This is weird. Especially: only megachurch pastors use wireless microphones? And Shure--producer of the industry-standard live microphones used in virtually every live music or speech context--is "an audio-visual company working with megachurches and other users"?
What about pastors of medium-sized churches, and pastors of small churches that aren't quite small enough to not need microphones, and people who aren't pastors but still, incredibly, want to have their voices amplified w/o being attached to a cable?
The story behind the story: perhaps megachurch pastors are especially concerned about microphone interference because their worship aesthetic is so dependent on smoothness and technical perfection. And perhaps, unlike small-church pastors who are busy, you know, writing sermons and balancing budgets and visiting the sick or whatever, megachurches can devote staff time toward fighting the FCC. Really very strange.
Okay, sorry for that curve ball. Next post will be on our nation's new trinity of hope: Obama, Jesus, and Obama. I promise.
Nov 6, 2008
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I think you're taking a turn of phrase by the writer of the article and extending it a little too far, here. There's no direct quote from Shure specifically mentioning mega-churches. Nor is Shure the only audio company that is concerned with the wireless mic vs. White Space devices issue. (I know I've seen statements from Sennheiser as well.) *Of course* wireless microphones get used in more than megachurches. Theater, live music, conferences--it's a long, long list, and yes, this is a pretty big deal. Imagine if suddenly 1/2 of the wireless microphones out there in these various venues are subject to unpredictable interference from these White Space devices? And the other 1/2 of the wireless microphones are having to share the remaining space with twice as many microphones (again, more interference)? We better get used to a lot of folks running around on stages with wires attached to them...
ReplyDeletere: your new trinity of hope -- you forgot to mention Obama.
ReplyDeleteBP: I should have made it clearer that I meant to mock the press coverage more than the thing itself. I'm flabbergasted by coverage of megachurches--so breathless, so undefined (i.e., how big is mega? My home church of ~1000 seems awfully big to most of the old-school denominational folks I associate w/ now). So what initially struck me as odd is not so much that Shure and megachurches are concerned about this as the fact that the reporter chose to frame this in terms of megachurches--as if pretty much every church wasn't by now using at least a wireless lapel mic.
ReplyDeleteOf course, by the end of the post, I WAS irritated about megachurches (as I always am when I think/talk/write about them--gotta love the blogging form, in which it's semi-natural to change moods mid-piece), and I got thinking about the fact that my little church in Chicago also uses wireless mics, but the folks there a) don't have the time/staff capacity/absurdly large budget to even have this issue on their radar, and b) don't actually feel like a little interference is going to hurt their worship experience all that much anyway. And if it's a lot, as you suggest it might well be? They'll get a mic w/ a cord and be done w/ it. I have never known mic cables to take away from the glory given to God in a worship service.
Anyway...
N: Sorry about that. I've been petitioning heaven for a new seat in the (would-be-anachronistically-named) Trinity. More on that later.
Oh my, Steve. You are back in full force on this blog thingy.
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