Why digital mixers are easier on volunteers
If you are familiar with analog audio mixers, you might be intimidated by the idea of a digital mixer. More than once, I’ve worked with churches who are reluctant to replace an analog mixer with a digital one because they think it will be harder to use. Now, there are many reasons to avoid an upgrade, including budget, an assessment of what your church’s priorities are, etc.
But let me be clear: digital mixers are easier on your less trained volunteers. When I refer to your less trained volunteers, I’m distinguishing between two types of volunteers most churches have. Most churches have one or two people who understand how your A/V equipment works more deeply than the other volunteers. Then you have a few more volunteers who clearly understand the equipment less well. This latter group of volunteers, those who are helpful volunteers but less trained, are the focus of this blog post.
Let me explain why.
Reason 1: A Simplified Interface
A (well-designed) digital mixer has a simpler interface for untrained volunteers. At first, you may notice lots of knobs and a touch-screen. That seems overwhelming, right? But because of the way a (well-designed) digital mixer is organized, most of your volunteers can ignore almost all of that. They really can focus on just the faders and mute switches, because everything else is organized ahead of time.
This point might be much easier to see in practice. See the video attached here, especially the section labelled “A Simplified Interface.”
That is, the sense of being overwhelmed by rows and rows of knobs, which are easy to bump? That is dramatically reduced, after a 2-minute orientation to the digital mixer.
Reason 2: Restore Saved Settings
Have you ever experienced this scenario? One Sunday morning, it seems like everything is wrong. You’re getting more feedback than expected, and nothing works right. It seems like someone must have touched something…but you just can’t figure out what happened. In many churches, this happens repeatedly through the year. “Why doesn’t this work the way it usually does?”
With a digital mixer, this problem has an easy solution: you restore saved settings.
In practice, every few weeks, on Sundays when things go well, you’ll save a “scene.” (That’s Allen & Heath’s language for saved settings, and they make the best designed digital mixers today). Then, a few weeks later, when everything seems to go wrong, you’ll just say “you know what? Something’s wrong, and I don’t know what it is. I’m going back to settings that I know worked.” And you recall the “scene” from a few weeks ago.
Boom. Everything suddenly works as expected.
Check out the video to see this in action, at the section labelled “Restoring Saved Settings.”
Reason 3: Extra tools
The third major reason a digital mixer is easier on volunteers is precisely all those extra tools. On a digital mixer, you have far more tools available on every single input than with an analog mixer. Each microphone, each guitar, each lectern has a compressor, limiter, noise gate, and more robust EQ. These extra tools add up to a much easier sound system to manage.
Now, you might be thinking “Aha! So how do my volunteers manage all of that extra complexity?”
The answer is, “they don’t.” You set that stuff up ahead of time. If Capital Hope Media installs your mixer, we configure that stuff for you.
Then your volunteers ignore it. They forget it exists. And that’s easy on well-designed mixers like the Allen & Heath QU-5.
Reason 4: User Accounts
Finally, a well-designed digital mixer has User Accounts. So you can have an Administrator account (with a password) that can do anything. But your mixer defaults to a “Volunteer” user account which can only do certain things. You can actually prevent volunteers from adjusting stuff, restricting them to only affecting the things they should focus on.
So they can change the volume on things, but they can’t change the compressor. They can’t modify the routing.
It invites users to let things be simple.
CONCLUSION
At Capital Hope Media, we understand that most churches depend on a team of volunteers who only sort of understand their tech gear. We focus on ways to help volunteers like that grow, but also to succeed where they are. We know dozens of ways to reduce the mental stress on your volunteer team. A Digital Mixer is one of the best ways to do that.
If we can help your church reflect on A/V equipment, reach out to us! We love to help.
