hierarchy of importance in church sound<\/a>. This week we unpack the issues surrounding venue acoustics.<\/p>\nAt the heart of every good sounding speaker system, is a good sounding venue. Often people get so focussed on the microphone, or the EQ that they forget what has the biggest impact on the quality of the sound: the venue. Perhaps you could think of it this way; if I take \u00a31m of speakers into St Paul\u2019s Cathedral, it is still going to sound echoey. Except now it\u2019s a very expensive echo!<\/p>\n
The real question is: how much echo is too much? Of course, the answer to that is: it depends!<\/p>\n
Singing vs preaching<\/h2>\n
Well, what do we do in church buildings? Broadly speaking, we have congregational singing and we listen to a preacher. Unfortunately, these two elements are in opposition to each other.<\/p>\n
Thinking first about the preaching; or any spoken word come to that. The best reference we have for this is a school classroom. There are very strict regulations in a classroom about how echoey the room is allowed to be; this is all outlined in the BB93 regulations. The principle is, the less reverb, the better. If it\u2019s really echoey in the building then it can be really hard to hear what\u2019s being said. As soon as we amplify the spoken word, it just gets harder to understand as we are exciting the room with more energy.<\/p>\n
What is interesting is that this dry acoustic experience (no reverb) is really good for contemporary music. Inherently, many of the songs we sing are based around a pop-song: tight punchy drum sounds, definition to the vocals, a very obvious groove and beat to the song. So this really dry room is fantastic at supporting this contemporary musical style.<\/p>\n
So if I can get rid of all the reverb in the church everything will be Ok?<\/h2>\n
Err, no. I\u2019m afraid not. Actually, if you take out all the \u201clife\u201d from the room it will be anything but good; if you want people to be able to join in that is. Which is what Church is all about isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
The reason why everyone loves singing in the bathroom is the \u201cvibe\u201d you get back from the room. There\u2019s a natural reverb that is generated in the bathroom (usually due to the tiled walls) that makes people want to sing. But if you stood in a cupboard, you wouldn\u2019t have the same experience. The same is true when you go back to the larger church space: if the building has a natural reverb, the congregation get the \u201cvibe\u201d back from the venue and are encouraged to sing. Take that vibe away and people switch off. It\u2019s not about how good the songs are, or how good the band are playing, or the quality of the sound mix; it\u2019s the room that has the most profound psychological effect on congregational participation.<\/p>\n
Of course, many of our Churches have a strong choral or orchestral tradition in their worship. This style of music is often very flowing and legato. A venue with a pronounced reverb will support this particular art.<\/p>\n
The real challenge is to find a balance in the venue: too much reverb and you will struggle for intelligibility in your spoken word and definition in contemporary music. Too little and the venue sounds flat and people will be discouraged from participating.<\/p>\n
Tim Horton<\/a>\u00a0is the Sales and Installations\u00a0Manager at SFL Group and co-presents Musicademy’s Sound Tech and PA Training for Churches DVDs<\/a>. The DVDs teach the concept of the hierarchy of importance in considerable depth along with many other Sound Tech related topics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Previously we looked at the\u00a0hierarchy of importance in church sound. This week we unpack the issues surrounding venue acoustics. At the heart of every good sounding speaker system, is a good sounding venue. Often people get so focussed on the microphone, or the EQ that they forget what has the biggest impact on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5303,"featured_media":13922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[676],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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