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Volume Levels for Worship

Everyone has an opinion about how loud worship should be at church.

Who’s right? How do you know what the best level is for your church?

The answer depends on several key variables. In this post we’ll address Safety, Music Styles, Acoustics, Volume Targets, and Mixing Techniques. Each of these things will have an impact on your worship volume.

Before sound techs and pastors can arrive at a solution for the worship volume level at church, it is important to cover some basic insights for acceptable and unacceptable volume ranges.

Volume Levels and Hearing

We measure volume in decibels, A-weighted (dBA). Zero dBA is, in theory, the lowest level of sound a human can hear. 140 dBA is an extreme level that results in pain. The...

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Compressor Settings for Church Sound

Compression is a great tool that can tighten up your mix and enhance the punch or power of certain instruments. But it can also cause some serious problems if you’re not careful.

An audio compressor is used to control the dynamic range of an audio signal, or the difference between the highest and lowest volume level.

Controlling the dynamic range can help you create a more stable sounding mix (especially when it comes to the pastor’s mic), and you’ll be able to dial in the sweet spot for certain instruments (like the kick drum).

But using the audio compressor on a digital console or a separate analog compressor can be intimidating – even if you've used one before!

It doesn't have to be super complicated. And it...

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How to Make Your Pastor Sound Great

If there is one thing you have to have right to get great sound at church it is this one thing:

Great sound from the pastor's microphone.

Unfortunately a lot of churches struggle every week to get the sound they want from their pastor and teacher.

What a travesty! If there is anything a church sound system is designed to do, it is to provide clear and accurate transmission of the spoken word. All other needs and priorities take a back seat to this one critical requirement.

We’ve probably all experienced this problem at some point.

What does it sound like?

First we need to discuss the simple yet important sound qualities we’re looking for when it comes to clear delivery of the spoken word.

Sound from the pastor or...

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