Mic It Up with Matt Lowe

[00:00:00] This is the Tech Arts Podcast where we talk about tech, leadership, and all things that

[00:00:11] concern church audio, video, and lighting.

[00:00:15] Welcome to the Tech Arts Podcast and the EarthWorks Audio Studios.

[00:00:22] First I need to give a shout out to our sponsors, thank you to Earth about mics and not only how to mic a vocal or an instrument or a choir But what mic is the right tool for that instrument or vocal? I also wanted to have a discussion with someone who not only mixes front of house But also mixes post and broadcast for TV that brings me to my introduction of my next guest

[00:01:42] Please welcome to the Tech Arts podcast Matlow. Hey Matt. Hey, how's it going? It's going good, man

[00:02:42] but give our audience a little bit of insight of what you've done in the industry.

[00:02:44] Give us some of your street cred.

[00:02:45] Yeah, so my name's Matt Lowe.

[00:02:47] I started off as a drummer growing up,

[00:02:51] doing drums in my youth group.

[00:02:53] And from there I went on to do audio

[00:02:57] because everywhere we went, the audio wasn't very good.

[00:03:00] So I decided to make it a little bit better

[00:03:03] for the musicians. I jumped from one church to the next and the next one was my my landing spot for about 13 years I was the technical director at a church out in Irvine, California called Free Chapel Orange County and Gosh, it was it was a blast. I love that church with everything that's in me

[00:04:24] Can't speak enough good words about them and while I was there it

[00:05:43] catapulted me to the next season of my life and decided to do more broadcast side. And so I started working fraternity broadcasting. And now I'm doing more post audio in the box, kind of just making sure that TV levels are good and mixing talking heads for the most part. Yeah, well, that's why we wanted to have you have a lot of cool stories, but you're also, it looks like you've been coming back kind of towards the Christian side of things. So tell us why. Why have you stayed with Trinity Broadcasting Network and FreeChapel?

[00:07:03] What brings you in that direction versus over on the secular side?

[00:07:06] We all know the secular side. Whatever PA you want whatever microphones you want whereas in a church you're not always able to do that You know, I mean you have to steward the money that people are giving to you and some churches can't have the nicest stuff You know some some churches have analog consoles still, you know, it's like not everybody has a digital board and

[00:08:25] It's it's more of a challenge. So I was extremely fortunate to get it before it was released. And basically, just kind of try it out.

[00:09:41] First experience, the microphone that I was using prior to this,

[00:09:46] there were a couple as we needed to. You had vocals that were probably standing right under around or near the line of race, just kind of blasting right at the microphone. And it gave you more, I mean, how much more gain did it give you 3 dB, 6 dB? I mean, where did it take you? It was about 6. Yeah. It was about 6 dB.

[00:11:01] And in the room, obviously mixing live,

[00:11:04] you can't really tell the rejection capsules. I never, the KSM 9, everybody raved about it when it came out. Back when it came out, I was a Sennheiser guy. So I had the Neumann capsules.

[00:12:20] I was a big Neumann fan back then.

[00:12:23] And then the church decided to go,

[00:12:26] we went back and forth, not always that help you with the streaming side of things, but all these churches that are thrown in drum cages and things of that nature. I'm not saying you shouldn't, but if you get a microphone like this that rejects the sound around it a lot more, maybe you don't have to have a drum cage or you don't have to cage it as much. So We'll be back call it a day. But there's so many other options that bring more meat to the snare drum. So the wired version. The wired version. Yeah. You see, you're throwing that on your snare. I am. Yeah. Yeah. It's replaced my my M 80. Why do you like it so much? I don't have to fight it as much. I didn't really have to fight it with the M 80, but I feel like I get a more natural sound out of it

[00:17:41] without having to work at it too much. I don't mic to be basically pointed at. And snare bottom, do you, Mike, the snare bottom? I do. I've got a bunch of different mics that I've gone with. I'm not a huge snare bottom mic user. Like I have it just in case I need more,

[00:19:01] but I don't really go to it that much.

[00:19:05] Well, talk this for a second

[00:19:07] because I know a of one inch right there at the rim and then you put it under your snare because it's flat instead of pointing. Yeah, and then kick drum. So you know, snare, you get that fat kind of sound out of the snare and then you go to the kick drum. How do you make your kick drum? So I'm a two mic guy.

[00:21:41] So a lot of people just went over two mics.

[00:21:44] Yeah, you know.

[00:21:46] So explain that inside and outside. It just depends. The Earthworks drum mics are very natural. This is what I will say. It takes a lot to get a church kind of pop sound out of their drum mics. But you can do it and when you do it, it's incredible.

[00:23:02] But it is true to the drum.

[00:23:04] There's no coloring. natural, natural dial if I don't like it to just boom. I'm more of a you know let it breathe a little bit but you got to have good tuning again if the drummer's not a good tuner you're it's gonna be a struggle to get that good sound out of it but like. So keep going back to it. You gotta have a drummer that knows how to tune the drums. And not every drummer does. If somebody's out there and they just, you know, they have a tom and all they have is a 57 or whatever it is

[00:25:43] and they just throw it on there.

[00:25:44] Like how do you attack the EQ on that to try to get that? down to your only listening to the, you know, the tom itself, but you're gonna hear it through the symbol. And so we moved to triggers, and those triggers are key to open the gate, which I think a lot of churches are doing nowadays. Yeah, I'm seeing it more and more, and kind of explain that though,

[00:27:00] if you're a church that's like,

[00:27:01] what does he mean by trigger?

[00:27:03] Yeah, so the trigger, we use, essentially, but you're just putting that on your acoustic drum kit. In your case, you're using it to open the acoustic drum kit electronically so that it is 100% accurate when it opens and when it closes. So Matt, let's talk a little bit about piano. Specifically acoustic piano, right? I say

[00:28:20] piano, I'm like, give me a DI. I'm good.

[00:28:23] Yeah, exactly. big microphone. Big guy. Yeah. So I figured out how to get one into a piano with it closed. It lasted for 30 seconds, and then it fell off my clip. Yeah. You know, player wasn't very happy about it. Yeah. For TV, I recently tried the, because we use LOVs for television.

[00:29:42] So I recently tried a DPA 4060, one of their LOVs.

[00:29:48] And that's the way that I mix it. It's like, or if I'm sitting at the piano, like, what would the piano player want to hear?

[00:31:03] Like, how would it sound to that piano player? forward, whatever they saw me, they were like, hey man, the snare mic on. You got to deal with that for the rest of your life. But yeah, so I'm a better front of House audio engineer than it's sounding like on this podcast. I think the other microphone issue that we've all had in churches

[00:32:21] is, you know, or I guess concert live venue stuff,. That's right. It wasn't broken, you just turned it off. Yeah. The worst nightmares of our life. Everybody in the building is looking at you. Yeah. Like what is going on with this guy? Can't get it right.

[00:33:40] To this pastor's credit though, when he realized what happened, turned it back on.

[00:33:43] He was like, oh, that was me.

[00:33:44] I was my bad.

[00:33:45] Kind of took some of that.

[00:33:47] That's great. And then I've used the sure little choir mics that they have, the flex, you know, with the little flex on it. And then I've used the Earthworks, FW730, and the Earthworks is by far my favorite. It's again, the game before feedback and was a 414, so it was like we had to use it a lot. But I've used the 414, I've used the AKG 460, the KM, I think it's called 184 now. Back in the day, I think it was like the 84, the 94. Little pencil, Neumann's that I've used.

[00:36:21] But I would then put hand-helds in my choir

[00:36:26] on specific people

[00:37:22] really loud on me on the handheld. Right.

[00:37:23] But I got into some compression and things like that to try to control that.

[00:37:28] I think it was like 17 or 18 when I was doing this choir.

[00:37:30] Okay.

[00:37:31] And tell me if I'm crazy.

[00:37:32] No, I think it's a great idea.

[00:37:34] I've seen a lot of people do that.

[00:37:37] I never did that because I didn't have enough extra mics to hand out to the kids.

[00:37:44] We did an adult choir every now and then, but not. trying to figure everything out. How do we make this choir sound louder? Yeah. So cellos, violins, let's talk some of these instruments that are, you know, give you a great sound but are just difficult in terms of, they don't put a lot of volume out. So what mics do you use for like the cellos and the violins and things of that

[00:39:01] nature?

[00:39:02] So for those like instruments, I'm more of's not going to damage that body of that instrument. So, uh, so that's the other reason I use DPA is just, it's around a lot.

[00:40:24] And so they, they're used to it.

[00:41:23] you ain't ever touching, right? Their instrument at all.

[00:41:25] No, but you show up business casual,

[00:41:28] you treat them politely and they can see that

[00:41:32] you are taking this seriously.

[00:41:34] Then they let you touch their instrument

[00:41:36] and work with them.

[00:41:38] So that's just kind of a side note

[00:41:39] on how dress code plays in a little bit more

[00:41:42] into things than you think it does.

[00:41:44] In a video player etiquette.

[00:41:45] That's right, yeah.

[00:41:47] So room microphone. what's on stage. But then the shotgun picks up, you know, kind of a more closer barrel, I guess, of audio. And if you're watching on YouTube, basically it's the the 414s like this and then yeah, shotguns kind of like that. Yeah, I've seen it beside too, like they do side by side. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that's kind of my go to. I haven't really used other any shotgun.

[00:44:01] No, no, no, don't do that. Yeah.

[00:44:02] Don't put those mics out there

[00:44:03] and then start talking into them,

[00:44:04] accidentally.

[00:44:05] Yeah, because they'll pick it up.

[00:44:07] They will definitely pick it up.

[00:44:10] Here's the thing that I would say,

[00:44:11] you know, we're talking, again,

[00:44:12] we're talking best practice

[00:44:13] and what microphones we like,

[00:44:15] but if you have a stream,

[00:44:17] you have to have audience mics.

[00:44:19] I don't care if it's a 57 or 58, whatever.

[00:44:21] Throw a mic out there.

[00:44:23] It doesn't even have to be stereo.

[00:44:24] Get a mic out there.

[00:44:25] Get it into your stream mix.

[00:44:27] Don't bury the console, but where's the best place to put the microphone? Should it be at the front lip of the stage, over the audience? Where should they put those? Yeah. There's preferences for everyone. For my preference, I like putting it under the PA, just behind it a little bit. I like to kind of get it as close to with the experience. See what I did there? So it'll help with the experience online in the years. Which speaking of the room, tuning. Yeah. Like how important is tuning and what microphones do you use? Those are kind of two, actually how important is tuning is probably a podcast in and of itself.

[00:47:01] Yeah.

[00:47:02] But let's narrow it down to tuning microphones.

[00:47:05] What mic should you use for tuning? sound level. I don't necessarily need an earthworks for that. Any tuning mic will work. I feel me personally, I feel like any tuning mic wouldouch for them. So that's kind of the first category of tuning. The second category is what Matt was talking about, which is back at your console using Smart Software, which I believe is spelled SMAA, RTN,

[00:49:40] from Rational Acoustics.

[00:49:43] It shows every single frequency that's the earthworks microphone that's kind of been the game changer out there right now. But let's talk several vocal microphones like what vocal microphones do you like? I want to that artsy feel, this is the microphone for you? Yeah, exactly. And it sounds phenomenal. I love that microphone as well, but we had to switch because our worship leader at the other church, they're like, no, I don't wanna use it. It looks funny and I don't care what it sounds like.

[00:52:22] Find me another microphone that sounds good

[00:52:25] that doesn't look funny.

[00:52:26] Make it look like a normal microphone. It's at the same price range as like the 317 or 3317 or 3117. Talk this for a second on Vocal mics. One microphone fits all, right? One microphone can work for every single singer. That's not the case. I know that's not the case. Here's where I'm going at with this.

[00:53:41] You have a guy's singer, you have a female singer. 87 on everyone. I'm like best microphone ever. Here's the beta 87, but some people that didn't work for them and We ended up having to switch to like the SM58 because they were a little bit harsh or they sang louder So if you're looking for a vocal microphone I think we're saying the earth works the new earth works microphone is pretty much a one size fits all

[00:55:03] But set that aside for a second and if you don't have the earth works microphone

[00:56:05] everybody all at the same capacity.

[00:56:08] But I would even throw that microphone in there and say, hey, if you've got it on somebody

[00:56:11] and you may need to try something else

[00:56:13] to see what works right for that person.

[00:56:16] Would you agree with that?

[00:56:17] Oh, completely.

[00:56:18] Yeah, I mean, at FreeChef,

[00:56:20] well, we had the telefunky M80 capsule for vocals.

[00:56:26] We had some M81s. and all the comments that I'm hearing coming back are very similar to Matt's, like, oh my gosh, this is the microphone I'm gonna use forever on my vocals. So that's awesome, especially the price point where it's at, it's not a DPA price point, nothing against DPA, but you pay for a lot of money for the DPA's. And it sounds great, it does sound great.

[00:57:40] I mean, our lead vocalist loved that mic in his years

[00:57:43] and he didn't wanna switch to the earthworks

[00:58:47] And that's it for now. Thanks for watching.

[00:58:51] Thanks for watching.