Worship Musician Magazine September 2020 | Page 150

the more foundational piano frequencies to
subtlety build as well. While not as structured
as a blues form, you can usually pick up when
the message is going big or shrinking to a
whisper. Think of it like the “Concerto for Audio
Engineer, Pianist and Pastor.” A musician who
takes a ‘set it and forget it’ attitude during a
performance wouldn’t be very effective, so why
would we think a passive approach could work
for audio engineers? You are an important part
of the mix, too!
BECOMING PART OF THE MIX
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: You
spend your early Sunday morning going through
a thorough line check and tech rehearsal and
get everything just about perfect. You are really
happy with how your gain structure is set and
the mix is really shaping up without too much
effort at all. It’s going to be a great gig. Your
mom will be so proud. Then the congregation
starts showing up and the worship band
heads out to their spots after a few tall double
espressos.
And… WHOA! Apparently either
A.) You have just witnessed a tear in the spacetime
continuum that has caused all of the
guitar, bass and drum levels to spontaneously
quadruple since soundcheck or
B.) You’ve witnessed a phenomenon called
‘sandbagging’, where the level the musicians
told you was definitely certainly the loudest
they’d ever play was in fact just a fun little trick
and they really were only playing at about 60%
volume during soundcheck or
C.) a combination of A and B. I’m going with B,
but it could be C given just how strange 2020
has been so far.
When we are aiming to elevate our role as audio
engineers and active participants in the musical
outcome, there are two important points to
consider. The first thing is whether the musicians
are willing to trust you enough to have some
amount of control of how they are heard in the
space. A worship team that regularly sandbags
on their stage volume levels isn’t going to work.
A guitarist who insists on bringing their Marshall
stack and seeing just how much gain they can
get from their new boost pedal isn’t going to
work. It is important to have the conversation
with the musicians to explain why setting an
accurate and manageable stage volume before
the gig is a win for everyone.
The second thing to consider is whether you
can trust yourself with the awesome power
at your fingertips. Just as the guitarist can
sandbag and get completely out of control with
their volume, you can also easily max out your
workable headroom in the system by the end
of the first song and end up with nowhere else
to go as the set progresses and those natural
musical peaks and valleys come around. I’ll
admit this level of restraint and patience took
me a while to build up, but it was worth it in the
long run for sure. If we’re asking the musicians
to trust us with their voice, we need to allow
them to trust that we won’t ‘set it and forget
it’ or jump up to 11 on the first tune right out
of the gate.
Next time you’re behind the desk, think about
what the song is saying and where it is going.
Is there a buildup in the works that you can
help to support? Should you be prepping for
the inevitable audio calm after the guitar solo
storm? Is the bridge coming up and in need of
some additional overall low-end energy? Being
able to read music is certainly a helpful skill for
audio engineers, but having even a basic sense
of common song forms can get you 95% there
as far as mixing musically and being a part of
the mix - beyond just mixing.
* For anyone who doubts the pervasive nature
of the Golden Ratio, the blazin’ SRV guitar solo
wraps up within a few seconds of where the
math predicts it should.
Jeff Hawley
A 20-year music industry veteran—equally at ease
behind the console, playing bass guitar, leading
marketing teams or designing award-winning audio
products. He currently heads up the marketing for
Allen & Heath in the US.
150 September 2020
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