Managing feedback (no, not that kind of feedback)

Originally published in Worship Musician, January 2021.

“52 miles an hour? Yikes, I didn’t even realize I was going that fast!” We’ve all had the experience of the flashing ‘SLOW DOWN’ sign providing feedback as to our heavy foot and tuned-out driving tendencies. In fact, according to Lawofficer Magazine, “radar speed displays (when compared with speed bumps, rumble strips or other commonly used methods) were ranked No. 1 for having the most immediate and long-lasting effect on calming traffic.” How do we apply this psychological effect to calming down the congregant who comes up to the console complaining the service today was way too loud? Are there ways in which we might reframe our approach to gathering and reacting to the inevitable feedback we regularly receive about our mixes? 

In this month’s Audio With Jeff Hawley article I will present a few random musings on the important topic of feedback and the psychology of church sound and psychoacoustics — and hopefully turn what is sometimes an uncomfortable experience into a opportunity for growth and a more engaging and effective overall worship experience. 

Your subjectively objective opinion?

One of the greatest technological innovations in modern live sound is the sound pressure level (SPL) meter. Coming onto the scene in the early 1960’s, these small handheld devices provide a scientific measure of changes in air pressure caused by sound waves. In very broad terms, how ‘loud’ it is in a given environment. With the increased quality and processing power within smartphones, it is now even possible to get an acceptable approximation of objective ‘loudness’ with an app on your iPhone. Cool stuff. 

While I could go on at length about all of the technical aspects of sound pressure measurement and hardware and software options, I’ll simply recommend that you do some research on your own and consider some measuring device to be a necessary part of your audio mixing toolkit. The point I’d like to make here is that scientific objective measurements of this type are only a part of the larger puzzle when it comes to mix feedback, though. Perception of sound has many different aspects. Looking at only the mathematical SPL measurement doesn’t factor in other psychological elements of audio perception, the subjectivity of human experience, and other qualities of the sonic landscape. 

Variety is the spice of life.

In a somewhat parallel domain, perception of spiciness also has many different flavors (pun intended). Think of SPL measurements as being a bit like test tube beaker high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) of hot sauces. These technical measures look at the amounts of specific chemical compounds, but don’t involve actual human taste tests or an output of a direct measure of spiciness in and of themselves. The much more common measurement you’ve likely seen with spice level is the Scoville scale. Thinking about putting a Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper in your taco? Well, that is going to be about 2,000,000 Scovilles spicy. A bell pepper comes in at about 50 Scovilles. Human test subjects (sign me up!) try different peppers and they are increasingly diluted with water until testers indicate that it is no longer spicy. The Scoville unit is an assigned value based on how many times dilution occurred in order eliminate the heat.

Maybe even more to my point here, a bell pepper for an infant would likely be perceived as being spicy. For folks like myself who love spicy food, add a Carolina Reaper pepper to just about any dish other than dessert. In the same way, what is considered ‘loud’ to a congregation used to only an acoustic piano and a small 100-watt portable PA system is going to be drastically different than a rockin’ contemporary church with a large line array and rows of subwoofers. 

With peppers and with worship mixing, we have the physics of the experience and we have the actual experience in context. And in both cases there are general scales to reference, but no absolute distinction between ‘always considered spicy’ and ‘not at all ever spicy’ or ‘always considered loud’ and ‘not at all loud’ — it isn’t a binary and one dimensional measure. It also isn’t a matter of wrong. Is the baby wrong for thinking a bell pepper is spicy? Is Mrs. Sullivan wrong for thinking the electric guitar is too loud? Are you right for thinking that since your meter reading in the sanctuary doesn’t ping over the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) limit for unsafe noise levels, it must not be too loud? Hmm…

For regular readers of this column, you’ll recall many examples I’ve presented as to the importance of considering context. A bass guitar tone that sounds a bit anemic and top-heavy when soloed may be just what the doctor ordered in a mix that was lacking rhythmic energy or suffered from an overabundance of left hand piano excursions. When thinking about how to best utilize mix feedback, it is important to reflect about context in this manner. Let’s take a couple possible bits of unsolicited layperson feedback and ponder how we might respond or dig deeper to move us all ahead. 

Hendrix has entered the building.

“I just couldn’t believe how loud everything was today!” Although on first glance this might seem like an unhelpful comment, there is a surprising amount of information possibly woven in there. Did anything change in today’s service? For sake of illustration, let’s say that you did in fact add an electric guitar when you only had only acoustic guitars before. This comment about “everything” being louder may in fact be more of a reaction to the stylistic change. Perhaps the actual output level of your mix was lower ‘mathematically’ than before, but this person saw an electric guitar and Jimi Hendrix showed up with his flaming Stratocaster and Marshall stacks in their mind. 

The key takeaway here is that we often hear with our eyes. Many folks are also very hesitant to change, particularly when it comes to worship and what they may view as their tradition of churchgoing. Responding that your fancy measurement devices didn’t register the service as being any louder than last week doesn’t address their actual root cause concern. Just as with the flashing ‘SLOW DOWN’ sign and its indication that you should pay more attention to your speed, this comment (particularly if you received it from a handful of folks) could be the type of feedback to share with the worship leader and key church staff. “Hey folks, are we all aware that the addition of overdriven guitars has caused a stir with a good chunk of the congregation? Do we need to slow down? Thoughts?” 

Who’s the boss?

“It sounds like we’re in a cave and I can’t really understand the vocals well.” This is the last thing you want to hear as a church sound technician. Intelligibility of the spoken word is goal number one. This brings up my next couple points on the feedback topic — what is the goal and who are we serving with the goal? While the pinging VU meter graphics, new reverb plugins and the stereo double-miked parallel compression guitar mix trick are all calling out for your attention, let’s not get too far in the weeds and forget that for 99% of the audience they just really want to clearly hear what the pastor and lead vocalist are saying/singing and don’t care how we got there. 

My day job is in the pro audio industry and specifically within the marketing function. I regularly receive feedback on ads I’ve designed, emails I’ve coded and even articles I’ve written (ahem). One helpful thing I always ask myself when feedback comes up is who the audience is and who is literally (or proverbially) paying my check. In an Allen & Heath ad, the audience is usually mix engineers and dealers of said mixing consoles. If I get feedback from someone outside of that audience, it lands differently. My mom thinking that my ad looks pretty is certainly taken differently than a key FOH touring engineer commenting on the ad visuals or messaging. My boss commenting on how an ad has impacted sales results lands much differently than the editor of Worship Musician saying he loves the ad (Thanks, Bruce!). Not ‘good feedback’ and ‘bad feedback’ or ‘useful person to share feedback’ and ‘useless person to share feedback’ or ‘useless feedback’, but just different feedback and different filters to process them through if necessary. 

All feedback is important to consider and reflect on and analyze, but it is equally helpful to ensure that a.) you are clear as to the expectations of your gig as a mix engineer b.) clear as to the expectations for the worship mix overall within the service and c.) clear as to what your mix priorities should be. Feedback from Mrs. Sullivan in the third pew is just as important as feedback from your boss, but how you process and utilize that feedback will certainly vary.  

Remember that we can view the subjective nature of sound to be a positive thing — while there isn’t a perfectly ‘right’ volume level or ‘right’ mix, there also isn’t a completely absolute ‘wrong’. Feedback is wonderful way to ensure that we are learning and growing and bringing more of the congregation along for the musical ride. Just watch your mains fader and keep your ears open to the sound of the mix and the content of every bit of feedback that comes your way. 

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Originally published in Worship Musician, January 2021.

By Jeff Hawley

Jeff Hawley currently heads up the marketing for Allen & Heath USA. Jeff has a diverse background as a musician, engineer and trendsetting industry executive. In addition to performing and producing everything from noise music to disco and Afro-Cuban jazz to avant-garde klezmer, Jeff has designed award-winning music industry products and accessories and directed the branding and marketing functions for a number of top musical instrument and pro audio brands. He enjoys cooking up a spicy stir fry, discussing whether philosophical free will exists, and posting articles on LinkedIn. 

Connect with him at www.dhirubhai.net/in/audiohawley