the click in the musician’ s headphones, using better-isolating headphones or IEMs, or moving unused headphones away from an open microphone.
The troubleshooting lesson is important: determine whether you’ re dealing with electronic routing or acoustic leakage before you start changing things.
3.“ THE VOCAL MIC KEEPS FEEDING BACK” Feedback is a loop. Sound leaves the loudspeaker, enters the microphone, gets amplified, comes out of the loudspeaker again, and eventually the loop gain becomes high enough at a particular frequency for the system to become unstable and take off.
That means randomly pulling frequencies out of the vocal channel is rarely the best first move.
Look at what changed. Did the singer move? Is the microphone now pointed toward a monitor? Did someone turn up a wedge? Did the worship leader walk farther in front of the PA than during rehearsal?
Microphone technique matters too. A singer holding the mic several inches away gives you less direct vocal level at the microphone relative to the sound coming from the loudspeakers. If you compensate by turning up the mic channel or monitor send, you reduce your available gain before feedback. Get the microphone closer to the source before reaching for EQ.
If feedback remains, identify the offending frequency as accurately as possible and make a narrow, modest cut in the appropriate signal path. Don’ t destroy the vocal tone by carving giant holes across the spectrum.
Also pay attention to monitor mixes. The FOH vocal may not be the real problem. A very loud vocal in a floor wedge can be what pushes the system over the edge. In that case, EQ or level changes in the monitor path may be more effective than changing the FOH vocal sound.
One of the fastest feedback fixes is sometimes this: Turn down the thing feeding the microphone rather than turning down the microphone.
4.“ OUR ELECTRIC GUITARS DISAPPEAR IN THE MIX” This one happens constantly. The guitarist creates an enormous tone at home. Big low end. Lots of gain. Huge stereo reverb. Long delay. It sounds incredible.
Then the bass player, drummer, keyboard player, acoustic guitarist, and tracks all start playing— and the electric guitar vanishes.
So the guitarist turns up.
Now you have a louder guitar that still doesn’ t fit.
The problem is often not volume. It’ s frequency and arrangement space.
A worship mix is crowded. Piano, pads, tracks, acoustic guitar, and two electrics can all compete in similar parts of the spectrum. If everybody is trying to sound“ big,” nobody sounds big.
Try reducing some unnecessary low end from the electric guitars. Listen to the midrange. That’ s often where much of the information that allows a guitar to speak clearly in a dense mix lives.
Then look at the arrangement. Are both guitarists playing the same chord voicings in the same register? Is the keyboard occupying exactly the same space? Is a dense stereo pad covering everything?
Sometimes the best EQ adjustment is for somebody to stop playing.
Have one guitarist play higher inversions. Let the other handle rhythmic parts. Ask the keyboard player to move a part into a different register or simplify it. Reduce gain or ambience if the guitar’ s attack and definition are being washed away.
A tone that feels smaller by itself can sound much bigger in the mix because you can finally hear it.
FIX THE PROBLEM, NOT THE SYMPTOM Sunday soundchecks reward methodical thinking. When something sounds wrong, resist the urge to immediately grab an EQ knob.
Ask a few questions first: What am I hearing? Where is it coming from? What changed? Is this a source problem, a routing problem, an acoustic problem, or a mix problem?
Those questions can save you ten minutes of adjusting the wrong thing. And at 9:00 on Sunday morning, ten minutes is a very long time.
The goal isn’ t perfection. It’ s making the musicians comfortable, keeping the system stable, creating space for the music, and getting everyone ready for the moment when the doors open.
Because sooner or later somebody is going to look at the clock and say:“ Okay, guys— we’ re live in five.”
Steve Sattler Steve is a Pasadena, California based guitarist, composer, producer, and audio engineer. With over thirty years of professional experience exploring musical gear— both vintage and modern, his lifelong passion for all things guitar continues to fuel his work as a recording musician and technical writer.
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