COVID-19 Lockdown: Digital Worship Audio Tips

The following is a guest post by a fellow pastor in COVID-19 Lockdown (see previous posts here) who has some truly helpful suggestions for audio quality in livestream and recorded situations. Thanks Rev. Colin!

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Digital Worship Audio Tips

Rev. Colin Cushman

Congratulations! You—O esteemed pastor, who have been trained in how to conduct in-person worship services with real people in real pews, not in tech support—have successfully made it though a few weeks of digital worship! 

However as we are looking at the coronavirus pandemic, we are starting to get the sinking feeling that we might be doing this for a while. So it’s time to think through what digital worship looks like not so much as a stop-gap measure but as a new temporary way of life. And just as we pastors are committed to our craft when we are in the flesh, we should also focus on how we can improve our work when dealing with our congregants remotely.

Don’t get me wrong, though. This does not mean that you need to have megachurch production values, with slick videos and light shows and ten different camera operators. For a little church, that would not only be overkill, it wouldn’t be who that church is! The whole point of all of this is connection. That’s the whole reason that the church ladies in Little Town USA are finally figuring out how to use their iPads, and why the family is actually gathering to watch your YouTube video. It’s all about connection. As you read articles about how to improve your digital worship, never lose sight of the fact that these improvements are all focused on helping congregants to connect better with you as pastor and worship leader.

This article contains a range of tips for all sorts of folks: beginners, intermediate, and advanced. You know your own abilities, so focus on those points that apply most directly to you. These tips are separated into those who livestream their service, those who pre-record their service, and tips applicable to both.

This article largely focuses on the audio side of things. This is the primary way that your digital congregation is engaging with you. They don’t tune in to see a video of someone standing still in a sanctuary. They tune in to hear the service. As such, any steps that we can make in terms of improving the audio are going to be steps toward decreasing barriers that interfere with your connection with congregants.

#1 – USE AN EXTERNAL MICROPHONE

The number one thing that you should do to improve your audio is to use an external microphone. If you take one tip from this article, let it be this! The teeny-tiny microphone embedded in your phone or your camera isn’t very good at all. Basically any other microphone you get is going to get you better audio, which means better clarity and that everybody can understand you better.

There are a range of prices and qualities of external mics for your phone or DSLR. Since we are starting to think in terms of the long haul, consider whether your church wants to invest in a little bit nicer one that will have better quality and has a better build quality.

Some good options are:

For DSLRs:

• Top-notch: Rode VideoMic Pro+ (appx. $300)
• Mid-range: Rode VideoMic GO (appx. $100)
• Inexpensive: TAKSTAR SGC-598 (appx. $20)

For modern iPhones:

• Best: Shure MV88 (appx. $150)
• A little less expensive: Zoom iQ6 (appx. $100)
• Less expensive: Rode VideoMic Me-L (appx. $80)

For other smartphones (including iPhone with Lightning adapter):

• Great value: Rode VideoMic Me (appx. $50)

If you want bonus points (and you aren’t locked down at home), consider routing the output from your sound system directly into your video source. This is easier to manage for pre-recorded services than live-streamed, but is certainly possible to do for either. This does, however, increase the complexity of the whole operation, so this setup wouldn’t be for beginners. 

Do not use an external mic to record the output from your sound system’s speakers. The sound quality will usually be quite poor.

MICROPHONE TECHNIQUE

ON-PHONE/CAMERA MICS

Take a look at the technical specifications of your external microphone (these should be easily available on Amazon or Google). See if it says “omnidirectional.” If so, look at the first section below. If it says “unidirectional” or “cardioid” (or super-, hyper-, or ultra-cardioid), look at the second section.

• OMNIDIRECTIONAL MICS

Omnidirectional mics pick up sounds from all directions. This is good if you have sounds coming from all sorts of places, not just right in front of the mic, such as if your piano and singer are off to one side while the pastor is up front. It’s not good if you have lots of other noises you don’t want recorded: the heating system, noisy kids in the back of the sanctuary, creaky floors, traffic outside.

If this is the type of microphone you have, you want to get the sound sources as close as possible to the mic while still having them pointing at the mic. (So, for example, the singer must be facing the mic.) If you just have a solo preacher, it’s easy. Get it as close as possible, directly in front of them. However, if you have a preacher, a piano on their left, and a singer in between, point the mic toward the singer, and and back up enough that no sound source is pointing toward the back of the mic. Remember, always face the sound source toward the front of the mic for the clearest and best-quality sound.

Lavalier mics—the kind you clip to your shirt or tie—and over-the-ear mics are omnidirectional mics. They are only good for one sound source, usually one speaker, but can be excellent for this purpose. However, you will not use these types of mics for your recording unless you are running your audio through your sound system first.

• CARDIOID MICS

These mics reject the sounds going on behind and, to a lesser degree, to the side of them. This is the perfect type of mic if you have only one sound source, such as one preacher. Everything happening off to the side will get quieted down. (Though it’s not a magic wand—still keep unwanted background noise to a minimum.) The stronger the prefix (super-, hyper-, or ultra-), the more it rejects any sounds to the sides.

If you are using this kind of mic, it must always point toward the sound source. So if you have a preacher who’s moving all around the sanctuary or if you also have a piano off to one side, you need to think carefully about how to position the mic. It needs to be far enough back that each the mic is still pointing more or less toward the sound source. However, as you will remember, you also want to be as close as possible to the sound source. Thus, if you want to use a cardioid mic and you have multiple sound sources, you should expect to: (1) have multiple mics (meaning, you need to use a sound system), (2) move the sound sources so that everything’s coming from basically the same direction, or (3) use an X-Y-pair type mic such as the Zoom iQ6, allowing for a broader horizontal range.

A NOTE ABOUT IPHONES

Modern iPhones no longer have a headphone jack to plug in DSLR or non-iPhone-smartphone mics. However, if you want to use one of these types of mics, you can do so with a Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter (easily found on Amazon for less than $10). However, Google “{the microphone name} iPhone” first, to see if you can find anybody who has tried it on iPhone. Oftentimes, the “customer questions and answers” section of the Amazon listing contains this information.

A NOTE ABOUT DSLR MICS

Here’s an Intermediate tip: To route the audio from an external mic to a DSLR, you need a Mic In jack on your camera. If you do not have one, you can record it on your phone with a microphone, import it into your video program on your computer, and sync it up with your video, muting the audio on your video.

If you do have a Mic In jack, make sure to turn off the Automatic Gain Control setting on your camera. You can find where this is through a Google search for “{your camera model} automatic gain”

INDIVIDUAL VOCALISTS

Individually miked vocalists should be quite close to the microphone—a fist-length should separate their mouth from the microphone. When belting out high notes, they should pull back a little bit from the mic so that they don’t blast out our eardrums.

In COVID-19 lockdown situations: If you are lucky enough to have disinfectant wipes, wipe down the grills of the mics. Then label a piece of masking tape with each singer’s name and stick it on their microphone. Now, this is solely their mic. Don’t switch mics between singers.

For expert users, if you are working with a mixing board and a sound tech, try adding light compression to the vocals if you have trouble with peaking on high notes.

PIANO

An excellent discussion on miking pianos for beginners can be found here. 

The diagrams here are much clearer though. For grand pianos, you want to put the mic aimed at the green dot in the diagram, just outside of the lid of the piano. If you closed the lid (which, side note, prop it open when miking it), it should just miss hitting the mic. For upright pianos, put the mic in the middle of the four dots on the diagram, a foot or two away from the BACK of the piano. This means you will need to pull the piano away from the wall.

For expert users, If you are using a sound system, consider using condenser mics (example) instead of dynamic mics (example) to mic your piano. Condenser mics are more sensitive and will add more richness and tone to your piano sound. You will need to switch on phantom power (+48V) on that track of your mixer. The mechanism inside condenser mics is sensitive to very loud sounds, so if your pianist plays loudly, make sure to either turn on the -10 dB pad switch on the mic or move the mic further outside of the piano lid. 

Two all-around condenser mics to consider are Rode NT1-A (appx. $250) and Audio-Technica AT2035 (appx. $150). If you are looking for exceptional quality sound and tonal control, consider a matched pair of small condenser mics such as the Rode NT5 (appx. $430), though it will be considerably more expensive.

TEST YOUR LEVELS BEFOREHAND

Before Sunday, set up everything like you will on the day of. Record yourself and then listen to it. Did the mic not hook up correctly? Is there loud static whenever you move? Is it way too loud and blown out? Can you not hear anything? Is the street noise super distracting? Is the heater way louder than you thought it was?

Listen ahead of time so that you can fix these problems BEFORE Sunday.

PRE-RECORDED SERVICES

WATCH OUT FOR BACKGROUND NOISE

Recording outside is great, especially when we’re all stuck inside. But recording outside introduces the great nemesis of audio recording: wind. That and street noise. And the chainsaw from a few doors down. In person, we’re able to tune all of these background noises out, but sound recording “flattens” out the sound, eliminating the subtle auditory clues that our brain uses for spatial differentiation, meaning that your brain cannot no longer distinguish very well between foreground and background noise. (Just think of how distracting background noise is on the other end of a phone conversation.)

If you are recording outside, you basically need to use an external microphone, especially one that is a cardioid (or super-, hyper-, or ultra-cardioid) pattern. Once you do that, make sure you have either a foam or dead cat (that’s really what they’re called!) windscreen covering the microphone. These are quite cheap (appx. $5-20, depending on quality) and will make a world of difference to your viewers.

WATCH YOUR FINISHED PRODUCT BEFORE POSTING

Yes, I know it sucks to watch yourself on video. But if you don’t watch through the whole thing in one sitting, you won’t know what your congregation is seeing. Additionally, if you only watch through the parts individually while you are editing them, you will not notice things that have to do with how the clips relate to one another, such as:

MAKE SURE YOUR VOLUME LEVELS ALL WORK TOGETHER

If you edit one part of your service at a time, you have no clue if one section is way louder than the others. You need to look at each piece of the puzzle in comparison to the others to make sure you’re not inadvertently blaring the prayers of the people right after whispering the call to worship.

One special piece of note: some pastors have taken to including  reflective moments with moving water—a stream or a fountain. Especially make sure the volume level of your water is not too loud. A stream is like a barrage of noise on your eardrums; there is no ebb and flow, it’s just always loud. Speech, in contrast, is sometimes loud and sometimes soft, with spaces in between sentences; it seems much softer than the constant sound of a stream. So double-check the relative volume levels of these clips by—you guessed it!—listening through the service as a whole.

LIVE-STREAMED SERVICES

CONSIDER YOUR ROUTER PLACEMENT OR USE A WIRED CONNECTION

Imagine wireless internet working like sound waves: if there’s stuff physically blocking the waves, it’s going to make the resulting sound much softer. In the same way, if you can’t see your router from the location where your phone is livestreaming, figure out how to change that for the time being. Decrease as many barriers as possible, and get the router as close as possible to the phone.

• If you have a separate modem and router, consider running a really long ethernet cable (appx. $10-30) between the two so that you can bring the router into the sanctuary with you for the time being. (Don’t go over 300 feet or the cable won’t work.)
• If you have a single modem/router combo, consider running a really long coax cable (appx. $15-20) from the internet jack in the wall to the sanctuary, and bring the modem/router into the sanctuary with you. (Don’t worry if it doesn’t look pretty. Nobody’s at the church now anyways.)
• If you are live-streaming from a laptop, do everything you can to plug it directly into the router. This probably means running a long ethernet cable between your computer and the router.

Having the highest quality connection to your internet is vital to having smooth, high quality video and audio in your live-stream.

TEST YOUR CONNECTION FIRST

Get on Facebook Live (or whatever platform you use) and enlist the help of a friend at home (must be on a DIFFERENT router). Run a test stream of Facebook Live while your friend watches. Talk for a couple minutes, and then singing for a minute or two. Maybe tell a bad joke or two. Then, check in with your friend and see how things sounded, if it skipped, if there was any distortion, etc.

FOR NEXT LEVEL QUALITY, USE A DSLR CAMERA

For Expert Users: If you are ready for the next big leap in quality of your material and you already own a DSLR camera, consider exploring using this for your livestream. The video quality is way better than with phone cameras. It is a significantly more complicated setup, but can allow for higher quality audio as well. You would need to connect the DSLR to a computer for the livestream.

As noted above, there are very high quality DSLR microphones that can provide excellent levels of clarity. Alternatively, you could use your pre-existing sound system, and connect the Monitor Out on your mixing board to the Mic In jack on your camera. (You would likely need a 3.5mm audio cable, as well as a 3.5mm to 1/4” adapter.) Make sure to adjust the levels with the “Monitor” dial on each individual channel, as well as the overall levels with the overall Monitor Out dial. Remember to turn off the Automatic Gain Control on your camera so that the camera does not seize control of the levels.

Much more information on this topic can be found with a quick Google search. One setup is well described here. And without exception, make sure you give your setup a test run before Sunday.

CONCLUSION

Digital worship does not inherently have to be complicated. Anybody with a smartphone can do something worthwhile. However, depending on your level of tech savvy, there are some relatively easy tweaks that you can make that will improve the technical quality of your recordings. And ultimately, as with any good behind-the-scenes work, this effort invested in improving the quality of the broadcast should be invisible. The focus of these improvements is not to show off how fancy your new iPhone microphone is. The point is to make it so that the viewer can more fully enter into your worship experience, without being jarred out of the experience by static, blaring music, or impossible-to-hear dialogue.

Blessings on all of your ministries as you wander this, for many of us, new and uncharted territory. Even in the absence of physical bodies, may your creativity blossom to nourish the body of Christ.

Colin Cushman lives in the Seattle area with his wife, his daughter, and his dog. He previously served as pastor at churches in the area before becoming the site director at Indianola Camp & Retreat Center. Besides his passion about the intersection of the Bible and social justice, Colin is passionate about creating new and alternative ways of being church together. You can connect with him at www.campindianola.org.

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Your Turn

Thanks to Rev. Colin for his expertise. If you are ever in need of a retreat center or summer camp, Camp Indianola west of Seattle is one of the prettiest and most hospitable places in the northwest.

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