Sep 25, 2026 · 38 min · 10 segments
In Episode 150, the hosts discuss the differences between sound check and the finished mix. What happens when a service starts and your mix doesn’t match the sound check? How to fix your process…
James AttawayHost
Gary ZandstraHost
It's like, uh, uh, you don't know how many times I have done basically a full-on rehearsal, right? And it just feels fantastic and so forth, and then all of a sudden, the band comes out, and the first note hits, and you're like, "Uh-oh." [laughs] You know? And you're like, "What, what, what changed? What changed?" So, you know, I'm, I'm sure you've never had that experience.
But, uh, you know, get, get, give us some, uh, give us some reasons here of, of what's, what's happened.
Well, sometimes it feels like somebody walked in and, like, totally rearranged your console.
Like, there's this little tweaker that goes in there, and they're like, "Oh, you had this set here? No, we don't want that there anymore.
But, you know, especially we care enough to really try hard to get it dialed in in rehearsal, in soundcheck.
We're really honing it in, making it sound exactly the way that we want it to.
But then when the service starts and it all sounds different, we don't wanna be scratching our heads why.
So the, the first thing that I will say is that very often the sources change.
As you get more professionally operating musicians, right? As your musicians grow in their professionalism and their skill, they will play more consistently between rehearsal and the service.
But very often, we're dealing with a lot of volunteers, and the word amateur means, like, for the love of it, right? They're not doing it for, uh, a profession or, uh, a vocation, right? So I don't wanna say that amateur is m- means low quality, but very often people in churches are not as skilled as the people that you might have, say, in a concert.
[lips smack] And so one of those things that, that, that shows up in is the way that they play differently during rehearsal and soundcheck than in the service.
When you're playing for an empty room and it's early in the morning and you're not an early morning person, you are less likely to dig in and give it your full energy like you would when people are there to worship with you.
They're participating, and that brings excitement, and it should bring excitement.
It's like, uh, uh, you don't know how many times I have done basically a full-on rehearsal, right? And it just feels fantastic and so forth, and then all of a sudden, the band comes out, and the first note hits, and you're like, "Uh-oh." [laughs] You know? And you're like, "What, what, what changed? What changed?" So, you know, I'm, I'm sure you've never had that experience.
But, uh, you know, get, get, give us some, uh, give us some reasons here of, of what's, what's happened.
Well, sometimes it feels like somebody walked in and, like, totally rearranged your console.
Like, there's this little tweaker that goes in there, and they're like, "Oh, you had this set here? No, we don't want that there anymore.
But, you know, especially we care enough to really try hard to get it dialed in in rehearsal, in soundcheck.
We're really honing it in, making it sound exactly the way that we want it to.
But then when the service starts and it all sounds different, we don't wanna be scratching our heads why.
So the, the first thing that I will say is that very often the sources change.
As you get more professionally operating musicians, right? As your musicians grow in their professionalism and their skill, they will play more consistently between rehearsal and the service.
But very often, we're dealing with a lot of volunteers, and the word amateur means, like, for the love of it, right? They're not doing it for, uh, a profession or, uh, a vocation, right? So I don't wanna say that amateur is m- means low quality, but very often people in churches are not as skilled as the people that you might have, say, in a concert.
[lips smack] And so one of those things that, that, that shows up in is the way that they play differently during rehearsal and soundcheck than in the service.
When you're playing for an empty room and it's early in the morning and you're not an early morning person, you are less likely to dig in and give it your full energy like you would when people are there to worship with you.
They're participating, and that brings excitement, and it should bring excitement.
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