What does the best sounding church for worship sound like?
Is it possible to have the best balance for speech, music and congregational singing?
Does the quality of the acoustics and sound system at your church honor God or Man?
The battle for a person’s soul is a constant war on many levels. The people involved are ministers, preachers, scholars, experts, archeologists, historians, prayer warriors, educators, and ordinary Christian people who provide different ways of bringing the message of salvation through Jesus Christ. The tools we have are Bibles, books, reading materials, colleges, universities, missions, donations, churches, multimedia, sound systems, and more.
Christians are taught in the sufficiency of scriptures. Many believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God and never question it. Some of the knowledge in the Bible is still teaching us today. It is only now that we are learning how relevant it is for all Christians and Jews.
Since the beginning of when Jews, and later Christians, started to build larger spaces for teaching and worship, most projects would run into common problems. These problems have been like a plague for Synagogues and Churches alike. The solutions to those issues seem elusive or beyond reach and yet the remedies to most of those issues have always been in the Bible.
What costs more? Or, what will give you the most bang for the buck? Did you know that for less than the cost of a fully enclosed drum booth, you can fix all of the acoustical issues of a typical sanctuary and not need a drum booth?
Here is a typical drum booth churches are buying. This booth retails for $4,300.00 and is often on sale for $3,000.00 plus shipping.
Here are all of the sound problems the drum booth solved. Keeps the drums out of the mix, and the people in the front of the church have less noise from the drum kit. The downside to all of this is that often, the drummer plays louder, which leads to many getting tennis elbow. Plus, hearing damage often occurs. There is one extra cost to include. Often drummers need headsets or floor monitors to hear everyone else on stage. What is often overlooked is that churches should have the drummer sign a liability waiver that the drummer will not sue the church for premature hearing loss and permanent damage to their arms due to tennis elbow. Drummers often have to play louder in order to hear themselves inside a drum booth or shield.
Here is an example of a modest church that decided to fix the worship space instead of getting a drum shield or booth. The material costs, including the paint, were $1,000.00. Three people over 3 Saturdays completed the installation. If you look carefully at the photo below, six months later, there is no drum booth around the drummer. They don’t need one anymore.
The following is a list of the planned sound issues solved:
No more standing waves
No more deadspots or hotspots
Eliminate flutter echoes often heard off the back walls on stage.
No more excessive bass
Bonus fixes included and no extra cost:
Better speech intelligibility
Increases the signal-to-noise ratio to 21dB throughout the room
Most of the floor monitor spill was gone
Less sound system distortion
No more bass distortion
Equalized the room to remove excess energy at 400 Hertz -20dB
Went from 18 inches to 38 inches of before feedback,
The room is +/- 1.5dB throughout the room
Makes the room easier for the musicians to perform
Improved sound for people with hearing aids
Before, about 15% of the congregation was singing, now it’s around 60% after 4 months
The sound team is having an easier time mixing.
No drum shield of any kind
Drummers are playing quieter without being asked to.
The drummer can hear everyone on stage with minimum floor monitor support
The pastor is less fatigued after preaching
No more sound complaints if the sound is too loud
The sound system sounds so much better
The bass from the sound system is much more dynamic
The bass from the bass guitar is cleaner and not overpowering any of the other instruments
These are all of the comments various church members, musicians, and the sound team shared after the first 4 months of the acoustical changes. All they were hoping for was less bass drowning out everyone on stage, eliminating hotspots and deadspots in the audience area and on stage, and stopping the loud reflections off the back wall affecting the musicians and the pastor when preaching. The diffusers gave them 23 improvements instead of just three of them. No other custom or “off the shelf” acoustical system can do all of that in one step unless you have unlimited cash at 30 times the cost.
Drum Shield or Fixing a worship space. For the cost of a drum booth, you can fix up a church seating to 800 with some sweat equity and not need a drum booth and all the supporting technology.
Diffusers are amazing tools when used properly in a church. They solve a variety of problems in one step. Nothing performs better.
One question that is often asked, can you turn the diffusers sideways? This is a great question, and the answer is based on our anatomy. As humans, our ears are on the side of our heads. This means we get our sound information for direction and clarity of speech on the horizontal plane or side to side. The time difference between our ears give us directional info to identify where a sound is coming from, and for speech, it helps us to focus on someone talking to us.
For diffusers to work correctly and to solve multiple problems in one step, their orientation is critical. When applied vertically, the diffusers can solve between 10 – 29 acoustical issues in one step. No other acoustical system can do this.
The problems solved or reduced are:
standing waves
deadspots
hotspots
eliminate echoes
eliminate flutter echoes
bass build-up,
speech intelligibility,
increases the signal to noise ratio up to 25dB throughout the room
eliminate or less floor monitor spill,
less sound system distortion
less bass distortion
helps to equalize the bass and mid frequencies
gain before feedback,
even distribution of sound,
elimination of delayed speakers in most cases,
better stereo imaging for stereo sounds (when the right equipment is used)
higher attention span,
makes the room easier for the musicians to perform
improved sound for people with hearing aids
better congregational singing
easier for the sound-person to get an excellent mix
it can reduce or eliminate the need for drum shields or both
makes the room less fatiguing for the minister to preach
fewer to no complaints if the sound system is louder
improves the sonic quality of the sound system
can add up to an octave of clear bass from the sound system
better bass from musical instruments both acoustic and amplified
it helps to make the room more relaxing to hear speech and music.
lowers the sound levels from HVAC systems
If your church has a pipe organ, you will want to know this. One of the most interesting characteristics we have learned with using this method is that for some churches that want to maintain a longer reverberation time, plus have all of the benefits of better speech quality, the half-round tubes can increase speech intelligibility without changing the reverberation time. No other acoustical system can do that. For churches that have a pipe or electronic organ and want better speech quality, this method allows a church to balance the need for music and speech.
When diffusers are installed horizontally, the list of benefits is much shorter.
standing waves,
bass build-up,
Helps to equalize the bass and mid frequencies
It can add up to an octave of clear bass from the sound system and musical instruments.
Can only reduce echoes, not eliminate them
There is more to these differences. Because we have ears on the sides of our heads, the rate of control is exponential when the diffusers are mounted vertically. One of the principals of how these diffusers work is by phase cancellation, which is the same technique as in noise-canceling headsets. The more random the sounds are scattered, the more the overall energy is canceled from the physics principle of phase cancellation. As a result, when mounted vertically, the diffusers can get up to 40dB of energy reductions or absorption by air friction. When you mount the diffusers horizontally, you will only get about 10dB of the overall reduction.
The reason horizontally mounted tubes are less effective is because you are creating large reflective surfaces on the horizontal plane that reflects enough energy back into the room, which it is adding noise back to the listener that in turn, reduces the signal to noise ratio. This cancels almost all of the benefits of using half round diffusers horizontally.
Here is a simple experiment you can do yourself. Find a round container that is at least 7 to 8 inches round. You can every use a large cooking pot, planter, or roll up some cardboard. Now say a bunch of words into the side of the container vertically. After talking for about 15 seconds, turn the container sideways, and talk for another 15 seconds.
What just happened? Like most people, they notice that when the container was horizontal or sideways, there is a distinct reflection. When you turn the container vertically, the reflection goes away.
This simple experiment demonstrates how powerful the half-round shape is. In the vertical position, when the half rounds are placed on a wall in groups, you can adjust the spacing between the tubes to determine how much reflection you want, plus shape and equalize the sound at the same time. This is a compelling way to manage church sound once you understand how effective and simple this system works.
Just as a reminder, for all churches, you have to have a balance between absorption and reflection. The half-round tubes are not always a one and done solution. It has to be part of an integrated system. Typically, for most churches, if you have carpeted floors and padded seating, that is often all the absorption needed. If your church doesn’t have carpet and padded seating, then you will have to add enough absorption to the walls to match what would be on the floor. That is a narrow window to get it just right.
For churches that play their music loud, some people wait in the foyer until the sermon starts or they wear hearing protection during the music portion of the worship service. With the half round system, it allows the sound system to perform 10 to 20dB louder with fewer people needing hearing protection. People turn to hearing protection when there is too much distortion in the sound. A distorted sound is irritating and painful to many. People turn to hearing protection, even when the sound levels are well below 85dBa. When a room is diffused properly with half rounds, it reduces or eliminates bass and mid-range distortion. With distortion out of the way, the sound at 85dBa becomes pleasant and easy to listen to. That pleasantness remains constant over 100dBc. Consider this – in a church with this kind of acoustical system with the right room shape and height, it is common for un-amplified congregational singing to be around 100dBc. When that happens almost no one complains. Why? Because there is no distortion. Half-round diffusers prevent distortion. This transforms any worship space into a music-friendly space at any sound level.
Church acoustics and amplified sound play a significant roll in the health of a church. When sound is good, it helps to grow the congregation. When sound is bad, it gets in the way of providing a clear message, that leads to less attendance which means fewer people tithing. In the end, there is nothing more important than preaching the Gospel in the best clarity possible.
To ultimately answer the question of Aesthetics vs performance, the smart answer is this. When an acoustical system works, people don’t mind how it looks. If anything, they grow to like it. When other acoustical systems are used, they often fall short on the expected and promised performance. As a result, those systems become more like wall furniture and in some cases, artwork. This drives up the cost of those systems. Here is the truth most experts and salespeople will never share or admit. To get the equivalent performance of the half-round tubes as a Do It Yourself project compared to ready-made products, the cost difference is 35 to 1. A church that fixes their acoustics with cardboard tubes as a DIY including paint and hardware for a 400 seat church may spend $2,000.00 installed. A ready-made system of equal performance will cost a minimum of 75,000.00 installed. That is equal to fixing 35 churches of the same size. Even if the same church buys custom made half-round diffusers, they may spend $20,000. When compared to other acoustical system costs, that is enough money to fix 3 churches.
There is something to be said about how people react to anything put on the walls. When people see cloth-covered panels, there is an expectation of good sound. When that doesn’t happen, people often resign to the notion that the problem is too complicated and too expensive to be properly fixed or that the problem is impossible to fix. Most people just put up with the problem and accept it as normal and don’t bother with complaining. That is a lie created by bad information and myths that keep churches from getting the sound they deserve. Sound excellence is a necessity, not an option.
When an acoustical system works, people don’t mind how it looks. When it doesn’t work as promised, it has to look amazing. Do you want a church that looks good and has fewer people attending or a church that is full all the time regardless of how it looks?
Hotspots and Deadspots are sound effects most often created by unmanaged room reflections that are out of synchronization with direct sounds from a pulpit or preaching position, and made worse when the wrong sound system design is used.
In case you don’t know this, sound systems cannot eliminate deadspots if it is created by the room in the first place. Adding more speakers will degrade the overall performance of the sound system, including making other areas of the worship space harder to hear clear sound.
Sound system design has nothing to do with the equipment you use. It is about the location of speakers used to broadcast into a room and the interaction of the room with the speaker system design. It doesn’t matter if you are using line arrays or point-and-shoot speakers. If speakers are placed in the wrong position, both systems will have the same limitations. It is all about cause and effect. A sound engineer needs detailed knowledge, experience, and wisdom in understanding room acoustics or when to know enough to ask help from an acoustician to understand when to use which system. Did you know that the room will tell you where the best places are to put speakers?
The room will tell you when to use one of the following techniques:
Distributed Sound System
Central Cluster or single speaker system
Left Center Right system or cluster
Left Right System
Live Stereo Hybrid System
Hybrid Distributed Sound System
The geometry, reverberation, surface materials, acoustical management system, and room volume must be accounted for before creating a sound system design profile. After all of this is done, you can start to determine the size of the sound system needed.
If you think you need to do some acoustic treatment or the church has already been treated, it should not be using the spot treatment method, which means placing a few panels on a wall or two. Adding something to one wall or any part of a wall affects the whole room. This also includes the placement of screens, lighting, and other items related to multimedia. Even room renovations change how a room sounds. It is all about cause and effect. The acoustics of a church must use a planned system that treats the whole room.
A spot fix is when enough panels are added to solve one problem. When there is a problem in acoustics, there are always other glitches that mask other difficulties that you can’t hear and often are not shown in acoustical measurements. Here is an example: Placing sound absorbers on a balcony’s front face will eliminate an echo. However, the added absorption often strengthens the mids and bass, making speech and music sound muddier. This then requires adding expensive bass traps. While you can use aggressive equalization to improve the sound system for speech, you will need a different equalization for music. While these efforts can somewhat help with amplified sound, as long as someone remembers to switch the EQ settings, the congregational singing is degraded until bass traps are added. Add the bass traps. It is all about cause and effect.
However, you may have noticed that after treating the front face of the balcony and adding the bass traps, there is now a softer echo off the back wall, or the reflections off the side walls are much worse depending on the shape of the room. Reflections off the side walls are detected when clapping from the front of the center stage. Those reflections from the sides or back interfere with speech and music intelligibility. It is all about cause and effect. Change the EQ of the sound system. Helps with speech but doesn’t help with music at all. Despite changes to the sound system, speech is worse in the back half of the room. Add speakers to the back half of the room. It helps people with good hearing and doesn’t help with hearing aids. Add a delay to the speakers. People with hearing aids do better, but they are still not happy because someone is sitting in their spot where they know the sound is better.
If you apply something to the sidewalls, the echo off the back wall becomes much more pronounced and interferes with hearing on stage. Switch to in-ear monitors. It’s all about cause and effect.
Now the drums are too loud. Add panels to the stage or get a drum shield that costs more than fixing all of the acoustical problems in one step. With the drum shield, the drummer plays louder because they can’t hear themselves properly. The insides of the drum enclosures are easily overloaded, making it harder for the drummer to hear all the different drums and cymbals. After additional dampening to the drums, the drummer played even louder, getting elbow and wrist injuries. Sound is still bleeding through the shield, even after adding a roof to it. Some churches have turned the drum shield into a self-contained room with air-conditioning as a permanent fixture on the stage. It is all about cause and effect.
For the time being, congregational singing has become a chore for most, resulting in less than 20% of the audience singing. To get people singing again, you pay singers and musicians to lead the worship and keep the talent sticking with the music entertainment program. This helps for a while, and before long, you are back to less than 20% of the audience singing. Bring in larger screens, add lighting effects, and use lighting to help create a mode to encourage people to sing. Again, this helps for a while, but participation drops back to 20%. These objects change the acoustics of the room, and everyone just puts up with the sound degradation. It’s all about cause and effect.
In the meantime, the sound system has been replaced, and church attendance is up, but fewer people come to prayer meetings or Bible studies. Turn to home groups. At first, home groups bring in more people, but as the church continues to grow, more people are slipping through the system and are not included in the home groups or any spiritual support. Fewer people are growing as there is no alternative for mid-week meetings at the church. The preaching is dynamic; the entertainment is awesome, fewer people are actively involved in the church, and more people become adherents with no real motivation to join, become members, and learn more about their faith. The church is full of Sunday worshipers unable to defend the Gospel, but they know and sing the choruses sung by the church all the time. It is about being part of something free of guilt, responsibility, and not knowing what salvation is. It’s all about cause and effect.
Wait a minute, what does any of this have to do with acoustics and sound system? The sound system is just equipment and technology. The room is just a set of walls, floor, and ceiling. When empty, they do nothing. When energized with sound, an immediate cause and effect impact every part of the worship service. Sound affects how people react to events in a church. Consider how people respond to movies at a theatre. When the sound is excellent, the audience will tell you how good the picture looks. When the sound is poor, people don’t come back. How much more does that impact a church? Again, it’s all about cause and effect.
Next, check the acoustical condition of your church. Have your church properly tested for all aspects of worship, not just the sound system and hardware performance. Test for congregational singing. Test for audience participation for prayer and testimonies from the seating area of your church. Check for the signal-to-noise ratio on the stage and in the audience. Check the frequency response of the room and ignore the reverberation time if there is more than a 20dB difference in the response of the worship space. If your worship space passes, then you don’t need any help. Your sound system is already working perfectly. If you have any concerns or want better performance from your sound system, fix the room. It’s all about cause and effect.
After upgrading the sound system and worship space, start mid-week Bible Studies at the church. The congregation will become stronger and healthier if people come to the church mid-week. Congratulations, you have just upgraded your church’s sound to meet all a congregation’s needs.
The story you have just read happens in many churches. It is based on the testimonies of hundreds of churches around the world. If this doesn’t sound like your church, have your worship space tested anyway if it hasn’t ever been properly tested. The results can be a surprise or a blessing.
The Bible has a lot to say about how a modern church should be designed. Solomon’s Temple was not just a house for God to dwell in, it was also meant to be a tool to help preach and spread the Gospel in the present.
After reading this article, please pass it on and make comments below.
This article is the most comprehensive study of King Solomon’s Temple I have ever written. If you believe John 1:3, then you know who really designed Solomon’s Temple. King David only penned the details of the new temple. King David told his son Solomon that it was the hand of God that guided his hand. What was so important for God to design the temple rather than letting a man design in with whatever came into his thought?
This article gives a stronger case for what the “Inspired Word of God” means.
Winning people to Christ is not a game or something given to chance. We need all the tools possible to have an impact on this world. Jesus is Lord, and if your church is dedicated to God, Jesus is Lord over your church building too.
With all of our churches closed, many have turned to YouTube or live-streaming of church messages. After listening to many of them, there is a sound quality issue I want to bring up. Many of the videos I have seen and heard, sound like there were recorded in a cave – a bad room. If you are limited in the quality of the room, perhaps you can use cardboard tubes to get the best sound quality out of your message. Adding carpet on the floor will quiet the room down, but often it makes the room bassy sounding. To balance that out, add the tubes on all the walls, as shown in the photo below.
You don’t have to be as fancy as this, but getting the best clarity in your voice is important in communicating such an important message online.
This is the most effective to make the space you are working in to have a sound quality that most people are accustomed to hearing every day. If you are like me, when the sound on my favorite shows is of poor quality, I switch to something else in the first 30 seconds. Good sound is more important than a good picture.
Late last year, Kevin Young, freelance music and tech writer, professional musician, and composer ask to write up a profile article on JdB Sound Acoustics. After several interviews, he submitting the article to Church Sound Magazine which is part of Pro Sound Web. Pro Sound Web has published a number of my projects over the years and they are a great resource for churches for all things about church sound, lighting, and AV.
Welcome to the world of Church Acoustics 