Getting there at MON

Rehearsal tonight was good. One of the biggest hills we’re climbing is learning how to work with Monitor World (MON). When we put in the new sound system we moved the band over to in-ear monitors (IEMs) to try and cut our stage volume back. Stage volume is definitely down now, but it’s been a challenge helping band members adjust to using the IEMs.

Soundchecks have been much longer than usual, but tonight seemed to be the smoothest we’ve had things. It was also my first time in MON while Bob played around out at FOH for the first time. Teaching the band how to communicate hasn’t been the easiest thing to do over the past few months, but tonight they were great! The addition of Monitor World is a great thing for us because it finally gives us the chance to really help out our band and vocalists by having someone who can completely focus on making their world comfortable. When they’re comfortable they don’t have to worry about the technical stuff and can just focus on worship which is why they’re up there.

I spent the second half of rehearsal back at FOH since I’m mixing again this weekend. I was excited going into rehearsal because this is our choir week, and we’ve got some great new mics I’ve been waiting to try out with a full choir. Will Sargent also taught me a cool little choir mic’ing trick that I’m using this weekend. So far so good. The mics need a little more ringing out, but I’ve never been able to amplify a choir like this before. It’s very cool. They’re doing a medley of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “When the Saints Go Marching In”, and the whole thing has this cool aesthetic that sort of gives it a cool throw-back thing. Sunday’s going to be exciting…