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Tips for Smart Portable Audio – Part 1
May 24, 2019

Smart Portable Church AVL – Audio

Portable Church® is a design and build company providing full intelligent systems crafted around you visions, dreams and budgets for audio, video, lighting, kids, and community. This blog specifically addresses smart portable audio. The following two posts we will discuss video and lighting. 

When designing a new church plant or new campus system, the audio will be the most important thing in your worship environment. Your audio delivers and communicates your message, style, and DNA. It answers the questions: what is your speaking style? What is your music style? How do you communicate your message? 

If your audio is functioning as it should be, it is communicating your message clearly without anyone noticing it. 

Design for the bigger picture, not just 1 person

Designing an audio system based around one person (for example your tech volunteer) rather than the ongoing needs of the church itself can end up hurting the church.  We have rescued many churches who have built highly complicated systems around 1 specific person only to have that person move on from that church. This can leave a church with a system that is overcomplicated for others to run. This tends to be a bigger concern with a church plant over a multisite church, however, it can happen to both.

Consider Weight

Bigger doesn’t automatically mean better! Heavy speakers seem to be a fan favorite, but just because they are heavy doesn’t mean you are getting a better sound. It just means that they will take more people to move them. It can be problematic for storing in a trailer and even raising them up on a pole. Something small like this can be a culprit for creating volunteer burn out. People don’t want to physically break their back trying to set up a couple of speakers. We have empirically tested countless speakers and have found many that are incredibly portable friendly and have a sound quality to match!

Placement & Venue

We also take into account speaker placement and dispersion. Specific speakers work better in various venue types. The wrong cone pattern and placement can heavily alter the audio experience. This is exceptionally true in gymnasiums, cafetoriums, and movie theaters. The right speaker and pattern ensure the sound is not too hot on the front row and that the back row can actually hear something. 

Volunteer Skillset

The second biggest factor in choosing any of your gear is the skillset of your volunteers. As a rule of thumb, we like to design systems that can be used by your volunteers with the lowest expertise or experience. 

Reproducibility

You want your volunteers to feel like this IS possible, even EXCITING, to do week after week. Starting with an intelligent system, whatever your budget may be, allows reproducibility not just week after week, but also makes the possibility of future campuses an exciting dream! You can do so many portable campuses for the cost of one permanent facility… we love this kingdom growth potential and we want you to build system with the future in mind.

Watch the entire vlog where we discuss even more points including…..cost vs value, the difference between permanent install companies/ touring industry companies and your portable church needs, and keeping it plug and play.

To read more about our consultations, go here. For more tips download our Effective Principles of Portability eBook which inspires this series and addresses these topics from a higher perspective. And as always, feel free to call us with ANY questions. 800.939.7722

 

Read about Smart Portable Video & Smart Portable Lighting