Vocal Mic Setup for Worship Leaders | Best Microphone, Gain, EQ, Compression, and Effects

In this video, Jake shares the vocal microphone setup and processing chain he uses as a worship leader.

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[danielsexton]

For most male voices, a low cut that high would often cut the fundamental frequency they are singing, since the A below middle C is 220. An octave below that is 110. I suppose you might want to start rolling off a bit of that as you get real low if it gets boomy, but wow is that high to start cutting off.

[chaddonal]

Telefunken makes great mics, for sure!
Other considerations for Worship Leader Mics: Shure KSM9 -- perhaps the very best available. Outstanding Alternates: Audix VX-10 and Sennheiser 965.
Great Worship Vocal Team mics: Audix OM-5 (OM-6, darker for women), Sennheiser 945 or 935, Shure Beta 87, Miktek PM9 -- Great mic with SuperCardioid pattern, if there is feedback concern.
Best value mics ($100 range): SE V7 (outstanding on thinner voiced women). Sennheiser 835. Both these make every voice sound bigger.
It's an awesome era for quality mic options!

[miamiheat]

To be honest I'd low cut to a little over 200 and then let a multi-band compressor handle that low-mid information on the vocal. But everyone's got their own methods. Good tips Jake!

[stephaniaustin]

It'd be fun to do an entire series of this type of video about all the different instruments.

[andrewdeanda]

M80, hands down the best mic. I own one as well and it’s so amazing!

[kevingomez]

Thanks bro. For your channel, your heart and your desire to help the church in this way. This kind of demonstration can be such a vulnerable experience. Especially because the internet can be pretty brutal sometimes lol. Regardless, your work has helped thousands of church techs and worship leaders, so thank you.

For whatever it’s worth (which ain’t much) I do have some thoughts on the video. I’ll just list em out. Hopefully they’re helpful.

- I’m sure your vocal sounds amazing in the room. But I wonder if because of your PA tuning you’re having to cut more in that low-mid range than you ought to.

-I’d entertain the idea of having someone you trust come and EQ your voice—maybe because it’s your own voice you’re treating it with a certain bias? I know I would.

-Personal Opinion* I don’t know if I like that mic on your vocal. I know it’s perceived to be ‘better’ and more ‘articulate’ in your ears compared to a 58, but that’s because the top end on that mic is CRANKED. Idk if that means it’s ‘better’ though, maybe just different. I think a V7 may be a cool middle ground for you and that M80. It’s $100 and give you a cool balance between your two mics of choice. Plus, I bet you’ll be able to get more gain before feedback in your position.

-Your mix sounds great! I think I’d just be curious to hear what dialing back that HPF a bit would do to your voice for ‘online’ listening. Maybe back to like 225ish and a small wide-q dip between 200-280 to help with that mud that comes from proximity.

Anyway bro, idk why I felt inclined to comment. The video is great and that Wing console is actually pretty dope. Thank you for sharing—this will be a great dialogue starter and resource for the community.

[bonji]

Very nice. We got the Wing the first week it launched. It was our first digital board and it didn’t have a proper documentation yet nor any tutorials, so we struggled a bit at first but figured it out. That said, thank you for your content Jake. I do learn from these and love it. And you do provoke new ideas.

[donvance]

great workflow intro for our new wing, thanks. I was told we were going to have a delay on the lead vox, not sure how we will set the tempo to each song, but I will watch for it. I am just operator during service and another guy is the setup guy & sound tech.

[okay]

I'm making an effort to develop a whole new set of volunteers in my church, and while our mixer is not the Behringer Wing used in this video, I'll still send this to the team.

Most valuable video. Don't think I'd want to be so aggressive on the HPF frequency, or set the Compressor ratio so high, but nevertheless this is an outstanding video, and session of training. Most generous.

[captain_skipper]

I don't agree with his eq, but everything else sounded AMAZING together. If its too boomy, I've found if you keep some of the low end and cut a little of the boomy areas it helps add more definition to the vocal!

[misterregion]

I would like to know how many looked at the board for “the like button”

Great stuff man excited about the new “RND” going on 🤙

[keatondepron]

I don’t mean to hate but I don’t understand how the low cut at 230 Hz sounds better to you then it at 130 Hz. Also I am totally okay with you EQing for your room but you specifically call the low end “junk” You never mention that these tips or rules don’t fit every room. In fact 90% of rooms this eq would be less then ideal.

[MatthewDuminy]

To everyone complaining about the high pass - I agree that, on our headphones, it’s far too high and in normal situations this would not work great at all. BUT I’ve also been an engineer in some pretty shocking rooms and setups and had to do some really unorthodox things to make it sound acceptable. I’m sure we’ve all been there.
Notice that he said it sounded better “in the room”. I think this is revealing more about the room.
If I was consistently cutting that high to make it sound good in the room then my first port of call would be the global EQ on the master (or the speaker control system, if you have one). Rather adjust there first to balance the system to the room so that you’re not making so many corrective EQ choices on each input channel.

This might be a situation where getting a professional to come in and setup the system for the room might be a worthwhile investment 😊

[cbarrerarodriguez]

Wow i love how the voices cut through the mix!

[ciskokidd]

Everyone will have different concepts for results, we all hear differently so these tips are for recommendations and great personal ways that are explained, this will be helpful for someone starting out. Good stuff and informative.

[nathanharrellyoutube]

We have that same set up with wireless mics we have 8 of the black and red ones and 3 of the newer ones

[trentondurham]

Yo Jake! Saw in one of your videos you were talking about ATV set only have stereo outputs. You can always upgrade the drum module to the Pearl Mimic Pro. It comes with an XLR splitter that lets you send 8 individual channels (they correspond to the mics they used when sampling, so for our set up we have kick, snare, two toms, hi hat, overhead L and R, and a room mic). This module uses Steven Slate triggers so your getting essentially the same sound options as what Trigger2 provides.

Just figured I’d throw this out there before y’all give up on the Ekit entirely. We got our mimic used on Reverb for $1500.

[barrettpalmer]

Jake can you do a tour of your new churches sound booth setup or the entire audio setup?

[AfricanRenaissancetv.]

You are singing is fantastic. How w can I find your music?

[JonathanBeechner]

I tend to agree with the comments that say the vocal didn't have enough lows. However, rather than lowering the cutoff frequency, could you just use a gentler cutoff slope? Perhaps 6db/oct? All that said, this is still a pleasant sounding mix, and I imagine it sounds even better live.