How Loud Should Your Church Service Be?
For the 30+ years that I’ve been mixing live shows and church services there is one thing that remains constant: you can’t please everyone. Inevitably, at nearly every show and service, someone will complain that they can’t hear something or that it’s too loud. It wasn’t because I sucked; I get lots of compliments from musicians who like the way I mix. If someone is going to disagree with what you’re doing in church, I guarantee the #1 request will be to turn it down.
It got to the point that my crew shirts for my audio company had a cute but poignant little paragraph on the back that read like this:
Answers to commonly asked questions:
Yes, it is a big mixing console
Yes, I do know what all the knobs do
No, I can’t turn it up or down unless you sign my paycheck
Respectful comments and requests may affect my mix
If you have a complaint, see #4
It was written in the days of analog consoles where I got the first two questions a lot. It worked to some degree for the live shows, but I couldn’t really wear that as a staff member or volunteer at my church when I mixed for our 1800 seat auditorium. I didn’t feel like it was appropriate as a guest engineer at other churches, either.
What’s the solution? Often the mixing style is determined by the volunteer tech of the week and complaints that it’s too loud from the uninformed may really translate “It’s too shrill” or “It’s too boomy”. When I teach audio to churches I’m amazed at the lack of direction from the worship director to the audio person regarding style and volume. Often there is little or no forethought into those things, even though they’re a big part of the musical makeup of the whole service. The audio tech is often left to figure it out on their own.
Mixing is just as much an art as playing an instrument on stage. It requires practice, forethought, lots of skill, the ability to follow the flow of the band, dynamics, timing and creativity. If you are not preparing and practicing as an audio person as much as the musicians on stage, you are either exceptionally gifted or missing the boat.
The question of how loud it should be in church is more complex than just what your dB meter reads. Here are some suggestions to help with the problem:
Learn the style. Your worship director/pastor has an idea of what he or she wants the music to sound like. They typically pick songs from current artists who have their recordings on the major music services. If you’re a worship director, make a list of the songs (including which rendition, because the studio and live versions of the same song are often very different) you like the sound of and give it to your audio person to study. If you’re the audio person, ask for the list, then get on your Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, or whatever account you have available and make a playlist that you listen to regularly and on a variety of devices. Listen for the nuances like vocal balance, reverb, guitar tone, delay effects and drum mix and memorize them. Get so familiar with the style that you can spot the differences when someone else is mixing and then practice mixing like what you hear on the recordings. It’s also good to ask your worship director for honest feedback on how you’re mixing.
Track your volume. Every church should have a dB meter and it should be on every moment of every service and set prominently in a place where the audio person can see it at all times. Learn the difference between A and C weighting, and keep a weekly log of both readings, as an average and peak, for both the music and the speaking. Your meter doesn’t have to be fancy or calibrated every week, just consistent enough to track the volume from one service to the next. Everyone’s ears perceive volume differently and can be strongly biased by what they listened to in the car on the way to the church. If they listened to NPR, the service will seem loud no matter how quietly you mix. If it’s AC/DC, you won’t have to worry about them complaining about your volume. The dB meter doesn’t lie and isn’t affected by such biases.
Get your leadership on board. Once you have the above pieces in place, plan a time to get the leadership of your church together for an hour where you can explain the issues you’re having with volume and your desire to “fix” them. Seat them in the middle of your sanctuary and play the worship tunes your band plays at varying volumes until the group is comfortable with a level. Make sure you measure the levels they agree on! This does two things: 1. It demonstrates to your leadership that you take this seriously and they will more likely have your back when the congregants complain to them. 2. It establishes a methodology that is bigger than just the audio person and has the authority of the church leadership behind it. That allows you to respond to the general complainer with a statement like, “Thank-you for your input. I am mixing to a style and volume that has been determined by our church leadership to be what is best for the direction we’re going. I’m happy to take your ideas to them to see if they’re willing to change that, if you like.”
Be kind. That old saying, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar” holds true here. When I get complaints, I demonstrate concern for what they’ve “suffered” with comments, the look on my face and by asking good questions. It might go something like, “I’m sorry to hear that you had a bad experience today. Can you tell me more?” “Where were you sitting?” (Sometimes volume is related to proximity to speakers or room acoustics.) And, after I’ve listened a bit, “I’ll take that into consideration.” Getting defensive never helps as much as listening and allowing someone to vent their frustration. Whether you change your mixing based on their input is still entirely up to you.
The appropriate volume level in church should not be determined by which audio tech is serving or the last person who complained. Instead, make it an informed, group effort with some authority behind it. You’ll save a ton of headaches and hurt feelings!
