Mixing live sound in any environment is tough but doing so in a church environment can be downright scary. We are the final stop between creating a worship-filled and safe environment or one filled with mic handling noise and screeching feedback. This is why ringing out the room is an important step in making sure your are more fully prepared for your service.
The purpose of this tool is so you know exactly how much sound your system can produce from any given mic before it begins to feedback, which I’m sure you can agree is extremely useful.
To start, select one microphone channel on your mixer and have someone speak into it while you make your adjustments. For accuracy, this microphone needs to be in the same location it will be used during the service. The first thing to do is move the channel fader up to the max setting, then turn up the Gain or Trim knob at the top of the channel strip until you start to hear feedback. Turn it back down a little bit and then have your friend start talking in a much louder voice; this has the effect of providing more signal into the system, which in turn will provide more signal out of your speakers. If your start to hear feedback again, turn the Gain/Trim knob down a little bit more. The idea is to get the maximum amount of sound out of your system before you get feedback.
Once you have this channel properly set, move on to the next mic and so on and so forth until all of your microphones are properly set. A great time to do this is at sound check for EACH service. The acoustics of your room change weekly (unless your church has invested some serious capital into comprehensive acoustical treatment) and your settings will have to do so, as well.
If you can get into this habit the quality of your sound will improve and you will have defeated that age old nemesis, feedback.
Note: If you are not getting adequate sound levels out of your system before it begins to feedback, there are a number of potential causes for this: placement of microphones in front of speakers and/or monitors, wrong speaker location/aim, the pickup pattern of your microphone(s), acoustics, etc. If your efforts have proved futile, reach out to online forums, Google+ communities and even professional system integrators-it pays to have high-quality sound and it’s worth some money in the end for peace of mind and a worship service with no distractions from the technical systems.
[…] which mic is the problem. If you have “rung out” the room, as I described in “Ringing Out The Room,” and you are still having feedback issues, I would seriously take a look at the placement of […]