Make it Sound Good: Expectations and Agency

Some years ago, I was asked to step into a leadership role of a skilled technical team in an organization undergoing high-level changes in vision and approach. The changes would require the team to do their jobs much differently than they had in the past, with different and higher standards.

That’s how I ended up as the volunteer leader of the sound team at my church.¹

I knew the team, having been an occasional audio volunteer for quite a while. That meant I only had to articulate the new vision, standards, and procedures.

“Only”

Some of the standards² were pretty straightforward, and the kinds of things you might expect. Peak SPL³ of 88dB on our meter set to slow-read. Unmute mics when they’re supposed to be heard, mute them when they’re not. Talk to the worship team leader and understand any particular goals or feeling for the service. Listen to what’s going on.

Some of the standards were a bit more musical. Some of these were new or different for the team. Know the songs, who is leading vocally, which instrument has melody, and where solos are. Set EQs⁴ to contribute to the overall final mix, even if it makes a given channel sound less good individually.⁵ Dynamics should follow the intent of the musicians.

(There were other standards, like relational and learning standards, but those aren’t germane to where I’m headed.)

It’s hard to be given a long list of standards and to know what behaviors to change. I really didn’t want the “new way” to be confusing, or a list of rules to follow. Beyond not wanting the team to feel like they needed to follow a list of rules, I didn’t want them to depend on me. There would be learning, sure, and a big part of my role as leader was to be around at rehearsals and service to coach the team. But it would have been a huge failure to build a team that executed perfectly only when I was around. That’d mean I’d need to be at every service, every Sunday, forever. And occasionally, I like to leave town.

It’s also hard, musically, to come up with a recipe for every combination of musicians and songs ever. What works for a rock-and-roll feel might not work for an acoustic set. And what about if there’s a children’s choir?⁶ Or even if the drummer gets a little carried away, and the drums alone are hitting 88dB?

So I summarized the standards. Before I dove into the new standards with the team, I gave them three high-level goals.

The first goal I listed, and the only one I’ll address today, was the key instruction I was given when I was learning to run sound.

“Make it sound good.”

There are ways of mixing audio that don’t “make it sound good”. Sometimes, the tech’s goal is to make sure you “can hear everything”.⁷ Some techs set their goal as getting all the faders (the slider thingies) set in a nice straight line at unity (kind of in the middle) and not touching the board. Sometimes the tech’s goal is to just get through the music part so he can go refill his coffee during the sermon. Or to keep it quiet enough that there’s no screech of feedback⁸ this week.

Our new shared goal was to “make it sound good.”

But I wasn’t content to just tell the team to “make it sound good, and here are some standards that you should meet”. That would not have been enough!

I’m going to pause here for a minute to mention two things.

One: getting a high-level vision and some standards or requirements is actually a pretty nice upgrade for how a lot of changes that are requested. Whether it’s project work or how a company works, teams are often only given one or the other. “We’re going to be more profitable” or “our goal for 2025 is to focus on selling to Moroccan potato farmers” are high-level vision statements that lack standards. I’m sure you can think of examples from your own very recent working life where standards or requirements were handed off without any connection to a vision.

Two: for those leaders that go the extra mile by providing both a high-level vision and standards to meet, that’s where they’ll stop. And—like for me with the sound team—it’s not enough.

To be clear, the combination of a vision and standards is good. And far more than most of us get in our working (or volunteering) life.

The missing piece is agency. Individuals and teams (whether employees or volunteers) need agency. To turn the vision into reality, to achieve the team’s purpose, and to meet the standards, the team needs agency.

In this case, I did my best to show the team they had agency through breaking down what the phrase “make it sound good” really means.

All of that looks like some definitions of the words. Maybe a little application to live sound. And a little call-back to the standards.

It’s also permission. By telling the team they could actively work with the sound, that their focus was on the platform, that they were measuring in the moment by what their ears were telling them, and that it had to be better than mediocre, I gave them permission to step beyond doing what they were told. I gave them agency to control and decide—to do what needed to be done to “make it sound good”.

Setting high standards without the agency to achieve them leads to frustration.

On the other hand, giving agency without high standards or performance measures leads to mediocrity and, again, to frustration.

When it becomes your job to shape the sound coming out of the speakers—more than hitting a number on a meter or lining up the faders to look pretty—you’ll listen to the mix closely and understand how each instrument contributes to the song. When it becomes your job to create an audio environment that is effective for worship—more than just routing some signals from stage to speaker—you’ll talk to the worship leader to understand the feel and flow of the service. You’ll do these things because they are the way to get to your goals. You’ll “own it”.

Mandating the team listen, understand, and talk would not have led to the improvements the team made. Focusing on technical details also would not have led to those improvements.⁹

It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about a team of volunteers or a team of highly-paid employees. They need clear expectations and agency to accomplish the organization’s vision and meet the standards that have been set. Setting a vision and standards is not enough. Giving agency alone, or “empowering” the team, is not enough. To lead through change, the team must be aware they have the agency to change. Not just what they do, but how they do it. Not just what they’re measured on, but how they measure themselves.

Leaders: give your team a clear vision. Give them clear, high standards. And show them (don’t just tell them) they have the authority to meet that vision with those standards. Here is where we are going. Here is how we do it. And if you get lost, here’s your North Star.

Does your team need a clearer vision? Updated standards? Agency? It depends. You need them all. If any are missing, it’s pretty obvious what needs to be added. If you think they’re all in place, it’ll take some work to uncover what the disconnect is.

Whatever happens, make it sound good. That’s your mission, and you’re empowered to carry it out.

1. The backstory, in a nutshell, is that church leadership was changing the Sunday morning experience, especially the worship-through-music experience. We were aiming for a more consistent, more engaging experience, without some of the musical and technical issues that had been getting in the way. [↩]
2. I’m happy to share the standards—just ask. Especially if you’re the sort of person who leads people who run sound. [↩]
3. Sound Pressure Level, or what normal folks would call “loudness” or “volume”. [↩]
4. EQ is short for “equalizer”. An EQ allows adjustment of frequency bands within a single channel. It’s a slightly fancier version of the bass/treble settings on your car stereo. As I type this, I am restraining myself from talking about different reasons and methods of using an equalizer. I’ll just say they’re important for getting the different inputs to play nicely with each other. [↩]
5. This is counterintuitive, but here’s a quick way to understand. Imagine you’re in your local coffeehouse (or bar, whichever you prefer). An up-and-coming singer/songwriter is doing a solo set. One guitar, one vocal. Her guitar solos sound absolutely beautiful. When she sings without the guitar, her voice sounds full and warm. But when she is singing just a bit softer, in the middle of her range, while strumming, it’s hard to understand her words (yeah, you’ve been to this concert, haven’t you?). That’s because the guitar and the vocal are playing in the same frequency range and stepping on each other. Okay, now imagine a slightly different EQ. The guitar doesn’t sound quite as rich on the solos (but you probably didn’t notice until I said something)—but even when she sings softer and strums, you can make out the words just fine. Making the guitar sound a bit less good on its own (but still pretty darn good—probably just gently notching out some of the most important frequencies for vocal clarity and fullness) makes the end mix sound better. (This happens to be an application of the Principle of Suboptimization, for any other systems geeks out there.) [↩]
6. The right answer here, if it’s preschool-aged children is: watch to see which kids escape, or make faces, or realize everyone’s looking at them and start waving… [↩]
7. True, typically you want every instrument and vocalist to be able to be heard. But there’s an element of needing to hear them at the right time. Turning up an input that should be tucked way back in the mix and making it prominent (“so you can hear it”) can ruin a mix. [↩]
8. The squealing audio kind. Not the people-complaining kind. Though avoiding both makes for a happier sound guy. [↩]
9. I’m really proud of the team for how they embraced the new vision, improved their mixes, and in general did everything they were asked to and more. If any of y’all happen to read this, thank you for working hard—I’m proud of you! [↩]