Values to achieve the NLC “Sound”

One of the most appealing parts of my transition to New Life Church last summer was inheriting a blank canvas of sorts when it comes to values and execution.  The talent here, both on and off the stage, is first class.  However, we’d never spent any time defining our “sound” and some strategies to be more consistent in arriving at it.  So a few months ago I committed these ideas to paper and we’ve been living inside of them ever since.  The inspiration for this discussion on the blog came from a common question I heard at Gurus a few weeks ago regarding getting a group of volunteer engineers to think alike and begin to move the same direction in crafting a mix.

Last time we discussed overall team mission and values.  I think this has to be defined first before going any further. Transitioning to more specific mix values, here’s what we’ve been living with…first some general concepts…

Accurate Tones:  We value getting it right on stage.  Great input makes great output, so it ALWAYS must start on stage.  This includes drum tuning, keys patch selection, mic placement on guitar amps, etc.

Classic:  There is a timeless quality to some records and overall music approaches that have stood the test of time.  Classic, good tones that don’t stray too far one direction or the other, trying to avoid super dated verbs/choruses/delays.  It is our goal to make timeless mixes that translate well both inside and outside our rooms.

Dynamic:  A worship set should be a journey.  Again, starting on stage and then translating through the engineer, it’s important that we take our audience on the most incredible journey.

Active:  Mixes should be active, always looking for the most interesting thing and highlighting it.  Many engineers have a tendency to be level managers and always mix a measure behind – one measure behind on pushing the solo, one measure behind on the transition, and on and on.

Now to specifics of our “sound”…

Drums/Bass and Vocals are both foundational.  Of course in worship music there is nothing more important than the lyric.  However, there’s a fine line we balance here between the vocal sitting just right in the mix or being too far out front (what I call a “churchy” mix).  Drum sounds that are dynamic, engaging, natural, and just sound great are the foundation the rest of the mix is built on.

Electric Driven.  The reality of the most common style of music we play is that it is electric guitar driven.  The hook of most songs is somehow connected to electrics, so it is important to mix like they are important to us.  This is one of those other ways to avoid a “churchy” mix…keep them out front.  As an extreme generalization, the only times the electric shouldn’t be driving the mix is when he’s not playing.  Ha!  Seriously, when the band drops out its important to find something else to fill the space such as acoustic or piano, but most of the stuff we do is driven by electric.

Keys and Acoustics provide texture and interest.  A mix that is 100% drums/bass/electric can certainly become boring, so keys and acoustics provide the flavor to add musical interest.  Mix them that way.  It is RARE that the acoustic should be further out front than the electric if both are playing.  Sometimes keys or acoustics share focus with electric, such as in the intro hook to “Greatness of our God”.

Lead Vocal relationship to BGV, Male to Female vocals.  We have a lot of people on stage on a given weekend.  A lot.  There is a coolness and hipness to this that just works at New Life Church.  I was really skeptical of it coming in but it’s really engaging in the room and works really well for us.  However, there are few songs we do that should be mixed as a huge group vocal.  There are several, but most have a clear lead vocal/BGV thing going on and its important to honor that in order to maintain relevance musically.  The same goes for the relationship of male to female singers.  More often not there are 2:1 more women on stage than men, but there’s no faster way to make a mix “churchy” than too much female vocal sitting on top of the whole thing.  We accomplish this a couple ways – first in the arrangement and making use of lower harmonies so the ladies will naturally sit in the middle of the mix rather than on top, second through actively managing the level relationship in the group and keeping lead vocal out front with the BGV group tucked nicely behind it.

I’d welcome discussion about this topic either here in the comments or via Twitter.

Audio Team Values

One of the most surprising revelations I received during Gurus from so many people I talked to was how few teams have clearly defined mission and values, as well as value statements to define the target for mixing success.  I thought it might be cool to outline our team’s mission and values with some thoughts…

The mission of our audio team is to create moments for people to engage with God.  We try to do this with excellence since I believe that excellence honors God and reflects His perfect character, and through Christ-driven ideals.  Our serving should come out of the overflow of our personal relationship with Jesus.  Our team values include many areas I’ve written about over the years…

• The Table is Set:  it is extremely important for us to be prepared for the artists’ arrival with everything tested and ready to go so the people on stage can focus on creating music and moments with as little distraction from us as possible.
• Accountable:  doing what we say we will do, not making problems mysterious, taking accountability when we make a mistake and learning from it so it doesn’t happen again
• It’s All in the Details:  audio is a game of a million itty bitty steps.  There is no single smoking gun that will equal a great mix.  It’s all in the incremental tiny moves that equal audio amazingness.
• Change Happens:  it is so important to stay flexible and prepared to adjust to requested changes.  Most times strong preparation makes it possible to adjust to change more easily.
• Are You Being Served? It is our privilege to serve the musicians, vocalists, pastors, and ultimately our church in engaging with God.  Everything we say and do should come from the perspective of doing whatever possible to facilitate an unforgettable experience for the people on stage.  The result will most often translate directly to the people in the seats.
• Push the Envelope:  It is important to keep looking for ways to improve what we do and never become satisfied with the status quo.  There is always a way to be better in our craft.  Mixing is a skill and requires constant refinement.
• Rest in the Call:  it is the call of God on our lives that allows us to be successful mixing audio.  Mixing can be especially stressful and a high pressure position.  It’s important to keep perspective regardless of how good or bad things go that we are honoring God by serving Him with our talents and resting in that call.

I started out putting this whole thing in one post but it’s too much, so I’m splitting into two.  Next time we’ll dive into specific mix values.  If you haven’t defined your mission or values – both in general or directly related to the mix – I challenge you to do so.  I think you will find the exercise beneficial for your team.  Only time will tell how impactful these thoughts really become to our team.  But ever since committing to them, I make it a practice to use them in conversation or in coaching, all the while looking to make them part of who we are.

Until next time…

Gurus of Tech wrap-up

Gurus of Tech was an awesome experience last week in Chicago.  It was really great to visit with so many old friends, as well as meet face to face many new ones from Twitter and this blog.  The content was as great as you would expect…especially Scott Ragsdale’s interview with Robert Scovill.  I’m planning to unpack a few of statements from his interview over the next few weeks because there’s so much wisdom here, especially in the world of church production.  If you haven’t seen it yet, regardless of if you’re an audio guy or not, go here, watch, and take notes.  His is session #4.

http://www.willowproduction.org/gurus-chicago-2011/

The magic to me of Gurus is the organic-ness of it all.  In a world where there is seemingly at least one conference or trade show a month, Gurus still maintains an innocence just by the whole premise behind it – technical artists gathering together to teach each other, be inspired, and share community.  I’m definitely a convert and will be doing everything I can to take a group from New Life to the gathering this summer in Louisville.

I was especially honored to be able to join a panel with some great friends this time around to talk about the art of mixing.  If you were not able to make it and would like to download “bootleg” audio from our session, my friend Dave has it posted on his blog.  You can find it here… http://goingto11.com/?p=1032

Pensado’s Place

I mentioned this on Twitter a few weeks ago but figured it was worth a full blog post. A little while back I happened on a weekly video podcast led by Dave Pensado called Pensado’s Place that has quickly proven it should be required viewing for anyone serious about mixing. If you don’t recognize the name, I promise you that you know Dave’s work. Dave has mixed hits for bands like The Black Eyed Peas to Justin Timberlake, Elton John, Jamiroquai, and Christina Aguilera. In 2002, Dave received a Grammy for his work on the hit single “Lady Marmalade,” featuring Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mýa, and Pink. Do I have your attention yet?

Every week Dave and his manager Herb Trawick host a roughly 45 minute program that is full of techniques, q & a, and interviews with well known current mix engineers. The content is really well done and it’s really important to me that we support Dave in this since it is highly unusual to find someone as successful as Dave creating this kind of resource.

One of my favorite episodes was #4 when he interviewed Tony Maserati. I’m linking to it here to get you hooked and then go check out Dave’s site to catch up on the rest of the back episodes already in the can.

Mixing with In-Ears…my response

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably noticed quite a bit of chatter a few weeks ago regarding a post Mike Sessler wrote back around Christmas about mixing FOH with in-ears that has generated quite a bit of buzz.  It was recently republished on ProSoundWeb and in Live Sound magazine.  You can find the original post here, along with a later response here.  Dave Stagl wrote a great response to the topic here.  I took it pretty squarely on the chin by some people for challenging such a popular post so I thought it might be a good idea to try to more clearly outline the why behind my objection with more than 140 characters per post.  I’m going to try not to re-tread the things already written by others so make sure you catch up with the original posts if you haven’t already.  This actually piggybacks well on an overall topic that’s been on my heart for a long time but I’ve not had the specific inspiration to outline fully until now.

I agree completely with what others have said that the most important thing is that the people signing Mike’s checks are happy with the results he is getting from a challenging PA deployment and mix position.  I also fully understand that you need to do what you need to do when you’re mixing in a challenging room, and I’ve certainly had my fair share of those kinds of situations.  What actually set off the whole epic Twitter conversation was a tweet I saw posted to Mike that said this:

SOUND GUY #1: I was a doubter but I just mixed all practice with IEMs and it sounds really good! I just got a new method.

ME:  Boo!  I don’t get disconnecting from the live room.  It’s called live mixing for a reason! #justbecauseitsonablogdoesntmakeitgood

In the conversations that followed, here are a few examples of other responses I heard:

SOUND GUY #2: I could find the specific balance between instruments faster in my ears

ME: I would argue spend the energy learning to find that balance in the room rather than IEMs

SOUND GUY #2: Why? What is the argument for taking the harder path?  I’m not opposed to hard work if it has significant benefits

ME: Because your job is to mix for what the audience is hearing.  They aren’t listening to IEMs with ambience mics.

Another snipet went like this:

ME: How do you compensate for what’s happening in the room?  Great mixes, especially in worship, are emotional & responsive.

SOUND GUY #3: Same way a worship leader using ears does. Pay attention, watch and feel what’s going on around you. Respond to the moment.

SOUND GUY #4: Well hopefully the worship leader has audience in his ears and not solely depending on his eyes to gauge reaction

SOUND GUY #3: Which is the same reason we put the audience mics in our IEM reference mix.

I believe strongly that this conversation reflects a path some are heading down that is the antithesis of sound technique for mixing great music in churches.  I’m going to probably go a bit more spiritual here then I normally do on this site, but after mixing more than several thousand services professionally, I’m really passionate about this from first-hand experience.  Mixing worship is a beautiful dance that happens with every note between the musician on stage, the engineer creating the mix, the audience who is participating, and the Holy Spirit who is hopefully moving throughout the room.  A weakness or mis-step in any one of these areas will hinder the overall experience.  Try having an engaging worship experience without the Holy Spirit being present and tell me how that turns out.  Expect amazing worship with a disconnected audience and while the musicians may enjoy themselves, the overall room will suffer.  Really great music played by great musicians with a really responsive, great mix takes the experience for the audience to an entirely different level.  I believe all music and the emotions stirred within us as we engage come directly from God, so really this dance applies to any great music experience.  Stand in a stadium as U2 plays “Where The Streets Have No Name” and tell me that God isn’t behind the feelings you’re experiencing.  No Way!  Experience Fleetwood Mac playing “Don’t Stop Thinkin About Tomorrow” with the USC Marching Band and tell me that isn’t a spiritual experience.  No way!

When you put IEMs in your ears or headphones on your head while you mix, you are altering that balance between those four pillars in a fundamental way.  It is impossible for you to react to what is happening in the room the same when you are disconnected artificially from what’s happening in the space.  Yes you can put ambience mics into your reference mix and technically you are hearing the “audience” while you mix, but in no way is this the same thing.  You’re removing the intangible, inexplainable spirit from mixing and trying to replace it with a “technical” solution that while on paper is giving you the same technical experience, IT IS NOT THE SAME!  You might as well be outside of the room and mixing from a video monitor of the room.  There is no end to this slippery slope.

The only compromising solution I’ve ever experienced that will improve the mix location while still keeping you somewhat connected to the room is nearfield monitors at FOH, delayed back to the PA so they are time-aligned.  This is still a huge compromise because it is very different having speakers within several feet of your ears vs. the rest of the audience who is 30-100 feet away from drivers, but at least in this scenario you are still connected to what is actually happening in the room.  If something goes left while you’re mixing, the likelihood of you catching it is much higher.  Personally I love having monitors at FOH vs headphones.  I have mixed that way for three years and I could never go back.  I don’t even keep a set of headphones at FOH when I’m mixing – if I need to solo something up, it goes in the monitors so it places in front of the PA soundstage for me.

Are there some people using IEM’s on tour with good results?  Sure.  There are guys doing close under-micing of every cymbal in a drum kit too but that doesn’t mean that is the best approach to a natural and dynamic drum mix.  There are lots of things being done in live audio all over the world that someone has good luck with but doesn’t deserve to be replicated widely.  I promise you that you will not find one of the greats – Robert Scovill, Joe O’Herlihy, Dave Skaff, John Cooper, Dave Kob, and countless others – mixing for long stretches of time with something covering their ears.  Those are the guys that I aspire to mix like, and if you’re serious about this art, you should too.  Just like great stage artists of our time, these engineers’ work speaks for itself.

“The difference between greatness and mediocrity is not measured by the quality of the tools but by the quality of the approach.” – Robert Scovill, 2008 I believe @ Willow Creek Arts Conference

Here’s my point. It’s way too easy nowadays with all of the tools at our disposal to make mixing an intellectual, artificial, explainable task. We snapshot and program everything, we virtual soundcheck from a static performance for hours and hours, we use racks of plug-ins and outboard processing that would have never been available even 5 years ago, all in search of elusive greatness.  It’s human nature to take something that is unexplainable and try to make it explainable and repeatable.  I read many blog posts, magazine articles, and podcasts from experts with the best intentions every month, but the result way too often tries to make the inexplainable explainable.  Playing and mixing music is not an intellectual and repeatable task.  It’s mysterious…what works one day doesn’t necessarily the next.  The band doesn’t play the same every time.  The mix doesn’t develop the same every time from your snapshots.  Mixing is every bit a skill and an art that no matter how long you work to perfect, you cannot wrangle fully.  There’s always something new to learn, something new to adapt to. That’s what I love about what I do.

I challenge you with everything I have to embrace the tension of this beautiful dance.  It is not comfortable and it is not easy, but that’s part of the fun.  If your mix position is awful, I would argue there is NOTHING more important to address in your technical budget.  The reality is that people will tolerate poor lighting and poor video because neither are invasive to their person, but bad audio will keep a visitor from coming back to your church or a fan from buying another ticket to your show.  Can we fix every PA problem?  Certainly not – budgets often don’t allow it.  I mixed on an aged EAW KF650 rig for three years, 5 services a week, so I know well the frustration of knowing what the mix could be if it were only coming through a better transmission system.  If you have to come up with a creative solution to get you by until you can fix the real problem as Mike has done, by all means do whatever it takes to get the best audio you can get.

But I will disagree with you you every time if we’re considering mixing IEMs a superior technique outside of these compromised scenarios.  Master the art of mixing.  Only snapshot the bare minimum of what you can’t physically mix by hand.  If the band isn’t going to play it the same every time, why should you mix it the same each time through programming, plug-ins, and snapshots?  Plug-ins are an incredible tool, but run away from anything that takes you too far into the analytical brain and away from listening, mixing, and experiencing like a fan.

“Mix like a pro but listen like a fan. Always try to gain more of the listener’s perspective and turn off the analytical brain” – Scovill from the same conference.  This quote has always stuck with me.

Thank you for considering my perspectives and sticking with me through such a long post.  This actually sets up well the conversation we’re going to have next week at Gurus of Tech in Chicago on Mixing – It’s an Art, not a Plug-In.  I’d welcome dialog about this topic either here on the blog, via Twitter, or offline.

Gurus of Tech

We interrupt this series on #DECADE for a quick blip on Gurus of Tech in Chicago.  If you’ve never heard of it before, Gurus is what I would consider, for lack of a better term, a grass roots organization of church production artists from all over the country who gather a few times a year regionally for education, networking, and encouragement.  In the past, events have happened twice a year – once around NAB and once in the summer in Kentucky.  The team at Willow Creek so graciously stepped up this year to host an event in Chicago that is happening next week.  Due to the close proximity to DECADE that just wrapped up two weeks ago, plus my wedding anniversary all falling within the timeframe of Gurus, I had decided a few weeks ago to pass this time around.

Thanks to some gentle last minute prodding from friends and my amazing wife’s full blessing, plans have changed and I’m looking forward to attending my first Guru event.  On top of that, apparently there was a cancellation on the speaking team and so I was asked to join a panel with my good friends Dave Stagl and Scott Ragsdale to discuss “Mixing – it’s an art, not a plug-in”.  As a fan of great mixing, I’m really looking forward to hearing the other guys’ opinions on the questions we’re going to be asked as its a topic I think we’re all really passionate about.  It should be a fun time on Monday night.

If you were planning to just catch Guru’s the next time around as I was, I strongly encourage you to reconsider.  I just heard this morning that now over 500 have registered for the event so I’m sure this is going to be well worth your time, even just from a networking and relationship standpoint.  I, for one, am really looking forward to finally putting names and faces together with some longtime readers and Twitter friends.

If you’re going to be at Gurus, please make sure and come introduce yourself.  See you there!