Best Plugins For Church Broadcast Audio

In recent years, mixing your churches broadcast audio down in a DAW, or even just mastering it, has gotten so much more popular. I’m typically an advocate for learning to using the stock plugins in Logic Pro X. However, I’m a huge fan of several plugins that tend to make my life a lot more easy when mixing a church broadcast. In this article we’ll cover what I feel are the “ride-or-die” plugins that I’m using lately.

1: Waves Tune Real-Time

No list of plugins would be complete without at least one Waves plugin. This plugin in is an absolute monster. This plugin tunes your vocals in real-time, as the name implies. Just make sure you set the key for each mic per song. Forgetting to do so could be a catastrophe. The goal is to set it as discreetly as possible so that it just fixes slightly flat or sharp notes. Get Waves Tune Real-Time Here.

* EDIT * After writing this article, an announcement was made that WAVES will now be shifting to a subscription only model. As of now, we’re scrambling to find a replacement plugin that does the same thing. This decision has upset a good deal of mix engineers. Read more about this really poor decision here.

2: Slate Virtual Mix Rack

Ok, so this isn’t a single plugin to be fair. This is actually a suite of plugins that are all controlled via Slates Virtual Mix Rack plugin. This plugin could honestly have an article of its own. However, we’ll focus don one in particular. Slate has their own version of the ever-so-popular EL8 Distressor hardware compressor from Empirical Labs. This compressor is being used all over my mix. It’s absolutely perfect for the way that I mix. Get the All Access Pass from Slate Digital here.

3: Steven Slate Trigger 2

This plugin in essentially takes your drum mic audio and magically turns it into virtual drum triggers. I was skeptical before I started using it. Though it’s not perfect, it’s great to blend in to the natural sound of your drums, particularly the kick and snare. Just make sure you spend time tweaking your sensitivity before using this. Another thing that you don’t want to find out later, is that you need to take every channel that DOES NOT use this plugin and add a sample delay to them. 1000-2000 samples is a common starting points. If your measuring by milliseconds, 2ms is the average according to Steven Slate’s website. Get your copy of Steven Slate Trigger 2 here.

4: Helix Native

Just hear me out. This plugin is actually a version of the Helix floor unit, but for a DAW. This plugin has a slightly different tonality than the actual floor unit though. That’s not actually a relevant point in this usage though. I like this plugin for its versatility. It’s definitely a Swiss-Army Knife as far as delay and reverb go. I set one instance of this per-song that we’re doing. This way I can just flip the plugin for that song on and have tempo and trails set already. I’m sure there’s a better way to do this, but this is the weird and quirky way that I’ve chosen to use it. Get your copy of Helix Native here.

5: Slate Digital , Fresh Air

Don’t skip this one. This plugin only has two parameters to change. For lack of a better term, it’s kind of like a Sonic Maximizer. Throw this plugin on your master output to get the high-end shimmer and balance to the midi that make your mix sound polished. Just don’t over-do it. Another bonus is that it’s included in the Slate All Access Pass that gives you Virtual Mix rack and a ton of other plugins that can help you level-up your mixes. Get the All Access Pass from Slate Digital here.

As Close To The In-Person Experience As You Can.

As I mentioned above, plugins should be used as needed but not overdone. The goal isn’t to make your broadcast sound completely different from the live experience. The goal is to get it as close to being in the room as you can. These plugins just give you a head start in that regard. Also, it’s worth mentioning that plugins can slow your system down due to having to render out all of that in real-time. So use discretion.

Have HoneySonic Design Your Broadcast Studio

Broadcast studios are relatively new to the small to mid size church world. Don’t let that stop you from putting your best foot forward. Our consultants can design your room for the best acoustics and user-experience possible. Our church broadcast studio designs also work with your video team to make sure the engineer can see what’s going on in service, as well as communicate to the FOH engineer. We take care of installation, training, and setting up your first service with your new template. It doesn’t just apply to using DAW systems to mix your broadcast though. We also build systems out that utilize a tie-line from front-of-house and a duplicate console. You can still use Logic Pro X to master your mix before sending it out too! Click here to schedule a consultation today!