House of Worship Sound Reinforcement Review

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(More customer reviews)Those who have read my other reviews in this subject area are aware that I continue to seek useful reading material to use in the training of the operators of the church sound systems I design or rehabilitate. Such operators need a clear and concise, yet accurate, introduction to the fundamentals of acoustics, human perception of sound, and modern sound reinforcement techniques. They need to know how sound systems are properly planned, implemented, and updated, which is to say they need some insight as to how to qualify a design consultant, who will in turn help them qualify and select an equipment vendor and installation contractor. They need to be aware that misconceptions are rampant about live sound, and to become familiar with many of the common ones in order to detect them and avoid their consequences, and to assess the knowledge of anyone they encounter who purports knowledge of audio.
Let's get the shortcomings of this book out of the way first. These fall into two categories: 1) technical errors, and 2) omissions of key concepts or subject areas. The book's technical errors would require considerably more space to list than is available in this review, and most will be easily corrected once the reader encounters someone with some solid audio education, either in person, or in a forum such as Church Soundcheck. A sample of errors includes: the description of how balanced signal interfaces work, the implication that passive DI boxes require batteries, the wholly erroneous radio frequency ranges given for wireless microphones, the criteria given for stereophonic sound, the claim made about the benefit of oxygen free copper wire, the wire gauge versus distance guidelines, most of the information about loudspeakers and room acoustics, and so forth. The greatest potential damage is done when the authors discuss equipment and acoustical treatments in terms of user acquisition in an attempt to fix a certain problem, instead of having a qualified professional diagnose and prescribe the proper solution.
It should be well understood by all that this book is aimed at a non-technical audience - prospective audio volunteers in a church. Thus, it makes sense for the book to limit its length, as well as the depth to which it explores technical issues, as well as treatment of extraneous topics in audio, such as recording. This book meets all of these criteria, and indeed could have trimmed out some more deadwood on such topics as loudspeakers, house equalization, and acoustical remediation, since these are not topics that even the most advanced operators are usually involved with, other than to secure the services of a competent professional. What would be helpful to the user, but is missing, includes some orientation to the different kinds of audio professionals (by role and sub-discipline), a bibliography or list of recommended further reading, a list of reliable training resources, an introduction to various worship styles and their "production values," some remarks about "bedside manner" and dealing with problem personalities, and some practical information about starting and running a technical ministry. Fortunately, the latter can be covered by other books, such as Taipale's The Heart of Technical Excellence and Stella's Video Ministry: Using Media in Worship Without Going Hollywood.
Finally, in addition to the book's brevity and remaining generally relevant to novice sound operators, I would like to point out some other positives:
1) The book's attitude toward the church sound operator, whether staff or volunteer, is far more positive and constructive than what is found in some other books.
2) Some common misconceptions and misnomers are correctly dealt with, such as the term "room tuning" on page 102, the terms "phase" and "polarity" on page 75, and the requirement for proper safety grounding on pages 158 and 189.
3) The chapter about tools and diagnostic techniques reinforces the notion that a competent audio technician should own appropriate tools and know how to use them, and that she or he is typically the only person in a position to react quickly enough to diagnose and work around problems that occur in real time.
4) The chapter on "outreach" reinforces the church tech director and/or sound operator's role in managing the production of off-campus church events, as well as those on-campus in non-traditional venues, such as outdoors. There is quite another dimension to the planning and execution of such events than exists for the routine operation of an installed system in a worship auditorium.
In short, I believe that a future edition of this book could become an excellent training resource were it to be thoroughly reviewed by a design-level audio professional and corrected, and then completed with some of the missing insights listed above.

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