Image courtesy of Church of the Highlands.
For years, the idea of a local church doing a live worship album recording was mostly unheard of. That sort of thing was mostly limited to label- or artist-driven projects.
But in the last decade, as digital consoles and workflows have become more prevalent, it has become easier and easier for just about any church anywhere to develop a concept for how to release a live worship recording of their ministry.
Plus, without having to worry about the costs involved with printing, duplicating and distributing CDs, the ability to release everything digitally has made the entire process easier and more attainable for ministries of differing budget levels.
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“I think it's important to allow a chance to be able to freely think about what would be the most engaging experience and then scale from there.”
—Paul Ericson, Freelance Audio Engineer
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While it’s now more doable for any ministry to decide to release their own worship recording, the reason behind doing so should never be just to keep pace with other churches, or simply to say they did something “cool.” Clear vision behind the project should always be defined first, as this ultimately establishes the priorities and resources that would be invested in the project.
“I think it’s a really valuable thing for churches to want to capture and show how they worship as a church community,” said Paul Ericson, who is currently a freelance audio engineer based in the Northeast.
The best recordings tend to be the ones that simply capture the spiritual feel that a congregation already embodies, as opposed to one that is using production value to manufacture something from scratch.
And Ericson would know firsthand, having spent a decade as the lead audio engineer at Minneapolis-based megachurch River Valley, where he oversaw three different album recordings, before spending two years at Tulsa’s Transformation Church. There, he says, “we treated every weekend like it was a live recording.”
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All images courtesy of Church of the Highlands.
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The difference, though, is that for a formal recording, the planning process ideally might begin around six months ahead of time (assuming songs have already been written), simply because of the amount of logistics that have to be accounted for.
Are there notable holidays or church events that have to be planned around? Are there smaller ministry events that need to be moved to other venues inside the church to accommodate rehearsals or the recording itself? What gear rentals need to be procured and how far ahead of time does the vendor need to be made aware? Will contract labor need to be booked? Will volunteers need to be recruited, and will any of them need to consider taking days off work? And what is the timeline for when different deliverables need to be finalized or when certain decisions must be made?
It's easy to think of an album recording as strictly a musical thing. But like any successful, big event, it may actually start with defining the main project manager who will carry the responsibility of managing all of the logistics involved and getting multiple other teams involved to help shape the vision and direction of the experience.
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“…we want to balance the live feel of the environment and making it feel natural, while still controlling the environment enough to be able to make multiple captures if needed to capture what we are hoping for.”
—Griffin McCravy, Broadcast Lighting Director at Church of the Highlands
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Church of the Highlands team.
“The leads of all the areas (lighting, cameras, creative, music producers and video producers) all sit down to hear the pitch from the leadership team overseeing the project. These first meetings we really strive for a no ‘no’ answers type of meeting. These early meetings are to dream, hear vision from leadership on the project, and come up with a plan to move forward with the idea,” explained Griffin McCravy, the Broadcast Lighting Director at Birmingham, Alabama-based megachurch Church of the Highlands.
Unlike an old CD release, which was strictly musical, a modern worship recording has to be a multi-sensory experience with visuals accompanying the music. This can be important not just to aid and improve the in-room experience but if a church wants to post content to its YouTube or Vimeo channel or have content available to post on its social media channels.
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The “danger”of allowing vision and brainstorming to take an early lead in developing the project, is that costs and logistics details could become overwhelming quickly…
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“From these meetings the video team begins working on any content that will be shown during the recording, and production will begin working with the creative team that will be capturing the project to begin building and planning the stage and lighting setup, how we need to light it and how we want it to look on camera,” McCravy continued. “From there, we will usually have additional meetings with the people involved in the original pitch meetings to present initial ideas for content, camera angles, stage design, etc. Everyone in these meetings has a vote and from these meetings we will lock in designs so that we can begin preparing budgets for rentals, venues, any props or practical elements we need built, etc.”
The ”danger,” as some would say, of allowing vision and brainstorming to take an early lead in developing the project, is that costs and logistics details could become overwhelming quickly, which might lead to senior leadership choosing to scuttle the project before it even gets off the ground.
However, as Ericson noted, sometimes there is a price worth paying when it comes to capturing your worship expression, because “costs will always follow the vision. I think it is very important to allow your creative team a meeting to dream big without any constraints. I think it's important to allow a chance to be able to freely think about what would be the most engaging experience and then scale from there,” he added.
When it comes to thinking through possible rentals, it’s natural to first think about an additional console for mixing in-ears, or maybe even more room mics or DI boxes for added instruments. But Ericson again warned it’s not just an auditory experience.
Image courtesy of Church of the Highlands.
“From the audio perspective it is important to acknowledge how things will look onstage. This could mean thinking through how to hide cables and gear with building low-profile racks onstage, renting stage risers with skirts, [using] piano shells, etc.,” he explained. If a church doesn’t have multiple computers available to use, it may also want to consider renting additional workstations so that tracking can happen at FOH and monitor stations, simply to have redundant captures in case of some sort of technical failure. What about spare DI boxes, cables and mics? Lots of extra batteries for beltpacks.
Oh yeah and even more microphones.
“A rental that is usually always a factor is more room mics. It's not crazy to have 14-20 room mics set up for the night,” Ericson said. “You will want to have a mix of shotgun, large diaphragm and pencil condenser mics.”
For churches that have limited budgets, all is not lost. There are still ways to accomplish this without breaking the bank. It just takes some time and planning to think through how to navigate some expenses.
When it comes to mics, Ericson said it’s ultimately “better to have more mics than high quality mics” and ministries could also rent “just one decent microphone for dubbing in post.”
Additionally, it could end up creating a more unique and vintage feel for the event if a ministry actually chose to use wired mics on stands for their vocalists instead of feeling the need to make everything wireless.
While renting in additional hardware isn’t necessarily a requirement or mandate, where it does add value in helping create an environment that may look or feel different than on a typical Sunday. Yes, you’re trying to capture the same feel of worship and spiritual energy, but sometimes when the room feels different, it can add a heightened level of enthusiasm and expectation.
This can be accomplished by adding in a couple extra cameras, an additional lighting package, or even some LED wall panels to add some more flexibility with backgrounds. However, the caveat with adding this much on the visual front means that if things need to be re-recorded, or different captures have to be edited together as part of a final release package, it’s important that everything sticks with the planned script for lighting, backgrounds and camera shots.
“There are always little things that can be done in post, like possibly cutting to a camera shot away from an issue or mistake, different things like that,” said Highlands’ McCravy. “The biggest challenge when it comes to a video shoot and the visuals involved is continuity. Continuity is defined as the maintenance of continuous action and self-consistent detail in the various scenes of a movie or broadcast. So for the world of live recordings, we want to balance the live feel of the environment and making it feel natural, while still controlling the environment enough to be able to make multiple captures if needed to capture what we are hoping for.”
Jesse O’Brien has been part of recording projects for the last two decades, whether in the studio or live. After several years working with artists ranging from Dave Matthews Band to Garbage to Dierks Bentley, he’s spent the last four years as the Audio Ministry Lead at Denver’s Red Rocks Church.
He knows firsthand that while it often takes months of prep and communication to help pull off a high-quality recording, it ultimately boils down to what the last two weeks of work look like in the run-up.
In the full week before the recording, the last granular details all get ironed out. “The full band, worship leaders, producer, and engineer all get together and create parts, hash out parts, tone search, cut/add sections, solidify vocals and really finalize how the songs will be played on the day of recording,” he said.
That week also tends to be when any rental equipment, ranging from cameras to LED walls or projectors, to lighting fixtures all arrive and are loaded in (or rigged) and tested.
Then, assuming the recording the following week is on a Friday, things shift into overdrive once standard Sunday services hit the rearview mirror.
Per O’Brien, Monday and Tuesday would be split between in-depth rehearsals for each half of the album, with tweaks and transitions ironed out so that a full album rehearsal could happen on Wednesday, with dress rehearsals during the day on Thursday and possibly again on Friday morning before the formal event that night.
Those rehearsals would be an opportunity for Creative, Lighting and Video teams to be able to work alongside the worship teams to capture b-roll, test graphics or lighting looks in real time during songs, and also dial in “shot charts” or “cut sheets” that would script camera shots for each song.
“Recording logistics are mostly figured out during pre/pro week and finalized during rehearsal week,” O’Brien said of all of the details that have to get finalized. “It’s important to have very open communication with your worship leaders and band so you both have a clear understanding of what will be needed onstage for them to function comfortably.”
Those last two weeks are not just critical for the logistics of the recording itself, but it’s the last chance for the Audio team to work on finalizing their own sound and feel for each track.
“We use the rehearsal week to dial in a great static mix,” O’Brien explained. “I also purposely ‘warm’ up the FOH mix so it plays a little nicer with my audience mics. If your FOH mix is on the brighter side, it makes mixing the record after the fact a little more challenging because it’s harder to push those audience responses!”
While it’s possible to dial in gain structure, EQ, and all of the necessary effects ahead of time, with Murphy’s law, it’s still always possible that something goes awry. Having clean (and redundant) captures of each channel can be a lifesaver in case something goes wrong live and will inevitably have to be fixed in post-production. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be cost-prohibitive to do this.
O’Brien noted, “Most digital consoles nowadays have the ability to multitrack record, or get audio to a computer to multitrack record. I would highly suggest utilizing that. You can get Logic or Protools for less than $500 or Reaper for $60. These are all more than adequate to make something sound great!”
As leadership experts have noted before, preparation is the key to success. Thinking through details and planning alternatives ahead of time save from having to expend mental energy to solve a problem in the middle of a stressful moment.
Ericson agreed that advance planning for “day of” issues can alleviate the rising stress levels that might accompany a big, high-pressure event.
“I would recommend creating a master doc for every element per song,” he said that notes “what vocalist or instrumentalist is onstage, which guitar the players are using, stage props that are needed, A or B stage, etc.”
“I would also recommend having a team of volunteers to help, like a guitar tech that is tuning and brings guitars onstage, or a stage producer that is ensuring all of the vocalists have the right mics and packs. Plus, an A2 that can patch or fix things onstage in rehearsals and during the night if needed.”
Having a team to rely on means that a lead engineer has the freedom to just focus on getting the best possible capture of that special event.
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“The things you CANNOT change or fix in a recording is emotion, live energy and spiritual connection."
—Jesse O'Brien, Audio Ministry Lead, Red Rocks Church
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But, planning only gets you so far. The album recording isn’t about the details, and it’s not about going through the motions just so everything can get cleaned up in post. It’s ultimately about a ministry being able to capture their unique worship experience and sharing it with others.
“The things you CANNOT change or fix in a recording is emotion, live energy and spiritual connection,” O’Brien emphasized. “If you have those happening in a room, the capture process will follow suit. Cameras, lights, and audio move and become a part of the worship and no matter the quality or lack thereof, people will connect with it. That is ALWAYS more important than high quality gear or a 4k cam or the best-looking stage. The best thing you can do for your album is to focus on cultivating and capturing those moments.”
