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Author Topic: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?  (Read 6600 times)

Gordon Waugh

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Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« on: October 13, 2011, 11:18:04 AM »

Currently, we use no effects (reverb, delay, compression, gates, limiters). I have two questions.

1. Can you recommend any books or other sources that cover these topics in some detail for live sound that would be relevant to a church setting?

2. Can effects significantly improve the sound in a church setting?

We currently have no effects processors. I am considering ditching our analog mixer and getting a Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2. If its effects will improve the sound significantly, that would be an important factor in the purchase decision.

Here's a description of our venue and setup. We use half of a school gym with a small stage. Attendance is about 125. We typically have 3-4 vocalists, keyboard (we use only the piano voice), bass, and acoustic guitar with pickup. We have Roland electronic drums (stereo output) but lost our drummer a few months ago and do not have a replacement yet. So, let's assume we have drums, too. We use wedges for monitors and run the two mains speakers in stereo although people in the first 3 rows can probably hear only one speaker--so I am guessing that stereo effects might not be appropriate.
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Gordon Waugh

Jordan Wolf

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Re: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2011, 11:47:26 AM »

Gordon,

Effects are a mix-to-taste type of thing.  Personally, I like to mix them so that I notice them only when they're not there.  A little bit goes a long way, so go easy and experiment during practices - just make sure to let the group know.  It can be a little disconcerting when a singer hears their voice repeating while they are onto a different phrase.
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Re: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2011, 11:55:23 AM »

Currently, we use no effects (reverb, delay, compression, gates, limiters).

So how's it working for you?

Quote
I have two questions.

1. Can you recommend any books or other sources that cover these topics in some detail for live sound that would be relevant to a church setting?

2. Can effects significantly improve the sound in a church setting?

The Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook contains a lot of useful information on these and other topics.  The second question gets the old "it depends" answer.  If you have need of improved control of parameters such as duration of initial sound (gating) or signal strength control/averaging (compressor/limiter) the answer would tend to be yes.  But here's the deal:

Effects (read "processing") is not an end in and of itself.  Such things are applied for a specific purpose.  "Improving our sound" is just a bit broad for a good answer. 

Given that you're in a large, reverberative space, I'd say reverb is a touchy subject. 
The best method is probably "try it and see".  It'll come down to personal taste and you'll have to experiment for a while to learn what's possible, what works and what doesn't.

Lastly, sound is sound is sound, whether in a church or other setting.  The laws of physics and acoustics don't differentiate.
Quote
We currently have no effects processors. I am considering ditching our analog mixer and getting a Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2. If its effects will improve the sound significantly, that would be an important factor in the purchase decision.

Here's a description of our venue and setup. We use half of a school gym with a small stage. Attendance is about 125. We typically have 3-4 vocalists, keyboard (we use only the piano voice), bass, and acoustic guitar with pickup. We have Roland electronic drums (stereo output) but lost our drummer a few months ago and do not have a replacement yet. So, let's assume we have drums, too. We use wedges for monitors and run the two mains speakers in stereo although people in the first 3 rows can probably hear only one speaker--so I am guessing that stereo effects might not be appropriate.

The thing that will improve group sound the most is.........practice.  And keeping the stage volume and monitors as low as humanly possible.  Differing arrival times for sound from the mains, stage amps and reflected sound from the monitors add up to mud, so keep the mains as the main source and you'll be better off.

The question you've asked is fairly broad and has other implications as I've tried to indicate.  Keep at it and best of luck.   

Stereo is OK if you're not panning the main program material.  Effects will sound better in stereo in your recordings if not so much live. 
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Gordon Waugh

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Re: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2011, 12:31:51 PM »

So how's it working for you?

The Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook contains a lot of useful information on these and other topics. 

Thanks, Rick. I have the Yamaha Church Sound Reinforcement Handbook--which is a fair bit thinner. Its coverage of effects is minimal. So, perhaps I should look at the thicker book.

In terms of how it's working for me ...
- I am guessing that compression might be helpful on the acoustic guitar and perhaps some vocalists. The guitar is played from very soft to quite loud. So, if I don't ride his fader during the performance, then he disappears at times. Perhaps that could be handled by asking the guitarist to reduce his dynamic range--I don't know. It would also be nice to have a fourth EQ band to better tweak the guitar sound. My mixer has a high-pass filter, a low-pass, and a semiparametric midrange. The Presonus would give me that.
- From what little I know about gating, that seems to be used primarily with acoustic drums to avoid bleeding. So, that's irrelevant for us, because we have electronic drums. I believe that gating can also be used to mute unused microphones. We are pretty good about muting and unmuting on cue. However, the keyboardist sings on some songs but not on others--and I usually don't have this info. So, gating might be useful on that mic.
- I have not played around with reverb or delay--so I don't have a good sense for how it might change the sound--especially in a mono setting. I have recently experimented with panning the two female backup singers slightly to help separate their voices; I am still trying that out. It would be nice if I could tell everyone to sit near the back and center so they can hear both speakers :-) But we have a really wide center aisle (about 12 feet) so people don't trip over the projector; that removes about 50 seats from the prime stereo listening zone.
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Gordon Waugh

Taylor Phillips

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Re: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« Reply #4 on: October 13, 2011, 12:57:07 PM »

Stereo is overrated in a live setting if you ask me, and reverb and delay will sound fine in mono.  The main reason for stereo recording is to give you a sense of space like you would have during a live show.  Too many live shows mixed in stereo exaggerate what's already there so that on side of the venue you can't hear the instruments on the other side.

A compressor would do you good on your guitarist, the situation you mention is precisely the reason they exist.
For your keyboardist's mic, just leave it on unless they are coughing or something.  I think a gate might be more trouble than its worth on a vocalist.  The other thing I've used a gate on is noisy guitar amps - the kind that constantly buzz when you turn them on.  The gate can cut off the sound when it's just buzzing and let it through when the music starts.  It just takes a good bit of tweaking to get a gate to work right. 

Reverb and delay can add life to a good vocal.  They can't take a bad vocal and make them sound good though. The key to finding the right amount of each is just a matter of trial and error and finding something you think sounds best for you.  For starters, I would use only reverb and after you've got that down, see about adding some delay.
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TJ (Tom) Cornish

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Re: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« Reply #5 on: October 13, 2011, 01:45:29 PM »

In terms of how it's working for me ...
- I am guessing that compression might be helpful on the acoustic guitar and perhaps some vocalists. The guitar is played from very soft to quite loud. So, if I don't ride his fader during the performance, then he disappears at times. Perhaps that could be handled by asking the guitarist to reduce his dynamic range--I don't know.
I'm going to disagree slightly with Taylor on this.  Compressors do not solve all of this problem, and the goal of the sound guy is not to eliminate all fader movement during the performance (I know neither of you implied that).

Compression is useful for knocking the top off the loudest attacks of things - acoustic guitar and vocals being good examples.  However, there can easily be too much of a good thing, and if you start using a compressor as a volume control, you will squash the natural dynamic range of what's going on, and will take all the life out of that instrument.  In my opinion, if you have periods of compression that last longer than a second at a time, that means you are overcompressing things.

I have coached a number of instrumentalists (and vocalists too) about the appropriate relative dynamic range of what they should be playing.  It's common to over compensate - they play too quiet in the softer sections, and too loud during the louder sections.  In my experience, coaching them in light of "Can I give you a suggestion that will help me make you sound better to the congregation?" usually returns a positive result.

Dick asks a good question of what problems you are experiencing - Identifying specific issues will help you figure out the best course of action to solve them.

I am hugely in favor of digital sound boards.  Though there is a learning curve, the capabilites you get from even a low-cost board like the Studiolive series far exceeds what is generally affordable for a small oranization in equivalent analog gear.  Unless you have really primo analog stuff, the simplification of the signal chain and power of EQ and dynamics you get from a digital board will sound better than analog, too.
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Gordon Waugh

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Re: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« Reply #6 on: October 13, 2011, 03:34:32 PM »

In my experience, coaching them in light of "Can I give you a suggestion that will help me make you sound better to the congregation?" usually returns a positive result.

... the simplification of the signal chain.

Great tip for how make the suggestion to the musicians. A wide dynamic range works great for solos, but some instruments disappear if they are playing softly when others are playing loudly. If all the musicians' volume levels rise and fall in perfect synchronization, then this is not a problem--but perfection is pretty rare. Even with only a keyboard and one vocal, I have to ride the fader a bit to keep the volume levels in balance.

I had not considered that the digital mixer simplifies the signal chain. That's a big deal for me because a schedule change has necessitated us getting everything set up in 35 minutes. We have omitted hooking up any equalizers, for now, because of that.
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Gordon Waugh

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Re: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« Reply #7 on: October 13, 2011, 06:17:54 PM »

Great tip for how make the suggestion to the musicians. A wide dynamic range works great for solos, but some instruments disappear if they are playing softly when others are playing loudly. If all the musicians' volume levels rise and fall in perfect synchronization, then this is not a problem--but perfection is pretty rare. Even with only a keyboard and one vocal, I have to ride the fader a bit to keep the volume levels in balance.

I had not considered that the digital mixer simplifies the signal chain. That's a big deal for me because a schedule change has necessitated us getting everything set up in 35 minutes. We have omitted hooking up any equalizers, for now, because of that.

Looks like you're getting a lot of good responses.

Digital is going to be good for you, working with a fairly regular group for a specific purpose in a specific room, it'll save you a lot of setup time.  You mentioned the Presonus and that is probably a good choice in that the learning curve on that particular board is not very steep at all.  The ability to save your settings is adequate, there are some useful presets in the library for different purposes such as vocals M/F, guitars Ac/El and so on.  The gates/expanders work well enough and the expanders do help keep the mix cleaner when used on the vocal mics.  The effects are.......adequate.  You can at least learn something about reverb and delay and what they do.  There are a few adjustable parameters to help you advance.  But a stand-alone reverb unit like the TC M2000 is where it really starts to get good.  $1200 new, half that used.  But that's a serious chunk of change......

One thing about compression:

The working term is comp/limiter.  Compression itself is a technique for reducing the overall dynamic range of a signal source.  But most often it is used to simply limit the top end of the dynamic range.  This is done by setting the threshold (the point at which the compressor starts to work on the signal) high enough so that the quieter parts are unaffected but the peaks are knocked down according to the ratio you select.  The Yamaha book should explain that for you.
And be careful not to compress things in the monitors.  The Presonus boards have two settings for placing things like compression in the signal chain.  The default setting keeps compression out of the aux sends you'd use for monitors.  Check out the Presonus manual in pdf.

Enjoy.
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Scott Wagner

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Re: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« Reply #8 on: October 13, 2011, 07:40:41 PM »

Everyone seems to be missing the "half of a high school gym" part.  I wouldn't add ANY more reverb to that mess.  Perhaps some judicious delay on vocals, perhaps not.  Some compression on groups might help tame extreme transients that may excite the room.  There's nothing like a big snare hit reverberating around in a gym to "muddy up" the sound.

Scott Wagner
Big Nickel Audio
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Scott Wagner
Big Nickel Audio

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Re: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« Reply #9 on: October 13, 2011, 10:13:51 PM »

Everyone seems to be missing the "half of a high school gym" part.  I wouldn't add ANY more reverb to that mess.  Perhaps some judicious delay on vocals, perhaps not.  Some compression on groups might help tame extreme transients that may excite the room.  There's nothing like a big snare hit reverberating around in a gym to "muddy up" the sound.

Scott Wagner
Big Nickel Audio

Scott....

I don't think people missed the gym aspect of things.  While I'd tend to agree about approaching reverb in a reverberative space with caution, I'd also differentiate between reverb as an effect in the initial sound wave from the system and the RT60 of the room.  The problems with the reverberative field in the room deals mostly with "hang time", not the "reverb as an effect" in the initial, direct sound.  So for those seated in the direct sound field a judicious bit of reverb will function as well as in any other space where the percentage of direct sound is high.  Remember that the "half a gym" citation in the OP was paired with a stipulated audience of 125 folks.  I'd tend to think that that many people could well fit into an area with a high percentage of direct sound.......IF the system is properly deployed.

Also remember that there's more to reverb than just the decay time........... 

Respectfully submitted.

DR
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Scott Wagner

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Re: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« Reply #10 on: October 15, 2011, 03:14:39 AM »

Scott....

I don't think people missed the gym aspect of things.  While I'd tend to agree about approaching reverb in a reverberative space with caution, I'd also differentiate between reverb as an effect in the initial sound wave from the system and the RT60 of the room.  The problems with the reverberative field in the room deals mostly with "hang time", not the "reverb as an effect" in the initial, direct sound.  So for those seated in the direct sound field a judicious bit of reverb will function as well as in any other space where the percentage of direct sound is high.  Remember that the "half a gym" citation in the OP was paired with a stipulated audience of 125 folks.  I'd tend to think that that many people could well fit into an area with a high percentage of direct sound.......IF the system is properly deployed.

Also remember that there's more to reverb than just the decay time........... 

Respectfully submitted.

DR
Apparently, I over-simplified things.  This is what I love about this forum.  Thanks, Dick.
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Scott Wagner
Big Nickel Audio

ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Books, etc., about effects relevant to church?
« Reply #10 on: October 15, 2011, 03:14:39 AM »


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