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[Mike Galica]

So this is more of a volunteer-related question than a specifically live sound question, but since it does deal entirely with sound in church I thought this might be a good place to ask.  I am part of a 10 or so person team that does sound for our weekly services, the unfortunate part is that only two people on this team have anything resembling a musical ear or any kind of experience doing live mixing: myself and one other.  The guys we have are very dedicated and try their best, but it seems that no amount of gentle instruction from the two of us that know what we are doing will help.  The music director is getting extremely frustrated and wants to start canning people and hire out but his hands are basically tied due to the wonders of church politics.

Anyways, I've always been of the opinion that mixing well, like playing any other instrument, takes a combination of innate ability and teachable knowledge.  The majority of our crew has neither unfortunately.  What could the music minister do to remedy our operator issues without causing undue stress or hurt feeling?

[Ivan Beaver]

May I suggest video or lighting for those people.  Seriously though-One of our biggest problems is that sooner or later we have to let the customer (church) actually operate the system.  Running sound is a lot more than simply turning knobs and pushing faders.  You have to not only have an ear for music, you have to have a technical understanding of what to do to fix any problems (as in sonic quality) when they arise.  It is very much an art form.  Give several people the same paint and you will end up very different types of a painting.  It is all in how you mix the colors and envision the object you are painting-or mixing in music.

Ivan Beaver

[andrew gissing]

Hey - I know three chords on a guitar ! Can I come on stage and play with the worship band during the service ?

Hmmm... yeah thought so.

Is there any difference with the sound console ?

I'm assuming you have some audition process for muso's and singers - you'd pretty much want the same thing for being in production. You don't need as much inate ability to do tech work as opposed to singing or playing, but I do agree that some helps.

I guess for those of us who have inate abiliy would tend to do it better than those without.

Your problem as you're fully aware.. is that these people are already on the team without passing an audition.

It's going to take leadership from someone in that role - be it the MD or other pastoral types.

If I were in your shoes i'd get the lot of them together and say right.. here we are and here's the problem. Thank them for what they've done and comment on their heart for serving God.

But point out that not everyone is on the same level and some are not up to the task of running sound on their own.

Individually I would give them an assessment of where I think they are now, and with the proper training (which I would provide), here's where you can be and about how long it would take.

I can do this 'cause at my church i'd be able to carry this - if you don't have the authority or weight you'd need to get another senior person on board to deliver the news.

You know.. this is a complex issue - i've only just touched on one stategy. If you're interested in more of what i've got to say PM me.

I Don't want to sound like a pompas ass so.. i'll stop here.

Andrew

[Dave J]

I have a similar situation at my church. I run sound for 2 services a week typically. There are 2 other "sound techs" at the church that have come around recently. Now, I have a different situation because I don't want to stick around for the services they mix so I stay out of their business. However, when the pastor sees a problem, they come to me because I also have my own rig that I use on occasions at the church and they know that I can fix whatever is broke usually. I have wanted to get together more techs and have them all trained but we just can't get the people to come. Everybody thinks it is just to much to learn or to difficult or whatever. I will not coment on the abilities of the other 2 techs, but I will say that I am the most knowledgable person of those involved with running sound, not to be bragging, but I have been told this more than once. I just got tired of putting forth the effort to do the work just to be pushed aside til they can't handle it when I already told them so. So I just sit back, do my weekly duties and wait til something breaks or gets stolen and then I take care of the situation and send in a bill, they seem to like it better this way. This could get into another whole discussion, but I find that if I just do my best and take care of things when I am there, they will notice and call on me when times require. That's just the way I have found to get around dealing with the politics on a regular basis. This may not work for everyone.

ATL Dave

[Tom Young]

The picture you paint is typical for many HOW.  

As the paid head of audio at one large metro-NYC church, I hired additional professional staff but was also assigned a few volunteers from within the church body. Of these, 1/2 were (as you said) without any innate musical ability/ear and were either tehnically "0" or believed they knew a bit and were woefully wrong.

In this case, it was obvious that when things were bad that it was due to that person.  I was encouraged to give them a decent chance and coach them.  Time eliminated those who couldn't muster.

Based on what you have provided, I see no way to resolve this other than for the MoM to diplomatically continue to encourage the administration to consider "outside" pro's.

As Ivan said: this is the single most difficult part of church sound.  Sure, many sound sytems are poorly designed and acoustics are hardly ever treated with the respect they deserve.  But operators with technical skills, mixing chops and the right attitude can make good conditions wonderful and also can often be instrumental in getting the church to correct sound system and acoustic problems.

[Thomas R. Pullen]

We brought in a pro to "train" those who had desire to run sound.  It got rid of more than half of our people up front because they did not want anyone telling them how to mix.

So sorry, we are paying him, you will listen.

Those who stayed did improve to varying degrees.  Some had an ear, others just got "less stupid" about the order of power-up and the like.

[yam4000vca Jim Gould]

I have posted many times that mixing is a combination of talent and science. Some have the ability to do it well.(not many)Some can do it ok as in they can probably stop feedback and do basic troubleshooting,and most would be better off working with lights or video. Not that those areas do not have their own group of skills and talent.
It is too bad that there is so much politics involved in church sound especially at the mid-level churches. The larger ones are either able to pay people that truly know what they are doing or are lucky enough to have a member that has the background to do it well.
I have been involved in church sound as well as many other aspects of live production for many years so I am well aware that what you say is a fact.
What should happen is the ones that can not cut it as to mixing should be given other duties not involving hands on the mixing console. The person to take the heat for this should be the senior pastor or other paid person in a position of power to do it and make it so.
I have been hired many times to train volunteers on the churches system. This is not easy but I can tell you I have done it and my goal is results. If a person does not seem to have the tools to really do it I have always said so. One church became all bent out of shape when I told them there method of mixing was not correct. They had 3 people crawling over each other trying to mix on a 32ch board and none of the three knew what they were doing. Talk about a Chinese fire drill.
Bottom line is other tasks should be found for the questionable fo;ks and if they get bent out of shape about it and leave then they were not there for the proper reasons anyway.

[David Haile]

I'm soooo glad that I'm not the only one with this problem!  Our pastor has called a meeting with the tech's, and I have a pre-meeting with him.  I emailed him and the worship leader a few weeks ago saying I don't have the right personality or leadership or whatever it takes to get people to hear.  The techical side is easier to teach than the artistic side.  We have people who are great at the technical side of setting up and mixing, and one in particular who has no ear for it whatsoever.

My opinion: If you are not paid, then you certainly don't get paid enough to have heaps of coals placed on your head.  See if you can get some buy-in from the worship leader, then suggest that (s)he takes care of the problem.  It would be nice to have all the top people on your team, but sometimes having anyone at all is a lot better than doing everything by yourself.  You can't force people to volunteer, and of those that do you can't change them from who they are to who you would like them to be.  Everyone has something to give.  Find a place for them!

[andrew gissing]

This might be heading slightly off topic but another thing to consider in an HOW is ministry.

So you're someone who DOES know what they are doing.

And you've got someone who has a heart to servce.. but knows nothing.

Pray - and see if you can use your skills to bring that other person up to speed.

In my own case, I've got a guy on my team who I am committed to bringing up to speed. This is going to take YEARS - both in church and with my PA.. but I feel that's what I'm being asked to do and so i'm doing it.

Which brings up another point - your people might jump at the chance to gain experience outside the church - contact some PA operators and see if they are willing to have volunteers along in exchange for them doing a bit of training on the job. Some outside honest words to certain people might sink home the message as well.

On a different note, I read a story about Hillsong church in Sydney Australia - they held a conference at the Olympic Stadium and supplied many volunteers to help setup the PA (think concert size) - and rumour goes.. pa company was so impressed by the quality of the volunteers they made job offers to them !

I mention this as an example of how things can go well if you train your guys well.


Andrew

[Mike Galica]

andrew wrote on Wed, 23 February 2005 15:05

This might be heading slightly off topic but another thing to consider in an HOW is ministry.

I very much appreciate your little gut-check there; it's easy to forget that.  The main goal for sound reinforcement in churches of course is to make the Word audible and understandable to the congregation.  (Unless of course the pastor starts preaching about the trinity, then the congregation won't understand anyways. )  The secondary goal is to help the congregation to praise God by amplifying the worship team upfront.  However, if neither of these goals are being accomplished without significant distraction from either feedback or simply poor mixing, when does one decide that the person being mentored just doesn't have the skills neccessary to mix at the required level?

Edit: fixed spelling errors (2/24)

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