Best Resources for Worship Leaders

Did you know Churchfront has a podcast?

At Churchfront, our goal is to equip churches in the realm of technology, but we also aim to equip churches in leadership, theology, and liturgy. Our podcast is a great avenue for these things.

One helpful episode is a conversation between Churchfront’s Luke Jackson and Southern Seminary’s Dr. Matthew Westerholm, Associate Professor of Church Music and Worship.

Do you ever wish that someone could just easily give you a pile of the best materials you should soak up and learn from when you want to grow your church’s worship ministry into health? There is so much out there. Not all of it is worth your time.

What we have provided below is Dr. Westerholm dropping all the best resources for worship leaders. Many of these are resources we recommend in our own training, and we suggest you take advantage of every resource on this list.

Online Resources for Worship Leaders

Worship Ministry School (Shameless plug)

The Institute for Biblical Worship

Doxology and Theology

Books on Leadership in the Church

The Trellis and the Vine - Colin Marshall and Tony Payne

The Shepherd Leader - Timothy Z. Witmer

Don't Lose Heart - Jason Meyer

Books on Theology

Concise Theology - J.I. Packer

The Christian Life - Dr. Sinclair Ferguson

Engaging with God - David Peterson

The Institutes of the Christian Religion - John Calvin

Books on Church History

Generations of Praise - Bruce Shields, David Butzu

Church History in Plain Language - Bruce Shelly

Christ Centered Worship - Bryan Chapell

Books on Music

The Art of Worship - Greg Scheer

Resounding Truth - Jeremy Begbie

Books on Prayer

Valley of Vision - Arthur Bennett

Prone to Wander - Barbara Duguid, Wayne Houk

Tune my Heart - Scott Aniol

Every Moment Holy - Douglas McKelvey

Books on Worship

Worship Matters - Bob Kauflin

Rhythms of Grace - Mike Cosper

The Worship Pastor - Zac Hicks

Corporate Worship - Matt Merker

How to Build a Worship Drum Kit | feat. Noah DeBolt

What this post covers

Churchfront has some quality content up for grabs when it comes to drum sets for worship. In this post, we’re going to walk you through the different building blocks of creating a great sounding drum set. This is specifically for worship leaders out there who want to provide an excellent tool for their drummers. Be it volunteer or contract drummers, we want to make sure that they are set up for success.

We want to be clear at the top of this post that the type of drum set a church builds really depends on budget that's available. Also, the drum set could depend on the specific genre or style a church is going for. The genre we're focusing on today is the typical modern worship rock genre.

This post is jam-packed with tons of valuable info on how to build a great drum set for worship, so here’s the road map to make navigating this post easier.

Who is Noah DeBolt?
Choosing a Kick and Toms
Snare Drum
Drum Heads
Tuning
Hardware
Cymbals
How to Mic Drums

Want the exact same gear seen here and other recommendations for your Worship Ministry? Download Churchfront’s Worship Ministry Toolkit. It’s free, and all the best Worship hardware and software is conveniently curated in one spot.

Who is Noah Debolt?

Noah is based in California, and he attends Vineyard Anaheim Church, where he plays drums every single Sunday alongside Jeremy Riddle. He's a worship leader you may or may not have heard of. 

Noah has a ton of experience under his belt. He tours with Jeremy and the rest of the team regularly when they're able to tour in non-pandemic situations. But he's been able to dedicate a lot more time recently to his YouTube channel as well as his online membership platform for worship drummers. Follow him and subscribe to his channel if you want to continue to receive some great quality content around worship drumming. 

Choosing a Kick and Toms

The following post is an edited transcript from an interview between Jake Gosselin and Noah DeBolt. The full interview (including demonstrations) can be viewed using the YouTube video above.

Jake
Noah, let's go ahead and dive into the first step when it comes to selecting the shells for our drum kit. What should we be thinking about as we're shopping for a shell pack for our drum kit? 

Noah
For shells, we're going to be mostly looking at the kind of wood you want to be using, sizes, drumheads, and all that stuff. But we'll start with just the wood. 

The first wood we’ll look at is from a Gretsch Catalina Club, which is a mahogany drum set. For me, in the worship world, mahogany and maple are the main two kits you want to be looking at. This is because maple has even highs, even mids, and really pronounced lows, which is what we want. You want there to be a lot of low-end in the shells that you're picking. 

Honestly, mahogany is my favorite because it has muted highs. That means there’s not too much attack coming out of the drums. And then there are the even mids and really warm, rich lows. That’s why I love mahogany. Especially with worship, it just helps to have drum shells that can breathe really deeply in those lower spaces in the frequency range. 

Maple is your all-around kit, like If you're using it at church for a youth group or Sunday service. It can do everything. Mahogany, in my opinion, is specifically for better high-end kits for church. 

There are other kits out there like poplar kits or birch kits. They're not bad, but they're not my favorite just because they tend to have more attack on the drums. The high end of the frequency is going to be outrageous. I tend to stay with drums that favor the low range in the frequency range. So, that's why I like maple, mahogany, etc.

Jake
Is that because the genre of a lot of worship songs lend themselves to that for modern worship having a darker tone?

Noah
Yeah. 

Jake
Why those darker tones?

Noah
It’s a rock trend in general. When you think of jazz drumming, jazz kits will typically be birch or poplar kits because they want to cut through the mix a little more. Instead, with a bass drum, floor tom, rack tom, etc., you want them to sit near the mid and low frequencies. That's just where they find their groove.

Jake
Then when you go about shopping for a shell kit, do you want to even be concerned about a snare shell at this point or do you just want to focus on the kits? I know when you're looking at different online retailers, there are three piece and four piece kits out there. Are most drummers getting a kick and toms together and then getting a snare separately like the setup we have here? What's the trend you're seeing? 

Noah
Yeah, I would say that would be the most popular thing. Get a kick, floor tom, rack tom, and then get the snare drum separately. Usually, the snare drum that will come with a shell pack will be the same wood. For example, with a mahogany snare, we don't really want a warm tone with the snare drum. We want that to contrast the warm tones of the rest of the kit. We want the snare drum to be a bit brighter and a little more in your face. I would suggest buying the shell pack separate from the snare drum.

Jake
On this kit we have a kick, high tom, floor tom, and sometimes I've seen an additional floor tom on worship drum sets.

Why would one want to have an additional floor tom? 

Noah
Yeah, I think that's just more of an accessory than it is a necessary piece. I think it helps when you're getting into more floor tom sounds, like if you're playing more Bethel sets or things like that. Their songs tend to favor the floor tom a lot more. Having more versatility and a deeper floor tom adds a ton more low-end to the overall sound of the drum kit. It's definitely not necessarily, but it is an added bonus if you can get that.

Jake
Now let's talk about sizes of these different shells. What are the pros and cons of going with a larger kick vs. smaller kick? What about toms? Can you talk us through that?

Noah
Yeah. I think in terms of bass drum size (I think we have a 20 here) I'm in favor of bigger sizes, up to 24 being possibly the max. Again, it just gets you a ton more low-end in the mix. 

The 24s are great, and you get a lot of low end. But you can start to miss out on some of the punchiness. If you're doing a two mic setup in the kick, then you can make up for the punchiness by having a kick in mic. But if you don't have that option, then a 22 kick is probably a better idea because you can still get a lot of the punch and still get a lot of low end out of it without having to sacrifice that.

For rack and floor tom sizes, I think this is a 12/14. I typically would do like a 13 by 9 on the rack tom and a 16 by 16 on the floor tom. Those tend to be just classic rock sizes in the way they blend really well together. Especially with the rack tom and floor tom, you want them to be working with each other versus against each other. The sizes can matter there. 

For me, if we have a 12 and a 14 like we have here, it's hard to get much pitch differentiation between them. If you have a 13 by 9 and a 16 by 16, 16 by 16 will be really low. Then 13 by 9 can be still in the medium to low range, in terms of frequency. But they will still sound much different than the floor tom.

Snare Drum

Jake
We've covered kick, the high tom, the floor tom, what about the snare? The snare you brought is actually your own and did not come with this drum kit. Tell us about the snare you have here.

Noah
I have a Ludwig Black Beauty 14 by 6 1/2 and a half. This thing is my baby. It's literally the best. It’s an all-brass snare drum. Because the rest of the kit is low, warm, and rich, like mahogany or maple, you want the snare drum to contrast that really well. 

Typically, you want a metal snare drum, and that’s typically what I go for. You can do brass, aluminum, titanium, have your pick. But for me, I love brass. It has an even amount of highs, mids, and lows. It can cover the whole spectrum and it can really do anything.

This size is 14 by 6 ½, and I can tune it up, I can tune it down. It can do anything. It's the workhorse of snare drum sizes. I've also seen a lot of worship drummers have 14 by 8 size snare drums, so that means it's just a lot deeper of a snare drum. I'm not opposed to it, but I'm also not a fan of it.  The 14 by 8 is a one trick pony. It can do the fat snare drum thing really well, but that's all it does really well. Whereas, for me, a 14 by 6 1/2 can do the fat snare drum thing really well too. 

Jake
What's the cost for a snare like that? 

Noah
This one is around $700 to $800, which is definitely the top end of the spectrum. But there's a bunch of offshoots of this very snare drum like a Pork Pie Bob. Ludwig makes the Black Beauty into a black magic, too, I think. There's a ton of offshoots that have a brass shell and that are similar to this. But for me, this one gets the cake.

Jake
In terms of investing in a drum kit and the shells, I know this Catalina Club kit was around $700 to $800 for just the toms, the kick, and the snare that came with it. Then this snare is about $700-ish just itself. Are snare drums something that's worth investing a bit more money into in themselves for a bit more of that quality sound?

Noah
Totally, yeah. Honestly, the snare drum and kick drum are the two things in rock and in worship that you're physically hitting the most often. You want them to probably be the best, you know what I mean? For a snare drum, it's definitely an investment there. But if you get a well-crafted snare drum, it'll last you for years if you just take care of it. Then the other pretty big investment would be cymbals as well, because you're also hitting those a ton.

Drum Heads

Jake
We've covered all the shells. Let's talk about the heads and any additional accessories you have on the heads of the shells to influence the sound.

Noah
Starting with the kick, you definitely want a two-ply kick drumhead. You want this at least on the batter side just because you're going to be kicking the crud out of it. You want something that's going to be really durable and punchy for you. On the resonant side, I’m not too particular about that. Maybe just get something black so it looks good. 

For the floor tom, I think we're running an Emperor Vintage Coated on this. I love the Emperor line from Remo just because it's a two-ply head. I basically love two-ply on every drum. It's really durable and it's a bit more dead than some of the other drumheads that Remo makes. I definitely like these because when we're playing rock, we don't want ringing floor toms. That just doesn't really make sense in terms of the sound spectrum.

Jake
So the coating on these heads helps dampen and mute the tone a little bit?  

Noah
Honestly, for coating vs. not coated, I don't have too much of a preference. I don't really know how big of a difference that makes. I'm sure some people think it makes a big difference, but I don't think it makes that big of a difference, just from my experience. But the two-ply definitely makes the biggest difference in terms of how much a drum will resonate. 

Moving on to the rack tom, we have an Emperor Vintage Coated. I typically like to match heads here on the toms. It’s a two-ply, deader drum head. This helps us even out a lot of frequencies there. 

For the snare drum, this one is definitely really important. I've gone through the whole gamut of snare drumheads and I've found that the Remo Powerstroke P4 Coated is probably the best one that we use. It literally does everything you want. But honestly, it's like a really dead sound. For finding a big fat snare drum sound, it's perfect in my opinion. 

For resonant heads for the toms, I would just get a one-ply like the Remo Ambassador, typically clear. I don't know if a coated will make the difference on the bottom head. But for me, clear does it. For the snare drum resonant head, I just have a Remo snare side on the bottom head, and that works great.

Jake
Then you have a few things on the actual tops of the heads here too. I see some gels and a ring around the top of this. What are those doing?

Noah
Yeah, so those are basically just dampening any unwanted frequencies that you want. Basically, sticking something on the drumhead will just help stop the drumhead from vibrating as much as you want it to. 

If you get a Moongel and stick it towards the center of the drum, you're going to find it really deadens the drum because there are less frequencies that are rumbling through the head. If you stick it further toward the outside of the drum, you'll get a lot more openness and a lot more frequencies ringing out. You can experiment. Honestly, you can use anything from duct tape to toilet paper to mimic the Moongels we have here. Anything that will dampen it.

Typically, you want some dampening on the drums. This is because, as they stand, they won't mute out all the overtones that you want. Especially if it's not tuned right, you'll get a lot of wonky things happening. You almost always need the Moongels or something to help kill those overtones.

For the snare drum, in addition to having a Moongel on it, I also stick a Remo Richie Ring around it. That literally does the same thing we've been saying. It just mutes all the overtones. Especially with the snare drum, I don't like it to be wide-open and ringing a ton. I like it to be pretty dead and just have one note. I just think that makes the most sense in the terms of the soundscape of worship music.

Jake
Can you give us a quick before and after of how dampening works?

Yeah, absolutely. I think the snare drum is the most drastic one, so I'll start there. No dampening at all, just a wide-open snare drum. 

Now, I have it tuned well, so you don't hear any crazy frequencies fighting with each other. But there's still some ring in there. But with the Remo Richie Ring and the Moongel on it. It's pretty dead. 

The snare wires are also really important on the snare drum because you want a lot of snare response. We really want this snare drum to stand out in the mix. I typically run a 42-strand on the bottom and I think what is standard is a 20-strand. There's a pretty big difference there. With a 20-strand, you're just not going to get as much snare response, there's not going to be as much rattle on the bottom of the snare drum. 

I think anything above 20-strand is really ideal in getting that fat snare drum sound. Especially when you tune the drums lower, there’s typically less snare drum response because there are less frequencies rattling the snare drums. You definitely want to have the bigger snare drum wires on the bottom. Similar with muffling rack toms, floor toms, with Moongels and stuff. 

It's honestly really good to be putting a pillow or a blanket inside of the bass drumhead in order to dampen a lot of the overtones of the bass drum because there are a lot of overtones there. Depending on where you place it, you can place it to where it touches both sides of the bass drum or touches the batter and the Resonant head. Which will give you a pretty punchy sound. Or you can let the Resonant head just ring out by not placing it against that. But that's also a really important thing. 

Tuning

Jake
My next question is about the importance of being able to tune a kit properly. I would consider this kit to be a beginner to intermediate shell pack that we have here. But it seems like a lot of the tone comes from the drummer's ability to actually tune these heads. Can you speak to that a little?

Noah
Yeah. Source tone is so important. It is literally everything because you can have the best gear and it could still sound really bad because we just don't know how to tune it.

Jake
Imagine if you had like a $6,000 Taylor Gibson guitar and it's not tuned properly. It's like the same exact thing. But we don't think of it that way because drumheads aren't often associated with pitch and tuning in an intuitive way. I think for worship leaders who are listening, it's just as important to tune your drum set properly as it is to tune your guitar properly.

Noah
Yeah, absolutely. Because if you're planning a jazz gig or something, your drums are going to be tuned significantly different than if you're playing rock or worship. It's really imperative that the drummer knows and learns how to tune the drums. Honestly, there's a ton of YouTube videos on it and everybody has their own way of doing it.

But I think the best way to tune for me is by using this device called a tune bot, which literally tells you what frequency each drumhead is resonating at. Actually, it tells you what each lug is resonating at, which is even better. This is because you want each drum by itself to be in tune with itself. You want each lug to be in tune with all the other lugs, resonating at the same frequency. 

Hardware

Jake
Let’s move on to hardware. What is hardware and how does someone get the right hardware for a drum kit?

Hardware is basically the things that hold up all the other things. So, it's the cymbal stands, the floor tom legs, the snare drum stand, the bass drum pedal, and the hi-hat stand. It's really important that we don't go too cheap in this area. You want to get good quality standards because they will last you a really long time. 

You just want a lot of good things that keep your gear out of harm's way, basically.

The most important thing, out of all the hardware, would be the kick drum pedal. I definitely think that's an area where you want to spend $200 to $400 on a really good kick drum pedal. This is because that's one of the things that the drummer is going to be hitting the most often. So you want it to be something that's really solid and really sturdy and is going to hold up the test of time. 

Jake
Here we have the DW 3000 series hardware. I think it's a good middle of the road. It's not the cheapest, but it's not the most expensive. 

What's the pedal you use in your kit?

I use a DW 5000, which is just a step above this one. For me, that one is the layman's professional drum pedal. It's really good. It's not as classy as the DW 9000, but it's got all the gimmicks. It's honestly just feels really good. The DW 3000 is also really incredible. I think it's got a few less features than the 5000, but it honestly is still a great pedal.

Cymbals

Jake
Moving on, we're going to talk about a very important part of the drum set, and that is cymbals.

Noah
Yes, cymbals are one of the most important parts of the drum set because, honestly, you're just hitting them a ton and they have a lot of resonance. They carry a lot of weight within the drum set. You definitely don't want to skimp on this area. Basically, what you're wanting to go for is typically bigger, thinner, washier cymbals.

This is different than a lot of other music. A lot of other music features pingy, articulate, or heavy, thick cymbals. Instead, for worship, the way I think of it in my head is like you want the cymbals almost blending with like the electric guitars in the frequency range. 

Size is very important here. For the ride cymbal, I typically go 24-inch ride. I typically won't go below 22 inches. But wherever you go with the ride cymbal kind of dictates the rest of the cymbals you're going to buy. This is because you want them to all be evenly matched and even in temperament.

If I'm getting a 24-inch ride, that typically means my left crash over here is going to be 22 inches. But if you're getting a 22-inch ride, you're probably going to want a 20-inch crash. Then for hi-hats, if I'm getting a 24-inch ride, I'll typically have 17 inch hi-hats. I know that's huge. Those are like almost crashed cymbals, but they really blend really well in the grand scheme of things here. 

Jake
Having that darker tone to your cymbals, the washier tone, also helps prevent an overwhelming number of cymbals in the mix that you often hear. It's a headache for a lot of worship bands and churches. For example, if you have a 65-year-old grandma saying, "Oh, the drums are too loud," she's probably right. It's because maybe the cymbals are just super bright and that's what's really harsh for people.

These are Heartbeat cymbals. Why do you prefer Heartbeat versus some other brands that are out there?

Noah
Yeah, Heartbeat is awesome. They make really church-specific cymbals, which is great. They have the best customer relations. 

Their cymbals are just really well tailored for worship. They're exactly what I was describing earlier: washy, dark, very mellow, and they make bigger cymbals that serve worship drummers really, really well. There are definitely other good cymbals out there. There's Dream, Meinl, or Zildjian. Even a cymbal company like Istanbul is a great company, but their price point is almost outrageous. I used to use Istanbul's and when I cracked them, I was like, "Okay, I can't spend $500, $600 on a ride again." 

For me, the Heartbeats are priced at like such a good price point. Like this 24-inch ride is like $365. It's pretty affordable for churches. It definitely checks all the boxes, it fits the church budget, and it works really well with worship music. 

For sticks, I use Vic Firths. I use Peter Erskine signature ride sticks. Peter Erskine is a jazz drummer. I did jazz band in high school and started using these drumsticks, and I’ve just loved them. When I started playing more rock and stuff, I was like, "I'll probably change drumsticks." But these honestly work still. They're not thicker drumsticks. They're in between like a 7A and a 5A. But they last longer than any other drumstick I've used, and I hit pretty hard. So, they work really well. 

How to Mic Drums

Jake
Let’s talk about micing a drum set. Now, more than ever, as more of our churches are coming online, we're having to create some great broadcast mixes out there. Micing a drum set, sound reinforcement on drum set, is really important. It's really important to get great source tone. 

But talk us through things to be considering as you mic a drum kit. This one in particular is the Audix drum kit. We're going to link all this stuff down below the video for you guys to check out. We have an Audix kit with an SM57 on the snare. It's pretty simple setup. 

What do we need to keep in mind in terms of the types of mics we're using and placement?

Noah
I love Audix microphones. We use those primarily when we travel. The SM57 on snare drum is classic. It can do anything. 

The main thing is mic placement on the kick drum. You want to be really careful that you're not too far away from the kick drum but not too inside of the kick drum. Obviously, this depends on if you're micing inside the kick, outside the kick, or both. 

But I think probably the biggest thing with drums is phasing. Granted, I'm somewhat new to recording drums, so phasing has been something I've been learning. But you want the overhead mics equidistant to the center of the snare drum because the center of the snare drum is the loudest, most vibrant thing of the drum set. 

You just want to make sure that these frequencies that are getting picked up in these microphones aren't canceling each other out. Mic placement is really important there. The same principle is important for snare drum mics too. You want the bottom snare mic and the top snare mic to be in phase with each other. This is because, you don't want to have them canceling each other out. It really just defeats the point of view miking them in the first place.

Jake
I do want to walk you guys specifically through the exact miking setup we have here, in case you want to replicate this at home. 

We have the Audix drum kit. On the kick drum, we've got that kick drum mic in there. It's actually common practice to have a secondary mic on a kick drum. That's the Shure mic, right?

Noah
Yeah. It's a Shure 91A and goes inside the kick drum. It's a flat microphone that you'd put on the pillow or the blanket that's inside of the bass drum. Then you basically get to mess around with the mix between the kick out and the kick in. The kick in is going to get a lot of attack and the kick out is just going to get all the low-end warmth.

Jake
Then next we have the tom microphones. Again, these are the Audix ones that come in a kit. These are D2s here. It's convenient because they come with the clips to clip right on the rims and the shells here. You don't have to have additional mic stands. 

Then, as you already said on the snare, we have two microphones. We have the top microphone, which is the Shure SM57, then the bottom one is another Audix microphone that came with a kit. 

Why would you want a bottom snare and a top snare mic?

Noah
Similar to the kick drum, you want a kick in and kick out. In other words, you get the low end on the outside and the punch on the inside. With the snare, you really want a lot of snare response. That's what makes the snare drum a snare drum. The top mic will typically not pick up too much of the snare wires. It typically picks up more of the low mids and all that goodness. Having a snare bottom mic will just pick up solely all of that high end snare wire sound.

Jake
The overheads are condenser mics. I believe with condenser mics, they're just going to be more sensitive and clearer with a lot of the detail with the cymbals on the higher end of the frequency spectrum. 

The other microphones are all dynamic microphones, meaning that these microphones are intended to be placed really close to the source of the instrument. They're not going to pick up a bunch of sound everywhere else, because these mics typically have noise gates on them.

Wrapping Up

There you have it. We've walked you through how to go about building a worship drum set. Remember that it’s not necessary to get exactly what was covered here. A lot of principles come into play, like budget. But hopefully this can help point churches in the right direction.

Noah teaches private lessons and also runs an academy with a bunch of online pre-recorded video courses for modern worship drummers, so subscribe to Noah’s YouTube channel for more drum resources. And don’t forget to download the Worship Ministry Toolkit to access all of the gear listed here.  

Happy drumming!

Seven Tips to Improve Your Worship Broadcast Mix

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.

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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. 

OnSong vs. Music Stand | Which app is best for worship bands?

There are a ton of digital chord charts for you to choose from, but the OnSong and Music Stand apps are the two best options for worship leaders. In this article, I'll weigh some of the pros and cons of using each one so that you can make the best decision for your ministry team. 

Music Stand

The Music Stand app is an add-on to your Planning Center Services subscription which makes it really easy to stay in their ecosystem.

I've been using them for a very long time to:

• Plan out my worship gatherings every single weekend

• Schedule musicians

• Resource my musicians with charts as well as MP3 files

• Build out my song library

Music Stand Features

1. Sync with Planning Center

   Since this app was developed with Planning Center, it automatically syncs with your Planning Center account. You'll be able to view your weekly set list, plans and click on a song to pull up the chord charts. 

2. Play MP3 files while using your digital chord chart

In Planning Center, you can link the MP3 file of the song to the chord chart and play it while you go through, and it’s a great way for your other musicians to practice the songs at home. 

3. Annotate songs 

There are lots of great annotation features built into this app. 

• Highlight sections of the song with different colors

• Jot down notes 

• Save all your annotations and access them whenever

Pricing 

Planning Center is a subscription-based software and you can select the plans and services that fits your church.

I’ve included some of the pricing breakdowns below:

• Free: If you only have five members, then this will work for you.

• Just Music Stand App: $5 a month. 

• Planning Center + Music Stand: $16

OnSong

There are a lot of similarities between OnSong and Music Stand, but I think OnSong has an edge over Music Stand because creating a chord chart is its main thing. Not just an add-on feature.

Features

1. Organize your songs

   You can get to a greater level of organizing your song assets by arranging them into sets and books.

2. Import set lists

   If you create a grouping of songs on Planning Center, you can sync it with OnSong.

   Select Planning Center > Select what service I want > Import > Update

3. Reformat your chord chart for easy readability

   This is where I think OnSong starts to shine brighter than Music Stand. You can turn the font size and brightness, bold the chords and change the text color.

4. Send messages to your band through the app

   It also has a really strong communication feature for talking to the rest of your band members. If you’re on the same wifi network, you can send them commands like “Start” and “Stop.” I think this is a great way to communicate with them in the middle of a service.

5. Add midi functions 

OnSong has some cool features when it comes to being able to use midi communication to change the song that you're seeing in your app. Using Ableton Live, you could put a midi queue at the beginning of each song that then maps to the appropriate song within OnSong. 

• Musicians would never have to touch their iPad throughout worship 

• The app would automatically flip to the right song

• You could even get it to scroll to the right section of a song.  

This is a really powerful feature, and I think it gets a little crazy. Personally, I think that instead of setting up the midi automation, you could just memorize the chords and lyrics to your music. 

Recap

At the end of the day, both are great apps..

• If you’re just looking for a simple cord chart, go with Music Stand (like I do)

• If you’re interested in an app with more technical capabilities, try out Onstage. 

If you need some more training for how to use apps like Planning Center, how to prepare chord charts and other practice resources for your worship ministry, then check out Worship Leader School. 

We've got a large set of online courses library to teach you:

✅How to create efficient systems and processes

✅How to resource your band well

✅How to improve in your pastoral responsibilities

✅You’ll even get access to my team for real time support and coaching

We have the resources, classes and community to help you reach your fullest potential as a worship leader. So check out Worship Leader School so you can grow yourself and your ministry. 

How to Communicate with Your Worship Keyboardist

Common terminology

My goal in this is to give you and your keyboardist a common terminology so that you can communicate more effectively, identify what sounds you want and produce a well designed performance that evokes powerful emotions and connections in your church community.

1. The “warm” sound

The first word I want to address is the word “warm.” Stuff is called warm all the time but it's hard to quantify what that means. 

A warm sound is a pad that has this nice low-mid energy. It's not getting in the way, it's not sitting on top of what the electric guitars, vocals, bass or the kick drum might be doing. It's serving as a foundation underneath everything.

It doesn't have any of that bright sizzle on top that can distract from quieter moments. Instead, it adds a feeling of connectedness and intimacy. 

Protip: One of the really important things about finding a warm a pad is to make sure it's not too static. You want there to still be some motion and energy–what we call a little bit of modulation.

Check out the example below to hear what I’m talking about.

Listen to the warm sound

2. The “bright” sound

Next, let's talk about the bright sound. This is the opposite side of the warm sound. 

When I think of bright, we're talking about stuff in the higher frequency spectrum that's actually maybe above or right alongside what the guitars are doing. That has a lot of energy on the top end that's perceived as more aggressive, more powerful and it's more complex harmonically. You might still be playing in the same range on the keyboard but there are harmonic frequencies on top of it that add a little bit of extra energy.

Oftentimes with these bright synth pad sounds, you're still serving as the foundation to the mix, holding everything else together, but you're able to dynamically lift as your drummer switches to the high hat or starts washing out cymbals and as your electric guitarists start playing with more intensity. This increase in brightness from the pad goes right along with that; still serving as the foundation but rising as everyone does too. 

Listen to the bright sound

3. The “shimmer” pad

Lastly, let's talk about the most overused buzzword right now in the worship space–the shimmer pad.

You can have a shimmery texture or quality to your pad sounds which does something really specific in the mix, but it's really easy to overuse this kind of effect and overwhelm what your vocalist or your guitarist is doing.

It’s still worth using, but you have to make sure that you clarify why you're using this type of sound and where this type of pad sound actually sits in the mix.

Check out the example below to hear the proper balance that doesn’t overwhelm everything else.

Listen to the shimmer pad

Effects

Now let’s talk about how a couple simple effects from software like Mainstage or Ableton can greatly increase the quality of your music and make them sound more like today's top worship songs. 

1. Reverb effect

First off, I want to talk about reverb. If you're a guitarist, I'm sure you're probably familiar with the effect that reverb can have. You can use it on keys in the same way.

Reverb adds a sense of size, depth and space to your sound. It can soften up the initial impression of what you're playing, create some room and increase the hang time of your chord. 

Listen to the reverb effect

2. Delay effect

Now, let's talk about delay. All the guitarists discovered delay in 2002, and keyboard players are just getting around to it now.

In the same way that you can change the character and the rhythmic complexity of an electric guitar with delay, you can achieve a lot of the same cool effects with piano.

This is commonly used on some slow songs where you'll hit a chord on the one, and let the delay trail sort of add that extra oomph to it. You can also use it when you're playing the piano as a lead instrument, to give you an extra bit of memorability to a bridge or something like that. 

In really powerful worship moments, it can also add more texture and make the piano sound a little bit more interesting. 

Listen to the delay effect

3. Shimmer effect

Lastly, I want to return to shimmer. We already talked about shimmer when it comes to a pad, but you can also apply shimmer as an effect to any sound that you have. 

When I’m playing the piano all I have to do is turn on the shimmer reverb. The shimmer will swell in behind what I'm doing and then swell back down. If I'm moving through chords, it's never overwhelming the initial playing, and it feels really organic and natural.

It's a really great effect to give your keys players because it's got a nice production value element to it, it adds an ethereal ambience and it doesn't require a lot of theory knowledge to use. As long as you're not overplaying, it's going to make you sound like you know what you're doing.

Listen to the shimmer sound

Recap

So those are six fundamental terms for you and your keyboardist. My hope is that it empowers both of you to create a powerful experience for the people you’re leading. 

If you want to take the next step with this training and dive deep into equipping and empowering the keyboardist in your worship band, then check out Worship Leader School. David has created an entire masterclass exclusively for members that will:

✅Give you a deep dive into the effects that we touched on today.

✅ Show you an in-depth tour of all the gear and software for this setup.

✅Explain how to communicate and work alongside your keyboard player so you have smooth transitions in worship

I’d love to chat about how this class can help you grow as a worship leader. 

Feel free to setup a call here.

Talk soon.

Making Room by Inland Hills Church | Acoustic Session and Song Story

As worship leaders, we talk a lot about energizing people to worship on Sunday mornings through lyrics, sound, lights and other forms of production. 

Those are great conversations to have, but we often miss talking about other aspects of being a worship pastor, like asking the question, what’s our role and responsibility when grief takes hold of our church? How do we lead our community through a season of mourning? 

Is it just for pastors, counselors and other people more trained in these fields? How can we as worship leaders take a more active role during this time? 

I recorded a podcast and video on this topic with Andrea Hamilton, the worship pastor at Inland Hills Church and what it was like for her to lead her church community through a prolonged season of grief. 

Interview

Jake

What happened last August? For folks who are unfamiliar. 

Andrea

Before Pastor Dave got super sick and went to heaven, he passed the baton to his oldest son, Andrew. He had been on staff here a while, he has an amazing speaking gift, he was already leading a lot through Dave's sickness. It was a pretty seamless transition and they did it well. But Andrew didn't have a ton of time to just chill and grieve because he took over this big church and he was in his 20's. 

He was our pastor for two and half years, but the last few months of that time was very hard for him because he started having a lot of physical manifestations of stress, he would get panic attacks. He had a panic attack right before our first Easter service and still came out and preached and people got saved. It was a lot on his shoulders so he had to take a step back. 

He went on a sabbatical and he went to a psychiatrist. He got diagnosed with anxiety and depression and he was going to a naturopath as well, doing everything he could. When he came back, we had our highest attendance record ever because everyone was so excited that he was back.

He only was able to preach two Sundays. He was doing a series called Hot Mess, talking about mental illness, telling people about how to get through dark times, but he passed away from suicide on August 24, and it just surprised everybody. We were in shock. 

Jake

Andrew, he passed on a Saturday, right?

Andrea

Yeah, he was pronounced on a Saturday. We had church the next day and everyone was going to show up and hear the news. 

Jake

So what did you do?

Andrea

We had to tell them. The the feel from a worship standpoint was totally different. We scrapped all of our lighting and songs and people just walked in and there was some mellow music playing in the background, and two of our elders just came on stage and said, "Hey, we don't even know how to say this, but on Friday Andrew took his life." People were shocked, some people gasped in the AM and it was just heartbreaking.

I knew as soon as he was pronounced on Saturday, so I had some time to process, but I got up onstage and still didn’t know what to do. Our elders barely got this out of their mouths and then they walked off-stage and the band is there and everyone was staring at me.

A lot of times us worship leaders feel like we’re not equipped, but God recognizes that. He has been training us and He has been equipping us, and in that moment I realized these people looking at me, not all of them knew how to worship during hard times. 

So I said, "Okay, guys here's what we're going to do. We're going to respond to God in our grief and in our pain right now, and if you can find your voice, just sing His name. Just sing to Him, because we're going to worship Him through this season." 

That may seem obvious from a worship leader's point of view, but a lot of people were wondering, what are we doing here? So you have to vision cast and say:

Hey, this is the hardest thing we've ever been through as a church and no church should have to go through this, but God is with us and He's still good, and we're going to actually still expect to hear from Him, and for Him to move, and for Him to comfort us in our grief, and we're going to make space for that.

I felt a revival started breaking out that day, at this church. It was a huge breakthrough in our worship culture and we haven't turned back. We're five months later now and people are still humming and worshiping with everything they have and drawing near to God, and feeling the presence of God here, in the most unlikely of circumstances. That day, people gave their life to Jesus because they saw our response. One girl, she was there for the first time. She gave her life to the Lord.

Maybe you're just dealing with some drama or some unfairness that's happened in your own church or some moral failures of people you trusted.

Whatever you're walking through with your church, you need to hold onto that faith that God's actually going to show up in it, and He's always caring about the bride. 

Jake

Let’s talk about songwriting within this process and the song that came out of this, Making Room. So what's the story? 

Andrea

So yeah, the first couple of weeks after Drew passed away, my staff and I prayed together and we cried together. 

I had a co-write coming up and I thought about canceling it. I had never written with this guy before, he does a lot of country. I didn't know much about his writing, I just had it in the books. I thought about cancelling it, but for some reason I didn’t want to. 

So I drove to LA. I'm like, "Okay, I feel like I'm supposed to go write and maybe God's just letting me do something I love." It turns out that the guy I co-wrote with is not only a songwriter, he's a pastor, and he has dealt with depression and suicidal ideation, and now does counseling and care for people in LA that are going through this type of stuff. 

So we talked a little bit and I just felt safe to express my desire to see our church worship through this season, because if someone at my church chooses to let this tragedy get to them and to stop drawing near to Jesus, it's not going to be good for them. While I wrote, I wondered:

How do I express this sadness and faith in a song? What is it that we can sing together since there aren't a ton of lament songs in our evangelical culture? 

I just played on the piano there at his office and it felt like talking about miracles was really important because that's what it's going to take and it’s been a miracle to walk through this, I never would wish it on anyone, but this is miraculous. We have people in our church growing closer to Jesus and amazing things happening here despite what the enemy tried to do.

Jake

That phrase in the beginning of the chorus, "We're making room for miracles," unpack that a little more for us.

Andrea

I feel like God has taught me that He's always ready and willing to show up and to be involved. It's sometimes just on my end that I don't make space for Him, I don't expect the goodness that He wants to give. So I'm learning to look at things in that light, to say,

"God, I don't want to just look at this from my own perspective. You can do things that nobody else can and You're more powerful. You can fix and solve and heal and change and transform, and You can turn everything upside down that it seems is bad, You can bring good out of it. I've seen you do this before."

So creating that idea or perspective change where we're looking for what God is doing. We're not just looking at this event that hurt us, we're also going, "Okay, God wants to move and that's part of it.”

Some final thoughts

I love Andrea’s story because it shows that we can take a more active role in helping people process suffering. We do not and should not have all the answers, but as worship leaders, we’re uniquely able to create a space for people to mourn and also feel God’s comfort and peace.  

Andrea has also shown us that worship isn’t just about creating an emotional high or low. It’s a way to communicate with God and it has the potential to bring lasting, eternal change in people’s lives. 

The story about the woman who went to Inland Hills for the first time on that Sunday proves that worship is more than just a feeling–she became a Christian because of the faithful worship she saw–not because of any answers the pastors gave or good feelings she felt. 

As worship pastors, we need to create an appropriate space for people to feel safe, grieve and patiently expect Jesus to answer. We’re not called to make everything better or make people feel happy. As Andrea said, it’s on God to heal, transform, and respond. The most we can do is acknowledge what we’re feeling and posture our hearts to expect a response from God in His good time.

Lyrics

You know our sorrow, You lived our pain
You’ll bring us joy again
When all seems hopeless that’s when You’re closest
We hear You whispering

That Your love is stronger than our darkest fears
and You’re with us in the night
You can hold our hearts and catch our falling tears
Trade the darkness in for light

We are making room for miracles
Clearing up the ashes for beautiful
There is more to come oh
You’re not close to done so
We are making room for miracles
We are making room for miracles

We’ve come to worship
That’s what we do We’re crying out for You
Not in a hurry to say amen Our praise will never end
So we lift our hands and open up our hearts
Jesus pour Your healing out

Bring revival, bring revival