If there was a silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, it would have to be the rapid adoption of livestreaming worship services via YouTube, Facebook Live, and other platforms to reach the sick, elderly, travelers, and others who cannot attend services in person.
However, until recently, there’s been a challenge for these houses of worship. The audio, specifically the sound of worshipers gathered in their pews, often did not convey the same immersive feeling one would experience if actually sitting in the room.
Much of this mismatch has to do with how services are typically miked. While there’s relatively easy access to worship leaders and choirs, as well as decades of experience capturing their audio with mics well-suited to the job, capturing the sound of congregants in the pews is more difficult. Plus, the mics typically used to pick up the sound of members in the pews aren’t designed for the unique challenges of large worship spaces. Frequently, houses of worship have relied on shotgun mics. Pointing a couple from the front of the worship space toward the pews usually captures only the first few rows, leaving much of the room underrepresented in the mix.
Another alternative is to use many more mics placed strategically throughout the worship space. However, doing so requires significant setup time to ensure proper aiming and balance. It also increases visual clutter and creates more opportunities for worshipers to bump into stands or cables. Plus, there’s the added complexity of creating the audio mix for a production staff that frequently is made up of dedicated but untrained volunteers.
Recently, Shure released its DCA901 digital broadcast mic array with 78 individual microphones that create eight distinct software-steerable channels. Once the array is physically mounted, each pickup channel can be separately steered from the control room via the array’s software GUI to cover a wider and deeper area than the shotgun mic alternative. Multiple DCA901 arrays can be used together to cover even larger sanctuaries.
One customer with a large congregation and worship space is using a pair of DCA901 digital arrays at the front of the worship space to capture the sound of its congregation for its livestream. While the arrays are about 25 feet in front of the first row, the church has set pickup zones that reach between 50 and 60 feet back into the congregation. As a result, the sound of the congregation is no longer distant, but immersive, thanks to the sounds of the congregation being pulled forward into the mix, adding depth and creating a much more natural sound for those listening.
Not only do the arrays enable a greater depth of sound, but their steerable channels also allow the livestream producers to capture sounds from a wider and higher space than the shotgun mics previously used, enabling them to capture the responses of members seated on the edges of the worship area and in balcony seating.
To achieve similar coverage with shotgun mics would require the church to invest in many more individual microphones than the pair of low-profile DCA901s—an expense that would be far higher than using two of the Shure digital arrays. Houses of worship taking steps to improve the overall production of their livestreams are well-advised to remember the importance of sound to the overall experience of their streaming audience members. By providing an immersive listening experience, they can ensure their online viewers feel just as present, connected, and engaged as those who are in the room.
