Starting from Scratch

[toyelowo001]

Hello everyone, I am so excited about finding this community of helpers!!! I know it had to be God leading me in the right direction to find bolsters for my inadequacies. Thanks in advance as I've been browsing various topics before I decided to join and I've already learned so much.

I am the Media Ministry Leader at my church. We are a small church of about 150 members in attendance any given Sunday. From that we have about 50 die hard, dedicated members. From that we have 5 committed Media Ministry members. I am the Media Ministry Leader as a result of being the only one who can and will do it. I am in no way a "tech person," however, I am a quick study and I am willing to learn in order to be this person for my church.

I've been working with various elements of media for the past couple years at my church and so far things have been sub-par. This year I would like to make things excellent. I need assistance all around but I figured audio was a good place to start. I will get specifics on our hardware from church soon and post them. Also, I don't know all the technical names for stuff but I will try to be descriptive.

We have a machine that we connect our mics to. This machine has spots that hold about 5 microphones. 2 of these are currently hooked up to cordless mics. I have no idea what all the up and down sliders do or any of the turn dial do or mean! We have a CD recorder hooked up to the main machine. We've had squeals and feedback issues in the past, none of which I could address do to my limited knowledge. The best I could do is turn down the volume to the entire system. There are four speakers (sorry, I do not know the difference between the term speaker and monitor. I am calling the things with deliver amplified sound to the church speakers in this case.) All of these are connected to the main machine.

Now for my questions. I don't know anything about this equipment or how to use it properly. I will post specifics about our equipment but in the meantime, can someone please give me a simplified version of how the audio equipment works in generic terms. Also, as we move forward and purchase/update/assess our equipment, what should I watch out for. We are currently recording our services with the CD recorder but I'm going to use the recorder as a backup and move towards recording directly to a computer and then using software such as WaveLab to edit and burn for duplication using a tower. What is the best tool to connect the computer as I tried this once and ended up with lots of feedback and hissing instead of a clear recorded sermon Also, giving the software choices, is WaveLab the best choice? Any suggestions? Although I would like something that is user friendly, I am wiling to use a less user friendly software if it is "head and shoulders" above the rest.

I apologize that this post is so long, but I wanted to give a very specific picture of my dilemma. Please help me in any way that you can!!!

Tiffany

[Frank DeWitt]

Welcome. We will do our best to help. I think you could get a lot of help in a hurry by contacting a local church and getting a sound guy to walk through your system with you. OR you could give your location here and ask if someone is close enough to drive over and have a look.

The machine with the up and down sliders is a mixer. We are going to want to know what make and model it is to help you (for example, where to connect the recording PC) study it and you should find a brand name and model number. You can go to that companies web site and they will have manuals available on line. The manual will have typical hookups and tell you what all the knobs and sliders do.

The sliders are for volume. There is one or two for main volume, and one for each microphone or other thing plugged into the mixer.

Speakers are a term for any of them that make noise. Monitors are speakers that are used so the worship team can hear them selves, or for the choir to hear a track they are singing with. They usually sit on the floor and point at the worship team.

Mains or house speakers are the speakers pointed at the congratulation.

squeals and feedback are caused by a number of things.
To much volume. (You knew that)
A microphone to close to a speaker.
A microphone laying a hard surface like a music stand or floor and to close to a speaker. Some where near the sliders on your mixers (They are called faders) is a button labeled mute. (one for each fader.) Take a microphone and talk into it. When you can hear your self in the speakers press the mute buttons one at a time until your voice in no longer in the speakers. You have found the mute button, (shuts of the sound for that mic) and the fader (adjusts the volume for that fader.) Get some masking tape and label that channel. Do this for each mic and now you know what is where. Now you can start controlling things. The first thing to do is to mute all microphones that are not in use. this will help control feedback.

Frank

[toyelowo001]

Frank, you probably won't believe it but I wrote your name down as I was looking on this site as someone I should contact because of your easy to understand explanations. THANKS!!! I will definitely look into getting someone local and follow those suggestions. I live in Natchitoches, LA which is a small town a little over an hour Southeast from Shreveport, LA. I will head over to my church sometime tomorrow to get all the specs on our current equipment.

[Brad Weber]

Your question is quite widely encompassing and thus difficult to effectively address via a forum. Thus I strongly support Frank's recommendation to try to involve someone locally as that will be much more effective and probably of much greater benefit for you. Someone from another church would be great, but people involved with a live sound for a local music or performing arts venue, bands, etc. may also be valuable resources. They may not only be able to help you better understand what you have but may also be able to provide 'hands on' training on how to use it more effectively.

There are some good resources available. Two that immediately come to mind are http://www.shure.com/idc/groups/publ...worship_ea.pdf and http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Sound-Systems-Worship-... . These are introductory level resources that might offer some foundation before moving on to other more technical or advanced resources or addressing specific topics in more detail.