the dB Effect

Considering the significant role of volume control in worship services, we invited Matthew Willis, Jordan Voyles, Chris Davis, and Lane Oliver, worship leaders from different churches, to shed light on this often overlooked topic. Listeners can look forward to practical experiences and insights that can guide their own church's sound control practices. We also explore the responsibility of sound engineers in creating the vision for the sound of the church, serving as the unsung heroes of worship services.

We then dive deep into the two types of cultures that churches often have - accompaniment and immersion. It's fascinating to learn how sound can effectively connect the congregation with the divine and how volume can guide the worship experience. This episode is far from just technical talk; we also discuss the spiritual implications of sound in worship and the importance of creating an atmosphere that lets worshippers connect with God and express themselves.

Finally, our discussion emphasizes the importance of staying teachable and compassionate. We share our thoughts on how vital these traits are, especially when navigating challenging sound issues in churches. We delve into the art of building relationships with sound engineers and technicians, and how these connections can foster an immersive worship experience. So, tune in, whether you're a sound engineer, worship leader, or just interested in the behind-the-scenes of church services. This episode is packed with valuable insights worth listening to.

Chapters

• 0:27 Church Worship and Volume Control Discussion
• 7:36 Managing Volume in Church Worship Services
• 21:22 Navigating Volume Expectations in Worship Environments
• 26:52 The Importance of Volume in Worship
• 32:45 The Importance of Volume in Worship
• 43:39 Discussion on Sound and Church Leadership
• 50:41 Stay Teachable and Compassionate
• 1:00:19 Sharing and Growing Together

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

Hey guys and welcome to Mixfix. Hey, listen, we had originally had this recording here a few days ago that we're going to listen to today, and it was originally slotted to be much later in our series, a podcast. But just because of the nature of some of the things that we're seeing in the news and just some things that we're hearing from other churches that have contacted us or some of the things, if you watch the forums on Facebook, it's the daily topic all around decibel and volume and services, and so we just felt like this is a great podcast to help launch us out, and so we're going to move this podcast up about 15 spots in the order and just feel like this is a great conversation. So today, as you're listening, I hope that you will take some notes and just listen to the heart, first and foremost, behind the decisions that are made for, in terms of how loud you run it, how does that affect your church? How does that affect a worship, in the experience of worship, in the engagement of worship? These poor guys that you'll hear from are deeply committed and involved in their churches in terms of worship. You'll be hearing from Mr Matthew Willis of the Bridge Church here in Odessa.

Speaker 1: 1:40

Jordan Boyles, who mistakenly, I first said Jordan Bledsoe, but Jordan Boyles, he'll be here. He's a worship pastor over at Crestview Baptist in Midland Texas. Chris Davis is the director and leads essentially all of the worship and creative teams at Mid Cities for all of the campuses and all of the venues. And then Lane Oliver is the worship pastor at Mid Cities 191 Broadcast Campus. You'll hear a great conversation that we had with those guys, lots of passion and insight and just some great takeaways that we had in that conversation.

Speaker 1: 2:14

So sit back and take a few minutes and listen to this podcast. Hopefully it'll be beneficial to you, and I'll be back with just a few final closing thoughts after this. Alright, we're here talking volumes and so with this we have Chris Davis. He's essentially a creative arts guru, essentially in charge of worship and missions and a bunch of other stuff I'll let him talk about. Lane Oliver is here as our worship pastor, both of Mid Cities, and then we have Jordan Bledsoe here from Crestview Baptist local and Matthew Willis here from the Bridge. So, chris, I'll just let you start kind of tell us what you're about, what you do.

Speaker 2: 3:09

Yeah, so here at Mid Cities I get the pleasure of overseeing some different areas. I get to anything that touches Sunday morning. I'm kind of the point person for Sunday morning as it pertains to service planning, worship, connecting, coordinating with tech, arts, worship, communications, all of that. But get to plan those, lead those meetings and kind of be the point person on Sundays On that. I also get to oversee our missions department and so interact with missionaries, plan mission trips, get to go places, do things, and I think that's all I do, but it keeps me busy.

Speaker 3: 3:56

So Lane, two umbrellas that lead to about a million different things that you actually do. Yeah, my name is Lane Oliver. I'm the worship pastor here at Mid Cities and I basically am the worship pastor here at the 191 campus. I'm in charge of just making worship happen through music on Sundays. We are pretty intentional about raising up, discipling young worship leaders, developing musicians and just really trying to create environment for our folks on Sunday mornings to where they can connect and meet with God and hear from God.

Speaker 1: 4:43

All right, jordan, from the big old, massive church of Crescue Baptist over there.

Speaker 4: 4:48

Yeah, my name is Jordan Voiles and, first off, I'm honored to be here with everyone.

Speaker 1: 4:54

I think I said your name is Jordan Bledsoe earlier.

Speaker 2: 4:56

Yeah you definitely said Jordan Bledsoe. You know I looked at it.

Speaker 4: 5:00

I don't know who that is, but I'll go by it.

Speaker 1: 5:04

So it's actually Jordan Voiles. We do have a Jordan Bledsoe. It used to be on the staff here, kind of, so that's why I guess.

Speaker 4: 5:12

No, but yeah, I basically kind of, as Lane was talking, I do the same thing at Crescue Baptist. I've been on staff for about three years and I help lead the contemporary services, the 10 and 1130, and I also help and construct the youth band services on Wednesday nights, and so it's been fun. I'm blessed to be there and, yeah, see what the journey takes us.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Cool welcome, yeah, Matt from the bridge.

Speaker 5: 5:44

So, yeah, my name is Matthew Willis, so thankful and excited to be here sitting around this table full of so many knowledgeable and amazing people, and I just want to say thanks for allowing me to be here. I'm the music pastor over at the Bridge Church. All things, music, all things sort of technology dealing with our services through creative elements, lighting elements, any graphical elements that we have. Training our sound engineers, training all of our tech operators from we're starting to incorporate cameras and doing that whole deal and starting to dabble in recording services and trying to figure all that technology out and training on lights and per presenter and as well as leading rehearsals and music and empowering our team members to take it and to hold it and their piece of the service and to lead and to not feel like I'm doing everything, but really trying to take on this empowering and training role to help encourage our volunteers to really have an important and responsible, most important responsibility of what we do in services. And so that is pretty much it and it keeps me super, super busy. So definitely identify with what Chris said.

Speaker 5: 7:06

So that is pretty much it. I'm sure there's something I'm forgetting. Oh, the one I'm also responsible for, our Lay Reader team. We have every service. We have somebody get up in the service and they read scripture. They will lead through liturgical elements and leading the congregation and that. So I'm also responsible for not scheduling that team, but also for training that team as well and making sure that they have what they need and are trained in the way that they need to be trained. So that's pretty much it.

Speaker 1: 7:34

Cool. So, as we were talking a little bit before we started, volume is a continual issue and in the last three months I've probably had no less than 30 to 50 phone calls from other churches to saying hey, what do we do with this volume thing? Jordan's called me recently like right at their Apple Watch update with issues, and you've had a couple. We've had random spatterings here and there here, but for the most part we don't get just tons. But I don't know how you are on yours over at the bridge. So what are your thoughts? Where do y'all kind of stand in terms of the constants? He's going to be happy, totally. So how do you handle it?

Speaker 5: 8:23

I think for us, the thing that I'm always trying to tell our sound engineers is to really have this mindset of journey and to don't start where you're gonna end, because if you start blasting people with the hundred decibels whenever they walked in from, you know Whatever the quietest decibel decibel is, which are things like 30 or 60 or something like that. Anyway, but if a person walks into the, it walks in the doors and you know they're hearing something very quiet and then all of a sudden the band starts and it's a hundred decibels. That's gonna you're gonna feel that and it's not gonna be good. So I try to tell our sound engineers to not start where you're gonna end, but to take the congregation on a journey and to, you know, to help build, build into that.

Speaker 2: 9:05

One of the things that I've I've found, you know, I've been on staff here for 13 years and been Doing services, doing worship for 13 years and one thing is consistent that is volume conversations, volume complaints, volume conversations. And so you know it's not going away, it's always gonna be here and I think, as a tech person, as a service worship, all that just to realize like we're probably always gonna have some sort of conversation go on about volume, and Sometimes that comes in the form of complaints, sometimes that comes in the form of, you know, a different vision that we're trying to accomplish, or different people group that we're trying to reach, or a different context in which we're doing services. For example, for our church we have two congregations that meet in Spanish. Our mid cities and Espanyol congregations run way louder than we could ever run in one of our English services because of the, the cultural context of volume and music and how it relates to the culture. It's exciting and celebrated in the Hispanic culture here in Milan, odessa, and so not that it's not in other cultures, but it's definitely.

Speaker 2: 10:22

We have to be more careful in our English services Because of that, and so the context plays a big part of that. But one thing that's for sure is that we're always going to be talking about it from some degree to another, and so I don't know how far we want to get it here right now. But at mid cities we've tried to establish some like a window of Db readings that we want to be in, and I'll let Brian talk a little bit more about where that is and how we monitor that and how we actually look at are we hitting that? But then also, how do we stay in that window but still have a full present, great sound, where people Feel compelled to worship freely in that environment while keeping the decibel that we, you know, the decibel readings that we, we want to, we want to stay in, and so I'll let Ryan talk a little bit about how, the mechanics of that at some point.

Speaker 4: 11:18

But yeah, yeah, I have a good friend, jeremy. He was actually supposed to be with us at this podcast but he always told me you know, like music in In in in churches, like air, you know it's either too hot or too cold for people, yeah, yeah. So I honestly think that sound is like that too, where people want at this level or at this level. You know, they got those people in there. They're like grew up with rock music and they love it, and then you got those people that grew up with hymns and they like it more soft and so but talking before with you guys, it's like I said, I feel like it's a vision thing. You know with your pastor is right, and so that's kind of where I stand is like you really got to know where you're going and the direction of the church and of the people, and and to have that same vision with the leaders of the church I think will help you tremendously.

Speaker 3: 12:14

And you guys kind of touched on something both of you guys, chris saying about culture, and that's, I think, is huge. Because Do I need to hold this? Okay, because I think I Read an article once by Dan Wilt I don't know if you guys have heard of him, but he he touches on a couple of things. I found that was very interesting. He said there's in most churches there's there's basically two cultures there's when people come from and one is an accompaniment Music culture, meaning kind of what you're saying.

Speaker 3: 12:48

Typically older folks will fall into this category, where the music is to support me and my voice and to support the congregation. The music is there to support them and they feel like their worship experience is more complete when they, when they hear other people singing, you know around them and they are able to hear the voices around them, because typically they were probably raised up maybe in a church or an environment where there was just a piano or an organ, yeah, and so that's what's comfortable to them and so they grew up in that and there's that nostalgic connection and so they feel like that's what is a complete worship experience for them, because they hear other people singing. Then you've got on on the other side of the spectrum is what he called an immersion culture, which is typically going to be your younger generation, where you've got a culture that they are. They love being surrounded by music because, you know, every, all of us probably at some point we grew up with headphones in our ears. We grew up with surround sound systems. We go to movies more and we have, you know, cars now that even the stock systems are pretty good and I'm in, so you can crank up the music, so you're Used to being immersed by music.

Speaker 3: 14:10

Wow, and so for that culture, it's, it's a thing of like I I don't necessarily it's more important for me to feel the music in my bones, you know, and then to for others to hear my voice, and so For that culture, it's more meaning for them, meaningful for them Excuse me to have an environment that that they've, that feels more comfortable for them.

Speaker 3: 14:36

They feel like that worship experience is more meaningful for them. So you have that, that struggle, that dichotomy that unfortunately just exists, and you know that's the tough thing for you guys, brian, and sound guys, is to find that balance. But I think when we can approach it from that that Understanding, it helps us in those conversations with people to say tell me I mean, well, you know, if you have the time, hey, tell me, what was your background. You know, I just love to know, like, how are you? And? And that way then you can turn it to say, hey, here's our vision for where we want to go as a church, but you, you've opened the door for them to speak into it, into the situation, and To to express their experience into where they've come from. And I think that can be really beneficial at least in taking a step forward in and coming to some sort of you know Solution.

Speaker 4: 15:29

I think you touched on something there, because I think a lot of times people may feel like they don't have a voice In the new, newer culture. You know the newer sound, so I think that's huge. With what? You said, of giving them that platform to say, yeah, this is how I grew up.

Speaker 1: 15:46

Yeah, so here we monitor ours. A couple things. There's a couple caveats. I guess that it's important in terms of establishing a, a DB footprint, so to speak, for the, for the building, and Honestly, I don't know that we've ever taken a reading in Espanol, but I guarantee they're pushing a hundred, maybe even 102, 103.

Speaker 1: 16:08

But one of the things that we always have to do is we have to monitor the PA. First and foremost. It doesn't matter what decibel readings you're getting. If the PA is malfunctioning in a certain zone of the room, it could be, you know, way, way hotter, way, way quieter, and you would never necessarily know it. And so the only real, effective way is to constantly monitor it, and so, with smart or some other analytics tool, you can go in, you can really watch and analyze and see what's going on in the room, pa wise, to make sure that, first off, something hasn't changed, because drivers can get warm, they can start to have issues, they can start to fail, things going on. They warm up at one point and they're way louder or way quieter just because they're hotter. So those are things that we we have to do regularly, as is a structure of functionality for just how do we operate and then and then from there we we monitor service. So we're running smart at front of house.

Speaker 1: 17:01

We're about 92 feet from the main PA. Well, we're a little less than that from the main PA. From the front stage lip is about 92 feet. Main PA is probably more like 80, 80, 80, 82 maybe, and so we're a little bit further off. But we've got fair consistency. I wouldn't say great consistent. We have fair consistency front to back in the room. So we kind of know Relatively that what we're getting in the back should be fairly representative of what's up the front, barring some subs and maybe some low-end punch stuff. So we're targeting Verbally and to our tech volunteer and even our staff. They know that we were really targeting to be at 93, 94 peak max when I'm running.

Speaker 1: 17:48

Personally I don't follow that as Religiously because I tend to drift below that anyway in this space. There are times when I engage the spirit night or whatever. That's just the crowd noise in their room because they're a lot louder. We're probably closer to 98 peak, but part of that's the room noise, people in the room. Part of that is also that it is Perceptionally quieter when people around you are a lot louder so you could be standing in the middle of that crowd and you're like, oh, it's not that loud, and if it is louder they Fill to some extent that is, the people beside them, and so I have a hard time mixing and holding at that 93 point if there's so much energy in the room that it doesn't match the energy of the space, and so so there's got to be a balance in that too.

Speaker 1: 18:36

Which is another thing that I wanted to talk about In a minute is is how do you match energy to environment with audio and what's going on in the worship mode, movement at the moment, and some of those things. But Specifically, once you've established your footprint, then it needs to be consistently monitored, and so trend is a great option. You can now buy smart SPL, which is just SP only you don't have to have smart and in its entire package. So there's a lot of options in that regard. You can buy the hundred dollar meter, and it works fairly well. It just won't give you like consistent trends. We log ours as well in smart, so we're actually able to pull up a seven thousand page report of every service that tells us what the meter was reading every second of the service, and so the beauty of that, and honestly I don't know that there's a beauty in that, but what I can say is that when I do get the really staunch conservative minded person, that's like hey, if it's over 70, it's too loud, they are conditioners. It's 68.

Speaker 5: 19:38

Okay.

Speaker 1: 19:39

So if it's over 70, it's too loud that person tends to basically nothing I say is gonna matter. The only thing I can do is go here's 7,000 pages of document. I would like for you just to scan through there and tell me how many times in 7,000 pages that you actually see it at 93. Is, if it's over two or three, I'd be surprised. And we actually have alarm warnings on smarts so it'll actually start alarming. So I can just and I can tell really fast because I know what I'm looking at oh, we hit the alarm three times, and so if you don't have that, then you have nothing really to foundationally stand upon when that person does to come and complain, and so that's kind of why we do it. For one, it's a good reference point. We can build trend lines if we wanted to, but it gives us something that we can say. Here's the real science behind it, not just what we think, not just what our phone says it's uncalibrated and what our watch says it's not calibrated. Well, it just gives you that ability to do.

Speaker 2: 20:35

Yeah, and I think all of you guys have touched on it, but vision for your church and I think Jordan, you alluded to it earlier I don't know if you said it on the Michael wall ago but the buy-in from the senior pastor is huge. So Daniel Stevens, our senior pastor, is really involved in this. I mean there's times where he's texted and said it's too loud and we turned it down, but most I mean 99.9% of the time, he's not saying that.

Speaker 2: 21:09

And even the other day I was producing service and my ears were kind of messed up but it seemed loud to me. Brian wasn't on sound with someone else but it seemed loud to me but also knew my ears were kind of funky. I had some build up or something or not build up that sounds nasty. I had like fluid. You know something was wrong. And I asked Daniel I was like, is it loud? And he is like no, it's fine.

Speaker 2: 21:37

And so it's cool to be able to turn the senior pastor and go is it loud? And he says no, it's great Because we've gotten to a place where we know what we're comfortable with and we know what we're not comfortable with. And so there's support there from that end, from leadership, even from the very top, to go here's where we wanna run it. And if it crosses that, he's not afraid to say we need to turn it down. But most of the time, almost all the time, that's not the case Because we've built that trust to know where we want it and so that's huge and we came at that.

Speaker 2: 22:19

It's hard to do that midweek, you know. I've heard people say just go into the room and, you know, just push it up until he gives you a thumbs up and then keep it at that. Db Ray, like I've heard that advice and I think it's smart, it's a great starting point. But we all know, you know, whether we run sound or not, it's totally different. Once you get people in there, people are singing, like Brian was talking about. The crowd always is louder, people are absorbing our sound. So it's totally different. So we've kind of settled in at that over years of just being in the room during services and feeling it, and so it's just. It's interesting to me. I was in a movie the other day and like it was piercing, it was hurting my ears, and I'm looking around and there's older people in there and there's other people that like I'm going.

Speaker 2: 23:08

Man, if we were in church right now you'd be like walking out like holding your ears, sitting down, not participating, but you're like totally finding a movie with it being this loud. I think it is just kind of funny because of people's opinions about what volume should be in certain contexts.

Speaker 1: 23:27

So yeah, I've often heard I don't know who it is that says it may have been one of the MXU guys or something. But if you took the same 68-year-old that just complained you to a Grateful Dead concert, it wouldn't be too loud.

Speaker 2: 23:38

Right.

Speaker 1: 23:39

But it's 20 dB, probably hotter in the venue. Just tonality-wise it's a lot harsher. I think that's part of how I can get by running hotter. I could go in there and probably run it at 96, 97 all the time and most people would think we were still at 93. But it's quality of the mix, it's where's the piercing, it's making sure things are blended right and there's nothing that's really cutty, those kind of things. And so I think that sometimes you get into a point where you're like, hey, man, the tom's really cool, but the tom's are a little bit clicky and it's something we fight in this room often, and so it makes it perceptionally louder, even though it's not really. It's just the perception is there, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:21

And I think guitar like guitar tones is where it comes into Like if you've got a shrieky, high-endey guitar sound in particularly when you put a sound guy in a tough position of it's a shrieky, high-endey guitar sound, and then we give that guy a solo and so the sound guy is rocking, a hard place of do I keep him low and not get complaints? Do I turn him? Well, still get complaints because we couldn't hear his guitar solo. Or do I crank him up and you can hear him, but now I get complaints because it's so loud. So I think tones are a huge part of this conversation, as volume perception for sure.

Speaker 3: 25:05

And Chris, you and Brian kind of touched on something that, when I knew we were going to talk about this, I started to think about this. I think expectations are a huge part of this as well, and I'm kind of stepping back from the 30,000-foot view. When people come into church, I think their heart is they want the worship experience and everything about it that they see and all that, and their church is their home. They want it to be excellent, they want it to be honoring to the Lord and they have a good heart, I think, when they approach us Because they want it to be good not only for them but for others and it'd be a great experience. And so I think when we approach it from that, it's like, man, people want, they want to honor the Lord, and so they come with that, and they come with their opinions and how that should be. You know what I mean. And so and you guys again, the sound guys have the tricky balance of trying to navigate those.

Speaker 3: 26:08

And the thing I'll say too about you sound guys is like you guys fall in that same category and I'm speaking, I guess, to maybe anyone that's listening that's not a sound guy but to you sound guys as well. They encourage you. I know that's y'all's heart too is to create as best as possible an environment for people to connect with God. I mean sound guys are not out to like I'm going to come and I'm going to blow some people out Because you're right, I mean people go to a grateful concert and it was 20 dB louder. They have a different expectation, you know. Then coming into church, where it's and I think the heart is true and the heart is right and that's for sound guys too is that it's all honoring to the Lord. And so I think again, just kind of approaching things from that perspective, more on a philosophical side, I guess, is that I think we're all on the same team and when we try to approach these people and approach these conversations to say you know, hey, I understand, your heart is for the best.

Speaker 3: 27:11

And so and that's what I love about Brian and these guys is that their heart is is to try to make the best possible, you know environment for people to connect with God and and I mean in a sound guys position and you guys will say this too and know this that they're not in it for the glory.

Speaker 3: 27:29

If you wanted glory, you would not be a sound guy, because you never hear anything until it's wrong, until it's bad, and so they have the hardest job on the planet, in my opinion, and so, yeah, and so I don't know, and so I mean my hats off to you guys as you guys are trying to talk through. I don't know a ton of numbers and, and that's where you know, you guys probably know a lot more than I do, but I think, just from this 30,000 view point, 30,000 foot viewpoint, is that you know, I think that's the heart behind it all, and that's why we're even having this conversation, so that people can engage with the Lord and grow and learn, and so how you do all that is where you know you guys are the geniuses and and and do a wonderful job at trying to make that balance.

Speaker 1: 28:22

So let's just dive into that a little bit more, because it's kind of the natural segue. So how does the volume level conversely or inversely affect what you've, what you've sensed is happening more surprise in the room during the moment?

Speaker 3: 28:34

Yeah, I'll jump in there in a minute, but you guys go ahead.

Speaker 4: 28:38

Well, I feel like I feel like I think it's very important because I feel like most band members want to show and express what they're, you know what they're playing to the crowd, and it's hard to do that when they can't really hear you. And so, like for us at at Crestview, you know we have three different services that are completely different. You know we have an 830 tradition, we have a 10 o'clock and then we have an 1130. The 1130 is more worshipful. People are singing, it's it's it's definitely a louder service, but when I first got there, it was really hard to do that, especially with our band, because we were playing, practicing, working hard, you know, to show them. You know that this is what we're giving to y'all Sunday and we're excited. But it's hard to do that when they can't hear that. And so I think it's to answer your question in short term it's, it's huge, it's a huge thing when it comes to volume in the service.

Speaker 5: 29:48

For me, I mean, for me, one of the things that's so important is to have this immersive experience, and I feel like volume really is basically how you get there and having it almost if it feels like it feels like you're part of the sound, and that's like I said, through volume, but also through bass frequencies, when you can really feel that bass, it helps to really feel like it's this immersive, like you're a part of it, this really all inclusive experience.

Speaker 5: 30:20

And to me, if it's just if it's like I'm listening to the radio and we're just quiet and we're driving or whatever, and it's just kind of it's like it's not really the main thing in that moment, but to me, having you know if I can hear somebody talking next to me over the band on stage, to me that's like, well, it's like the band isn't the main thing in that moment. It's like the person talking is louder than the band and so, yeah, I just think it's important to even think about that where let's raise the volume enough to where, yeah, we want to have moments where we can hear people singing, because that's amazing to hear all the people in the congregation, their voices just singing out. That's amazing, to build those moments into the service. But at the same time, not everyone's going to just start shouting and singing and get right into it right off the bat, and so I think volume is one of the, a simple way, a practical way to kind of build into that and to encourage that.

Speaker 4: 31:18

Yeah, and I feel, and going off what you said, I feel like that's why at Crestview we always say you know, if you're the sound guy, you are a musician, you know you are a part of the team and so it's huge for us for them to kind of gauge each service, kind of like what you were talking about earlier. You know having to gauge your crowd and go, okay, what volume should we have here? But it's huge and I, you know.

Speaker 3: 31:43

Going back to what you said, yeah, and I think there's, I mean there's a group of people that you know, as you touch something out that you know, they, they go and going back to immersive. But that's where I lean, because I want to, you know, be surrounded by the music, and a lot of people I feel like probably most people in our church, I would say, kind of fall in this category because they don't want other people to hear them sing, you know, and, and it's not so much like oh my goodness, I can't, I'm so distracted by Jordan beside me. He's horrible, you know it's it's more like well, if I can hear that dude, then they can hear me, and so I'm going to back off. And that decreases engagement, which is what our heart is, is like we want people to engage and you know the Bible says, I mean goodness, over and over and over. It's like sing to the Lord, sing to the Lord, and there's, you know, around 50 direct commands for us to sing to the Lord, and so that's so huge in our walk as Christians, and so it's a physical expression of what's going on in our heart.

Speaker 3: 32:45

And if people don't feel like they can express that, you know, in a in some form of volume level, because if the music is too soft, then they're going to hold back. And so then there's that for lack of better word, I guess kind of quenching of the spirit a little bit, and maybe that's an extreme, but that's, it's a squelching for sure. And so if people, if the volume is up to where they feel like man, I can get my worship on and not worry about what, you know, chris is thinking of me over here, then I'm able to connect with God and I'm free to express and to open up and sing loudly. And, by golly, if I want to sing something else or like just, you know, pray and out loud, and not even sing, you know, but just worship God in my own way, that's a win. And so, and then on the other side, you have the group of people again that that are like their complete worship experience or fulfillment is whenever they can hear other people singing. And so I love what you said, Matt.

Speaker 3: 33:40

That, I think, is worship leaders, that we create those moments to have both, I think that's maybe a balance that we can come through as worship leaders as much as we can, and so it's not a right or wrong thing. I don't think it's. It's. It's all subjective, and that's what we're talking about, I mean. And so for the people that like to hear more voices, I think we can create those moments and and hopefully try to, you know, balance the whole thing out.

Speaker 4: 34:11

Yeah, like, like you said, I think it's our job as worship leaders to go okay, we have to understand dynamics and go okay, you know, let's just sing this part out right here. No, no band right here, let's just let them sing it out. And so I love those, those, those services where you're rocking but at the same time, like you said, matt, you can build that in and go. We're just going to sing this out right here, yeah, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:35

So one of the things that I always do, and I've taught our guys to do to some extent, is is to find the quieter moments of the song. So if we're rocking out full tilt volume at the first and then we hit, you know, whatever Kerry Job quiet song of the day, there's no reason that that needs to be 95 dv or 93 dv. And so you have to build in as an audio guy and also as an arranger and as a musical director. You need to build in those moments that naturally provide dynamics, to get to a dynamic level that's not just a constant solid, it's always 93, because nobody wants to hear that. And so I've always often told our guys especially some of our guys that are newer and we know that their mixes are going to be a little harsher and there's going to be some challenges just in the natural realm of learning audio Okay, in the quiet moments, just pull the master back some, let's just bring the whole thing down a little bit, let that breathe, and then you want to floor it a little bit later, or floor it a little bit later. You know, floor it within relative reason, but but you know so. So those are some of the things that I think help. And then it's just it's really and truly honestly I tell also a lot of our audio guys is that, yeah, we have a music director on the stage, but reality is you're the music director and everything that goes on musically. You have to understand, to whatever extent, what that looks like, and so you have to be able to build that you, honestly, are also arranging on the fly, and so oftentimes there's things that that you have to really focus on.

Speaker 1: 36:08

And if that stem track has got a really harsh we've got one right now, one of our songs it's got a really harsh part that just kicks in and slams in there.

Speaker 1: 36:14

You have to know that's coming so that you can pull that back, because there's no, there's no multi band compressor.

Speaker 1: 36:20

There's nothing you can do that's going to level that part, because you're, in some ways, we need that push in some parts of the song and then we need to drop it, and it's not just like a half a sec, you know, just a half a little drop, it's a significant like we're probably bringing it down 10 or 12 DB. So so I feel like the more we can do that and one of the things that we've started and we're getting out at times. And we're not getting out at times is we've also started our walking music to start bringing that level up, especially towards the start of service. So while it's very much just background music, the last few minutes or last minute or so we're punching that more up there. So, one, it helps theoretically get people into the room hopefully, and then, two, it's kind of conditioned their ears for when we actually do go full out band. That it's not like just this massive punch in your face kind of thing.

Speaker 3: 37:06

Can you speak to that a little bit? Is that like a scientific? Deal to people's ears like need that slow ramp.

Speaker 1: 37:15

Yeah, I don't know if I know all the science of it, but there is a scientific term and it's lost me and I was thinking of it a minute ago and I can't remember exactly what it's called, but we've all experienced it. You'll be in the car and there's something playing in the background. You'll start singing along and then you get into it and you'll turn up and you'll realize, wow, I'm not even close to the right, you're in a different key.

Speaker 2: 37:31

Yeah, not even in the ballpark.

Speaker 1: 37:32

Like you know, nowhere near, and as a vocalist I feel like I've usually got that pretty solid. But there's plenty of times, if the volume's too low, that I'm nowhere near the right key Interesting, and so I feel like that's somewhat conditioning, but that's also one just hearing it and getting relative pitch built in there.

Speaker 1: 37:52

And then two, I feel like in terms of like the crowd they're used to just talking to you and that room and sometimes our pre service stuff, people aren't like running in just really expressive. It's almost like a funeral home whisper or anything in there. And so you know, there's nobody talking very loud sometimes but not really. And so all of a sudden, if we just stay at this little nice like air conditioner level of whatever it is 70 DB, and then we slam into 90 DB, it's like who's not going to notice.

Speaker 1: 38:21

It's like if you're sitting in an airplane and it's all cozy and then the door blows off, you're going to feel it, you know. So it's kind of that deal, and then so just kind of slide in knees and into that I think helps somewhat. I'm not. We're not the kind of building typically, at least here we don't build. We always did high at my previous church, not always, but a lot of times. So we were building and there was a little more room for that.

Speaker 1: 38:46

We typically are moving more towards down, medium whatever and so it's a little hard just to say, okay, build. So we're trying to build pre service somewhat, and then from there just really be cognitive and realize, okay, here's a point, I could pull back some, it's not going to hurt me, it's not going to hurt that. And then I have to just kind of gauge the crowd and say, oh, they were all engaged. And then we pulled back. Oh, we might have gone too far back, you know. So you kind of do any and none of the advantage points is we can see the entire crowd from the back of the room. So we usually have a pretty solid idea of what they're doing, maybe more than most.

Speaker 2: 39:23

Yeah, and you can. You can really see the effect of volume on engagement from the back. You can watch it.

Speaker 2: 39:33

Yeah you can even do experiments if you wanted to, and run it low and then bump it and just see how people feel more free to be expressive in the worship. Now we know lifting hands and all that's not the only sign of worship. We know that there's other things that happen in the worship service, where people are truly worshiping that maybe aren't lifting their hands. But you know, if you use that as a, as one gauge of how people are engaging with worship, like you can watch it happen almost, and, and you know we want to be careful with that as a church, we don't want to be manipulative, but at the same time, we do want to create an environment in which people obviously feel more free to worship and so or to be expressive in their worship and in the sense that we're talking about it, so that's huge, you know.

Speaker 3: 40:26

I wanted to add this like I don't know how much time we have left or how far we're even into this, but I know, for me personally, I guess, from the perspective of you know the congregational person, like I would, I would encourage them, like take on some level, like take responsibility for your own hearing, and where you are, you know what I'm saying. I mean there's obviously a balance in like man. If the sound is like too loud in a church, yeah, that needs to be fixed. But if, because I was sitting here, I've got this box of Kleenex in front of me and I was sitting here thinking like anytime I go to a conference or I mean and maybe call me an old guy I go to a conference, I go to somewhere different and I'm going to be in the audience, I bring tissue and I put a couple of pieces in my pocket because I know what I've been in those environments where I'm like dude, this is loud and for me it's uncomfortable. So I just tear off a little piece, roll a little ball and just stuff, stuff it in there, just to take the edge off, and then for me personally it's perfect and I can enjoy and engage, and so you know.

Speaker 3: 41:32

So I think there's a balance here that you know for sure. You know the tech guys and all that are working on that, and I think for the for that, the person walking in the doors I think there's a little bit of that too that you know we can help them maybe understand with love you know what I mean and say, hey, here's what I've done, and maybe I'm the only way they can say that. But dude, I literally do that if I go somewhere else, I just I'll bring that tissue every time, just in case. Yeah, because I don't want to be uncomfortable, and so I take it upon myself to like, I'm going to try to solve the problem as much as I can myself, and so maybe that's something you know too. We can help our people see, like, hey, be a problem solver.

Speaker 2: 42:14

I would also like to pose a question just to help us and the listeners feel the tension of this.

Speaker 2: 42:19

Because you know, like I said, I'm responsible for a lot of this and and yet I've had a conversation with a person close to me, really close to me, who loved Mid Cities and came here and like they love the church and preaching and love the worship, but with tears in their eyes they're going I can't come to my own church because it's too loud and like genuinely love the church, genuinely love the people, genuinely love everything about the service except for the volume and it's such a big deal to them that they're like I can't come anymore. So I you know I'm sometimes have a softy side to me, so I'm like I just want to turn it down just for you, but at the same time you know logically, going okay, but there's thousands of other people that are coming. So I mean I just throw that out there to you guys. Like in that situation, how do you answer that that? How do you deal with that conversation or that hurt or, you know, struggle that people are having?

Speaker 4: 43:39

Yeah, I feel like you know, chris, I think it's pretty brave of us just sitting here. I think talking about it because I don't see a lot of people doing what we're doing right now, and I think it's because it's such a touchy subject of the volume and stuff. I feel like there's a part of me that goes you're always going to have complainers, but then there's a part of me that goes maybe what we're doing here is actually going to help to shorten the list. Yeah, you know, I don't know, but I think this is a great step and I hope people listen to what we have to say and I hope people see our heart. I love the way Lane was talking and you know just the heart behind of what we do and I hope they understand that we're giving them that voice and maybe that changes. I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 5: 44:32

I don't know. I'd love to jump in if I can. Man, I think the argument could be made that everything in church is going to come down to either a leadership issue or a vision issue. And so, just like we've already said a couple of times, to have those conversations with your senior pastor, to get the vision set for what you're going for and for you and your senior pastor and the tech team sound engineers, music pastor, whatever role you are for the vision to be set, for it to be unified and then to be consistent with that.

Speaker 5: 45:06

And then, whenever somebody comes in to you know and says, hey, this is too loud, I can't come to church here, I think you kind of have to take a step back and say, okay, what's the? Is this an isolated issue? Is this something that a lot of people are feeling? Because then it might be that, hey, in order for us to really lead these people the best, maybe we need to consider, maybe we make some changes because, in order to lead these people, well, maybe we need to make some changes. Now, if it is an isolated issue and it's just maybe one or two people and you have thousands of people coming to your church or hundreds of people and it's just one person and it's not really felt by the mass or whatever. Then maybe you say, hey, we really want to come alongside you and we want to man, we want to love you well through this, we want to help you to continue coming to here, we want to pour into you.

Speaker 5: 46:02

But at the end of the day, if that's not enough for you, then let's help you get connected somewhere else, and that just might be the reality.

Speaker 3: 46:09

And I don't know about Y'all's sanctuary and I'm honestly not even up to speed on ours, but maybe one solution is say, hey, have you tried sitting in another?

Speaker 3: 46:18

spot that's so good In the sanctuary because even I think the I mean, maybe you can speak to this, brian even probably the best attuned sound systems, there's still gonna be some spots that have to be a few decibels lower than maybe other spots. Now, obviously you want the biggest spread to be the same, but surely there's pockets, and encourage them. Maybe try sitting in a different spot. And then there's always facial tissue as well.

Speaker 5: 46:45

That's so good, man, because sometimes people have complained, man, I can't ever hear the vocals. The vocals are always buried in the mix. I'm like, okay, well, where are you sitting in the room? You're like, well, I'm on the very front row and the reality is, up at the front, lots of bass. Up at the back, less bass, more vocals, higher frequencies. And so it's just as simple as saying, hey, maybe just sit somewhere else. So sometimes it's a real simple fix like that.

Speaker 1: 47:14

Yeah, and you have a lot of center cancellation in yours, yeah our center.

Speaker 5: 47:19

Anybody sitting in the middle gets like no vocals and it's like just a real muddy mix for them.

Speaker 1: 47:23

Y'all have a lot of comb filtering in the middle of y'all, so you've got there's issues in both of y'all in terms of that. And so, without getting too ridiculously scientific, if I'm looking at where the first finel ring of my PA is falling especially if it's a liner right, that's usually exactly where we want it to be. And then there's things that can counteract where that flows through in secondary and third levels of the finel rings of the PA. So, yeah, there are stages of PA coverage that can be quieter. Ideally it shouldn't be. I mean speaker technology. When I first started doing this 39 years ago, you would sit out there and you were lucky if you could hear anything Like. Back in those touring days you were in arenas that were like ridiculously designed no idea where they ever built to have any kind of anything.

Speaker 1: 48:10

That's called gym.

Speaker 1: 48:11

And then you're talking about eight to 10,000 seat auditoriums or spaces that were. Literally they were echo chambers and that's all there were. And then you would have guys that were all of a sudden come out, put your hands. It's a good friend of mine. He would talk about and does often about how, when he first came out of the studio, he would sit back and go what do you mean? I can't hear anything. You mean I can't hear at all.

Speaker 1: 48:34

And literally we've now evolved to the point that our PA's large in part. There's certainly better PA's than some, but even the worst sounding PA is exponentially better than it used to be, like back even in the days of Voice, of the Theater, which is the highest level PA you could pretty much buy back in 81, 82. And some of those years they were garbage comparatively to what we have today. And so we've got a lot of fluidity. We've got a lot of flexibility. Now it's figuring out. Okay, what are we doing in terms of a mix arrangement? Do we really need 22 guitars playing the same lick? You know, all those kind of things need to be focused and thought through. What's going on? Hey man, if I'm listening to your tone and your tone you might as well, just be playing the same guitar.

Speaker 1: 49:23

I mean there's no difference, like there's nothing to work with, and so you almost get a doubling effect. It's almost like you're really trying almost getting that double sound, which is cool when it's done well, but it's very rarely done well. Live, yeah, that's good. So any final thoughts?

Speaker 3: 49:44

Sounds like we've solved the problem here, yeah.

Speaker 1: 49:49

Okay. So one of the things that we kind of wrap up every podcast with is take like a minute or two and think back to when you first started doing this whatever it is, music, sound, both, whatever and then think through it as the place where you, at some point, we've all volunteered. What would you tell the volunteer starting today? Good, bad and different. That's just starting out. Based on what you've been through, learned something that you did and said hope that didn't work. Oh, that was perfect.

Speaker 3: 50:18

You mean in terms of sound or serving music, or just in general.

Speaker 1: 50:21

Yeah, just in general, somebody that's just now volunteering in any capacity, whether it be sound music, whatever role in any facility or organization. Something that you started doing could be at a school, it could be whatever. Whatever it was, what would you tell that person today, based on the things that you might have thought through over those years?

Speaker 2: 50:41

I would say stay teachable and stay curious. I think back to when I was learning stuff. Everything was new and so everything was exciting, and the more I learned, the more curious I got. About a subject and take it guitar, worship, theology, sound music, production I would just say stay teachable, never think you know it all and stay curious. Always be asking the next question, what's next? And that's my answer, that's good.

Speaker 3: 51:27

Good, I would say stay, or develop a compassion for people. If it's a struggle for you which for me early on, being more of an introvert, it was something I had to work at a little bit but staying compassionate, listening to people, hearing them, early on I was like, hey, if you're not cutting it, then bye. So I had to learn.

Speaker 2: 51:51

I remember those days. What's that? I remember those days.

Speaker 3: 51:54

We were friends Chris was instrumental in helping me grow in this and Pastor Daniel and just learning how to love people, because that's why we're in this, that's why we're doing this, is to love people, to reach them, and so that's the first thing and approaching any of this stuff whether it's sound or music or a guitar solo or giving people opportunities it's all about reaching people and being compassionate, walking with people and helping them grow and reach their potential so good and ultimately reaching God's presence, and so just being compassionate. Staying compassionate, I think, is huge.

Speaker 4: 52:36

I would say for me don't rush the process. I see a lot of up and coming worship leaders that I've trained and been with through the years and you almost get into this place of worry and what does God have for me? But little did I know that whoever God calls, he equips. And so just to stay faithful and don't rush it, and just to realize if I can go back five years ago, four years ago, just to realize just to enjoy it, don't rush it and know that God's equipping you through that process.

Speaker 5: 53:18

So the thing that comes to my mind is this don't focus on the thing more than you focus on what the thing is accomplishing. And so it's just this idea that me playing guitar isn't the end, me leading worship is the end. Somebody coming to know Christ is the end. Somebody turning their hearts and affections and trust more deeper towards God is really the end. And so don't focus on the thing more than what the thing is accomplishing.

Speaker 4: 53:45

Cool. Yeah, I'm strong, Cool. What about you, Brian? Mine's always different.

Speaker 1: 53:51

It has to be, I guess, because if I'm doing all these, Do you do this in every podcast?

Speaker 2: 53:54

Yeah, oh, wow, that's a lot of things to think of.

Speaker 1: 53:57

Yeah. So mine's definitely the compassion thing, because I'm still not very compassionate. I'm too much in the professional, I'm too much on the professional side of it. If you're not cutting it, you're dead weight.

Speaker 2: 54:09

And so in the church environment.

Speaker 1: 54:12

I still somehow have that mindset sometimes. So I have to you know, you have to balance that obviously. So I would align to what Lane said there, because I've always been the way. Even at eight I was probably worse at eight. I was probably worse at eight than I am now.

Speaker 4: 54:26

But yeah, like so you're growing then yeah, it's only 10 to 12.

Speaker 1: 54:30

Whatever, 30. Longer than that.

Speaker 1: 54:33

But so, yeah, there's that. There's that mindset of. I came from a military family to some extent, and so his mindset was always my dad's mindset was always kind of that too If you're not cutting it, I can't take you on the battlefield, and so I was in that for a long time and I feel like Now, conversely of that, there's some churches that would say I'll get the sin out of the camp, can't do anything in the church until you're all right and whatever, and for sure there's not a place necessarily for people on stage in a leadership role that we're not certain of. But I feel like sometimes we're really quick to pass by some individuals that, honestly, if we were to say, hey, it's gonna be a while before you ever touch a fader on the board until we, honestly, we'd probably never see them. And there's a couple of different people I know for a fact. So I'm very compassionate when it comes to some of those things. I'm not as compassionate to the guys that always hand me their resume as they walk through the door.

Speaker 1: 55:33

Those are the guys that I'm usually the worst with because they're the ones that, in theory, have it all together. And let's get real, we know, we know most of the time they don't have it together. So that's where I have to be probably more compassionate even though my tendency is to like you know what, just don't even bother. It's really a waste of my time, you know. But but yeah.

Speaker 2: 55:57

So that's where we just tie in all of us, because if you stay, teachable.

Speaker 3: 56:01

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 56:02

Then you stay humble and you realize you don't ever know it all.

Speaker 1: 56:06

Well, yeah, and that's the I mean, that's one of the things that like you're you all together kind of line. They're just we had some interns here a couple of years ago and simple thing like getting main stage work at their keyboard, and they would come and go, hey, we can't get this to work. And I'm like, okay, get your computer go to YouTube.

Speaker 3: 56:28

Yeah, and self-initiated here.

Speaker 1: 56:31

Honestly, I don't think they ever did figure it out.

Speaker 5: 56:33

YouTube. University is a thing man, so finally, I went into the.

Speaker 1: 56:37

They were in the box one day and they're like, hey, we can't get this thing to work, and so I got it. I spent literally five seconds and got it to work honestly, as a fluke, cause it'd been a minute since I'd done it and I just had a couple of things and it started working. But I was already at the mindset and I'm about to pull out YouTube, yeah, cause it was. It was nothing and nothing. That was just, you know, contrary to normal. It just wasn't working and something I don't even remember now what.

Speaker 1: 57:02

But the whole time I was thinking you just want to be brain dumped, all this stuff, like you don't want to have to do the work yourself and, honestly, you do not learn to play an instrument, nor do you learn to mix sound just by going in and doing it. Like, you have to spend the hours studying it, figuring it out, you know, bashing through the knobs. What does this do? What does that? Do Some people that this day run sound and they don't realize there's a mixer inside a mixer inside a mixer, inside a mixer. There's tons of layers of mixers inside even the cheapest mixer and you go to say, hey, brought me this ox to there and their loss.

Speaker 1: 57:40

Because, honestly, they've just basically set up a computer and they've like, they've got some stuff and they luckily managed to sound pretty good and they go. And then they never really are curious past that point of, oh, what is this matrix thing, oh, what is that bus really doing, what is pre-doing, what is post-doing, and it's just got to all be spoon fed. And so I feel, like for sure, like being curious and really knowing that this is going to take work. There's nothing about this that's really easy. I mean, I can show you how to find middle C in five seconds. Okay, if that's the only thing we're going to do, then you're probably not going to go very far, but you know.

Speaker 2: 58:18

Well, I think a great example of that is Jacob, who's part of our staff here. I mean, he's just, he's 16 and, like you know, figures out how to create three-deer renderings of all of our rooms so that we can design sets. It's like you know, figures it out and it's like you're going to go far because you're not relying on others to try to right right.

Speaker 2: 58:44

For all of your girls. Now there's a place, you know, obviously there's mentorship and there's all those things that are important, but it's just it's really cool to see when a person takes it on their own initiative to go. I'm going to learn this and I'm going to be great at it, and so, yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 59:01

Wow, right, I told you it was going to be a solid few minutes of your time, lots of insight in what really the takeaways for me is just hearing the heart and the passion behind all these guys and all these churches and the purpose and what they're really about. Not once did you really hear say anyone say, oh, we need the volume for the sake of volume. It was always about what's the engagement? When does engagement come back? When we're too loud, or when does engagement fall back because we're not loud enough? And so those are all things that are great, great, great takeaways and so hopefully it was beneficial for you.

Speaker 1: 59:34

Like I said, we really felt, after looking at our entire schedule, that this was a great podcast to bump up our order. So we're sending it out early. It's a little early compared to what we had originally planned, but hopefully it'll prove to be beneficial and help you all as you venture down this road of tech arts and the struggles that I'm sure many of you have faced over the years with just individuals and volume and how you deal with that. So, again, just wanted to really quickly say thank you to all those that have already written in and already sent a few notes and then some text just encouraging us. We appreciate those, we've heard those, we've seen those. We're just trying to do what we can do here to help better us as an industry and us as groups and organizations, and so just help us get the word out.

Speaker 1: 1:00:19

Anyone that you know that needs to hear this podcast, just shoot that out for them. We'd appreciate that Again if you'd subscribe. That helps us as well. We, just our heart here is to see us all get better together, to see us all improve as just a capital C church. It's not about us, it's not about them, it's about us as an entirety, and so we appreciate you, have a good day and we will see you soon. Thanks, that was one of the things we did the most. Now is that you, you, you.