After leading worship for over 20 years and running sound in church for most of that time too, I’ve found there are really four things that decide the sound that comes out of the speakers on a Sunday morning. And the problem is most churches focus on one of them, maybe two, and it’s usually the wrong one.
Everybody can hear when something’s wrong. Muddy vocals, bad guitar tone, drums running over everything. And the first thing that happens is the mile-long stare back to the sound booth. The booth is part of it, but it’s only one piece of a four-piece puzzle. I call these the four pillars, and when a church asks me what’s wrong with their sound, these are the four places I listen, in this order.
Pillar 1: Source tones
You have to start at the source. And the question you ask is dead simple. Does it sound good?
This one gets personal, because source tones are a person’s voice, the way they play their guitar, the bass tone they’ve spent years on. And sometimes it’s just not working. That’s not an insult, it’s usually a context problem. A high-gain metal guitar tone isn’t bad, it just doesn’t fit a bluesy worship set. Every player has to have a producer mindset and think about whether their sound serves the song and the room.
Here’s how you diagnose it, and it takes zero fancy gear. Go stand next to the amp, next to the drummer, next to the singer, and just listen. If it sounds bad standing right beside it, you will never fix it past that point. Not with EQ, not with anything. You have to solve it there, at the tuning, the drum heads, the guitar tone, the way the player attacks the instrument. When you fix sound at the source, everything downstream gets easier. And most worship leaders never ask this question. If you start, your sound is about to take off.
Pillar 2: Arrangement
Once your source tones are good, the arrangement has to feed off of them. The question here is just as simple, and just as ignored. Is the musician playing something worth listening to?
In 99% of churches, the arrangement is chugging through the chords over the lyrics for four or five minutes, a little louder on the bridge, maybe kicking on an overdrive pedal. That’s not arranging. Arranging is directing your band to play parts that change through the song, verse to chorus to a different verse two to a bridge that isn’t just the same thing louder.
You don’t even have to copy the record. You just have to stop playing the exact same thing the whole time. And that takes practice time, it takes players who know where they sit in each section, and it takes everybody thinking about the people around them instead of just themselves. That’s what your in-ear mix is for, so you can hear everyone else and stay out of each other’s way.
Pillar 3: The console
Now you hit the board. And here’s the key. If you’ve got volunteer sound people who aren’t seasoned engineers, you do not want them having to make major fixes. The console should be a polish tool, not a fix tool.
When source tones and arrangement are handled, the booth can just do the light stuff, high pass a vocal, trim a few frequencies, polish the mix. I’ve never once had a mix where I was doing a ton of fixing that turned out as good as the mixes where everything came off the stage already sounding great. The console is where churches always want to spend money, chasing the new board that’s going to save everything. A better board can help, sure, but it’s almost never the actual problem.
And one thing I’ll go to the wall on. Your sound team has to be just as much a part of the worship team as the guitar player or the drummer. Not two camps. They have to work together and know what’s happening on stage, because that’s what really sets the booth up to win.
Pillar 4: The PA
Last is the PA, and I lump the room in with it. Can your system accurately reproduce what the band is making? Sometimes no. But most of the time when I’ve helped churches, the PA is not the problem.
If you’ve got an average PA that a decent sound company put in where the manufacturer recommends, it’s usually fine to start. Could it be better? Sure. Is it the night-and-day difference? Almost never, not until the first two pillars are handled. So optimize your PA, make sure it clears that minimum bar, and then put your energy up the chain.
Where the real work is
Think about it this way. Old records were made with a couple of microphones in a room, and they’re some of the greatest recordings ever, because the source tones were great and the arrangement was unbelievable. Those two things live in the hands of your worship leader and your musicians, not in the booth. That’s a big responsibility, and it’s where 90% of your sound is won or lost.
I put more detail on all four pillars, plus how to diagnose each one in your own church, in a free download called the Worship Sound Formula. If you’re the sound person, share it with your worship leader. If you’re the worship leader or the pastor, it’s for you. Grab the free Worship Sound Formula and start with the source.
