Tag: worship team

  • The 30-Second Soundcheck Trick That Saves Your Whole Set

    The 30-Second Soundcheck Trick That Saves Your Whole Set

    Soundcheck always runs long. Always. Doesn’t matter if you’ve got 20 minutes or 2 hours, someone’s monitor mix isn’t right, someone’s guitar isn’t in tune, and the drummer wants “just a little more kick, just a touch” for the fourth time.

    Here’s a trick that’s saved more of my sets than any piece of gear I own: before anyone plays a single note, I go around the stage and ask every single person one question, in this exact order.

    Field Notes — Cheat Codes

    “What do you need to hear, and what do you need to hear it over?”

    Not “how’s your monitor.” Not “you good?” Those get you a shrug and a thumbs up that means nothing. This question forces a real answer, because it’s actually two questions stacked on top of each other, and most musicians have never had to articulate the second half out loud.

    A vocalist doesn’t just need “more vocal.” They need their vocal loud enough to sit over the kick and snare specifically, because that’s the thing eating their pitch reference. A guitarist doesn’t need “more guitar,” they need enough guitar to hear their own timing against the click, because that’s what’s actually throwing them off.

    Once you know the “over what,” you stop guessing. You stop doing the slow, awkward dance of pushing a fader up, getting a vague “a little more,” pushing it again, getting another vague “a little more,” until you’ve fed back three times and everyone’s annoyed.

    Do this in order, stage left to stage right, before you run a single song. It takes maybe 30 seconds per person. On a five-person stage that’s two and a half minutes, and it will save you fifteen minutes of trial and error later, plus a much better first impression on anyone new sitting in with the team that day.

    Field Notes — Cheat Codes

    The bonus move: write the answers down. Not in your head — actually write them. “Drummer: needs vocal over kick.” “Bass: needs click over everything, doesn’t care about anything else.” Next time that same lineup plays, you already have your starting point before anyone steps on stage. Soundcheck goes from twenty minutes of guessing to five minutes of confirming.

    It’s a small thing. It is not a small result.

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  • The Click Track Mistake That Will Wreck Your In-Ears

    The Click Track Mistake That Will Wreck Your In-Ears

    Everybody blames the click when the in-ears feel off. “The click’s too loud.” “The click’s throwing me.” “I can’t feel the pocket with the click in my ear.” Nine times out of ten, that’s not actually what’s wrong.

    What’s actually wrong is that the click is the only consistent, predictable thing in that in-ear mix, and it’s exposing every other inconsistency in the signal chain around it.

    Field Notes — Don't Be That Guy

    Here’s the mistake I see constantly: someone builds a click track pack with a straight metronome click, sends it to In-Ear Bus 1, and calls it done. No accents on the downbeat. No differentiation between the “1” and the other three counts. Just a flat, identical tick, four times a bar, forever.

    A flat click is actually harder to lock to than one with a clear downbeat, because your brain has to keep actively counting instead of feeling the bar. You’re doing math in your ear instead of feeling music. That’s exhausting over a 45-minute set, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that makes a drummer swear the click is “dragging” or “rushing” when it’s actually locked dead on — they’re just fatigued from counting instead of feeling.

    The fix is stupidly simple and takes ten minutes to set up: build your click pack with an accented downbeat. Different pitch or different sound entirely on beat 1. Suddenly the click isn’t a flat pulse anymore, it’s a bar. Your drummer’s brain can lock onto the shape instead of grinding through the count.

    Field Notes — Don't Be That Guy

    Second mistake, right next to the first: sending the exact same click level to every single in-ear mix. The drummer needs the click loud and clear, no argument. The keys player might need it much quieter, buried under a pad, just enough to stay oriented without it fighting their own sense of time. Give everyone the drummer’s click level and you’ll have half the stage fighting a click that’s too dominant for what they’re actually doing with it.

    Build the downbeat accent. Vary the send level per person based on what they actually need it for. Do those two things and 80% of “click track problems” turn out to have never been click problems at all — they were mix decisions nobody made on purpose.

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