When Church Audio Engineers Make a Scene

Recently I polled a number of church production forums with the question:

Who uses the scene function on your digital audio consoles, versus those who mix their entire service manually? 

For the uninitiated, scenes, (also called snapshots by some manufacturers) are features available on most digital audio consoles which allow the user to save and recall settings in a variety of ways. 

With over 300 responses, I discovered that 62% do not use scenes on a regular basis compared to 38% who do. Based on my personal experience with churches over the years, these numbers aren’t surprising.  One might think the use of scenes is more prevalent in larger churches, but that’s not always the case. My poll didn’t specifically reveal how large or small the participant’s church was. But I did have off-line discussions with engineers whom I respect on both sides of the issue. A good friend of mine, who is highly respected in the worship community and routinely mixes in large churches, never uses scenes. When I asked him about it, he held up his hands, wiggled his fingers and said, “I’ve got ten scenes right here”. I also have ten fingers, but I’ve been using scenes, in varying degrees, since I started working with digital consoles. And in many situations I’ve come to depend on them greatly. 

I have experienced seasons in certain worship environments when it wasn’t practical to use scenes; just old-school mixing as if they didn’t exist, like great engineers did for decades. Recognizing what type of environment benefits from using scenes versus those that don’t, will serve you well. Like any personal mixing technique or workflow, it’s always wise to know when to incorporate it and when not to.

The 62%

I’m not suggesting that the 62% of participants are all wrong or all right. Some of them could benefit from implementing the process and simply haven’t taken the leap. Others in the “no scenes” camp are right where they need to be. 

Let’s discuss environments where scenes may not be necessary or even counter-productive. Interestingly, these situations can apply to a small church or a large church. It’s more about style and culture than budget and scale.

A worship team that consists of the same musicians, instrumentation, singers, and worship leaders from week to week, better yet, song to song, is a great environment, where you can mix without the need for scene changes. 

Some of my most enjoyable worship experiences have been mixing for Pentecostal churches. I’m not saying that all Pentecostal churches fall into this category. But for churches that have less structured worship services, often referred to as spirit-led, it is a wise practice to avoid using scenes. As an engineer the last thing you want is to be locked into a certain programing mindset that could interfere with the spontaneity of the moment. 

I worked with a church for a season that would sometimes start their services with 6 or 8 singers with hand-held mics, and then add 3 or 4 more, previously unscheduled singers, to the final songs. Occasionally, even the pastor would spontaneously join in singing during worship. Obviously, this was not a conducive environment for using scenes.

If you’re an audio engineer filling in for someone or guesting at a church that doesn’t use scenes, it’s best to respect their current process and not attempt to implement anything new. 

There are some worship environments that don’t dedicate enough rehearsal time to build scenes, which is another case for not using them.  

Some churches use scenes almost like a show file or template. This is a commonly-used practice where various scenes are stored and recalled for particular situations or specific engineers. For example, a church may have three audio engineers and each one starts their day with their own basic scene and builds their show from that template. Another similar use would be to have a dedicated scene for the instrumentation used on a night of worship, or one for an acoustic set. 

I’ve trained audio teams on new systems that weren’t technically ready to venture into setting up multiple complex scenes. But we would create and save a back-up scene based on a mix that worked well in the auditorium that everyone on the team liked. It’s not uncommon that over time with different staff members or volunteers mixing week to week for a system to lose it’s “Opening Sunday Awesomeness”. Multiple chefs with varying degrees of experience, adding their own spice over time, can really damage the stew. When that happens, recalling the original “Opening Sunday Awesomeness” scene is a handy tool. 

These are all examples of simply using the scene function on your digital console essentially as a library for show files, recalling that show (scene), and using it for the entire day or event. There is nothing wrong with that. However this method barely scratches the surface of how this powerful feature can be utilized.

The 38%

Now that we’ve discussed churches that either don’t use scenes or use them simply as show files, let’s explore various ways scenes can be used to help with your workflow. 

For the purpose of this discussion, let’s assume your typical Sunday worship service is segmented like this:

1. Song 1
2. Announcements (MC)
3. Song 2
4. Song 3
5. Video Bumper
6. Sermon (Pastor)
7. Song 4
8. Closing Announcements (MC)
9. Song 5
10. Walkout (House music) 

While one could potentially set up an individual scene for each of these 10 segments, and some churches do, I wouldn’t take it quite that far. Of the many church audio teams I’ve trained that use multiple scenes, I’ve found the following methodology to be the most effective. 

Rule One of using scenes; Never get yourself so locked into a scene that you can’t respond to an unplanned occurrence. If you haven’t encountered an unplanned occurrence yet, then you’re due for one. For those of us who have, the list is long and varied; Pastor comes up at the wrong time to preach, MC directs everyone’s attention to the video instead of throwing it back to the worship team, random emergency announcements, and so on. 

I typically have a dedicated layer (or fader bank), dedicated to every non-musical input on the console; Pastor’s mic, MC’s mic, House music player, Video playback, Back-up mics etc. This layer of inputs is often referred to as the Money Layer, not only because those are the most important channels on the console, but also because those are the channels that can get you fired. The money-layer is well labeled, easy to see, and easy to get to. Every channel on the money layer is set to recall-safe mode, meaning those channels are unaffected by any scenes, and are fully functional regardless of what scene is active. So essentially, I use scenes for songs and all the money channels are operated manually. 

When it comes to setting up scenes for songs, there is a misconception that using scenes eliminates the mixing process. Nothing could be further from the truth. In my personal work flow, I set up a scene for the beginning of each song, and then I simply mix from there. 

If we use our Sunday service flow listed above, our process would be as follows:

Let’s assume on Song 1, Our main vocal is on HH-1 (hand-held #1), There is a delay effect specifically set to the tempo of the song, applied only to his vocal. The remaining 5 singers are blended together nicely, with a basic reverb or two. The song opens with a prominent lead guitar line. In addition to the band there are stereo percussion tracks and some light string tracks. Everything affecting the mix on Song 1 is embedded in that scene. I recall the scene (Song 1) the worship begins and then I mix the song as I normally would.

After Song 1, the MC comes on stage for just a few seconds to make announcements; remember his channel is being operated manually, so I can recall the next scene (Song 2) any time while he is speaking. On a side note; if your keyboardists underscores the MC or pastor, you can easily double patch a secondary set of key channels (set to recall-safe) on the money layer and use them without affecting existing scenes. 

Let’s assume Song 2 starts with the singer on HH-3. When building my scene, I would have removed the delay from HH-1 (from the previous song), assigned it to HH-3, changed the tempo, and perhaps other delay parameters, returned HH-1’s level and effects to blend with the other singers. Let’s also assume that Song 2 begins with a dramatic grand piano. On Song 1, the piano was simply a supportive instrument, much less prominently featured. On Song 2, I’ve removed the high pass filter from the piano, so as it stands alone I want it to sound much larger in the mix. The pre-recorded supplemental tracks on Song 2 are from a different source and require a level, EQ and compression adjustment. And apparently the singer on HH-5 really loves this song and decides to bring the thunder every time we play it, so her level needs to be adjusted. Oh, and the drummer is using brushes on this one.

Song 3, flowing immediately out of Song 2, starts with all the vocals singing in unison, and HH-2 will be assuming the lead vocal duties this time. Again the tracks are from a different source and levels have changed, the drummer put away the brushes, there’s a driving bass guitar and the acoustic guitar should be prominently featured. So lots of changes need to happen in a matter of milliseconds to deliver Song 3 properly.

I know this sounds silly, but that’s only a small part of the adjustments that often need to be made from one song to the next in a worship set. There may be some amazing audio engineers, who can make all these adjustments on the fly. Song 2 would be over halfway done before I could make all the adjustments to make it sound right. 

Granted, use of scenes in this capacity, relies on a solid rehearsal, and in the most ideal case, accurate VSC (virtual sound check) capabilities. If you have these components at your disposal, and some dedicated VSC time, you should be able to implement the use of scenes and your mixes will improve. Fortunately, the technology for VSC has become more affordable and accessible than ever. I am often surprised when churches have all the tools they need but still don’t use scenes. 

Admittedly there’s a learning curve to implementing scenes into your workflow. Standardizing a few basics when you begin the process can keep you from getting into trouble. 

Carefully think through and test the channels you need to set up as recall-safe. 

Of course we’ve already discussed having the money layer channels recall-safe. When it comes to the music, a good practice is to set up a master DCA (or VCA depending on your manufacturer) for your entire band in recall-safe mode, and another master DCA for your vocals, also in recall-safe mode. Remember, anything set to recall-safe functions normally and manually, regardless of any scene on the console. 

Let’s assume you’ve got your songs set up as scenes, per our Sunday flow above. During Song 2, your producer says, “everything sounds great, can we just bring the volume down slightly?”. Of course you could turn down the main PA feed. But then you may have to readjust it later when the pastor speaks. The better fix is to use the full band DCA and the All Vocal DCA (both recall-safe) and decrease them to a lower level. Then, when Song 2 ends and you recall Song 3, the overall volume stays the same.

Most consoles have a fade-time adjustment on scenes that can be assigned to all channels or individual channels. For the most part, I add slight fade times on instrumentation and make the vocals change instantaneously when recalling scenes. 

As you can see a major key in successfully implementing scenes is to know exactly what channels to set to recall-safe mode and which ones need to change with the scenes. 

If you want to start slowly, and test the waters, set all of your instrumentation to recall-safe and just change your vocals as needed, per song with scenes. Once you have success and start to trust your console, slowly begin adding instrumentation to the process. 

I like to look at the scenes feature as my personal assistant. My assistant can route and assign effects, adjust gates, compressors, and other dynamics, change levels of every instrument and vocal, dial in the perfect EQ and filter exactly as I wish, and seamlessly present me with the console, fully prepared for me to do the fun part…..mix. All at the touch of a button.  

Maybe one of these days my assistant and I will challenge Ole Ten-Fingers to a mixing competition. I’ll let you know how it goes. 

Until then, don’t forget to listen!