During one of our worship seminars, one of our facilitators, Segun Adegbite shared a lesson on how not to buy the wrong equipment. Every time I recall that story, I laugh out loud.

Here's the gist. A pastor watched a live praise and worship recording which featured ace musician, Tom Brooks. Obviously fascinated by Tom's dexterity and the tones he heard, he decided to buy the exact keyboard Tom played in the video. The keyboard arrived in Nigeria. It was hooked up and of course expectations were high for an anointed worship experience. However, to their consternation, the equipment didn't produce any sound. What happened? Apparently, what Tom was playing was a keyboard controller. These do not have any tones in them, rather tones are imputed into them through a midi jack connected to a sound module.

Now that story teaches us that we need to make an informed decision when buying equipment for use in our local assembly. I will like to share a few thoughts that can serve as guidelines when you intend to buy gear for your church.

1. BUY WHAT YOU NEED. The scenario mentioned above speaks volumes. It's my considered opinion for instance that most keyboard players do not deserve anything more than a Yamaha PSR 1000. Why do I say that? Because most times, many of them don't use more than five tones on the keyboard. Most times they use electric piano, grand piano and strings. Now if that's all your keyboard player uses, why then invest over N600,000 in a Yamaha Motif which is a workstation? It does not make sense at all. That's tithe payers money going into inaction.

2. EQUIPMENT ARE PRIMARILY FOR FUNCTION NOT AESTHETICS. Many churches acquire gear because they look cool. So you see in a small hall measuring 100ft by 30ft, all the musicians have their own combos? You often hear musicians say, "I can't hear myself" You see, that's the problem. It's not about you, it's about all of us producing a glorious worship experience. Sometimes, the sound on stage is so loud, it can feed the whole house. Soon enough, pastor is going to need to conduct a healing service as touching deafness!

Abraham Laboriel is one of most respected musicians in the world. Hear what he says in an interview in CHRISTIAN MUSICIAN magazine " A sound man once explained to me that low frequencies travel slowly but gain volume as they move. So by the time a low frequency moves from the stage to the back of the theater, it hits the back of the theater with a lot of power. He kept asking me to turn down, because he often had sixteen microphones on stage, and I was saturating everything. So eventually I turned off without telling him, and he was ecstatic.

Then the audience told me they had never heard the bass sound so good, and the musicians told me they had never heard the bass sound so good. So I learned that playing by faith is the best way. As a Christian, you prefer your brother rather than yourself. Even though I couldn't hear myself, I trusted the music was going to be honored and man, everybody was freaking out at how good and how clear the bass sounded. So I learned that if I asked for two monitors - one dedicated to the bass and one that allows me to hear everybody else - the sound on stage doesn't get saturated, and everybody has the option of asking for as much bass as they want."

Now that's wisdom and humility there. Instead of buying combos for everyone, properly mixed sound on 2 or 3 monitors can serve the musicians. What does a bassist who is not deft at playing a 4 stringed bass guitar pestering the church leadership to buy him a 6 stringed bass? Huh? Like architects say, form must follow function.

3. OLD DOES NOT MEAN USELESS
Many times we "overhaul" our gear because we have used them for 5 years or more. But hey, if they are still working well, must we change them? These days, a lot of stuff does not become obsolete because of adapters and relevant interfaces. For example, if the keys on your Keyboard are still good, then you don't need to buy another one especially if they are semi-weighted or weighted keys. Yes you might want new sounds and that's understandable. What you might consider doing is buying a sound module. What's this? It's just a device that has all the sounds on the keyboard you desire. They are usually half the price and take less space. For example, a Yamaha Motif xs8 keyboard is £2230. The Module is less than £1100. All you need to do is hook up the module to your present keyboard with a midi jack. This is what established bands do. They don't go out buying every new keyboard produced by Yamaha, Korg or Roland.

In our church, our drums (original PREMIER) is more than 11 years old. And as far as I'm concerned we are probably going to keep it for a while. All we have been doing is changing the drum heads. And boy, it's kicking just fine.

4. DON'T BE IN A HURRY TO BUY BRAND NEW. If you've been alive for about 25 years, you would have realized that if you can help it, don't rush to buy new releases. A few months down the line, prices can drop by up to 40%. What's more, there might be a product defect which will result in the product being recalled. Well as long as I've lived, I have never heard of us being beneficiaries of a product recall in Nigeria.

Many times I've also bought some equipment second hand. Well I know for some people, buying second hand might be against their theology. Personally I see no problem with this. Often, I've bought equipment especially from sites like soundonsound.com and have had great deals. Once I bought a Roland XP80 which had a street value of about £800 for £350. I actually picked it up from the seller's house. It was in pristine condition and we used it for years.

5. ALWAYS BUY THE REAL THING. I would never forget one thing my first pastor, Inyang Okutinyang used to say "whatever you compromise to gain, you will ultimately lose."

During our genesis in my present local assembly, we compromised with respect to buying sound gear. This was in 1994. Our speakers were made in Mushin. Needless to say, there was always something that needed fixing every Monday. Well, I guess our consulting technician had a breakthrough in those days. We also compromised on the microphones we bought. Instead of buying AKG, we settled for NKG. Of course, we got NKG quality. Afterwards we resolved to always buy gear from proven brands. I tell you we've had a Shure SM 55 cordless mic that is about 10 years now and we are still rocking it.

Someone said the bitterness of low quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price has been forgotten.

Here's a tip, when you want to buy any equipment, google the name of that gear and read people's reviews about it.

6. GET SOMEONE WHO KNOWS TO MAN THE GEAR. Even in my church, I know many manuals that accompanied equipment have not been opened. I will rather employ an unbeliever to handle the audio mix in my church than a believer who has no clue, and has no interest in having a clue. Yes I said that. People go to school to study audio engineering. Ignorance not the devil is why we have plenty of feedback in church, crappy sound, unintelligent video and media presentation. There's nothing as annoying as applying REVERB effect at the wrong time or as using some Photoshop effect that makes the subject look unreal.

So discover and deploy passionate people to units that are technology-driven. Open up for recruits so that career paths might be forged. Position people who know that the utilization of their gifts is an expression of worship. Even though they are not lifting up holy hands, their hands on the console is an expression of worship.

7. EMBRACE INNOVATION AND STOP CLINGING TO WHAT WILL DIE. Are we willing to embrace change? Innovation can either enhance expression or conflict with people's religious mindset. The other day during one of our thanksgiving services, I had a DJ in church. For the younger people it was a blast. However, a few people could not dance. But this same people would have danced, swayed and sprayed some naira if a DJ was doing his thing at a party. Some may ask "why should we have a DJ in church? But I ask "why not?"

For instance, we've got lots of small churches who can adopt a praise and worship approach that is DJ driven. Here's why. Most small churches cannot afford nor attract good musicians. So sometimes, they are stuck with a learner on the keys, who sometimes finds the key you are on when the song is over. Now, new comers will find it difficult sticking with that kind of experience. Why can't the worship leader do a mix and match and establish flow with already recorded worship songs? In our minds we may think that's second rate. But is it second rate worship that we offer to God when we are singing along to a Don Moen song in the car and we are deeply touched? Definitely not.

Finally there are some elements of technology that are going out of fashion. Cassette technology is almost in the cemetery. That's why you will hardly find any new car with a cassette player. Even the days of CDs are numbered. So even though I had said earlier that we shouldn't be victims of technology, we should be conversant with current technologies and see which we can deploy to bring glory to our King!

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http://waleadenuga.wordpress.com/