Welcome,

I imaging you’re here because you need help with your church sound.  Not sure if you need a new sound system or if the room is limiting the performance of your sound system?  Or is the problem with the drums or the monitor mix on stage?  Say, what is the congregational singing like?  Is 85% of the congregation singing and singing full-out or is it more like 20% or fewer people singing?  Need help with finding the right answers?  I love teaching and many say I present things like a good salesman.  Either way, I like helping churches with these problems and perhaps I can help you either with what I teach on my websites or with direct contact.  Let’s get started.

I’ve been working with churches exclusively for over 33 years.  What got me started was when I was sitting in church where the sound was awful and I asked myself,  “How can a church fulfill the Great Commission if people in the audience can’t understand the person preaching the Gospel?  Every church is entitled to good sound, isn’t it?  Isn’t anyone going to do something about this?  Why is the church community accepting poor sound?  Is it the sound system, the acoustics or both?” Since I wasn’t getting any answers, I thought that I could do something about it.  That was over 1200 churches ago.  After all this time there hasn’t been a sound system that I made better or a room I couldn’t fix or both.

Church sound is about science and not just any science.  Churches have their own requirements for the right physics and sciences to get consistent and predictable results. Techniques that are used in Concert Halls and Recording Studios don’t apply to churches and what works in churches doesn’t apply to the others.  Churches are unique regardless if they are in a purposes built worship space, in a traditional worship space or a converted commercial space.  As long as there is congregational singing in a church service, it will need its own set of science to have a successful space.

So what about praise and worship teams that replaced the choir?  Guess what, the same acoustical problems that drove the choir out of most churches are the same problems the praise and worship teams have today.  The sad part is, there are too many people out there thinking that if you buy enough technology, the acoustical problems will go away!  What most people forget is that sound system are still “Sound Reinforcement Systems.” Which means, sound system reinforce everything including all the acoustical faults of a room.  Or to put it another way, sound systems are like a magnifying glass.  It makes everything bigger.  If the space has acoustical problems, the sound system will show you the faults when equalizing is not enough.  If you are a trained listener like me, the better the sound system, the more the sound system will revel the faults of the room.

Often the blame is put on the sound system and the sound system designers.  This has resulting in an unexpected turn of events.  Some high-end and high-priced and high profiled churches have sound systems are purposely designed to a lesser quality to mask the room problems and because of the high price tags of these sound systems, the public is being asked to accept mediocre sound which they claim is the best that they can do – which is a true statement.  To make things worse, many churches are dumping very good sound systems and coping these compromised high end sound systems which leaves them with added frustration – hoping that the next wave of new technology will end the cycle of endless upgrades.  Sadly if only as little as 20% of the sound system budget were to be put towards acoustics, the outcome would be nothing less than spectacular.  Why don’t they change the room which is the easiest thing to do if you have the right science which is available and not just from me?

For new churches, architects generally don’t like what I do because I often get the last say on the Aesthetics of the room.  All acoustical fixes, whether it my design or something else will change the look of the sanctuary.  Some “acoustical fixes” are not real fixes but a trade-off of one set of problems for another.  Those fixes have to look great because they are expensive, so instead of changing the room for the better, the church has installed furniture on the walls.   When some churches look at my recommendations, some just roll their eye wondering if anyone will forgive them for making such a poor look choice.  Then something amazing happens.  People like the sound of the fixed room so much that they start to see how good-looking those picket fence diffuser really are.

My job is to find you the best acoustical solutions first.  Then let each church decide their own budgets, their expressive creativity and aesthetics.  Some projects look better than others and other projects look amazing.  In new churches you can almost make the acoustics seem invisible.  In existing churches, the performance is always excellent no matter how it looks.   For those churches where the acoustical fixes don’t look that great, the aesthetics can be forgiven because those churches are really experiencing an enhance time of worship as never before.  All I am offering here is the best acoustical fix at any price.  The rest is up to you.

Blessing to all,

Joseph De Buglio
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