If you ask a church audio team what would help them the most, the answer is usually more time. I covered this in a previous article on the ever-shrinking soundcheck time churches are willing to allot. To be fair, some engineers pushed back, arguing that their churches still provide ample time for soundchecks, and they saw my point as a straw-man argument. It was nice to hear that this isn’t a problem everywhere. Unfortunately, responses from engineers who don’t get anything resembling a usable soundcheck outnumbered those from engineers who do. Just this week, I spoke with a highly sought-after engineer who had mixed weekend services at a major church—with not even a full song for soundcheck.
I stand by my assertion that a solid soundcheck, paired with a full musical and technical rehearsal, produces the best results for both the worship and production teams. However, I doubt we’ll see a movement among worship departments to double time commitments for leaders, musicians, and singers to accommodate tech needs. So, I’ll remain grateful for the time they give us and the budget that allows for a robust Virtual Soundcheck system.
For the uninitiated, Virtual Soundcheck (VSC) records each input (or channel) coming into the digital console onto individual tracks on a computer. If you’re running 32 channels on your console, each one gets recorded into 32 separate tracks—just like in a recording studio. Then, with a flip of a digital switch, you can play those tracks back into the same console channels they were recorded from. Once the worship team heads home, you’re left with a virtual band on stage, ready to help you fine-tune your mix using multi-track recordings.
I was working in the industry long before VSC existed. As with most new tech, the early versions were clunky. Patching was a hassle, interfaces between computers and consoles were unreliable, and hard drive capacity seemed out of reach. The first version I encountered sounded like 60 low-rez MP3s playing at once. It was a far cry from the polished tool we have today.
Now, VSC is far superior and more accessible for small and medium-sized churches. Most modern digital consoles—even entry-level ones—are VSC-ready. Plenty of multi-track platforms like Reaper, Ableton, Logic, and Nuendo Live are commonly used, and some consoles even offer built-in VSC that records directly to USB or external drives.
For most churches, VSC is a no-brainer thanks to its cost-effectiveness and ease of use. It saves time and reduces the hours onstage worship musicians, singers, and leaders need to commit just to get things sounding right.
VSC is also one of the best training tools for church audio today. Lead engineers can use it to teach their teams how all the individual components blend into a powerful worship experience. But like any computer-based tool, it’s only as good as what you put into it—garbage in equals garbage out.
One crucial aspect of your VSC system is ensuring it records and plays back at the same levels. If you’re planning on using VSC to accurately preview what you’ll really hear on Sunday morning, this is essential. If your VSC plays back at 5 dB louder or softer than it was recorded, your playback won’t accurately represent your content. Volume differences aside, every gate, compressor, effect, and level setting will be impacted, throwing off your entire mix. It’s good advice when you first start using VSC to do an A/B comparison of the audio level and sound quality from live inputs versus playback mode, and make adjustments to match them as closely as possible.
When recording VSC, set your input gains correctly from the start, and avoid adjusting them during rehearsal, or you risk making your playback useless. For example, at a church where I often handle the broadcast mix, we record VSC during Wednesday night rehearsal. The worship team spends about an hour on stage and runs through each song a couple of times. We carefully capture (record) the 50-60 channels at FOH and in the broadcast booth. Our tech team ensures the tracks are recorded accurately and consistently. Actually, very little mixing occurs during that hour. I’ll then return on Friday to spend 3-4 hours fine-tuning the mixes using VSC. When the tracks are recorded well, I can build about 95% of my mix, making final tweaks on Sunday morning.
Mixing at FOH with VSC is similar, though it’s worth noting that in broadcast, you’re more isolated, like in a recording studio. Using VSC for FOH is invaluable, but it’s less accurate when there’s a lot of sound bleeding off the stage. For instance, unenclosed live drums can easily generate 85 dB of uncontrolled audio washing over the congregation, which won’t be present when the band’s gone. With VSC, you’ll only get partway to your final mix before Sunday rolls around and Ringo shows up ready to rock! This is not a deal breaker for VSC, just another example of how even with great technology we can’t change physics. On the other hand, if your drums are fully enclosed and there is very little sound coming off the stage, there’s no reason you can’t get very close to your Sunday morning mix with VSC.
Virtual Soundcheck can benefit almost any church by enhancing training and improving overall sound processes. But to achieve the level of results I describe, it takes a well-developed workflow and consistent practices. With time, effort, and attention to detail, VSC can become an indispensable part of your production toolkit, enabling your team to raise the bar for your worship experience.
If you’re not yet using VSC, I’d recommend visiting a church that does to see it in action. And if you’re already on board, I’d love to hear about your successes and challenges. In the meantime, don’t forget to listen.
