Creating a band mix has a lot of parallels with building a house. You could start with the roof—but your end results aren’t likely to hold up well, and you’ll spend a lot more time trying to make it all work. Just like in home construction, it’s best to start with a strong foundation and build the rest of the mix upon it.
The foundation
“Starting with a solid foundation in a mix means starting with the drum kit and bass guitar,” says Brayden Dana, audio director for The Summit Church, a multisite based in Durham, North Carolina. “Specifically, the kick and snare of the drum kit.”He continues, “Kick, snare, bass, and then toms are where the bulk of your energy comes from in contemporary worship music. I put two mics on a kick—one outside the drum to pick up the low-end ‘thump,’ and one inside the kick to pick up the snap of the beater hitting the head. Each are EQ’d to emphasize the aspect of the drum they are intended to focus on. Then, bring in the rest of the drum kit to sit in appropriately with the kick and snare. However, kick and snare should definitely be prominent.”
“There are two tricks to getting everything you need out of … a short rehearsal time: know your console and get a really good line/sound check out of each musician before rehearsal begins.”
- Brayden Dana, Audio Director, The Summit Church, Durham, NC.
For the bass, Dana adds, “I use a high-pass filter up around 60-80 Hz to carve out room for the kick drum to sit. I often use both a DI and a bass amp mic. The DI provides a solid low-end, with the bass amp mic providing a more pleasing tone for the higher frequencies. Like with the kick mics, each are EQ’d to focus on the frequency areas they cover best.”
The rest of the rhythm section
Once this foundation is built, it’s time for the walls to go up. For Dana, this means the electric guitars and keys.
“Many of our campuses use a Kemper guitar amp profiler,” Dana says. “This eliminates the need for an amp isolation space, and it sounds really good. You get a clean signal with no stage noise. Using a stereo feed for electric guitars and keys helps them to have more depth in the mix and creates some space for other mix elements. The same applies to keys—stereo is better. Both being in stereo helps them each to have some space in the mix. And generally, I don’t do a lot with EQ for the electric guitars and keys. Usually the musicians have worked hard to get the exact sound they desire from their instrument, and I want to respect that. That being said, sometimes you do need to use EQ to make a little room for other mix elements like vocals.”
He continues, “If you have multiple EGs or keyboards, working with the panning a little also creates some space for each instrument. I may have the stereo feed from one guitar panned hard left and right, but the second guitar I may pan not as hard so it sits more towards the middle. This helps them stand out from each other. However, I would not pan an entire instrument significantly left or right, as people sitting on the opposite side of the room would no longer hear it.”
Vocals
With worship music, it’s all about the lyrics. So, as the walls of a house support the roof, the band is there to raise up and support the vocals.
“For vocals, there’s a fine line between understandability and being too prominent,” says Dana. “I want the vocals to be clear and the words they are singing to be understandable, but I don’t want them overpowering the mix and causing me to lose energy by forcing me to lower the band volume. If I can hear the vocals clearly and still have solid energy in the band, I’m in a good place. Bringing out that energy in the kick and bass means you have more room for the vocals as they sit in different frequency ranges.”
“A lot of ‘it is too loud’ complaints about vocals aren’t really about overall volume—it’s actually about EQ issues.” - Brayden Dana, Audio Director, The Summit Church, Durham, NC.
With vocals, especially female voices, Dana continues, “you also have to be mindful of piercing frequencies. A lot of ‘it is too loud’ complaints aren’t really about overall volume—it’s actually about EQ issues. I spend a lot of time on dynamics processing and EQ for the vocals. I use a general compressor for controlling overall dynamics, but also use a dynamic EQ inserted into the vocal channels as needed to tame those piercing frequencies without impacting the overall tone of their voice when they aren’t singing in that piercing frequency range.”
Also, it’s important to mention that working on EQ for the vocals doesn’t always mean changing the EQ for the vocals themselves. Dana explains, “I’ll carve out a little of the vocal frequency ranges from other instruments, such as EGs and keys, to enable the vocals to come through and not get overpowered by those instruments. This typically means 800Hz-2KHz for female vocals, and 500Hz-1KHz for males.
“The acoustic guitar is usually the last instrument I place in the mix. These days, worship music isn’t AG focused as much, and is more of a rhythmic element. I add a little compression to even it out, and then just ride the fader as needed. I roll off some of the low end, where the keys and EGs often sit, so that it doesn’t muddy up the mix, but not so much that you lose the ‘meat’ of the sound. I want to retain the AGs tone and not just turn it into a percussive element.”
Rehearsals are crucial
In order to build a good mix, you need rehearsal time. However, especially in the church world, truly adequate time to get the best mix possible often isn’t an option. “Pre-COVID, we used to have a couple hours of rehearsal time on Saturday afternoon to dial in a mix,” Dana says. “Now, however, we’re doing a Thursday evening service and then a Sunday service. Rehearsal time is down to 45 minutes before we do our run-through Thursday evenings. This can be really challenging for a volunteer.”
“Kick, snare, bass, and then toms are where the bulk of your energy comes from in contemporary worship music.” - Brayden Dana, Audio Director, The Summit Church, Durham, NC.
He continues, “There are two tricks to getting everything you need out of such a short rehearsal time: know your console and get a really good line/sound check out of each musician before rehearsal begins. If you’ve spent time becoming intimately familiar with your console, you’ll be able to move much quicker to make adjustments during sound check and rehearsal. Then, during sound check, be familiar with what level you typically need out of each instrument and work on your gain settings, EQ, and processing during the sound check so that each instrument is sitting at the place you normally want them. This way, when the band starts rehearsal, you’re a good part of the way there to having a good mix from the start.”
However, at some point, Dana concludes, “you have to stop worrying about processing or effects and start paying attention to the band. You can’t mix the band well if you’re not aware of what they are trying to do, and you learn that through paying attention to the entire band during the rehearsal. Ultimately, listening to the band and going with what you have is a better choice than taking time to perfectly dial in a compressor.”
