Michael Smith, Lead Audio Engineer, Prestonwood Baptist Church, Plano, TX
Christmas is right around the corner. For most churches, this means holiday music and drama spun up to a higher level of polish and complexity than any other time of year. It also means a whole new set of challenges that can stretch your technology and stress your staff.
One of the main areas churches trip up during “big show” season is in failing to recognize how a drama production differs from the typical Sunday morning worship service. An ensemble of actors is not the same as a band. A speaking voice is not the same as a singing voice. A good dialog mix is not the same as a good music mix.
To help your church achieve success this Christmas season, CPM interviewed two audio professionals experienced in mixing for both music and drama. Michael Smith is the lead audio engineer for Prestonwood Baptist Church in Texas, one of the largest churches in America. Prestonwood’s “Gift of Christmas” musical is a Broadway-level production seen by thousands each year. John Spicer heads up Broken Soul Audio (www.brokensoulaudio.com), and has decades of experience working as an engineer and trainer for churches both small and large. In the discussion that follows, they ping-pong off one another to give church techs the best advice for creating stellar Christmas audio.
Pre-production
The more complex a production, the more crucial effective planning becomes. A big Christmas show is no time to exclude your tech team from early discussions. “Your battles are won and lost in pre-production,” Smith says. “As much as you can be familiar with the script, as many rehearsals as you can be a part of, do it. Even if the rehearsals aren’t on-microphone, you can catch a glimpse of the flow of the event and make notes. If you have the ability to do a virtual soundcheck, that can be a lifesaver. The more you know what’s happening, the more you know what’s scripted ahead of time, the more prepared you can be."
Spicer weighs in, “The earlier you’re involved, the more influence you have to create a better production.” And he adds, “The more pre-planning we do, the better we can handle those last-minute requests for an additional belt pack or microphone. The folks in charge need to understand how close we are to the limits of our technical capability before we’re in the moment that we need it.”
“It’s all in the hands of the operator,” Smith notes, “knowing the source material, knowing when things are coming, being active in that mixing process.”
John Spicer, Owner, Broken Soul Audio
Intelligibility
“Intelligibility is key,” Spicer states, “and it’s not just about tonality—it’s also volume. If you’re having feedback problems, and you can’t bring the level of the speaker up to an easy listening level, then intelligibility suffers. The dialog can be perfectly clear, but if people are struggling to hear it for any reason, that’s an issue.”
Ready to hear your Christmas audience’s standing ovation? Follow the advice of Smith and Spicer: get techs involved early in production planning, choose the right mics and position them well, designate a wireless pack manager, minimize open mics, and prioritize intelligibility.
“With music,” Smith says, “we can use effects processors to sweeten things up. With the spoken word, it’s all about intelligibility. You have to get sibilance under control, get the voice as up-front as you can. Keep it simple, keep it panned in the middle. With music, you have more creative options. With speaking, clarity and natural intelligibility are critical.”
Spicer adds, “Intelligibility in music is less critical. You can miss a syllable and it may not matter. We usually have the words on the screen. That doesn’t fly in an actor’s presentation or a skit, where there’s no room for not understanding what they’re saying. If people can’t understand what’s being said, that part of the messaging is lost.”
Gain before feedback
“Gain before feedback is, in my experience, the greatest challenge,” Spicer says. “The more mics you have open, the more tendency you have for feedback, especially if they’re active and they move around the room and their relationship to the PA changes.”
“Typically with music,” Smith says, “you’re getting more volume out of the performer than when speaking. It’s especially hard when it’s the same person that’s doing both. If you’re using a headset, make sure that the mic is in the right spot, not pulled way back on the jaw line. If you can get the mic closer to their mouth, you get more volume before feedback.”
“Poor mic placement really hurts intelligibility, and it causes gain and feedback issues,” Spicer says. “Mics that are too far from the face pick up too much room, meaning that we tend to get feedback before we get level. I always suggest a head-worn mic for any type of multi-person or theatrical presentation. Lapel mics can really lead to comb filtering issues when dealing with multiple speakers, and they can exasperate gain-before-feedback issues.”
Minimizing the number of open mics is crucial, and both men employ solutions from the simple (riding faders) to the complex (mixer scenes) to accomplish this. For instance, “Rather than using gates on a speaking mic,” Smith says, “I manually ride faders. Depending on how complex the scene is, I may just manually pull one fader down for a person that walks off-stage. If it’s a complex scene, I’ll create a snapshot that does that for me."
Not every church has access to high-end mixers, plug-ins, and automation. “Even on simple consoles,” notes Smith, “make sure your mute groups are set up. Utilize snapshots as much as possible. Snapshots are my best friend—I’ll probably have 50 snapshots for this year’s show. If you don’t have any type of auto-mixing, submix things to VCAs so you can manually move whole groups. You could have your lead actors on one fader, and your supporting actors on a different fader.”
Wireless mics
Wireless systems offer unmatched flexibility and freedom of movement, but those benefits come with a cost. “This is where I see churches falling down the most,” Spicer says. “They’re not respecting the gravity of wireless pack management and having someone dedicated to it. Inevitably, things don’t get worn right or the mic placement is off, or the pack never gets turned back on, or they don’t monitor the batteries. Even between scenes in a production, things can shift. A pack manager can make sure mic placement is the same between scenes.”
“If it doesn’t need to be wireless,” Smith cautions, “don’t make it wireless. If people have one line, you could have a stationary microphone on-stage that they all walk up to and use. It saves from having another wireless mic on stage, another mic to mute and un-mute. I’m not a fan of allowing performers to turn their wireless packs on and off. There’s too much of a chance that they’re going to forget to do it, because their head is in a different space. Power-locking is a must. Leave the responsibility in the hands of the engineer.”
“Don’t get too concerned about having everything concealed if you don’t have the resources to do that,” Spicer adds. “Everyone thinks wireless is great, and it is, but if you don’t have the resources to manage it, don’t try. There are all sorts of things you can do with wired mics to make them not obvious. There’s no reason you can't put a PZM mic on a tabletop, for example.”
Curtain call
Ready to hear your Christmas audience's standing ovation? Follow Smith's and Spicer's advice: get techs involved early in production planning, choose the right mics and position them well, designate a wireless pack manager, minimize open mics, and prioritize intelligibility.
