Be sure to check out Churchfront’s Broadcast Mix Mastery online course if you desire a better live stream mix for your church. This is a great course for beginners who are new to mixing in a digital audio workstation like Ableton Live.
Looking to achieve a professional broadcast mix for your worship ministry? This post will cover strategies that make the most significant improvements in the sound of any worship band, even if a church has a modest budget.
Here are seven ways to improve the audio mix of any church live stream.
Before we get going
So much of the proof of this post is packed into the YouTube video above, where Jake walks through each step with helpful in-depth examples, so do not finish this post without watching these tips in action!
Let's dive in.
Tip #1: Reduce Cymbal Bleed
This first tip has nothing to do with mixing on a console or processing audio. Instead, it has to do with stage volume and getting a clean signal in the first place. One of the biggest challenges of multi-track recording and streaming a worship band is dealing with lots of stage volume. The most common issue is cymbals from the drum set bleeding into vocal microphones. Next time there’s a chance to listen back to a multi-track recording of the worship band, solo the vocal mics and listen for how much cymbals are bleeding into the lead vocals. Often, the high-hat is the worst culprit of all the cymbals. For example, when a vocal mic picks up the cymbals, EQ and compression only make the cymbals more pronounced. The result is that it’s nearly impossible to fix this problem in post-production.
There are multiple solutions for reducing cymbal bleed. First, tell the drummer to stop hitting the high hat and cymbals so dang hard. That's a way to solve this problem without having to purchase any additional gear. Next, consider purchasing some plexiglass drum baffles or full-on shields. Another option is to implement full drum isolation to completely eliminate the problem of cymbal bleed.
This problem is so common in small to midsize churches because their stages are so small. Churches with larger stages often get away with no drum shield or baffles because bleed won't be that much of a problem.
Tip #2: Get the Gain Staging Right
Make sure the gain is set up properly on the mixing console or stage box preamps. This is an important principle to follow for any situation, be it a live or broadcast mix. Mixing in a DAW like Ableton Live provides the flexibility to boost or cut gain, but this has no effect on the actual pre-amp. It's merely a digital trend being applied within the DAW. The best rule of thumb is to have gain metering around a -12 on average, and then peaking no higher than -6 decibels. If there’s not enough gain, the result is to crank up the digital gain in Ableton, and that will introduce noise. And if the gain is too high, it's going to clip and distort.
For a demonstration, watch the video above.
Tip #3: Use a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to mix your live stream
Churchfront’s favorite digital audio workstation is Ableton Live. It's cross-platform, CPU-efficient, runs any third-party plugins, and it can also be used for a variety of other purposes in your worship ministry like a keyboard or a tracks rig.
Many churches purchase a second mixing console for their broadcast mix. Do not make that expensive mistake. This route costs way more than mixing in a DAW, and it rarely sounds better. A DAW like Abeleton live can be scaled to the size of any worship ministry, and a DAW never runs out of tracks. Plus, DAWs provide way more processing and plugins to create an amazing mix.
To get up and running with a DAW, it is as easy as grabbing a USB cable, purchasing a DAW like Ableton Live (Pro Tools or Logic are great choices, too), installing that DAW on a computer (which is probably in the tech booth already), and connecting the mixing console to the DAW. From here, the audio volunteer can mix the audio through Ableton and send that final mix to streaming software or a video switcher. This also opens a worship ministry up to multi-track recording, which allows easy mixing in post-production.
Tip #4: Use Vocal Tuning
For worship leaders in the room: Ever cringe listening back to recordings of yourself leading worship? It's probably because you didn't use live vocal tuning.
Churchfront’s recommended plugin for this is Waves Tune Real-Time. It's less than $100 for this plugin and you can install it in Ableton Live within minutes.
Here’s how this plugin works. Drop the plugin on an individual vocal track, and in real time it will make adjustments to the singer’s pitch to ensure their voice is tuned perfectly. Of course, this plugin really only works for bringing vocals that are 97% in tune to 100% in tune. It can’t fix bad singing. Vocalists still need to know what they're doing and they still need to have a good in-ear mix. But even notes that are slightly out of tune will make a church cringe and distract from worship, so this is an easy, helpful step. Vocal tuning can eliminate distraction.
For a demonstration, watch the video above.
Tip #5: Drum Replacement
Of all the instruments, acoustic drums are the hardest to perfectly process for a church’s mix. That's where the drum replacement hack comes in handy.
The plugin Churchfront recommends is Trigger 2 by Steven Slate. It's another third-party plugin that provides massive value for the price of $149. This plugin removes so much room for error when it comes to dialing in a consistent and pristine drum sound.
Most worship ministries don't have acoustic kicks that sound amazing on their own, and it's hard to mic and tune these drums. Just use drum replacement. It's going to sound amazing instantly.
For a demonstration, watch the video above.
Tip #6: More Reverb
While reverb can definitely be overdone in a broadcast mix, most people tend to underutilize it. If reverb isn’t used, vocals, drums, or acoustic guitars end up sounding very dry and those listening online has no sense of space. So don't be afraid to apply more reverb than what the church is used to in the live mix.
Remember that people inside the church building are hearing the natural reverberations of the room. Hence, there’s no need to apply as much verb in a live context.
For a demonstration, watch the video above.
Tip #7: Compression
Just like reverb, compression can be overdone. But in most cases, church live streams hardly utilize any compression at all. Not using compression causes vocals and other instruments to have a wide dynamic range, resulting in a sound that’s not smooth at all. When singers are quiet, like when they trail off at the end of a phrase, they’re barely heard. And when they sing loud, their voices overpower everything else. Compression works wonders on vocals.
For a demonstration, watch the video above.
This completes our list of seven tips to enhance worship broadcast mixes. We hope your worship ministry will be served by it!
Don’t forget to check out Churchfront’s Broadcast Mix Mastery online course. This course is great for absolute beginners who are new to mixing in a DAW like Ableton Live. It's comprehensive and covers every crucial step for getting started.