The Dignity of a Worship Sound Tech || Connect to your WHY

[@Herm-Jan]

Hey guys in the comments! Thank you for serving your church!

[@brianwetherbee1662]

I prefer words like input, information and so on. Something about a sound tech wanting feedback.... keep up with your great ministry

[@AdamMarco]

I wish there was way to motivate church leaders. I run the audio, online stream, and lyrics by myself 99% of the time. I know many people watching do too. I wish there was a way of showing my pastor and leaders how much is done behind the scenes. It feels like people think it's just a flip of the switch and I am just sitting back enjoying my coffee.

[@AttawayAudio]

Have you sat down with your leader over coffee and talked about this? Maybe from that context, ask them to shadow you one Sunday morning so they can see all the details that go into it and what goes wrong when something's missing. And how it'd be a lot easier if you had a crew to help you.

[@AdamMarco]

@@AttawayAudio I appreciate your reply. I am trying to draft a list of tasks done during service and those done after service. Please keep me in prayer. I'm hoping to have a meeting soon. God bless you!

[@kenny_sounds_good]

Thank you for this . This was really encouraging. God bless every sound tech as they serve In the Church.

[@markperreault3351]

Our church had a traditional drum kit. No mics. No acrylic shield. Nothing. ....and it constantly overpowered the rest of the band. Best move the church made was to move to an electronic kit. Much better balance. After watching yours and other videos, I'm convinced that the next step is to give control of the kit to the sound tech...... patience, Mark.....patience.

[@AmyGouletHealth]

I love this! I love running sound. It’s a way for me to give worship to the Lord and use a gift he has blessed me with to help others enter into worship. I love how you said always compliment someone else’s mix. I will always do that from now on!

[@AttawayAudio]

Yes! And many people are blessed because of your gift. Keep up the good work Amy!

[@gearjammer89]

This definitely hits home! I'm currently the only one doing sound without a break in a long time. It's encouraging to know you're not alone when it comes to the thankless part of doing sound and only getting criticism the majority of the time. It's also especially frustrating when you are trying to work around some pieces of equipment that are garbage and need to be replaced but never gets done.

[@AttawayAudio]

Yeah that's frustrating re: garbage gear too. Keep up the good work!

[@elishaakurugu831]

Hi sir I'm Elish Akurugu from Ghana and a young sound engineer. I have watch most of your videos and have really loved your teaches and really want you to be my mentor

[@mrovi789]

Had quit...because of pastor (he kept accuse us that electricity is bad because of the way we wired the sound booth)...they got me back eventually....ok done with that. But so hard to find anyone to help in a small church. I am the only guy who know to do stuff hands on, and take turns, one week on video streaming, one week mixing. I don't even want to discuss about non existent budget...

[@danielho5635]

Pastors and leadership have no clue how hard it is to run sound because they have never run it themselves .. not once. If they did, they would quickly realize the problems and want to fix them. It's the typical "out of sight .. out of mind" problem and the "not my problem -- your problem" disease. Quitting is sometimes best for your mental health. I know.

[@AttawayAudio]

It's a tough situation. Have to be influential and help leaders see what goes into it, and how it affects the results for everyone in the meeting.

[@mrovi789]

@@AttawayAudio Its all about education, if the board has no will to grow the church, but to keep it to themselves..is hard to explain them that you want to do performance. All singers being amateurs makes it even harder. They simply have no will to perform or learn new things. Lucky we have the key's guy that does good..i always tell him that when he leaves i will leave also... Traditional churches are the worst for audio guys :))

[@witchdoctor297]

OMG... exactly the place I'm in, exactly the word that I needed. Ministry is not just from the pulpit... thanks for the encouragement.

[@AttawayAudio]

Glad I could help encourage you! Keep up the good work!

[@justinssleeyt]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience on this! I'm very encouraged.

[@WendyNall]

Maybe you should do one on sound techs and engineers who are micromanaged by unlearned worship pastors who have control issues and trust issues with differing standards for different members of the WT . . .and I have been a professional and volunteer engineer for years . . .I understand the submission to leadership but there has to be a trust and confidence from leadership and having served under several different leaders for over 30 years and having no issues a "how to deal with" video would be very helpful

[@AttawayAudio]

yikes

[@freemandiaz5123]

Mute and walk. Hmm. Now I can't unthink this thiught. Lol. I am fortunate to have a good team, both on and off stage.

[@osatohanmwenamayo9264]

Thank you so much Sir..😊

[@towlermedia]

Mute a couple channels and walk out the back door. Haha. This was really helpful and encouraging. I like the 3 rules.

[@AttawayAudio]

I'm so glad I didn't, but the temptation is real

[@pablotorre9602]

is very satisfied when i fix things like MacGyver. and I know the only who see me is the Lord, and I can imagine God smiling on the way how I save the day, jeje

[@paulmcdonald9462]

Good video and great advice about always remembering the three rules for each service. As you mention, nobody notices what we do for a good service, but we don't do this for ourselves either. God knows what it is that we do to bring his presence into our places or worship or into the stream. I agree with trying to either get another sound tech to give feedback, or for you to give feedback to others. If you are the only sound tech in your church (I know I've been in this spot for the last 3 years) then it really help either with the worship lead or another member of the congregation that you trust (could be a musician or someone who really listens to worship music) that can give you constructive feedback. But failing that a good look around and seeing just how much your congregation and team is engaged is a good benchmark as well. Great video as always James, we all appreciate all that you do.

[@fmgdias]

"The How" is important but only once "The Why" fills it with purpose. By Jad Gillies

[@danielho5635]

Thanks for sharing your wit, wisdom and encouragement. It's very very true that no one in the congregation appreciates good sound -- they only notice you when things go wrong. I setup the church's $500 Yamaha analog mixer so well it made Audix OM5s sound like Neumanns. dbx Drive Racks were meticulously setup. There was never any feedback and the presenter sounded like he was using a ribbon mic. In my book, I was getting 8/10 sound from 4/10 equipment. When the $3500 Yamaha digital mixer was put in, it took about 2 years before the head sound techs got the sound from a 3/10 to 7/10. I reclused myself because I refuse to read a 100 page manual to teach me to produce inferior sound with supposed superior but ill-setup digital equipment. I am firmly against digital mixers because 1) they will come close but never match the quality of analog gear 2) they are way too complex for weekend warrior church sound engineers to master. 3) the complexity of the mixer creates different levels of sound engineers -- master and padawans.

[@AttawayAudio]

You're welcome! Though I might challenge your beliefs about quality and complexity for volunteers. I've trained hundreds of volunteers to use high-end, complex audio gear, even if they came from very little tech experience. The key is, like you did with that analog setup, the quality and simplicity of the starting place for inexperienced people to win.

[@mrovi789]

That's why we added superrack (or professor) to our live setup, volunteers only load presets and then is just fader work.

[@bpawansindhe992]

very nice video, as a sound guy i want to know how did you record teh speaker. boom mic or lapel?

[@AttawayAudio]

boom

[@espiondj]

have questions if you available, I recently start doing sound at a small church. The have eurodesk 2442 fx, last week their old sound guy stop by and start talking about my set up to the Pastors. So this is what I did most of the singers are not professional so their volume is all over so I I moved all the vocal to sub 1 and 2 and reroute to stereo channel 17 and 18 then 17 and 18 goes into the main. I did the same thing to stereo channels 19 and 20 to sub 3 and 4 for the drums. Now according to their sound guy I will fry the board inside the mixer, that I don't know what I am doing. Is this true? That my question...

[@AttawayAudio]

it's not conventional, but as long as your stereo inputs are line-level, and you don't route 17-18 and 19-20 to the buses that are feeding them, nothing will blow up. Even if you ran it into a mic pre and cranked it up, it would sound terrible, but it's very hard to actually fry