Cuing Slides–Slow Songs

Snare – fatness 100-240hz / boing 900-1khz / attack 5khz / snap 10khz

Rack toms – bottom 200-540hz / Ring 900hz / attack 5khz

Floor toms – bottom 90-120hz / attack 3-5khz

Cymbals – clang 200hz / crispness 7-10khz

Electric guitar – fullness 240-500hz / bite 2.5khz / edge 4khz

Acoustic guitar – fullness 80-120hz / body 240hz / presence 2.5-5khz

Piano – fullness 80hz / body 240hz / honky tonk 2.5khz / presence 5khz

Bass guitar* – bottom at 60-100hz / string sound 700hz / snap 2.5khz-3.5khz

Vocals – Fullness 120hz / boominess 240hz / presence 5khz / air 10-15khz

Organ – Fullness 80hz / body 240hz / Presence 2-5khz

Horns – Fullness 120-240hz / piercing 5khz

Strings – Fullness 240hz / Scratchiness 7-10khz

Conga – Bottom 100-160hz / ring 200hz / slap 5khz

*Fender Jazz bass has a fullness of 1khz

Arrive Early
Nothing will put you farther ahead in the sound check game than arriving early. Get there early to go over the set up, line check, label the board, check the monitors and generally make sure everything is ready. Scrambling to figure out why the bass is showing up on the click track channel will not make sound check go smoothly.

Know Your Setup
Have an input list. Label your board. Make sure you know which aux sends go to which monitor mixes. Figure this stuff out in advance, not when the band is standing on stage starring at you. Remember, planning will set you free.

Know the Musician’s Names
This is a little thing, but it makes a big difference. Instead of saying, “Hey bass player, can you play your, uh, bass please?” you can say, “Steve, give me some love on the bass!” People like to hear their name. Label the board with their names if you have to. And don’t forget to say thank you when you have enough from them. Instead of barging on to the next instrument, try this, “Thanks, Steve. Justin, can you play a little somthin’ somthin’ for me, please?” This helps, I’m not kidding.

Use a Talkback Mic
Again, small thing, big difference. If you don’t use a talkback, you have to yell to be heard. Do you like to be yelled at? Didn’t think so. Neither do musicians. Plus, if you work the talkback mic correctly, you can get your Barry White voice on and sound all smooth and cool. That makes you sound like you know what you’re doing. That is a good thing.

Proceed in an Orderly Manner
Instead of bouncing all over stage, run the sound check the way you’d build a mix. Drums, bass, guitars, keys, vocals. It’s not a bad thing to start off on stage and tell everyone what you’re going to ask for as well. Then they know what to expect and things will move faster.

Make Sure They Have What They Need
This is especially important if the band is using Avioms, PQs, HearBack or whatever. Don’t move on if they’re still dialing in their mix. It’s not a bad idea at the end of sound check to stop and ask, “OK, I got what I needed, are you guys all good?” Goes a long way.

Don’t Mess With It When You’re Done
This is a biggie. Once you get the gains and EQ dialed in, don’t mess with it too much. I say too much because quite often, musicians won’t play as loud or sing as loud as they will later on, and you’ll need to back off the gain a click to avoid overdriving the preamps. Or you could give yourself some room just in case. Either way, try not to mess with it. Same with EQ. Tweaking EQ all over the place will radically alter the sound in their ears, and make it sound like you’re changing gain. So get that dialed in early, then “freeze” it. Again, if you need to adjust slightly, do so. But don’t suddenly take 6 dB out at 800 Hz and expect to not get noticed.

-ChurchtechArts

• Write down notes or changes if you can’t edit them now. Don’t say you’ll remember–you probably wont!

• Use spare time to go over song lyrics or troublesome spots.

• Pay attention during music rehearsal. Changes the worship leader makes might affect you, too.

• If you mess up, don’t freak out! Find the spot and jump back in.

• If you get into the song too much, you’re probably not cuing early enough. Think of people who don’t know the song.

• If you’re mind gets distracted, you’ll mess up unless you’re really lucky. Focus!

• Don’t let your eyes dart around the screen too much. If you miss something, it will take an extra second to find the problem.

• Follow the sermon notes! Winging it might seem impressive, but it has “mess up” written all over it.

• Keep your area clean. So much easier to find stuff.

From Church Tech Arts

The Avioms provide 16 channels of audio for the band member to use as a monitor. The level and inputs are selected by the band member. Audio leaves the board through the insert channel and go into a processor that turn the audio in to a digital signal. Then it leaves the processor and head out in cat-5 cable to the internet patch bay and routed to the back cat-5 ports that were pre-installed in the building. Then the first cat-5 cable connects to the piano aviom input and then it leaves the output and is connected the electric gtr. Input, daisy chaining all the boxes together, ending at the main singer. Each unit in powered by a individual A/C power cord. When troubles shooting these units, always check that all of the power is plugged in first and the cat-5 cables are connected properly, that is the fix for most of the issues.

http://www.renewedvision.com/pp.php?page=tour

Check it out here, http://www.churchtecharts.org/Blog/archives/914 This is by my friend Mike Sessler the Tech Arts director  at Coast Hills Church.

Tell me what you think and your input.

-Brian