FRONT OF HOUSE
PUT THAT THING ON RACE! | Kent Morris
Photo by Icier Llido
My father was a tremendously talented human being with a nearly unlimited ability to build, play, fix, and do. He loved to work with wood and built everything from mandolins and guitars to entire churches by hand. One of his unfailing attributes was to, as he put it,“ put that thing on Race” by which he meant use something to its fullest capacity. In the southwest Texas summer heat, he would invariably set the Rambler American’ s onboard air conditioner to its highest fan position and engage the unique“ Desert Only” mode where the compressor never cycled off in low humidity environments. Similarly, when he built acoustic instruments, he would go over the scalloping process dozens of times in minute passes to execute the perfect blend of strength and responsiveness, knowing one pass too many would ruin the result. In the same way, we as audio engineers should be willing to fully commit to the process of mixing, never leaving it in cruise control and always ready to put it in Race mode.
Part of Race mode is finding ways to mix beyond the assumed limits of the sound system. It is easy to blame the gear for shortcomings when, in fact, it is we who are coming up short by defaulting to baseline mentality. Instead, we can look at opportunities to move gear around, either virtually or physically, to create a new paradigm with better output.
For instance, many churches have an older DSP( Digital Signal Processor) sitting in a closet since the current system typically has its own DSP. But the new DSP may only address the mains and subs and not the fills or ancillary feeds such as lobby and cry room. By bringing the old DSP out of the dark and into the rig, shortcomings in response can be reduced. As an example, tying the old DSP, such as a DriveRack, Digitool, or Protea into the lobby feed can deliver better performance through the introduction of a lengthy delay set to the arrival time of the mains through the entry doors, serious high passing around 300Hz to eliminate low-end build-up in the typically cavernous lobby environment, and a nice bump around 5KHz for some“ air” in the system followed by a steep low-pass at 10KHz to keep noise at bay.
In another application, that same old DSP can be used to preconfigure the broadcast audio when a separate console and operator are not available. Here, the use of heavy compression and limiting come into play as safeguards against algorithm busting levels. In addition, even an old analog equalizer can find new purpose driving signals to the cry room, with cuts below 150Hz, a boost around 4KHz and an additional cut around 630Hz if the music entails a lot of piano and guitar.
At the console itself, if it is tasked with handling all the output processing in place of an external DSP, consider offloading the workload to the DSP to free up horsepower within the console. The console will run cooler, faster, and with less latency issue. Similarly, reducing the number of plug-ins will free up the horsepower as well since all consoles have a limit in their ability to process the math in real time. Pulling some unneeded apps away gives that energy back to the mains outputs.
On the monitor side of things, for wedges, an old analog EQ can dial-in the response when there isn’ t a second option and inexpensive headphone amps are a great solution for older systems where the internal headphone amps were insufficient.
Finally, during the mix, there is nothing wrong with bumping the levels during final choruses and juicing the subs during the sermon bumper video. Consider running the pastor’ s mic just a little hotter than usual during the first service to keep the drowsy congregation engaged. It is worth an occasional“ it’ s too loud” note if the result was improved attention and, to prove the point, the note means they noticed.
Kent Morris Kent Morris is a 47-year veteran of the AVL arena driven by passion for excellence tempered by the knowledge all technology is in a temporal state.
104 February 2026 Subscribe for Free...