Mixing Sound for Worship

While managing the soundboard (or sound mixer) might not seem like a big deal and often it is not noticed, but it actually serves as one of the more important parts of worship. Without the sound board there is no way to make everyone sound good.  When you hear different parts of a song and one instrument goes off on a solo, you need to make that person playing the solo louder so it can be heard over the other instruments.  Mixing all the instruments together and creating the perfect balance between all of the band members together is also important to make a song sound good.  Electric guitars, drums, and keyboards all sound good together for any song, but instruments are not the real reason we worship. Now I am one that loves awesome bass solos too. However, when the instruments start overpowering the singers, then I haven’t done my job to balance the sound of all the instruments and band members.

When you worship, what’s the whole point if the message isn't heard? When mixing the sound for our band I have to make sure to sound test the microphones first. This way I can make sure the voices are the highest I can get them before creating feedback.  Then I continue sound testing all the other instruments in one at a time from guitars to keyboard to the drums and any other instrument we want to use at worship that night.  But again, the lyrics need to be heard over all the rest so that when we are leading the congregation they can follow by singing along with us. All of us singing together in worship exalts God. The whole reason we lead worship is to worship God with our songs. That is why we want the singers to be heard so people know what we’re singing and hopefully we can inspire people to sing along. The most important thing is to sing songs of praise that can lead people to Christ. -Raul