The right stuff isn’t necessarily the technical stuff.  There are a lot of small things that make the difference between good and best, between acceptable and excellent, between mundane and extraordinary.  And most have very little to do with how much technical knowledge or experience one may have.  And most can be done starting today…right now without delay.

1) Early is on time.  Showing up on time is very important.  And in the tech world, on-time means you have enough time to be fully prepared for come-what-may by the time the musicians show up.  Board setup, patching done, mics re-battary-ied and warmed up  That’s right.  The tech crew should almost always arrive before the talent.  And the leader of the tech crew must be lead in this too, and be the first in the room whenever possible.

2) “It’s all about how the sound looks.”  I often use this phrase in jest with those that I work with.  It points up the simple fact that most people will never be able to tell if you are mixing correctly, or if your gain structure makes sense.  BUT everyone will be able to tell if the cords on stage are sloppy or if that monitor is right in the main walking path.  Neatness counts and it counts a lot.  Looking professional doesn’t make you professional, but looking unprofessional will always make you unprofessional in the minds of those you work with.

3) Label, Note, Organize.  Everything should be labeled.  Everything should be noted.  Everything should be organized.  This provides for continuity should someone unexpectedly have to leave.  It makes trouble shooting simpler and more effective.  And makes for a routine of success and not failure from avoidable mistakes and missteps.  You might ask how do I organize “x” or how should I note “y”.  My answer would be, “I don’t care, just make sure that you do.”  If someone asks you, “Why are the inputs on the board laid-out like that?” You should have an answer.

4) Read the manual, and everything else.  Tech volunteers and especially tech leaders should read.  They know the specs AND have worked with the gear.  They know every knob, every feature, every failure point, every term and if they don’t they look it up.  They read manuals, how-to’s, technical books, industry magazines and websites and anything else they can.

5) Know Thy System.  There are no excuses not to.  That’s your job.  Don’t know part of it.  Don’t know most of it.  Know all of it (see #4 above).  This is vital to troubleshooting quickly and effectively.  I’ve met some technical people who know everything about the latest, greatest gadget but don’t know their own system.  It should not be so.

6) Ask questions and ask them often and ask them repeatedly.  Ask about things you already know about, because others may not.  Ask about your technical area and about others.  Ask about hardware.  Ask about philosophies.  Ask about techniques.  Ask about practicalities.  Ask, ask, and ask again.

And lastly, the right stuff begins and ends in…

7) Learning to troubleshoot.  Troubleshooting separates those who are simply helpful and those who can be trusted with real responsibility on their own in the technical world.  Troubleshooting encompasses most of the above.  1) If you don’t have enough time (and you should have) troubleshooting will become difficult.  2) If everything is a big mess of cables on stage, troubleshooting will be more difficult and take longer than it should.  3) If everything is organized and labeled simple mistakes can be avoided and troubleshooting expedited.  4&5) If you read the manual and know your system you won’t be shooting in the dark.  And 6) if you ask questions often, more than likely you will know what to look for while troubleshooting a problem.  Troubleshooting is simply knowing what questions to ask and indicators to look (or listen) for in order to isolate and (hopefully) fix a problem.  The right questions further and further isolate a problem to a location, sub-system, devise, or situation until you reach the cause of the problem.  The wrong questions simply waste time and energy and don’t work to narrow the possible causes.

For example if you don’t hear something in the house mix, but you see signal on the channel-level-meter, you should have almost instantaneously eliminated half the options of what could be wrong (because, more than likely, everything before the channel [cables, patching, phantom power, pre-amp, etc.] is functioning properly).  So the right question could be, “how is the channel assigned?”  The wrong question could be “is the mic getting the phantom power it needs?” (The entirely wrong question could be, “Does the mic need phantom power? see #4 and #5 above).

So learn to troubleshoot, it makes the difference in crucial situations.  And, for the most part, the people that make the difference in those crucial situations, are the people that produce excellence in every other situation.

Technical ministry is often just that, very technical.  But it is also often very artistic and sometimes there isn’t one “right answer” or “right way” in a given situation.  So that leads me to the concept that the questions we are asking ourselves and others might be the more important issue.  Often asking the right question is what will lead to creative, productive, and balanced decisions and changes.  Asking the wrong questions locks us into certain answers that can be divisive and stagnant.  So I think I might do a series of posts on what the right question might be in some circumstances.  For example:

What do I need to turn up in the audio mix? v. What do I need to turn down?

How do I get that album sound? v. How does the audio mix serve the worshipper?

How can I make this video more…? v. What am I trying to accomplish with this video?

How can I make the lighting more even? v. What type of lighting am I looking for?

Is this music too loud? v. Is this music distracting from worship?

How can we put this concept into a graphic? v. How might a graphic serve this concept?

How can we get this done fast? v. How can we work smart, playing to our strengths?

Anyone else have any examples of these questions?  If so leave a comment and we can talk about it.