Digital Worship?

The future is coming, but is it ready for worship? Are we ready for it?  The topic of digital sound consoles for live sound is nothing new, but as technology increases this issue becomes more and more on the forefront of conversation.

What does it mean for church ministry? It means that we need to keep a close eye on the market, but not jump to it just because it’s new and available.

For years I have been watching the digital explosion of consoles such as the Yamaha 01V, Spirit Digital and others. As church after church have approached me I have slowly shook my head and said, “Not yet”. The controls of a digital console are generally cryptic and hidden in submenu after submenu. The idea of running a traditional console scares the wits out of most people, now you want to add automation and computers into the mix? It just isn’t a smart move for our purposes.

However, recently at the 2004 NAMM show I spoke in depth with a Yamaha representative that took the time to walk me through all the aspects of their new 01V96V2 model. Suddenly, for the first time, my skepticism began to fade.

Am I saying go out and buy one?  No. But I am saying that maybe it’s getting a little closer to a reality for live mixing. Here are my concerns and hopes for digital mixing:

Digital mixing has it’s charm - you can set up preferences, lock users out of certain areas, create defaults that can be reloaded once altered, you assign virtually unlimited amount of compression, effects, an limiting to channels.  You interface the consoles with digital recorders for superb sound and control.  But there are drawbacks.  Some of these drawbacks have been considered in the new designs, and some haven’t.

First, there is this thought that everyone wants a digital console to be small.  I find this annoying.  I don’t want to scroll through pages of faders to get to channel 32 - I want to reach over and grab fader 32 and pull it up - I don’t care if the board is 8’ long. I want to be able to look at my mix - all at once - and have an idea of what channels are open.  If channel 52 starts to feedback, I don’t need the extra panic of hitting “PAGE” one or twice, then figuring which fader is 52, then trying to find the EQ or aux that is offending me through a series of on screen menus.  I want to reach over to channel 52 and start tweaking any knob I can get my hands on to fix the problem.  With digital consoles, the answer to real estate is pages and menus.  Virtual knobs for real ones or a series of knobs that control whatever menu is up -- a softknob is you will.  It’s just too much.

Second, when you are actively mixing a live show, typically both hands are already in use.  Whether you are handling multiple faders, readjusting an Aux or EQ, or fixing something in the rack - both hands are commonly used.  Inject now the reality of needing hand number two to cycle through pages to find what you need on top of all of this. It’s just not practical.

Third - computers fail.  They crash. Screens go out.  Then what?  Analog boards don’t typically do this. Either a channel dies, or the whole thing goes belly up, but another board inserted in place the show goes on - with digital, it’s not quite that easy. All of your parameters are gone, effects are not patched -- can you find the same exact board?  If so, then a simple reload solves the problem. If not --  I’m glad it’s you and not me.

Finally, I think it’s just too much to throw at the volunteer sound operator in the average church.

Now, Yamaha makes a good argument for the use of digital boards in worship - and I think there is credence to it. They argue that the venue can be setup, all options locked out, and the end user has control of volume, EQ, and if you like, the Auxes. Now that person is dealing with nothing but volume and tone.  Now this is a good argument.  Take the complexity away and force simplicity.  It is teachable, it is workable.  And with today’s upcoming engineers who were brought up on Nintendo and Playstation2, they are already used to this type of interface.  It’s not as freaky as it might be to your 30+ year old sound engineer. 

In conclusion - do I think digital is ready for front of house worship stations? By and large - No.  Do I think it’ll be there one day?  Yes.  It is the wave of the future. It is the direction the market is taking.  Given a choice, in a typical church setting, I would still put an analog console in the system all day long.  But I will keep any eye on the market, because something tells me the future will be here sooner than many of us think.

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