Thinking about working in church audio in 2015? Perhaps you started this year and want to accelerate your skills. This post is for you!
Church audio production (all live audio production for that matter) has two paradoxical characteristics:
- The work and processes never change.
- The work and processes change.
For the people who believe only number one, the quality of their work eventually stagnates and they won’t be the star audio techs they used to be.
For the people who believe only number two, they’ll be so caught up trying to be cutting edge or learn every new piece of gear or DAW plug-in that they’ll forget—or never learn—the fundamentals of audio production. Their mixes will suffer. The last two years produced a huge number of technological advances that would drive a person to focus on number two. And that’s important as you’ll soon read.
It’s both and a whole lot more.
That being said, there are important things you must know about working in church audio production in 2015.
What’s different about audio production in 2015?
On May 3, 2011, I wrote on the future of church audio. It wasn’t pretty. Based on what I saw at churches and heard from audio techs across the globe, the future of church audio looked bad. I predicted that unless there was a massive improvement in how seriously volunteer techs took their jobs, there was going to be a decline in the quality of audio production in the church.
I took it a step further and provided steps we all needed to take to prevent the decline and turn church audio into a respected ministry.
The article was shared, re-tweeted, re-posted, syndicated—mostly without my prompting. It was a call to action and people heard it. I’m not saying the article changed the landscape of church audio today, but I do believe it had an impact, like touching the first domino so it causes hundreds of others to fall.
What is different about working in church audio in 2015 is that these excuses are no longer allowed!
- I can’t find an online tech community.
- I can’t find a church audio guide.
- I don’t know where to go for help.
- I don’t know who to ask for help.
- I don’t know what gear to buy.
- I don’t know how to fix a problem.
- It’s only church audio—that’s never an excuse for sub-par work.
Several years ago, things were different. Today, the only thing that limits your talents and skills is your desire to be better.
