AUDIO
AUDIO CONSOLE SELECTION : THREE KEY QUESTIONS | Jeff Hawley
THOUGHTS ON TECH REQUIREMENTS GATHERING
Let ’ s start out this month ’ s edition of ‘ Audio with Jeff Hawley ’ with a clear disclaimer : I am the director of marketing for a major digital console manufacturer . So you ’ d think that my answer for which digital console you should buy for your own personal use or for use in your church would be a biased answer , right ? Well , hopefully you can set aside the Allen & Heath logo on my paycheck and stay with me on this one , though — perhaps my answer will surprise you .
The choice of which audio console to buy for most churches is a major decision and is sometimes a bit like choosing which baseball team or car brand to select in that there does tend to be quite a lot of brand loyalty and often a high cost of switching ‘ teams ’ down the road . It is also not an uncommon case to have self-avowed experts on the tech team who have some history with particular brands or types of consoles that bring their personal opinions to the selection process . Ofcourse their input should be welcomed as part of the mix , but I ’ ve also seen quite a lot of turmoil caused when churches focus on a narrow set of brands / models or outright exclude others due to unfounded prejudices or simply wrong information . My goal here is to set out a few guiding principles and high-level questions to ask as you embark on your hunt for the Goldilocks console for your particular scenario , and to highlight a few potential ‘ gotchas ’ that I ’ ve seen pop up around the console selection process .
GATHERING REQUIREMENTS :
This is probably the most important yet trickiest step in the process to get right . Seems simple enough , but it can be difficult to ascertain exactly what you need ( or are eventually going to need ) when you don ’ t know what questions to ask in the early phases of gathering requirements . This isn ’ t an exhaustive list , but it should get you off on the right foot :
1 ) What purpose ( s ) or function will the console need to serve ? Sub-questions : a ) Will it solely be mixing live sources in an acoustic space ? b ) Will it also need to provide a means to record the service ? c ) Does it need to feed into a live