Ingredients to grow a church

1. The pastor better be a pastor, someone who loves people, a people person.
2. Grounded in the word
3. Have a great sound system

The last one may sound funny, but it is very, very true. If the congregation can't hear the word, or the vocal intelligibility is poor, the church will not grow. I have a good case in point. A baptist pastor called one day and asked if they could improve the vocal intelligibility of their system because the older members were having a hard time understanding the pastor's preaching. At that point they were running at about 150 people. We upgraded the system to a Left/Center/Right configuration and the worship (piano, organ, choir) sounded better, because of the stereo Left/Right . The vocal intelligibility was improved from the new upgraded center (cluster). All of a sudden, more musicians started to come and want to be involved and the congregation grew because the worship got better. The older folks enjoyed the service because for the first time they were not straining to understand the pastor. Now they are running two services and have approx. 1000 people. They have had to expand their facility and are thinking of adding a 3rd service. Its kind of the domino effect. The pastor now realizes the value of a good sound system.

I found some pastors that think its a nuisance to even have to buy a sound system. I once had a pastor ask me if he could get a system for $1,000.00 that would work for his congregation of 75 people in a church building that seats 250. I understand the lack of funds but what about the system working in the building. It is possible to put a system together for 75 people in a small venue like a large living room for about $1,000.00 but that would be maximum capacity. When you try to design a system you want to keep two figures in mind.

1. What is the smallest number of people you have in the congregation
2. What is the seating capacity of the building.

Once you have those figures, you add at least 20% to the second figure and that is what you want to build your system for. Here's why. When you reach 80% of the capacity of the building you are in now, you will look to expand or look for a new facility. When you get to your new facility or expansion, your system will be at the minimum level for that set-up so all you would have to do is add a couple of items or upgrade a couple of items to meet your new need.

I hope this makes sense. If you have any questions, drop me a line or two.

Using the right tool for the right job - microphones

How does a Microphone Hear?
The way a microphone responds to sound and the way we hear are vastly different. Understanding this difference will help you understand how to use microphones properly.

Human Perception of Sound
God has blessed most of us with an incredible mechanism to perceive sound We perceive a wide variety of sound characteristics such as:direction, loudness, pitch, etc. We can make mental choices of what we desire to listen to. This allows us to focus our hearing on what we choose to listen to.

Microphones Response to Sound
In contrast to the human hearing system, a microphone is a crude and simple device used to pick up sound vibrations. Actually a microphone only contains one faction of the human hearing mechanism, just a diaphragm which converts sound vibrations to electrical energy.

How is a microphone different?
It has no second "ear' to allow it to perceive direction
It has no brain, which allows it to choose what it wants to hear, and what it will focus upon.
The microphone will always give preference to whatever sound is the loudest at the microphone, even if it is not the sound wanted.

Basic Principles of Microphone Placement
Microphone placement for sound reinforcement through a live sound system differs from microphone placement for recording of for broadcast. The two situations will require separate approaches. We will concentrate on microphone technique for sound reinforcement.

What is the proper microphone placement?
Microphone placement can be anywhere from 2" to many feet. Depending on the source to be recorded or reinforced and the type of microphone to be used. First I think we need to cover some basic microphone types along with pros and cons.

Dynamic
Microphone construction is similar to a small loudspeaker.
The diaphragm moves as the sound pressure varies, producing a small signal voltage at the output.

Pros - Most reliable of all types
Cons - Difficult to achieve high sensitivities

Applications
Solo vocal mics
Lapel mics
Paging and public address

Condenser
Microphone element is actually a Small capacitor (their primary purpose is to store energy). A small voltage is applied to it with a battery or phantom power. As the sound pressure varies, the voltage is "modulated" by the diaphragm movement.

Pros- High sensitivities can be achieved. Good for remote micing.
Cons - Requires battery or phantom power. More fragile than dynamic mics.

Applications
Solo vocal mics
Lectern mics
Choir mics
Pressure - zone mics

There are other microphone types such as ribbon, noise canceling, electret condenser, but they are primarily used in recording, and specialty applications, i.e. announcer mics, factory paging, aircraft. 

Church Systems - should they be Mono or Stereo?

Churches have migrated from the bullhorn and soapbox to fairly large complex sound systems. Most church buildings today are not designed for sound, so even the smallest church building needs a good sound system. Why do churches go through at least 2 sound systems before they get one that really works? The common errors in purchasing sound equipment, is that the music stores don't usually have the church's best interest at heart. Do they have the necessary skills to determine the church's needs? Do you think of speech reproduction first? or Do you design for music reinforcement? Most churches end up with a sound system that doesn't meet their needs.

All churches need 2 sound systems (a mono system for speech and a stereo system for music)

The most economical way to achieve that is a dual function sound system. What is a dual function system? It is a Left/Center/Right configuration. The L/R is used during the worship portion of the service and the Cluster (center) is used for speech reinforcement. You can get great sound for both your pastor and the musicians by carefully planning, and understanding the dynamics of a dual function system.

The criteria for those systems: even and full bandwidth coverage to every seat in the venue
If your facility is 5000 seats or less you do not need multiple speaker layers on delays

You can achieve full coverage with the latest LINE ARRAY technology (a vertical stack of multiple speakers). In fact most concerts that you go to today use the same technology but run it in single channel (mono) mode. (The area of coverage is too big to have stereo sound)

An oversight that I often witness in sound system design, is the failure by the designer to differentiate between speech and music. The assumption that a spacious sounding music system will reproduce speech in an acceptable manner can be an expensive one. The quality of music reproduction, is very subjective. Like art, there is no absolute criteria for good or bad. Speech on the other hand, can be judged on the basis of intelligibility. It is possible to assign a quality score to a sound system's ability to reproduce speech.

The criteria for proper reproduction of speech and music are almost the opposite.

A simple example helps illustrate the point. A choir in a reverberant space sounds very pleasing to a listener during a musical performance. Ask the same choir to read a sermon to the congregation and there will be total confusion. The timing inconsistencies and pitch variations that make the musical performance a pleasing experience can only confuse speech. Placing too many loudspeakers, with the inherent timing differences to various listener positions can have the same effect. The implication is that for a system to excel at music and speech, it should be a multi-channel system in design.

Criteria for Optimum Speech Reproduction
Single point of origin (center speaker system)
No reflections within 10 ms
No high-level late reflections (>50 ms)
Positive direct/reverberant ratio (Reflective sound often hinders  vocal intelligibility)

Criteria for Optimum Music Reproduction
Several points of origin desirable (at least a two point of origin speaker system. L/R stereo)
Comb filtering can change the tonal character of the direct sound field in a pleasing way
Negative direct/reverberant ratio a plus for many types (organ, choral, symphony)
Reflected sound desirable

Church Sound Systems - Update every 5 years?

It seems that every 5 years from an install I get a call with comments like "Our system just doesn't sound good anymore" or "We need a better system". If the system was great 5 years ago why the indifference to it now? The answer is that we quickly get used to the way it sounds. The best remedy to an ailing system is to have it tuned. Every sound system needs to be tuned at least twice a year.

• In the spring when the temp starts to warm up
• In the fall when the season changes and we start to wear heavier clothing

This will keep your system sounding "fresh" or "new" If you need an understanding of the tuning process, download the eBook "Tuning Your System" from the downloads page.

New Site in the works

News!!! We are updating the site. Checking out a new format. It has a good blogging feature and podcasts as well.
What do you think?