Speaker Amps:
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 mismatched 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.”
4. When batteries die
(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 easilyidentifiable reason, a full-charged battery dies after 30 minutes of use—yes, I’ve had this happen.
Keep spares.
5. When you run out of mics or cables
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.
6. When there’s a power outage
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.
The Two Things You Must Have
You can have all the backup plans in the world but they’ll fail without two things.
1. Confidence
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.
2. A plan with the pastor
I’ve heard pastors 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.
