Some days, I hang my head. Some days, I beat it on the desk. Not really, of course, but a couple weeks ago, I received a phone call about a local church and the issues they were having with their audio system. The call didn't come from the church itself, but it came from someone who knew someone, who knew one of the guys our installation team.
Let me preface this by writing that the church is new and is full of excitement, planted from another local church, and almost everything was going right -- except the audio system. For the first few weeks, the problems were almost expected, I guess, but with each attempted correction things got worse, much worse. After a couple more weeks of "fixes", the sound was so bad that one of the regional denominational staff called the mother church and said that something had to be done (or else), and then we got a phone call.
Unfortunately for us, we hadn't sold the sound system to begin with. To the other dealer's credit, they had put together a nice group of components, except that the people at the church could not successfully operate it (and didn't know how to set it up), so it wasn't much of a system.
Once we arrived on site, we assessed the situation, moved the speakers to their proper location (and explained why), and made some adjustments to the system itself and to individual channels. Within about an hour and a half, we had completed the changes and had walked through a basic system familiarization with the primary sound tech, and the system was behaving perfectly.
Getting great results doesn't have to be difficult, but part of getting those results is having equipment that compliments the abilities of your tech team and that they're able to operate. With just a short time of reviewing the basics of microphone and speaker placement, gain structure, and our special touches on the system equalizer, the church's sound tech was comfortable enough that he knew that the next Sunday's service would go well. And it did.
Whether it's an intermittent wireless microphone, feedback issues with the pastor's primary microphone, or just bad sound everywhere, don't wait until it's too late. If the sound system is a distraction for your worship experience, reach out to someone who can help.