Christmas Eve services and the weekend after are like the Super Bowl for church services. It’s the most attended service of the year by fans and visitors alike. I heard we had close to 6,000 adults and children. Yikes. I think we bring our best every weekend but Christmas Eve is an opportunity to reach for even better. I retuned the house system with EAW Smaart (first time with Smaart) in less than an hour. Not the smaartest thing to do (pun intended) … you know, a drastic overhaul on the system right before the Super Bowl of church … but the risk paid off. Big.
The average person probably only noticed a small difference. Our mixes were already good. The difference is now most of our channels have very little EQ and when I move faders the mix does exactly what I expect it to do. The goal with Smaart is getting “linear response” out of the system so that what comes out of the mixing console is exactly what you hear in the room. There’s still work to do like solving some time alignment and phase issues but just this first step has given me what feels like a brand new system.
In the last couple weeks I’ve had more of those moments being stunned at the sound during worship: moments where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That’s a great feeling. Speaking of the sum of the parts, you don’t get a great mix without a great band so props to last weekend’s band! BJ, on drums, is a high-school senior who plays like a seasoned session player. Dude showed up and took down all the cymbals except hats and ride and absolutely rocked it. Jason lays down one of the most solid bass foundations at Cornerstone with just the right flair. Greg added great shimmer and rhythm with his Larrivee. Kevin’s choice of tones and parts are always perfect. Stephanie and Kim have chemistry like few others. Their pitch was perfect and their energy contagious. Scott’s guitar tones are always above the bar – he is a tone freak. He and Kevin share the same playing sensibility and street smarts. Scott’s voice and mic technique was great. With volunteer players like we have at Cornerstone it sounds great even when the sound guys have a rough day.
I’m curious if anyone in the congregation notices the difference. If so, leave a comment. I’d love to hear.
After the jump is just geeky stuff about tuning our auditorium with Smaart.
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