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This month I'm going to see where our focus is, how to get, and why we need it. As engineers or the person doing the engineering from stage, if we don't know why we are doing what we're doing, then there's no reason to do it and the chances are you won't have much fun doing it.

As audio engineers in the Southern Gospel industry or any Christian music industry for that matter, we have a common goal and an eternal responsibility. Though the focus for our listeners is often on the vocalists and instrumentalists on stage, the way we mix or prepare for the evening can determine if that's where it stops or if they see and/or feel the Holy Spirit through the musical presentation.

Preparing for an evening of mixing includes mental and spiritual things I like to do. I could have what my ears are telling is my worst night of mixing in my life, but for some reason everybody thought it was great. So what happened? Well, I can only attribute that night and every other night to God. I believe God can take stuff that doesn't seem right to us and make it seem incredible to someone else.

Besides the customary double and triple checking all of my patches, amps, etc., I like to pray that God will guide my hands to mix the way that is needed for His message to be presented clearly to everyone who shows up. I also pray that He will keep my ears open, and to keep them from getting fatigued. I also say a little prayer before sound check to be with me and guide me to adjust correctly and to let all of the equipment to work properly. I pray that He'll show me what to do, just like we all should with any job.

I believe God will honor that, and if I keep my walk right with Him then He will anoint the sound that comes from my mixes, even if I don't like the way it's sounding. God will use it to get to somebody in the audience.

See, our job is to mix the vocals, music, instruments, etc so that God's message comes across clearly and with power and excitement. This is why there is such a fine line with volume debates. If it's too soft, the "power" of the message in the music is lost. Now don't jump on the keyboard and start telling me that God' message is powerful enough on its own. You're right, it is. But if that was enough to reach people, these groups wouldn't be out here singing these great up beat songs and big huge power ballads. They would be whispering Bible verses in everybody's ears. Music can stir people some times when nothing else can. Now, if it's too loud, the message can be lost as well. Or as often times with groups without audio engineers, words are understood during group singing, but solos are often lost. My point is, that every word should be understood. Now room acoustics and other factors sometimes make this very difficult. As a fan, you should remember that we are not purposely making it sound bad. Quality varies from opinion to opinion.

Just remember, God cares how His message is conveyed. However, I don't think He would worry as much about how loud it is or isn't or if there's too much bass, as much as He cares about our attitudes toward one another and the actual content of the message.

So what's it all about? The message. If everything else sounds horrible and it's way too loud and the lady on the 5th row has a whole bag of cotton in her ears and folks are breathing down your neck about it, ask them what the message was. Chances are they don't know. Chances are they were so busy worrying about the sound they missed it and probably bothered everyone else around them talking about how bad it is. All of a sudden you 2 rows of people not paying attention. To them I say, wait till intermission. This is mostly the listeners fault, however we should try to do everything we can to make the message clear. If we feel like we've done all that we can and we feel like we've done the best we can with God's help, then there's nothing to worry about. We are all human. We all sin. We all error. Don't yell at the audio engineer. Try praying for them.

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