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

Sound at church can make you jaded if you're not careful. Connect with the WHY behind what you're doing and build a great team culture around you.

[Herm-Jan]

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

[brianwetherbee]

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

[kenny_sounds_good]

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

[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!

[markperreault]

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 patience,

[gearjammer]

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.

[elishaakurugu]

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

[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.

[justinssleeyt]

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

[witchdoctor]

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

[towlermedia]

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

[paulmcdonald]

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.

[pablotorre]

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

[freemandiaz]

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.

[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

[mrovi]

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...

[danielho]

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.

[fmgdias]

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

[bpawansindhe]

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

[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...