Backups When Things Go Wrong - WellspringChurchNC/prod-team GitHub Wiki

I’ve had wireless mikes die and I’ve had cable connections crackle through the airwaves. Guess who the pastor looks to for blame? Let’s get them trained and talk practical steps.

Make sure there’s a backup microphone and it’s tested prior to the service. This is the go-to microphone with a few exceptions.

If the replacement microphone is wireless and it works on the same frequency as the other, such as in wireless systems that include a handheld and a lav mic, AND the problem is interference, then DO NOT USE THE BACKUP MICROPHONE. We keep a wireless handheld just off stage and it’s on a different frequency. Otherwise, use a wired microphone.

Some of us have stage managers and that’s a huge blessing in itself and a lifesaver in times like this. For everyone else, talk with the pastor about the backup microphone so they know what to do. If the problem occurs and the pastor (usually a significantly older pastor) looks lost, then suck it up, walk to the front, and hand them the replacement microphone.

As an aside, if they don’t notice the microphone died, there might be a problem. This is why you have to have a plan and talk with them. Some people would be ok with a gentle interruption while others would be upset that you interfered with the sermon. I’ve seen both. As a rule of thumb, if the room is small enough and people can still hear, don’t worry about it.

Simple microphone failures would be problems like a dead microphone battery or a cable that stops working. In these cases, have equipment by the ready. For example, keep a spare vocal microphone (wired or wireless) on a stand just off stage or place it on stage in an out-of-the-way place.

In the case of cables, have a spare cable at the ready so they could be swapped. Or, go the emergency route and keep a wired mic on a stand with a DI taped to the bottom, with cables.

And when do you make such equipment swaps? It depends on the urgency. When it’s a lead instrument or lead vocal, that should be taken care of immediately. The lead vocalist, usually the worship leader, should know what to do. If it’s their instrument, they need to say something to allow you to quickly fix the problem. Or, they can take the initiative and fix it themselves, depending on their technical competency.

I’ve found it best to fix everything else when the band is clearing the stage, assuming they will come back again during the service.

Amps die, consoles die, fuses blow, equipment bursts into flames ... it’s more likely to start smoking but where’s the drama in that!?! If you’re lucky, it’s a blown fuse. Replace the fuse but if the next fuse blows, then you’ve got an equipment problem.

Backup plans vary here based primarily on budget. In a perfect world, we’d have spare equipment. Well, in a perfect world equipment would never die but you get the point.

Worst-case scenario, you’ve got nothing. Most churches have a small portable system for youth or outdoor activities. If the system dies before the service, then you’ve got time to set up the portable system. It’s not pretty but it’s effective.

A better situation is one in which an old spare (from the last upgrade) is available or one from another venue (youth) is available. Power down, make the connections, dial in a rough mix, and you’re good to go.

Here’s that worst-case scenario again. Ditch the system and go with a portable system. The problem gets into speaker-amp pairing if you try a mis-matched amp from another venue. You don’t want to damage the speakers with an under-powered or over-powered amplifier.

Make a list of all the equipment and plan what you’d do if it stopped working.

A final note here, sometimes musicians’ equipment fails. While this is usually due to a dead battery, it could be the equipment itself is busted. In this case, see if it can be removed from the signal channel. For example, if a guitarist’s amp dies, then go into a DI box and into the stage jack. Before doing so, you might need to spend about 20 minutes comforting them and telling them, “it can be fixed, everything’s going to be ok.”

(Wow, a lot of death in this article.)

Be it a musician’s piece of gear or your own wireless equipment, any battery-powered equipment has the potential to die. Sometimes, it’s because a battery was not recharged. Or, the muso didn’t bring a spare. Or, for absolutely no easily-identifiable reason, a full-charged battery dies after 30 minutes of use – yes, I’ve had this happen.

Keep spares.

This happens, especially with growing churches. The church had a few extra mics and cables and DI boxes and then the congregation grew and the band grew and now every piece of equipment is used.

Don’t be short a mic cable when one goes bad. Check the equipment list so there’s spare cables and a microphone or two.

There are two problems with power outages; not knowing when the power will go off and not knowing when it will come back on.

When the power goes off before the service, look for someone in leadership. By the time you find them, either the power will be back or you’ll know it might be a while. They’ll determine the plan. For example, the pastor might say, “we go without an audio system” or they might say, “Let’s cancel the service.” Most times, they opt to go without because usually when the power goes out, it’s a stormin’ outside and they don’t want to send people outside.

(I’m assuming your church isn’t on a commercial-grade backup generator.)

When the power goes out during the service, the pastor’s probably going to say something and you follow their lead. Have a plan for when it comes back. Techs have told me their leadership finds it the most effective to go minimal and stay minimal even when the audio comes back.

If the power goes out and comes back on, you’re in luck. If you run a digital console, then it’s just a matter of the console rebooting. If that’s on a battery backup, it might be avoidable. If it’s going to be a few minutes, tell the congregation it’s going to take a couple of minutes.

You can have all the backup plans in the world but they’ll fail without two things.

My early days as a radio broadcaster taught me how to trouble-shoot when all ears were focused on me. There’s nothing like talking on the air and hitting the CD player only to have it not play. Or worse, talking on the air and turning up the Indianapolis Colt’s NFL broadcast feed and only getting a faint signal.

We had two broadcast-designed CD decks so it was easy to jump between the two. As long as both decks were loaded with yet-to-be-played songs, I could always bail out to the second CD player.

The NFL feed, on the other hand, that’s when I cheated by buying myself 30 seconds. I played a PSA (public service announcement), cued the feed into the studio speakers, and ran to the patch bay to check the patching and try a second, or third, patch cable until I heard the feed come to life ... all while counting down from 30. Bad cables exist everywhere.

Confidence comes from knowing how equipment works and knowing what to do when it doesn’t.

I’ve heard pastor’s claim from the pulpit, “it’s not my fault,” when it clearly was, and I’ve had them say, “There seems to be a tech problem so please be patient until it’s corrected.” I’m sorry if your pastor casts blame or belittles you from the pulpit – I’ve heard from techs who’ve had that happen.

The pastor must understand problems will occur even though you work to avoid them. For example, I had a pastor with a lot of crackle in their wireless microphone that started ten minutes into the sermon. Although the microphone was tested before the service, we later discovered the retention clasp broke that holds the cable into the beltpack.

There are big problems like power outages but for the small stuff, you still need a plan. Explain you need them to briefly acknowledge the problem to the congregation and say the tech team is working quickly to correct it. They also need to know where the spare mic is located.

Work pro-actively to prevent problems, have plans for when predictable problems occur, and when it’s a complete surprise, have the confidence (and the skills) to resolve the problem in the shortest time possible. Check out the below link and discover the production surprises that can come your way.

Ok, maybe that’s more than a few. On the upside, I’ve been doing this for a long time so the ratio of disasters to events I’ve run isn’t that bad. On the downside, THESE THINGS HAPPENED! In the early days, I panicked. I did what most rookies did, I looked at that equipment and then looked for someone to help me. While it’s rumored that I once dropped to the floor to avoid public embarrassment, that’s not true. What I did do was freeze out of fear.
My problem with disasters, the one I want you to avoid, was two-fold:

1. I didn’t know the gear. I knew how to use it but if something went wrong with it, I didn’t know where to even start.
2. I didn’t have a plan. This is where I want to spend most of the time here.

As I said, I didn’t know the gear well. So, I made changes and this is where you need to do some work as well. I suggest the following:

1. Locate the manuals for all the equipment. Microphones, amps, mixer, everything that needs a manual...find it. If it was thrown away, look online. Manufacturers usually have these handy on their websites.
2. Keep an online document with links to the online manuals and keep all the physical manuals in the sound booth.
3. Start reading. Ok, maybe that’s a bit unfair. Read the FAQ’s and the troubleshooting sections of the manuals. Read about how to set up the equipment. And read about every control on the equipment. There might be a knob or switch that you never use but, as I learned, sometimes when that switch gets flipped, disastrous results occur.
4. Document the common settings. No matter the equipment, it likely has inputs and outputs and switches and knobs and it’s helpful to have a document that notes the default settings you use at the church. This is especially helpful with rack equipment.
5. For digital mixer users, keep a backup of the mixer settings. This is usually done on a flash drive. In case something gets messed up, you’re covered. Also, save a standard scene in the scene list that’s used to build all new scenes. This way, if a scene is messed up, a good one can be pulled.

These five things will go a long way to aiding you when problems occur. But, before going on, there is another step to do - one I do wherever I’ve mixed.

This might take a few hours to do but the results are worth every...single...minute. I’m also not talking about an overly technical diagram - this will be something that’s easy to scan. Break it down into two diagrams.

Diagram #1 would be for everything in the sound booth. This means every audio cable that runs between components. Draw simple boxes for rack components and the mixer. Then draw lines between the components as the audio flows and note the cable type. For example, draw a line out of the mixer into a CD recorder. Draw the little arrow at the end of the line going into the recorder to indicate which direction audio is flowing. Then, write the cable type on the line, such as RCA, XLR, TRS, or TS. When this diagram is completed, you can see how the audio flows within the booth.

Diagram #2 is a larger diagram for the “major” components, such as floor monitors, personal monitoring systems, house speakers, and even amplifiers (if the amps aren’t in the sound booth). Also, draw a box for the sound booth and mark everything going in or out. For example, draw a line coming out of the sound booth going to the main house speakers. Draw a line from the stage to the sound booth for all inputs. Don’t draw lines for every stage input but draw a line for every type, such as XLR and network cables.

As a result, the diagrams show how the audio flows through the whole system. I’ve performed this process and discovered that equipment was improperly set up so I re-cabled the whole system - but that’s another story. Refer to these diagrams often to refresh yourself with the signal flow. Then, during a disaster, you know where the signals flow. If there is a problem you can’t quickly figure out, grab the diagram and follow the signal. 99% of audio problems can be found by reviewing the signal flow. Maybe 90%, heck, I don’t know the exact percentage but it’s high...and four out of five dentists agree. But I digress. Now, in the words of my second-grade teacher, “it’s time to put on your thinking cap.”

How can you have a plan for something you don’t know could happen? Simple, start a list. Write down all of the possible disasters that could happen during the service. Record things like power outages, dead batteries, fire alarms, and broken equipment. Take some time and come up with a list long enough that you feel comfortable that, “if it’s not on the list, no one would expect it.”

Next, write up a plan of execution for each item in the list no matter how simple or complex. For example, if the mixer dies during the service, have a plan to pause the service and swap in the mixer that’s in the youth room. Or, if a wireless mic dies, have a standby mic stand on stage with a second wireless mic or a wired mic.

The more details put into these execution plans, the more ready you’ll be when (not IF) these things happen.

Simple, right? Wrong.

What hasn’t been discussed is the true emotional moment when disaster strikes. You know, your “FREAK OUT” moment. And that’s where this last part of this guide comes into play, so you don’t freak out but instead respond appropriately. There are four steps and they are easy to remember.

Relax, Look, Plan, and Execute.

HOW CAN I RELAX WHEN EVERYONE IS LOOKING AT ME?

Mental clarity is the number one weapon in problem-solving during tense situations. And it doesn’t come from freaking out or trying to direct blame. It comes when allowing yourself that moment to take a breath and remember you’re a skilled audio tech and there is a logical solution to the problem.

Some situations, like feedback, can be dealt with so quickly that you jump from Relax to Execute because you recognize the source of the problem immediately and there’s already a plan in place. It could be a gain problem or an EQ problem or, worst-case scenario, the musician is holding the microphone directly in front of a monitor – like when they drop their arms to their side. The more contingency plans in place, the easier it is to relax and the faster the time to execute.

So, start by taking a deep breath. That’s long enough to get some air in your lungs and skip the fight-or-flight stage.

What’s changed? Is a wireless transmitter no longer showing a connection to the microphone? Or, did you accidentally mute a channel? (Been there, done that.) Is a channel no longer showing a signal coming through? Or, is it the opposite? Is a channel peaking and therefore clipping distortion is heard?

Gather enough information from what you hear and see to make a plan. Don’t forget to look at the stage as there are plenty of indicators to what might be the problem, such as a singer holding a wired microphone without a cable running into it - such as if they pulled it from a mic stand when the cable wasn’t fully clipped in.

As a tip, follow the signal from console to stage to determine where the problem could be. If the house sound for all channels is having a problem, check out the amps and work backward from there. This is where that signal flow diagram is helpful.

Audio signals flow all over so when you follow the signal, then you find the possible problem. Note I said, “possible problem.”

It’s just like mixing, if you know a frequency cut needs to be made in the low end, you reach for the low-end EQ to make the changes. That was a plan, albeit a short one. But if you grab the mid-range EQ knob and start moving it around in hopes of making the channel sound better, that’s not a plan at all. That’s the type of stuff people do when they freak out - they try everything without rhyme or reason to what they are doing.

Let’s take a problem I experienced one Christmas. The pastor’s microphone started crackling whenever he’d turn his body just a little.

Note my routine:

1. I took a breath.
2. I checked the LED display for his channel on the mixer - it would jump around when the mic crackled. Next, I confirmed all other channels were muted. Then, I checked the transmitter for a signal. The channel signal and receiver signal were both showing the same problem, a spiking signal every time it cracked, but I also noticed the receiver was losing connection with the wireless microphone.
3. I made a plan that should work with minimal impact to the service. That last point is important and I’ll cover more in a minute.
4. I executed the plan by having a stagehand take out a different microphone to the pastor as it appeared, in my analysis, that the cable to the pastor’s head-worn mic, had worked loose. Maybe the connection lock was broken. Didn’t matter, I’d figure that out later.

This is where uncertainty creeps in. What if the plan doesn’t work? What if it makes it worse?

These are possibilities. However, the more you know the audio system, how everything works together, and the more you think through the plan, the higher the degree of success.

In my Christmas situation, I communicated to the stage manager they needed to take the backup handheld out to the pastor and not to bother with the ear-worn microphone he had on.

As the pastor grabbed the handheld mic, I muted his headset microphone and unmuted the backup. Also, in the moments after I conveyed the plan to the stage manager, I set the backup microphone to have the same channel gain and EQ settings as the pastor’s channel.

What about those times when the first plan doesn’t work? Come up with a new plan and execute that one. You might not have thirty minutes to examine the system for a problem, but you’d be surprised at what can be done in under 30 seconds, sometimes sooner. For those of us who have been doing this long enough, it could easily be under 5 seconds. Regardless, I know it feels like an eternity!

You always need a backup plan. If the first two plans don’t work, the third option has to work. It’s likely not optimal but it will be enough to get through a service. For example, a wireless problem occurs with a microphone so you try another wireless only to find the same problem occurs, so the person gets a wired microphone.

And remember how I mentioned solutions with minimal impact to the service? I’ve had a time when the best option was to do nothing until after the service because the distraction in fixing the problem would have had a far greater impact on the service. For example, when a backing instrument or singer (their mic) stops sending a signal during the last music set. I don’t want to stop the service and there’s no good way to invisibly go on stage and fix the problem.

This is why it helps to have plans for when things fail, not if they fail.

Be proactive by planning for problems and this will decrease the time from Relax to Execute and improve your success rate. A simple fix might only take 3 or 4 seconds from when you notice it until when you fix it. The more difficult problems will take longer. It’s also important to be proactive not only with planning but doing things like performing regular maintenance such as testing cables every month.

It helps to have people within your church and outside of it that you can call or text for help. I’ve experienced a problem or two during a mid-week practice and after walking through every possible solution and coming up empty, I phoned a friend.

Also make sure to make use of the Behind the Mixer Facebook Group. I see people post up problems they have during a service in hopes of getting either immediate help or help in time for their second service.

Your success as a church audio artist directly relates to how much time is spent learning the craft and learning the gear...and planning for worst-case scenarios.

Chris Huff

If you’ve got gear purchases to make for your church, but aren’t sure which gear is right, then check out my guide, Equipping Your Church for Audio. While I hate to generalize, there is some truth to the statement, “don’t trust the guy at thelocal music store.” This guide guarantees you’ll get the equipment that meets your needs and budget while lasting a good long time.

You may be asking yourself, “What does that have to do with music?” If you are the person in the band who was responsible for bringing the crate with all of the cables in it to the gig and you forgot, then you will be very much subject to the painful task of figuring out how to make a gig happen with no cables. That is one of many things that can be described as an “Epic Fail.”

Granted, we are all human, and things just happen sometimes. I have done it; in fact, every musician I have ever known has had an epic fail at one time or another in their career. It is part of the maturation process that just comes with the territory. But if you are really careful and do a few common things, then you can mitigate those epic fails.

This project can be easy or hard depending on your setup, but no matter how big your setup is, making a list of everything you need for a job is a must! Start with all of the big pieces and then make sublists of the pieces that go with them. Learn how to use a spreadsheet program like Excel, and have everything in one place. The more organized you are, the better.

If you are a drummer like me, then you should never leave to go to a gig without extra drumheads and sticks. As a guitar player, always have extra strings, cables, and a tuner, and the same goes for bass players. A keyboard player should always carry an extra sustain pedal like the MAudio SP1 just in case the regular one stops working. A vocalist should always carry a backup microphone. All of these things, you may think, are so easy, but you may be surprised how “easy” it is to forget something in the heat of the moment when trying to get to your gig on time.

If you get a new piece of gear that you can’t wait to show off at your next gig, then make sure you take the time to work out all of the kinks before you get to the gig or session. Breaking out the manual or looking up instructions on your phone while a club owner, your band, or worst of all, an audience waits to hear you play will tank your gig. At the very least, it will set the gig off on a very sour note. Go through everything you can think of that could go wrong on the gig and find the ways to get around each one. This step will save you so much headache and embarrassment. This principle goes for your musicianship too. The gig is most definitely not the place to work out a furious and very polyrhythmic drum fill or guitar/keyboard run. Rehearsal is where you practice, and the gig is where you perform.

Of all things nonmusical, gaffer tape (not duct tape) is one of the most important things to have around. It can fix things like a broken drumhead, and here is how I know now to always keep a roll of gaffer tape around: I was lucky enough to play with the band Tears For Fears for about 15 years. On my very first show in Miami, Florida, about halfway through the set, the beater on my kick pedal went right through the kick drumhead! At that point in my life, I had been playing drums for about 20 years and had never broken a kick drumhead–never ever! You can imagine the horror on my face when I looked down. This was the biggest opportunity I had ever had up to that point in my music career, and on the very first gig, something like that just had to happen. That situation is exactly what the term “trial by fire” means, and that is where the amazing product of gaffer tape came to the rescue. I had about a minute in between songs to put gaffer tape all over the tear in the drumhead and get on with the gig. I was sweating bullets. Thankfully everyone had a laugh about it afterward, the gaffer tape held the drumhead together, I didn’t get fired, and I ended up having a very long run with a big band.

It may be hard to imagine why you’d need a pair of needlenose pliers or a hammer for a music gig, but things happen. “Surely the venue would have some.” It’s easy to think that but the truth is whether anything goes wrong or not, it’s better to follow your mom’s advice: “It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.” A cheap toolkit with a few screwdrivers, hammer, pliers, tape measure, will go a long way toward solving problems easily and potentially save you lots of anguish.

To avoid epic fails, you just need to be diligent and organized. Go over your list, and check everything off as you go. Once you get the hang of it, it will become second nature, and epic fails will be stories told by members of other bands, not you.