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Do you do AV at your church or other group events?

A few months ago joined the AV team at my church and have slowly become more comfortable with the equipment. We don't have anybody that really qualifies as a "pro" but some are certainly better at it than others. The majority of us are engineers that are not scared to push buttons, but it seems we all have a slightly different way to handle things. I have no previous experience with this type of equipment and am slowly figuring out better ways to set things up. Last weekend they guy running the board had a microphone so "hot" trying to pick up a flute and violin that were standing back from it that I could almost see the glo around it. I was just waiting for the horrible reverb screech to happen. I was on this week and was very careful to bring the house volume up a little more than normal in an effort to minimize the gain on the various microphones.

Does anyone have any general tips and/or recommendation on how to maximize the sound quality. The equipment is adequate, but I'd love to upgrade it a notch or two if the funds were available. I may have to donate some microphone cords just to have a matching set.

Considering the audio equipment that I own personally, I figured it would be horribly selfish for me to not join the AV team since they can always use another person in the rotation.
mceljo
mceljo OP
1,357 posts
 
That's a lot of great information to keep in mind. Thanks for the feedback on the equipment.

For clarification, a normal AV setup at my church involves four microphones for singers and sometimes one or two guitars plugged into the system. It's really a simply setup most of the time, but I still want to learn as much as I can to makes sure I maximize what I can with what we have.

On of the most difficult things to figure out is the right level on the monitors since they can't be heard from the soundboard. We had one event where it got turned up to the point of overpowering the main speakers and it took a minute to figure out where the sound was coming from.
driver's avatar
driver
750 posts
 
Yep, the monitors can be a problem. Your musicians have to communicate to you the levels they need but you should also make a trip to the stage to verify they aren't too loud (or not loud enough).

With that kind of set-up you should have a good balance that doesn't need to run at concert levels.

Do experiment w/different settings, eq, effects & so on. Mic positioning from the monitors, monitors from the edge of the stage & so on.

You might want to check out some basic pro audio mixing books. They get you pointed in the right direction, like what freqs to start off with, gain structure & so on.
trelja
3,223 posts
 
I'd also like to express my appreciation for being involved - THANK YOU!

In keeping with everything else we do, our church has a more than modest A/V system, in both the church itself and the parish hall we meet in after Mass. While we don't have spectacular gear, it's more than adequate. At our annual meeting last week, we discovered that just as things have been over the past several years, our fiscal restraint kept us in the black for 2010, and we continue on in our journey, doing what we believe important.

My father is very involved in two other parishes, and has put together the whole system at one of them, and upgraded the other. I worked with him to source the components, and in purchasing used and judiciously, he's been complimented about the quality exceeding the expected.
mceljo OP
1,357 posts
 
I purchased some microphone cables from monoprice.com and they arrived last night. I got home extremely late so I only had time to cut the packaging and get them ready to deliver to the church tonight (was going for a practice anyways). They appear to have solid construction and are very flexible. The outer surface is an interesting material that I can't identify. I can understand the reviews about flexibility and one "compliant" that they collected fuzz when laying on carpet. It'll be nice to have a matching set of cords so that I don't have to sort through the misc. stack on a regular basis.
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