First time running sound?

Learning sound at church doesn’t have to be scary. It starts with having a clear idea of how it should sound, and it’s not intimidating if you take it step-by-step. I’ll show you how in this video.
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Sound for Beginners Playlist • Sound for Beginners
00:00 Intro
00:39 How loud should things be?
01:16 Listen to music over your sound system
02:47 Tips & tricks at the console
03:24 Find the window of acceptable fader levels
05:45 You can't please everyone
06:19 Get input from outside ears!
07:06 Balancing input levels
09:34 Vocals are priority #1
10:00 Adding in drums
11:57 Ride faders with dynamics
12:25 Avoid ratcheting!
13:14 Virtual sound check
14:37 Sound Check Checklist
14:53 Develop your critical listening skills
17:34 Know the melody
18:42 Have notes for the worship set
19:08 Hands on the faders!

[@audioglenngineer]

I’ve been doing this a long time, but it’s always good to revisit the fundamentals and remember the reasons we do certain things. Great work as always!

[@AttawayAudio]

Thanks!

[@DbiPro]

You should make a video about the most common topic at church’s with engineers who have no training and have very little knowledge. “Someone keeps changing the settings. I can see it’s different and it sounds different “

[@xray111xxx]

I am learning to do FOH, and I know what I am doing at home, and I have been in audio forever. This is a great video for people like me to lose the fear. You fear what you don't know. Thank you for this video.

[@sonicart1808]

Great tutorial thanks! You explained everything really clearly and made it easy to understand, as well as giving some handy tips along the way....

[@AttawayAudio]

Glad I could help!

[@garryyoung6]

GREAT VIDEO!!! I definitely wish the information you gave would have been available when I started. I experienced everything you talked about. Probably my saving points have been that I am a musician, who has listened to music for many, many years and I have technical background. I encourage all to listen to music. The videos you have posted and the courses I have been able to take and hands-on trial and error have helped me in a BIG way. I APPRECIATE what you do soooooo much. Thank you!!! James

[@AttawayAudio]

Thanks Garry! Great to hear from you

[@titustorkelsonmusic]

Such a phenomenal resource James! Thank-you for making this! I'm now thinking through how I can better train/lead my sound techs

[@AttawayAudio]

Glad it was helpful!

[@MrGuitar25xp]

👍. A great refresher for me

[@philipbenjamin4720]

Wonderful in the level of its accessibility thank you James.

[@AttawayAudio]

You're welcome! Always trying to think of the newbie I once was :)

[@jacobphilip1942]

Thank you

[@jeffreystipe925]

Good to walk through the basics again…

[@mark12.31]

I wish I had a video and audio of my first few times running sound at church 28 years ago. I'm sure it was less than superior but I don't recall any big complaints or issues happening. Maybe I've blocked them out?? lol It was one of those, on a Saturday afternoon, "hey we don't have a sound guy tomorrow, will you do it?" I said yes and never stopped. Same church, 28 years later, through upgrades and a new booth and adding projection to upgrading software and everything else.

[@AttawayAudio]

lol that's the way of so many :)

[@Armandox]

Hey James. Another great tutorial! One thing I miss though (however this might have been out of scope for this video and be something for a follow up video) is proper gain staging. One of the pitfalls I see beginning soundtechs do is improper gain staging, especially on digital mixing consoles. I've come across techs that gain up to almost 0dB on a digital desk. Whereas this works kinda ok for analog desks (you can overdrive the preamp to get more grit i.e.) you absolutely don't want to do that on a digital desk. Since all the channels will be summing to your master bus you don't want to gain above -12dB on a digital console to avoid digital clipping on the master. Neither do you want to gain so high that all your faders have to live way below the -10 mark. As you pointed out, unity gain neither adds or subtracts, so gives you the least sound colouring or imbalances resulting in a dull flat or squeezed overdriven mix. On the PreSonus StudioLive desk as a rule of thumb I gain so that the first orange led on my meters (-12dB) just occasionally lights up. I think this might be important knowledge for beginning soundtechs. Keep up the good work and informative video's!

[@Soundxajay]

❤ helpful

[@russellkinder5130]

I think this is just me, but I get kick, snare & hat first, because I have a better feel for how loud those should be without hearing the other instruments. Then I do bass to balance with kick, and then electric guitar, keyboards, and such. Last instrument is acoustic guitar because I need it to be heard clearly but not in front. I don't know how to blend that if the other instruments aren't all playing. Finally, vocals. Lead first, to get it out front but not too loud. Finally backing vocals to set them in clearly audible, but behind the lead. I pay attention to how I might need to rebalance vocals if the singers swap leads.

[@josh6678]

Hi james was wondering how to identify any problems and how to tell if it's stage our desk thanks from josh the guy never tought that at my church u call him David

[@DeltaWhiskeyBravo13579]

I think it was the early 2000's when I started mixing at church. I had helped on our very basic tape based Bogen system at the old church building, but the career demands forced me to back away from the sound room for a bit. Early 2000's we'd finished our new building and had just moved in. Surprise, the sound room was an afterthought in the building planning, and we the sound techs had to ask for the room that was supposed to be a nursery next to the sanctuary. Another congregation in Ohio gave us their old Mackie mixer, I'm thinking it was like a CFX 20 MKII. The other 2 sound techs were like um OK here Dave you try to figure this out. OK copy. Instantly it's like yeah this needs plugged in here, and then set trim, EQ, pan, and fader like this. This mixer had an FX section which we didn't need at all, but I had to try it out anyway. No, no solos as I did it way before service started. BTW, back then, plug-ins were separate analog boxes that did specific effects or processing. Example: we had to add an EQ to adjust frequency levels more to control feedback than sound shaping. The current mixer, a Soundcraft Ui16, has built-in auto feedback control by way of a dbx afs2 chip. Mixing is a lot like preparing to make a cake from scratch. Mixing is taking the ingredients and adding the right amount of each, blending it into something pleasing and expected. Get it wrong, and it'll taste terrible, and EVERYONE will make sure you know how bad you got it.

[@AttawayAudio]

Great story! Love the cake analogy.

[@peterkamauofficial2082]

Good one. My Peter Kamau from Nairobi Kenya. Iam a sound technician in our church though I was never trained in college rather I was trained by fellow technicians. Our mixing console is Yamaha LS9-32 which is serving us serving us up to now. Though we are planning to upgrade with to DM7. Kindly tell me which is the best effects for BGV's and drum's mics?

[@AttawayAudio]

Hey Peter! I have videos on vocal reverb and drum reverb. kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6SToneNZayGesU kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZ7OlYqZmqiin5Y

[@nanigideon9465]

Hi I'm really interested in becoming an audio engineer but I don't know where to start from ... I need help from scratch... thank you

[@desnowboarder]

Not sure where your located but would you be willing to visit my church and help me with some audio problems?

[@AttawayAudio]

Absolutely. Fill out the form on attawayaudio.com

[@homeofpleng7501]

Which reverb is better for studio live 64 ?

[@Armandox]

Really a matter of taste. Personally I like PAE-16 the best. It comes close to a Lexicon emulation

[@AttawayAudio]

I do a sort-of-review here kzbin.info/www/bejne/pl7NkGmPdsugh68

[@mschaf9354]

😂 a tape Deck 😂 still used one till 2019😅

[@AttawayAudio]

now all the cool kids want one :)

[@ilham007]

Good advice and great video.Well sometimes i cannot play stairways to heaven cause people thinks they are devils song😊

[@joelnorton9742]

Constantly switching soloists SMH Great workout though

[@AttawayAudio]

yeah that's my jam... 10 years at IHOPKC, 4+ singers on stage at a time. Keeps you on your toes :)

[@andym7333]

boss using a audio interface for prossesing synths and main l r so if their is somene singing with own monitor mix with no latency but how much is the maximum latency for foh ? so it doesent come to late after the dude sings ?