Hey, I'm James Attaway. Thanks for checking out my channel!
So many churches have problems with their sound system, but don't have a good solution to train their sound team. Attaway Audio is here to help your church sound volunteers get the understanding and tips they need to be an awesome asset for your church worship team. With proven training for sound techs refined over 10 years of training at a 24/7 worship and prayer ministry, you'll learn how to consistently get a great mix, find your sweet spot, and turn the sound system from an ear-sore to a transparent part of presenting the Gospel.
How do you listen to the Aux outputs? or mix outputs? cause every time I've tried it's gone horribly wrong (as in, no audio or it starts muting channels). This desk is by far the worst desk I've ever used in my life. The patching is beyond stupid, and the "Fat channel" is probably the worst feature I've ever seen on a sound desk. I'd far rather mix on my XR18 than EVER touch another PreSonus desk. How are they still in business? who is buying these mixers?
Studiolive 3 has same issue with network card...suddenly computer cannot recognize the hardware...then need to replace network card...but it will happen again and again...
I think people who mix acoustic guitars should spend time listening to it with the guy playing it. Listen to what he fell in love with on It. Most of the tone is the strings and when you cut you should cut the nasty stuff from the woods natural resonance because not everything is sweet and some is annoying. Another good tip is to offer softer picks. Softer picks make it sound fuller and louder and clearer than a harder pick which makes it sound nasty and rough. No matter what they say because they haven’t realized it.
Great overview. I appreciate the bottom-up approach - your videos are super practical and helpful. One thing that isn't in the video: in most of the churches where I've worked, the first place we had to start was by incorporating acoustic treatments like baffles and diffusers to remove the crazy long reverb that created sludge.
Hi James...We have a zoomL20 mixer at church. It is malfunctioning now...when we switch on it cycles then just ask you to please power off...have to switch on and off several times before it boot properly and work....any advice here??
Great advice and structure! When our church recently moved into a new (old) building that had a sound system from ~1985 installed (no I'm not kidding), we worked with an AV integrator to install a new system. I encouraged our church leadership not to hold back on the speakers/amps as they needed to be hung and would be a pain to change, so needed to last much longer. We ended up going with a d&b speaker system and it has been great for our space! We went "medium" on the consoles, with an SQ-6 at FOH and SQ-5 at broadcast, which have been an outstanding decision, providing everything we need, plus reliability, without going overboard on expense. The one area where we probably cut the corner by too much was in our wireless mic system; we went with 6 channels of Shure BLX and coordinating frequencies is a constant headache. I'm hoping we can move to a system with at least some degree of network management available.
Hi James.... Our weakest link was me, the sound guy.... 🤣ha! But seriously, our weakest link was definitely system tuning, as you found out when you came to our church. Ever since you EQ's the mains utilizing the spec analyzer, the system as a whole sounds MUCH better and it's so much easier getting the FOH mixer to give you the tone you're looking for. People comment on our FOH and livestream sounds all the time now. It really sounds great! Thanks for coming out.
I need help! I have an allen and heath SQ-7 and I haven't found a good effect for vocals and instruments, for example I really like the plate reverb effect of the Yamaha M7CL consoles, I have been trying different effects on the SQ-7 and I haven't found any of them to my liking. I would be very grateful if you could help me 🙏
I need help! I have an allen and heath SQ-7 and I haven't found a good effect for vocals and instruments, for example I really like the plate reverb effect of the Yamaha M7CL consoles, I have been trying different effects on the SQ-7 and I haven't found any of them to my liking. I would be very grateful if you could help me
The major factor is that you can build a stunning mix, but if the pastor doesn’t like it, all the work you did was a waste of time. Make sure you have the pastor come in and approve of your mix before you even think about mixing like that for the Sunday service. The last church I mixed at, they used a drum pad and the pastor didn’t like it, so we didn’t get to use it anymore. I had a great mix, but he wanted the vocals so loud you couldn’t even hear the band.
Can be frustrating. Had a pastor once who would constantly complain about a tiny bit of distortion on guitar. And another member who would complain about too much bass
I prefer not to have a fresh mix every Sunday because it’s not necessary. Once the compressor is set. Once the eq is set on the exact same instruments coming on every Sunday nobody should be touching anything except faders and saving presets for lead singers and putting the lead going to choir back to a choir style eq.
Though I agree, there are times when teams are constantly rotating members, which is why a fresh mix is necessary. But I truly wish my mix could be consistent every week.
Though I agree, there are times when teams are constantly rotating members, which is why a fresh mix is necessary. But I truly wish my mix could be consistent every week.
Sound guy at a mega church here. Just wanted to say, I love watching your videos as reminders to keep things simple, keeping the main things the main things. Thanks!
Most churches won't have a full board reset every week. Getting the musician to use an already nearly established mix would be good for them to get a feel for the work needed. My biggest BIGGEST (did I say biggest) issue - is drum bleed into vocal mics (primarily for the livestream mix). Musicians may not necessarily know how to fix that. But it can help singers hear just how much extra noise they are responsible for by singing away from the mic and leaving the room to come through their mic when they are 12" away from it. So churches solve this with a drumquarium. I won't be able to get my church to do that - so I have to invent new ways to fix that. I would like to talk up the idea of having a musician hang out with the FoH one service session per month to learn more about what we do. Also, a quarterly or even annual meetup with the entire worship team to do a presentation on just what happens after noise leaves their microphone and down the wire. Some have had training or even college-level classes in audio and music - but I just don't know everyone's actual skills or experience. Not many people want "more classes" and "more learnin' stuff" - so I don't know how well this will work out - but honestly you gave me ideas of how to pour into the team something that might be beneficial.
What I don’t understand is a lot of small venues have a drum set that isn’t in a cage and micd guitar amps, and they still manage to get a really good sound, usually in a smaller room than most churches..
@@tommy31831 amps? yeah, I would love to. I doubt they would consider that at my church. We basically have what we have. It can sound good, but we must mix the band over the drums-in-the-room level. Usually high 80s-mid-90s dB.
I agree - no need for building a mix from scratch. I prefer a solid base scene that everyone can start from; helps with consistency a lot. Virtual sound check can help the band and singers hear how they sound, if they can handle it. If they experienced how much noise they're letting in the mic from their technique, it might be the nudge they need to keep it close while singing.
@@AttawayAudio In the room, doesn't matter. I did make a mix of just the bg singers and I have shared it to a few folks. We don't cage the drummer so that is just something to deal with. Every snare hit is five snare hits (quasi drum verb) when we have four vocal mics open.
Question when setting mics on a digital mixer if you have unity do you still have to dial back the fader to -6 to -10 db my mixer digital mixer has 0 an goes up to +10
First time this has ever happened to me: I’m just watching a random drum mixing video when I realize that I’ve met the drummer😂 Travis is incredible. He’s not doing anything to crazy here, but he can really go when he wants to.
Good question! Not exactly inserts, but you can send the LR bus to the computer, and return it on an aux input that's routed directly out to an output. I do that to use the Waves Nx plugins while I'm mixing or listening to music on headphones.
For choirs that don't have bass singers, you can go up to about 200 Hz without any repercussions. But definitely play with it and see if that makes it too thin and back it off.
James, with the compressor on at 6:30, it took away the "opera" highs for the performer. I like how you show and tell us what is happening with the board, for the application being discussed. Dumb question: Is compression added to instruments too? Or is that when the limiters are used? I will be viewing this video again, and taking the notes to our Yamaha QL5 at church when I work the board. Thanks!
No dumb questions: Yes to instruments, but it's not quite as critical as vocals. Bass is the first pick though - gotta have that sustain, and it's all about the low end. Limiters are high-ratio compressors, and I don't typically use them in live sound, though sometimes I'll put it after the compressor for an acoustic guitar to just tame the peaks a little bit.
