indeed on a group channel, I typically get a good blend in headphones and then adjust the overall vocal levels of the praise team with the group fader.

Individual EQs are a little rough for me because the vocalists change on a daily basis (sunday praise team is different than wednesday praise team, Saturdays is a whole different setup, etc.) any advice on general EQ setting that I can tweek on the fly if/when needed?

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-Chief Audio Engineer at Detroit World Outreach Church

Heh where to begin....

Overall it looks like a very nice setup. I am assuming the system was Smaart'd when it was installed? How is the coverage from each of those hang positions, does it cover the full space? If it does, how are you mixing for the three positions?

My typical approach for a true LCR system, which is not only one that has a console that can mix in LCR which IIRC the 5d can, but also one where the three reinforcement locations (Left, Center, Right) each cover the full house so that you can get a true stereo signal at a minimum, is to mix the vocals into the center, and the music to Left/Right. I do this for a couple of reasons, the most prominent is because it helps the vocals cut through clearer. There are lots of reasons for this, but for now if you haven't tried this, I highly recommend it. Another reason is because it helps maintain imaging centered on the stage itself. Combine this methodology with blending the backup vocals into the L/R for stereo imaging and you can get a very effective mix. Mixing EFX in this setup can vary but in general I prefer to keep EFX primarily blended into the L/R

With your setup, are you sending a crossed over signal to the subs based off the L/R (or Center) feeds, have a seperate aux fed sub, or a combination of the two? On a larger system that has a decent bass reproduction just off the tops, I would be very careful about what I send to the subs, and in general only use an aux fed sub, leaving the L/C/R to reproduce the lower frequencies of the mix in general but feeding specific sources into the subs(Kick, Bass, and maybe some keys depending). I would suggest this might be what you look at in your case as well if you aren't already. It can help clean up muddy bass tremendously by limiting what is actually going to the subs.

It still isn't clear what you meant by 'upright condensers'? Do you mean for your choir mics? The back of the pics are a little dark to see if your choir is directly behind stage or up on the platforms directly to the left and right in that case?

Drums, it is a little hard to see and I am very tired having been driving for most of the day, but it looks like you have 4 toms, a snare, kick, hat, and a couple cymbals. Well a couple of things, first off if you want absolute isolation I will repeat again a booth, though personally I feel that is not usually a good answer on stage, it can be an answer if you have drummers that absolutely can't control themselves, or in specific other circumstances. But micing of them, my typical setup for a situation not to dissimilar is individual micing on each drum (Single or dual on the kick and snare, one each for each tom) a hat, and two overhead mics. I do not typically mic individual cymbals until I have two overhead mics already and use the overheads to capture the overall sound of the kit with a significant high pass on them. The end result is some ambience on the kit with the cymbals cutting through those mics plenty and in general I tend to find a much more balanced sound. This is my typical pop/rock setup really. Theater setups can vary a bit more, but generally are cut down versions of this with a slightly different focus.

Drums and Compression, personally I feel the less the better, but I will compress the snare and kick generally. Snare slightly and kick somewhat heavy for rock. Occasionally I will compress toms for rock music, but more often than not I don't. For gating, I gate the kick tightly, and toms tightly. The snare I leave exceedingly loose as this is typically the most dynamic instrument that the drummer plays, and I prefer to ensure I capture every slight snare roll to heavy hits. Hat and overheads I don't gate usually(Occasionally the hat, but not often) but often times I do have the hat mic pulled back a bit as the hat tends to cut through into the overheads nicely in my setup anyways. Toms I will compress on occasion, depending on the exact sound I am going for, but more often than not I don't. I do tend to find myself riding the toms a bit higher to compensate and get them to stand out, but prefer them uncompressed.

EQ, it is primarily a game of blending rather than sounding good in isolation. With the 5D you have the advantage to re-eq per song if needed which can come in handy if, say an acoustic switches from fingerpicking a counterpoint, to strumming a melody, to picking out the lead, all of which can really want different EQ depending on the player and their instrument. And all of which might change EQ in other instruments as much as their own in order to make sure the melodic lead and solos stand out appropriately(Along with the obvious mixing the sources together appropriately).

Keys, I repeat what I said above. If you have to many synths going at once it can become mud. This is often problems in arrangement more than anything, but sometimes you just have to pull things down to get other parts to stand out. The problem I often see is people forget some of the more modern P&W songs especially are recorded in a studio with hours spent balancing the tens of synth parts against each other well. It just doesn't always translate well to a live setting and that needs to be respected, that is part of playing live IMO.

Does that give you some things to go on?

As a side note, and putting on my consultant hat, why the heck did someone place the screens or arrays right so that the stereo hangs block the view of the screens? That seems kinda bad planning.

Seablade

^^ Knows this situation very well as his full time job is teaching people how to mix in similar situations across multiple church campuses.

Seablade, your time is much appreciated! I will certainly be putting some of these tactics to work. I do currently compress the snare a bit so I will back that off a bit.

Thank you specifically for the LCR mixxing ideas in reagrds to instruments LR and vocals C. This is how I mix it for the most part however, I do have a good amount of background vocals in the center mix. I will try bringing them into the LR mix to get more clarity on the lead vocals and see how that works out.

the condensers are not the choir mics. they are just more back ground mics. our choir mics are omni hanging mics, I generally keep them down as the drums are placed right under them and they tend to act like 8 OH mics :/ (I am working on having this changed)

Thank you for the information regarding keyboards, I will considering backing off some of the keys that are not leading to clear up the keys.

Snare: I will back off the gate on the snare, my primary problem with the snare is that the drummer(s) have a soft rimshot but a heavy hand when they open up on the snare. This causes me to ride the gain so I can capture the rimshot but not clip the snare when they open up. Any thoughts on how to find a happy medium for soft rimshots/heavy snare hits?

Thanks again, I will update you after utilizing your advice.

PS: yes the system has beem smart'd.

MY TYPICAL MIX:

CENTER: kick, snare, hihat, bass gtr, lead vocals, announcer mic, main speaker, organ

LEFT: Keys (left output), tom 1, OHleft, elec gtr1 acoustic gtr 1, motif #2

RIGHT: Keys (right output), tom 2, floor tom, elec gtr 2, acoustic gtr 2, sax/horns, triton/synth

Background vocals are -since reading your advice- are going to be mixed L/R with the exception of when there are solos.

Any EQ general EQ tips that may be beneficial?

Thank in advance, you guys rock!

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-Chief Audio Engineer at Detroit World Outreach Church

Quote J.R.Burke:

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Seablade, your time is much appreciated! I will certainly be putting some of these tactics to work. I do currently compress the snare a bit so I will back that off a bit.

Thank you specifically for the LCR mixxing ideas in reagrds to instruments LR and vocals C. This is how I mix it for the most part however, I do have a good amount of background vocals in the center mix. I will try bringing them into the LR mix to get more clarity on the lead vocals and see how that works out.

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NOTE: LCR mixing doesn't work well unless all the above requirements are met, especially the proper coverage requirement.

Also note that I wasn't suggesting removing the background vocals entirely from the LR, just blending them out to the LR in stereo.

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the condensers are not the choir mics. they are just more back ground mics. our choir mics are omni hanging mics, I generally keep them down as the drums are placed right under them and they tend to act like 8 OH mics :/ (I am working on having this changed)

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Omni mics and louder reinforced music == bad combination. What exactly do you mean by 'background mics'? You need to tell me what exactly they are doing because the picture I have in my head at the moment is just a couple of mics on stands in the background that are open for some reason. And I obviously hope that isn't correct.

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Thank you for the information regarding keyboards, I will considering backing off some of the keys that are not leading to clear up the keys.

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At a minimum you should have a good knowledge of music yourself before doing this, but coordinating with the music director is a much better idea as well.

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Snare: I will back off the gate on the snare, my primary problem with the snare is that the drummer(s) have a soft rimshot but a heavy hand when they open up on the snare. This causes me to ride the gain so I can capture the rimshot but not clip the snare when they open up. Any thoughts on how to find a happy medium for soft rimshots/heavy snare hits?

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To be blunt, NEVER ride gains. You should set you gains so that on the loudest hits you have a little headroom before clipping. Then if you need to bring the softer stuff up in volume, that is when compression comes in handy, but riding the levels will always be better.

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MY TYPICAL MIX:

CENTER: kick, snare, hihat, bass gtr, lead vocals, announcer mic, main speaker, organ

LEFT: Keys (left output), tom 1, OHleft, elec gtr1 acoustic gtr 1, motif #2

RIGHT: Keys (right output), tom 2, floor tom, elec gtr 2, acoustic gtr 2, sax/horns, triton/synth

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Wait are these the speaker locations and what is coming out of them, or are these your pannings and you have matrixes feeding to your speaker locations that take panning into account for placement?

If these are the actual speaker locations, I would suggest rethinking this a bit. As I mentioned above, typically the only things coming out of my center in an LCR mix system (With the PM5D this is a LCR with CSR system for control) is vocals, and some EFX, combined with bringing an instrument into the center for a solo on occasion as well depending on the circumstances. But vocals tend to be the primary if not the only thing in the center.

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Background vocals are -since reading your advice- are going to be mixed L/R with the exception of when there are solos.

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Not necessarily what I meant. You can do this, but it isn't necessarily the best option compared to leaving some in the center and blending them to the outside(Via CSR), it depends on the music involved and how much you need what to cut through.

Seablade

Again keep in mind my way is not the only way that works, but it does work for me;) And you still have a lot of questions above to answer:)

I was just going over this conversation and wanted to bring an update:

Sound reinforcement at our church (venue) has improved greatly since my OP, this is partly due to the advice provided here as well as me increasing my knowledge in some areas.

I have come to the realization that I cannot make bad arrangement sound good (ie: 3 different synths and a motif that layers strings/keys) so I typically pull the 'non-critical' keys down in the mix (almost inaudible)

I would still like to get the praise team (background singers) sounding/blended better. They are typically panned L/R, use light compression w/ 3:1 ratio, and pretty standard Vox EQ's (I admit I am a little lazy here with EQs because the singers change every day and there is about 8 of them each time so it is lot's of EQing,...) I am also dealing with singers that have awful mic etiquette.

I also still have trouble with the lead guitar getting lost in the mix when he plays rhythm. any EQ tips for this would be helpful.

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-Chief Audio Engineer at Detroit World Outreach Church

I think you've pretty much got to this point from the advice given already, but I'd just point out that being a bit of a Luddite with keyboards, in my mind I put any keyboard sound into either a 'piano' category - i.e. percussive, or 'organ' category, i.e. sustained sounds (including string pads). I've been at both the playing and SE end of this, and my general experience is that it works best when there's one of each of those categories and no more at any time (except perhaps a big climax every now and again). Multiple keyboards do clog up the texture very quickly if not controlled, but having them is nice if you can get everybody to take turns and play nicely together. The old adage about tying the keys players' left hands behind their backs has a grain of truth in it, especially with players used to accompanying singers on their own, who will instinctively put too much left hand in. As I say, I think you've got there from the advice above, but I wanted to reinforce the point. You'll probably hear the rhythm guitar better if you do limit the amount of left hand they play. I can't guarantee that, because it depends so much on the keyboard sounds being used and to some extent on the guitarist's tone, but the general frequency ranges will overlap. Again, you can have the rhythm guitar taking turns with the keys doing their stuff separately and only put them together for the occasional climax. You'd want to discuss all that with the musical director, of course!

Quote J.R.Burke:

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I have come to the realization that I cannot make bad arrangement sound good (ie: 3 different synths and a motif that layers strings/keys) so I typically pull the 'non-critical' keys down in the mix (almost inaudible)

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Ding Ding Ding! Give the man a cookie, he got it right! (Not meaning to be offensive by the way, I am thrilled you started to get this, but make sure you are aware of everything I mention below)

Yes, our job as sound engineers sometimes has to border on 'correction', meaning if someone is off key, or something is muddying up the entire mix, you need to know enough about the music to be able to choose to bring something down.

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I would still like to get the praise team (background singers) sounding/blended better. They are typically panned L/R, use light compression w/ 3:1 ratio, and pretty standard Vox EQ's (I admit I am a little lazy here with EQs because the singers change every day and there is about 8 of them each time so it is lot's of EQing,...) I am also dealing with singers that have awful mic etiquette.

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Put the mic on a stand, don't let them hold it, and tell them to eat the mic. By the way, I consider 3:1 a fairly heavy compression, especially for vocals. I also would strongly recommend EQing for each voice. You are on a digital console, you should be able to save presets and libraries if you have any repeats throughout the days, so start creating a library of 'starting points' that you load for that vocalist and that mic, it will give you a STARTING POINT, that oyu can then tweak from there for the day to get it done quick.

Though to be honest as you get used to it, you will likely be able to EQ each voice at least usable in a matter of seconds, literally.

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I also still have trouble with the lead guitar getting lost in the mix when he plays rhythm. any EQ tips for this would be helpful.

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Try splitting the guitar into two different channels, and EQ each channel different to help the rhythm cut through a bit more than the lead if the lead sounds good, then you can swap channels when he swaps patches. The real question though is, is it a problem with his playing, does he need to bring up his rhythm sound volume? I haven't met a guitarist yet that says NO WAY when I ask them to bring up their sound, even if only part of their sound;)

Seablade

JR - You've got a fantastic set up there.
You have been given some great advise from the others.
My 2 cents on the drum situation. It appears from one of the photos that the plexiglass screen wraps 360 deg around the drummer. If so I can imagine what it sounds like to him in there. A lot of reflective sound from the kit. I'm not a huge fan of drum enclosures but understand the need. Is there a reason the back is enclosed? How is he monitoring? IEM's or wedge?
The mics in that enclosure may be picking up a lot of the reflected sound adding to the problem. Maybe try removing the rear panels or replacing them with acoustic panels and see if that helps.
Not much will help a heavy handed drummer but better drum technique will make your job easier. Ask him to play with a little more control (not all can).