Professional audio, done by an amateur

[johnridley]

So the church has a Christmas thing coming up and they've moved it to another building than where all the A/V stuff is. I have been dissatisfied with the A/V I've been able to do in alternate venues in the past, working with the slapdash collection of crap that they have sitting around, or having to disassemble, move, then move back all the existing stuff.

So I took the opportunity to go shopping and found a Fender Passport 250 on eBay from a guy in Kalamazoo for $225. A friend at work lives in Kazoo and commutes here once a week so I'll have that tomorrow.

I also went looking for a mixer with a lot of XLR inputs and found a used Peavey PV14.

Yesterday I went on a scavenger hunt after church and managed to turn up all the crap that's been missing for the last year or more, except there's an Audio Technica receiver that I can't find. I bought and installed a shelf in one of the storage rooms for my equipment, but that almost immediately had so much shit piled in front of it that I can't get to it anymore. Seriously thinking about a locked cabinet at this point.

Today I got on Monoprice and put in a bunch of cables, but wound up getting them from Amazon. The price and reviews were about the same, once shipping was figured in (within $3) but I know that I'll get the Amazon shipment in 2 days, whereas Monoprice sometimes takes days to ship and I must have this stuff by next weekend.

I went a little overboard with this, because I have other stuff in mind. I would like to use the mixer as a satellite for trying out new locations to place the mixer board without having to move all the existing equipment for a trial. Almost all the inputs are wireless, so I figure I can take the unpowered mixer and the receiver (most weeks, just one receiver) to other places, run some 50 ft XLRs up to the powered mixer in the corner of the balcony and see how it goes. If that becomes a permanent location, wires will have to be shifted and a cabinet built.

Comments

[rono-60103.livejournal.com]

I am not a sound mixer - but I do play one on TV (or more correctly have been trained and have done some fill in work in a pinch).

My understanding is that the optimal location for the sound mixer is in line with the center of the stage (altar), part way back in the house (congregation). However, that is not optimal for everyone else at a church. So the usual placement is at the back.

My current church, Green Valley Church, has it off to one side. Putting it in the center would have eliminated the garage doors at the back between the sanctuary/worship center and the atrium (these are open before and after service). Before they moved last year, it was on the other side, but still at the back.

On the other hand, when Wheaton Bible Church built its current location in 2007-2008 (opened two weeks before we moved to San Diego - and I was on tech crew for opening weekend), they put the sound board centered in the back of the main level, and most agree that is pretty good. They got it a bit further forward by putting a video camera position right behind it.

Note that both of these churches have "contemporary" services so the sound mix has to deal with multiple vocalists on solo mics, amplified instruments, drums, and other things that come along with that kind of service. If your church is like my parent's (Albuquerque NM First Presbyterian) and only does "traditional" services, you probably are mostly dealing with making sure that the right mic is on at the right time, and position doesn't make as much difference since you aren't actually mixing the audio and compensating for the natural volumes of the various instruments.

But any place has to be better than where they put the sound board at my parent's church (and my brother's and mine) when I was in college. They put it in a glass enclosed booth in one of the upper transoms. (The church is more-or-less a classic cross-shaped church, but has balcony level seating as well as floor level seating on both of the short arms of the cross, known as transoms (or at least a word that could be spelled "transom"). For my entire life - or at least awareness - these seating areas have been unused except for special purposes (tech booth, bell choir, antiphonal choirs or instruments).

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Our church was opened in 1850 and can seat about 90 if we really cram in. Every last seating position is used on special days, and it's getting kind of tight even on normal Sundays, even with two services. I want to move the board partially because you can't really hear to do a proper mix up in the balcony, and partly because when people sit up there (which they always do unless the place is really empty), I have to step on people's toes and brace against the walls to stumble out past them when I'm up for choir or song leader or something up front.

There's a second door next to the center doors that hasn't been used in decades, it's painted shut. I'm going to try putting in a half partition there and a temporary station, possibly standing.

I really don't much like churches with more than 100 or so in a service. OTOH, if we had more people, we might have someone else willing to take over this job.