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[Kent Thompson]

Here is what I would do right now. It seems there is no one standing between you and the congregation so they come straight to you with sound issues. I would seek to change this. I would get together with the pastor/worship pastor whoever is in authority to sit down with you and come up with the level THEY want the system at. If they say 87dba,90dba(or whatever) then the system should be run exactly where they want it.

When people come to me and say its too loud etc. I take what they say under advisement (because I admit it I like it loud and volume creep happens and I might need to turn it down)but, if everything is ok then I refer them to the authority who made the decision on how loud we were going to run the system. If my worship pastor decides something needs to change he comes to me and we hash it out. Covering is a nice thing if you can get it.

[Jason Lucas]

I've actually never had an ordinary member of the congregation come and complain about the sound. The complaints I get are generally from the senior Pastor, his wife, the band leader, or another member of the audio team. Our congregation seems to be pretty content with however I mix.

[Jeff Carter]

Here is what I would do right now. It seems there is no one standing between you and the congregation so they come straight to you with sound issues. I would seek to change this. I would get together with the pastor/worship pastor whoever is in authority to sit down with you and come up with the level THEY want the system at. If they say 87dba,90dba(or whatever) then the system should be run exactly where they want it.

When people come to me and say its too loud etc. I take what they say under advisement (because I admit it I like it loud and volume creep happens and I might need to turn it down)but, if everything is ok then I refer them to the authority who made the decision on how loud we were going to run the system. If my worship pastor decides something needs to change he comes to me and we hash it out. Covering is a nice thing if you can get it.

Our worship pastor covers us thoroughly, believe me.... most complaints go through him and people don't generally come bother us in the booth because we just redirect them to him anyway.

What's changed recently is the intensity, and frequency of the complaints he's received, which is a little mystifying when our SPL measurements might top out around 85, 86 dBA-slow (*you* try mixing the bridge of a Hillsong or Tomlin song quieter than that) and there's nothing obviously wacky in the mix balance or EQ.

One theory I'll float on the complaints front...

We did have our 32-channel Soundcraft console expire recently and mixed on our worship Pastor's 16-channel Mackie for a few weeks. As part of that process we had to take down the plexiglass around the drums because we had enough channels free to mic the kick and that was about it.

If the drums were in a full iso booth with our usual 8 channels of mics I'd honestly run them at the same level or louder than they've been, and probably get away with it... but do you suppose people might be listening with their eyes a little bit here?

[Arnold B. Krueger]

I've actually never had an ordinary member of the congregation come and complain about the sound. The complaints I get are generally from the senior Pastor, his wife, the band leader, or another member of the audio team. Our congregation seems to be pretty content with however I mix.

Lucky you. Some years back during the same service two different deacons visited the media booth to loudly berate me. Yes, right in the middle of the service. Eventually one of them was forbidden to run for office in the church due his charming personality and the other one seems to have lost interest and just doesn't come around much any more.

I don't think that the mixing was all that bad but they were upset by a recent change in the style of worship music.

[Brad Weber]

One theory I'll float on the complaints front...

We did have our 32-channel Soundcraft console expire recently and mixed on our worship Pastor's 16-channel Mackie for a few weeks. As part of that process we had to take down the plexiglass around the drums because we had enough channels free to mic the kick and that was about it.

If the drums were in a full iso booth with our usual 8 channels of mics I'd honestly run them at the same level or louder than they've been, and probably get away with it... but do you suppose people might be listening with their eyes a little bit here?

Possibly, but the visual aspect may not be the only thing that changed and losing the booth likely also changed the way the unamplified drums sound in the space and how you mix everything else.
 
You might also want to see if the complaints are coming from certain areas of the room as losing the iso booth may affect the sound closer to the drums much more than it does further away.

[Lee Buckalew]

Thank you all for your comments.

Complaints definitely DO seem concentrated in a particular age group so I suspect the fundamental problem here is that some people don't like the musical style.

@dick:
There's nothing obvious that stands out in arrangements, either... our musicians aren't professional performers for the most part but as a group they're pretty skilled and manage dynamics quite well. It's definitely not a situation where the band just lets 'er all rip on every part of every song... though since we do a lot of repertoire from Hillsong, Redman, Tomlin, etc. the band's usually all-in at the bridge.

I find that it's often not the style per se but really a combination of a lack of dynamic range and a poor frequency balance that creates an issue with "older people".  They are much more used to actually hearing live music that is un-amplified and uncompressed.  Most church drummers that I have come across do not play with dynamics.  When this is the case they drive the rest of the group to also lack dynamics.  This makes the average level very high when compared to the same song being performed by a group with good dynamic control.

Another issue with many church arrangements, Dick hit on this, is that they double (or more) many parts.  So the keyboard left hand and bass guitar and possibly other elements may be playing the same notes in the same octave.  When this happens all of the other parts have to be significantly louder just to be heard. This happens even more so when there are orchestral reductions.

My $0.02.

Lee

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