Church guys: Sanctuary acoustics?

[cymbop]

Friends,

My band Killer Filler is booked to play New Year's Eve for the city of Raleigh's First Night celebration. The festival uses every available stage in the downtown area, and they have put us in the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church. I haven't seen the place yet, but it's an older church with a capacity of about 425.

Question: what kinds of acoustics issues will we probably deal with in there? We're a 5-piece instrumental band, so with no vocals required we'll be working without PA support. We're used to playing in bars, so I have no idea what it will feel like to be in a room that large. I've got a big rig (SVT and 810) and the guitar players have reasonably powerful combos, but the keys player runs his Hammond B-3 though an old B-15N and can run out of headroom before the rest of us do.

Can you share some tips and experiences on playing a big room without a PA? Many thanks for your thoughts.

[Johnny Crab]

Old sanctuary usually = hard surfaces and reverb time.
While sounding great on pipe organs and voices, with bass it muddies and can cause loss of definition.

Guitars will be fine, with your rig plan on possibly cutting the bass a tiny bit and boosting your mids and highs. The organ may run out of gas but you can get extra mileage from limited wattage by getting the speaker of the amp elevated so it doesn't shoot sound into a sea of legs, placing it close to a wall and at an angle to a wall or walls if in a corner(like putting your hands on each side of your mouth to shout louder, megaphone effect).

[bassmodder]

Yes, my church seems to 'verb quite well. However too much bass in your...bass... will muddy it up real quick. I play with acoustic piano twice a week through a 1x12. Biggest problem with being loud is muddiness and boomieness. Avoid that and you got it made.

[MysticMichael]

Originally Posted by cymbop

Can you share some tips and experiences on playing a big room without a PA? Many thanks for your thoughts.

Try your best to all get to the church plenty early that day, so you have ample time for a thorough sound check. It won't sound entirely the way it will when it's filled with people, but the sound check will give you a good starting point. Then you can simply apply the good advice you've already received here accordingly...

MM

[AdlerAugen]

Originally Posted by bassmodder

Yes, my church seems to 'verb quite well. However too much bass in your...bass... will muddy it up real quick. I play with acoustic piano twice a week through a 1x12. Biggest problem with being loud is muddiness and boomieness. Avoid that and you got it made.

you need to mic an acoustic piano? guitard playing too loudly I think?