Building Your Church Broadcast Mix

In live sound, we can just turn up the bass and drums, layer everything else, put the vocal on top, and call it a day. If it feels good, it is good. But for our broadcast mix, it gets a little trickier than that. We've got to worry about digital headroom and worry about how it sounds on other devices. I mean, nobody else really cares how awesome your studio monitors are. In today's post, I'm going to talk to you about two different methods for starting your mix from scratch and some other things to consider when setting up the level of your mix.

Hey! If you're new here, my name is James and I help worship leaders and sound techs help eliminate the mystery and frustration around sound at church so that you can have a great meeting without having to think about the sound system.

Two Ways to Approach Broadcast Mixing

A lot of times when we're putting together a mix, we'll make the most room for the things that we push up first, and we'll put the things that we push up last on top. So here are two methods that work for a whole lot of different studio mixers that might help you get dialed in this week.

The two basic methods for how we layer our mix are from the bottom up or the top down. The bottom up style starts with kick, bass, and vocals, and gets those locked into their relationship. Then, everything else can be related to the balance of those three inputs. When you push up the snare, the toms, and the overheads, you've got that kick drum as a reference. When you push up the guitars and the keyboards, you've got the vocals and the bass to relate that to. Anytime you start to lose those three critical elements, you know that it's time to pull something else down rather than pushing that element up because you've got it balanced in the first place. It's your point of reference. Doing it this way and avoiding the solo button can also help you EQ things in context. For instance, if you push out the electric guitars, you're more likely to roll up the high pass filter a lot higher if your bass is already big and full.

The other method is to start at the top and work your way down. Push up the vocal and a primary instrument, and get that vocal sounding big and natural. The primary instrument gives you some context for the vocal because if you're mixing in a quiet, isolated space, you really don't know what the rest of the band is doing yet. After you've got your vocal and this primary instrument up, then you can start layering your other midrange instruments until they're feeling well-balanced and full, giving a pocket for the vocals. Remember, our vocal is still the most important thing in our mix. After those are dialed in, then you add the bass and the drums. Stay until the end of this post for a couple of examples of how to mix from the bottom up and from the top down.

Output Level - Fight to Get Above the Noise

Now let's talk about mix output levels because we don't want to have to crank up the gain after the fact, or pull everything down because we've mixed too hot in the first place. One thing that can make it a bit tricky is digital consoles that have their meters set up more like analog consoles. And I get it, in live sound, you want to leave plenty of headroom. But when we're mixing for broadcast, we're trying to get right up to the edge of what we can output without clipping, but not go over. If this is what you have to work with, keep a close eye on the audio meter of your video switcher. Basically, what you're trying to aim for is -6 to -12 dBFS. If you've got a really well-compressed mix, (I talk about tips for that in this video HERE) then you should have no problems if you hit -6 to -12 dBFS on your video encoder. We don't have to get all the way up to right next to digital clipping, especially if we've got a good RMS-to-peak level on our mix. (Check out that video if you don't know what I mean.)

Now one old-school way to get enough headroom on your mix when you're just starting out is to use a VU meter. If you're mixing in a digital audio workstation, or a DAW, you can aim for about -10 to -7 when you push up your bass or your vocal on the VU meter, whichever one you start with. Then, as you layer everything else in, you should still have a good amount of headroom as you build your mix. If you don't have that and you're just kind of winging it, it can be a really good idea to have a VCA or a DCA assigned to all your input channels or all your group buses. (Or both, but that's another topic for another day.) This can help you push everything up if you started too quiet, or pull everything down if you start a little too hot.

Mix for Feel with Your Studio Monitors

These methods are really great if you've got the time, but if you have to get a mix up faster than I can say yes to another donut, another method is to get a good feel for your studio monitors, and here's what I mean: If you get the level of your studio monitors set right, you can just mix for how it feels right there and keep an eye on the output level. This way you can get a mix up and fast, just like you do when you're mixing live, except you get to fine-tune the output level with a reciprocal relationship of your monitor controller. Sorry…I should pull back the nerd fader. Basically, if you feel like you have to push everything up in order to hear it well enough, but you're almost clipping, that just means you need to turn up your studio monitors. On the flip side, if everything feels really loud, but your output level is low, turn down your monitors and push up your faders just a little bit more. This is really helpful when you're mixing on the fly and getting things dialed in. After a little while, you'll find that sweet spot where you can just mix for feel and know that it's going to be a good level going out.

One Final Broadcast Mix Tip and a Video Demonstration

I'll leave you with one more tip before we go. When you're first getting your mix set up, start with the mono button in on your monitor controller or just leave everything pinned to the center. This is going to force you to EQ things so that each one has its own space, even if later you're going to pan it. That way, you know everything is going to fit well together, even if someone else is listening on a mono source. Plus, it makes dialing the vocal pocket a little bit easier too. Remember, when we're checking our vocal level in mono we want the vocal to be just out in front, in stereo, we want the vocal to be just tucked in the back of the mix.

Now let's listen to some examples of the bottom-up mixing method versus the top-down approach!

So, which method are you going to try this week? If you like this post and you're going to put them into practice, go ahead and check out my other posts on creating a great mix for your church HERE.

Remember: it’s all about the low end, avoid the sound tech solo, and nobody leaves church humming the kick drum.