It bothers me that the Priest uses a microphone

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Distributed Line array speakers.
The most common form of loudspeaker used in churches is a “Line Array” this is a column of speakers, stacked 3, 4 or 5 high. this may be straight or curved.
It should allways be angled so the top speaker is pointed at the heads of the people who would be standing in the pew where the next pair of speakers is located (this is often not done right)
The array design results in the sound being very accurately pointed at the congregation, and as little as possible being bounced off the walls, and especially a major reduction in noise being pointed up to the high ceiling.

The effect of this design, when installed correctly is that
  1. the source of the amplified sound is far closer to the listener than the original sound. This means they are more likely to hear the original sound before it gets lost in the reverberation mush. Also a reasonably full congregation area will absorb the sound that is pointed at it, and that sound then won’t bounce around the church.
  2. The amplified sound is actually louder.
    For a church that’s 50 from the altar to the back pew, the direct sound of the priests voice will be 34dB lower than it was 1 yard from his mouth. The reverberant sound may be only around 10 - 15 dB lower. therefore you only hear the reverberant mush and not the actual speech or chant. Loudspeakers on each column mean that you’re only a few yards away from the nearest loudspaker, and hear it’s sound before the reverberant mush takes over. (and that’s before you turn the volume up)
  3. In very long churches, it is possible to add a deliberate delay into the signal chain so that loudspeakers speakers more than 20 - 30 yards from the pulpit have their sound singnal delayed slightly so that the sound from the priest and the sound from the loudspeaker arrive closer together in time.
    This can be applied to the whole system if budgets permit.
    The advantage of this, in a conservative system is taht you reccognise the source of a sound based on the first sound waves to reach your ears. If the sound from the loudspeakers is set to be just a few milliseconds behind the sound coming naturally from the priests mouth, and the system is designed sensitively it is possible to be completely unaware of the sound system until it fails.
    Unfortuantely most parishes, and even many cathedrals cannot afford to pay for such sophisticated systems. but they are used widely in Theaters where Classical music, and Opera are performed,
I had a dream some years ago of desinging a system based on the cheap audio processors used for domestic home cinema to produce a 6 or 7 channel processor that can be installed in medium or large churches, and with a simple computer interface to tell it the dimensions of the space and the locations of the loudspeakers it would greatly cut the cost of designing and installing a high quality system. - I even discussed the concept of using it as the research basis for a Masters Degree. I was told there would probably be several PHD’s worth of material in the project, and I moved into commercial consultancy which doesn’t involve design of electronic systems.

So: If the sound system in your local parish church is not up to much, consider taking up a collection and raising about $10,000 to pay a professional acoustic engineer to assess the building and design you a proper system, then have a seperate supplier install and fit the specified system. Dont trust a product supplier to design the best system for you… they have a vested interest in selling you the products they have in stock or can most easily supply. this is what caused the bad installation in the first system.

Some systems can be greatly improved by just re-directing the existing Line array speakers. - they should be angled downwards to that a straight line from the middle of the top driver is pointed at head height at the middle of the pew where the next pair of loudspeakers is located.

Only very big chapels need delay systems.

Make sure no speakers are able to direct noise upwards, or have their sounds bounce off walls which are more than a few inches away.

Make sure the Priests and all other readers etc are taught to speak slowly and clearly. You should be able to understand eachother speaking from the altar rail to the back row of seats (or a few in from the back if theres a wall right behind the back row) in the empty chapel. That’s a good indicator you’re speaking slowly enough.

Then the amplification system will help to overcome the sounds of the other members of the congregation. especially the babies, toddlers, rustlers and coughers.
 
johnmann said:
Ave Maria is a solo. Solos can benefit from mics. But when the entire choir is chanting the Gloria, I think it’s harder to justify the need for mics.
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Solos are when I think mics should definitely not be used. (I should clarify, as long as you are in a building with good acoustics.) If you are trained with a good technique, you will know how to project your voice well, even when singing pianissimo, and still be heard very well. Numerous times, when singing solos for weddings or for special masses and without a mic (unless the acoustics are really bad), people will remark how shocked they were when they turned and looked up at the choir loft to see that I was not using a mic.

That said, some people are so used to hearing a miked voice, they almost want their ear drums banged around a bit, because they think that is how much should be, when it really shouldn’t. I agree with you that choirs usually don’t need mics. For most church choirs I’ve heard and sung in (volunteer and professional), mics were rarely ever needed. Some of the newer churches required the use of mics because acoustics were not taken into account when building the churches, though. I just attended mass at a newer church building this past weekend. They had about a 30 voice choir and even with the mics, you could barely hear all of the voices. It was one of those clam-shaped buildings and acoustics were practically non-existent. You could also tell that the choir was putting out a lot of sound. Their voices seemed to get lost in the ceiling somewhere.
 
anruari said:
I am a professional acoustician.
I can tell you very simply: If we are designing a room to have good speech inteligibity we aim to have a very low reverberation time. A average, furnished, carpeted living room might be about 0.5 seconds.
A classroom for primary school children in the UK is required to be 0.4 seconds or less. - particularly if there are to be hearing impaired or other special needs children in the room.
otherwise it’s 0.6 seconds. Secondary school (High School) may have up to 0.8 seconds, and dedicated music classrooms may have around 1 second.

Video Conferencing suites (where there’s a video link in a boardroom) are designed to be almost anechoic (almost no reverb at all). (0.1 - 0.2 seconds)

A Basilica, traditional large chapel or cathedral is likely to have a very long reverberation time of between 5 - 7 seconds. some may even top 12 seconds.

A “Reverberation time” is the time between a sound stopping at source, and it’s effects in the room to be 60 dB below the original level.

Now in order to understand speech, it is essential that the sound of each consonant is audible above the background noise which includes the echoes of the previous vowel and consonant sounds. if we think of the word “Back” there are 2 transient sounds: “Ba” and “ck”. the plosive ck is very much quieter that the vowel sound in “Ba”. The difference in sound level is about 25 dB vor normal voice and more for a raised voice. (The ck sound is unvoiced and almost unaffected by speaking louder)
The time between the end of the “Ba” and the very short “ck” in normal speech is about .35 of a second.

If the Rev. Time of a room is about .5 of a second, and the listener is not very close to the speaker, the sound of the “Ba” will have dropped by those 25 dB before the “ck” sound is made. In a Rev. Time of 1.5 seconds, it will still be about 10 dB louder, rendering the “ck” inaudible.

In very long reverb times entire short words get lost, and the differences between vowel sounds become muddled in the mush of sound.

Large Cathedrals and Basilicas were designed for Gregorian Chant. This deliberately slow form of chanting takes advantage of the build-up of noise in the echoy environment and aids understanding of the words therin.

similarly this is also what gives rise to the traditional image of the vicar, or priest with a Very slow, and overly enunciated speech pattern, as mocked by movies like the marriage scene in “The Princess Bride” and other similar parodies.

This slow speech is deliberately taught to imporve intelegibility when speaking to a group in a reverberant room. it allows more time for the sound to decay between each phoneme.
Traditional Church Design, included a pulpit which was raised up, near or among the congregation. It has a solid surface directly behind the priests position. This creates an echo from so close to the speaker that it is indistinguishable from the original sound (to the human ear) this boost the sound of the priests voice by 3dB.
Ditto, in the Ad Orientum altar, the solid wall contianing the tabernacle reflects and amplifies the priests voice.
These benefits are lost with the modern altar, and the modern lectern
Modern priests rarely use Chant.
Our Choirs ditto rarely use chant.

_
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Wonderful explanation! Thank you.
 
anruari said:
I am a professional acoustician.
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Now in order to understand speech, it is essential that the sound of each consonant is audible above the background noise which includes the echoes of the previous vowel and consonant sounds.
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In very long reverb times entire short words get lost, and the differences between vowel sounds become muddled in the mush of sound.
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Wow! Thank you for your explanation.

My parish had a very expensive sound analysis done just a few years after the church was built because we had a terrible problem with reverberation causing garbled speech. The first pastor knew how to speak in such a way that he could be understood but he was about the only person who could pull it off. With just about every one else (including the second pastor) it seemed that every third word was cancelled out.

In our case it took lowering the speakers away from the high domed roof and putting cushions on the chairs to absorb the sound.
 
SMHW said:
Wow! Thank you for your explanation.

My parish had a very expensive sound analysis done just a few years after the church was built because we had a terrible problem with reverberation causing garbled speech. The first pastor knew how to speak in such a way that he could be understood but he was about the only person who could pull it off. With just about every one else (including the second pastor) it seemed that every third word was cancelled out.

In our case it took lowering the speakers away from the high domed roof and putting cushions on the chairs to absorb the sound.
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Yes, adding carpeting does the same except it’s not as flexible. The size of the crowd affects the reverberation bigtime as well. Organists know this and will use different stops accordingly.
 
Especially when he leaves it turned on while in the confessional after Mass!
 
What bothers me is that some people who use microphones don’t realize that you need to speak louder than just your normal speaking to the person next to you level. And that you need to go much much slower than you think when you are in a large room.
 
I find it odd that microphones at Mass are now “bothersome” to people. Are these the things Catholics should really be worried about?

Perhaps we need another wave of red persecution to bring us back to our senses.
 
porthos11 said:
I find it odd that microphones at Mass are now “bothersome” to people. Are these the things Catholics should really be worried about?

Perhaps we need another wave of red persecution to bring us back to our senses.
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A First World Problem. 😛 If this is truly troublesome for people at mass, then we really should feel blessed that we don’t have real major problems happening at mass.
 
porthos11 said:
I find it odd that microphones at Mass are now “bothersome” to people. Are these the things Catholics should really be worried about?
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That kind of raises a question. When was the first microphone and speaker system installed in a Catholic church. 60 years ago? 75 years ago? 100 years ago? Longer than that?
 
SMHW said:
That kind of raises a question. When was the first microphone and speaker system installed in a Catholic church. 60 years ago? 75 years ago? 100 years ago? Longer than that?
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Which makes me wonder at the persistence of this thread. I would have thought that by now we would have gone on to debate more important issues – like whether Catholic churches should have electricity or central heating, neither of which were part of Catholic worship for about 1900 years.
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
Which makes me wonder at the persistence of this thread. I would have thought that by now we would have gone on to debate more important issues – like whether Catholic churches should have electricity or central heating, neither of which were part of Catholic worship for about 1900 years.
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LOL.

or another debate on kneelers…
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
Which makes me wonder at the persistence of this thread. I would have thought that by now we would have gone on to debate more important issues – like whether Catholic churches should have electricity or central heating, neither of which were part of Catholic worship for about 1900 years.
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Yet another example of the heresy of modernism which snuck into the Church under the guise of the Spirit of the First Vatican Council.

😛
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
Which makes me wonder at the persistence of this thread. I would have thought that by now we would have gone on to debate more important issues – like whether Catholic churches should have electricity or central heating, neither of which were part of Catholic worship for about 1900 years.
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As mentioned earlier, though, would you as a proponent of technology be bothered if priests were allowed to use an iPad when praying the Eucharistic Prayer or reading the Gospel?
If that were to bother yoiu, then that would seem like an arbitrary line to draw for what technology is OK.
 
tritcher1988 said:
I propone that the acoustics in a basilica style church are good enough to pray without the use of speakers. Is the microphone necessary?
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I speak for a living, and sometimes I use a mike. I will stop myself from saying anything further out of charity and love.

I mean, really? Would you rather that parishioners not hear our spiritual father? Ok … I need to stop. Love ya in Christ! :confused:
 
porthos11 said:
I find it odd that microphones at Mass are now “bothersome” to people. Are these the things Catholics should really be worried about?

Perhaps we need another wave of red persecution to bring us back to our senses.
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No these are not things ANYONE should be worried about. One thing that I have learned on these boards though, is that there are some people that will complain about anything.
 
surritter said:
As mentioned earlier, though, would you as a proponent of technology be bothered if priests were allowed to use an iPad when praying the Eucharistic Prayer or reading the Gospel?
If that were to bother yoiu, then that would seem like an arbitrary line to draw for what technology is OK.
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You mean if the priest’s book was loaded on an iPad? I would have no problem with that either. I want the priest to say the Mass and consecrate the Eucharist, how he does that is up to him and the Church.

That being said, I think this point is somewhat silly. This would be technology just for the sake of technology, at least at this point. Microphones serve a obvious purpose in helping people to hear.
 
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