They didn't come to Church to hear the bass player!

Several years ago I was in a project planning meeting with a rather larger church whose project was going take months to complete and cost several hundred thousands of dollars so as you may know there was quite a committee of folks assembled to make this go smooth. In this meeting were people from across the region with more than 100+ years of combined experience in multi-media production. As the meeting progressed we were winding down ans discussing acoustics and the need to reduce the bleed of stage volume into the congregation. Note that the sanctuary would seat 2500. The media director for the Church presented the question of how to deal with the very high level of the bass player’s rig. Of course all ears in attendance perked up as he described the issue that has gone on for several agonizing years with many attempts to squelch the excessive volume. At the end of his description of the issue a long pause took place as the professionals in the room all looked at who wanted to address the problem first, when the eldest of all of us spoke up and said “Well, with love, approach the offending bass player and let him know that the congregation did not assemble to hear the bass.” This of course is the last resort to address such a simple issue but a lesson we can all relate too.

We volunteers and professionals alike all do what we can to keep the musicians comfortable with what technologies he have been given but at times we need to face reality and approach it as it should be approached and that is with blunt truth.

I have met with numerous ministries and have walked all involved, sound guys, musicians, singers and music directors, through the factors involved from the obvious to not so obvious into creating a not so desirable outcome.

The end result of this bass player issue was the media director had several musicians sit in the audience and listen to others play their instruments and the bass player could finally hear the difference and turned it down and all was better.