Okay, admit it. At least once in your audio life you've brought home a new toy from your favorite pro audio store, torn open the box, carefully tossed the owner's manual aside (quietly promising to read it later), and happily gone about hooking up it up so you could twiddle the knobs! Almost to the end user's detriment, equipment designers have succeeded in making audio gear so easy to operate that just about anyone can get it to work (eventually). If that describes you, then you are living by the engineer's motto ­ "when all else fails, read the directions."

Then how do you know if are you really getting the most out of the gear? You just spent a lot of money to buy it. But do you know how to properly interface it with the rest of your gear? Do you know how to properly set the controls for its initial operation? Really? What if you blow it up? I've seen so called audio consultants do some pretty strange things in my time ­ like connecting a 1/3 octave equalizer in kind of a sidechain loop arrangement, such that the system would go into feedback anytime the master faders were pushed up more than about a half an inch. It wasn't acoustic feedback; it was an electronic feedback loop caused by this rather creative interconnect.

There is a wealth of information and insight stored in those owner's manuals. While we're at it, even simple equipment and parts catalogs can provide lots of helpful ideas. I've learned a lot of what I know simply by perusing owners manuals and electronics parts catalogs. Manufacturers don't just list their products. They want you to use their products, so they often suggest ideas on different applications. And they want you to use their products correctly so that others will be impressed enough in the product to purchase it, so the catalogs also often provide tutorials on the do's and don'ts of using their equipment.

Yes. Some applications notes and owner's manuals are written so poorly that it may be difficult to wade through the mess to understand what the unit is capable of. But for the most part, manufacturers do an outstanding job of conveying the necessary information in a clear and helpful manner.

Setting Up Camp

God made us all a little different, each with different talents and motivational gifts. Some of us are organizational freaks, ready to organize the world. You know the type ­ not only is their own desk immaculate, but leave them alone in your office for five minutes and your perfectly messy desk will be immaculate too. (Yipes!) Be assured that these guys have already read, and maybe even memorized, the owner's manuals for all their sound gear. On the other extreme there's the type who can't remember if there was even an owner's manual shipped with the gear or not. With this guy in charge, your equipment warranty registration cards were probably never returned to the manufacturer. Good luck.

Whatever your personality, one of the best things you could ever possibly do for any of the technical ministries in your church is to document your system. Think about it. At some point in our life, we have all started our service to Him in a ministry that has been operating for some time. We work with the equipment and procedures that were handed down from the last person in charge. For a host of complex reasons, how that equipment is interconnected, what problems it has encountered in its lifetime, who purchased the piece, when, from whom and for how much, which pieces belong to the church and which pieces actually are only on loan from someone in the church ­ nothing about the equipment or the installation has been documented. No one you can find has the answers you need, and the list of questions goes on and on. If someone had taken the time to document information about the gear, as well as the particulars about how it has been installed, life would be so much easier for all concerned.

Maybe this story will sound familiar. You find a piece of equipment that is not functioning quite properly. You look further and discover that it's wired in an incredibly unorthodox manner. You think to yourself "what twit wired this thing?" You begin to speculate as you analyze the problem. In sheer disgust you pull the thing out of the rack, throw it on the test bench and open it up to see what's wrong. Nothing. Hmmm. You go to reconnect it and you realize that one wire isn't connected at the other end. As you complete the connection and find that the unit works properly, you begin to realize that if only the twit had documented his changes, you wouldn't have had to miss lunch with your wife today. You turn out the light and leave for your late lunch, deciding that you'll write down your discovery. Of course, you'll forget that later, you twit.

What to Document

A good place to start is an equipment inventory. Maybe you serve in a large church and you have a possible inventory of 300 entries. Or maybe you belong to a small church with just eight or ten items. It doesn't really matter. You should have an inventory list that documents the brand and model of each item, its serial number, the building and/or system where it is in use (or if it is a spare unit), where it was purchased, when and for how much, and what the retail cost of the unit was at that time. Of course there is a certain dollar amount at which this becomes pointless. Some large churches would consider anything costing less than fifty dollars to be a supply item, and therefore not list it on an equipment inventory list. For most of us, $50 is a lot of money ­ you choose the lower limit that works best for you.

Interconnecting wires should also be documented. Wires have this habit of going through a wall and coming out three hundred feet later. Sometimes they come out a different color than they were when they went in. You think it's the same wire, but you'll need to get out your cable checker or volt-ohm meter and ring it out to be certain. By the way, if it does come out a different color, then a splice has been made and the splice is sitting inside that wall, waiting for the inevitable moment when the connection will fail. Not a good idea.

How to Proceed

If it hasn't already been done, one of the most important tasks facing you is to trace and document the wiring. So step one is to number the wires. This can be accomplished by getting some plastic wire identification stickers or cable ties with write-on flags from your local electronics shop, or by using some brightly colored plastic tape and writing on it with a small-tipped permanent marker. If you have a great number of wires to tag, come up with a numbering code that classifies them by zone or by purpose - like using numbers 100 through 199 to identify only microphone lines, and 200 through 299 for line-level lines, 300 through 399 for loudspeaker runs, and maybe the 700's for all intercom lines, and so on. There's no universally accepted numbering system. Good grief, the audio industry can't even agree on the polarity of audio connections. Determine a system that will serve your needs. Then, write down each wire number and describe it according to its source and destination, and preferably how it gets there. Adding a map would be a major plus.

Another step. Don't forget to jot down the values of the fuses for the gear. Let's face it. Equipment is generally tucked into tight areas that are dimly lit and difficult to get at. If a fuse goes out, of course it will happen during a service. You'll have little or no time to get the unit back up and running. If you will take a few minutes now to go through and document the exact fuse that each piece needs, replacing it will be greatly simplified. Oh, you do of course have replacement fuses for every piece of equipment in use, don't you!?!

Such a list will help you while you're shopping too. Say you get to the electronics store to pick up those connectors you've been meaning to get. While you're there, you remember you were supposed to get some fuses for a couple of units. The church hasn't hired a knowledgeable assistant for you yet, so the only person you can call is a secretary. She wouldn't know an amplifier from a crossover if it fell on her. But she can locate your equipment files and look up the value and type of fuse you need for those pieces and relay that to you over the phone.

Trouble Reports

Any commercial facility, like a recording studio or TV station, et al, will keep a maintenance log in which they document any problems reported on the equipment, who witnessed it and when, and also what corrective action was taken, by whom and when, what the repair cost was, what parts were replaced, that kind of thing. Reviewing the list over time can point out any recurring problems and perhaps the conditions under which those problems arose. One good start toward providing that information is to create a trouble report. In some cases, simply filing these into a three ring binder can serve as your maintenance log itself. You might even keep a section of the log to list complaints from the congregation or pastoral staff related to the technical adequacy of your ministry area. If people in a particular seating section complain every Tuesday evening but not on Sunday mornings, it may help you track down a particularly confusing problem.

Pass the Manual, Please

But don't let your organization stop here. I've visited many churches who have all their sound equipment manuals and literature neatly bound in a forgotten three-ring binder that's collecting dust on a shelf somewhere. Maybe the original sound crew did learn about the equipment in the early days, and maybe they don't need to refer back to it now. But those who follow in your footsteps will need that information someday. Your successor. New recruits. The church finance committee. What if someone, God forbid, were to break in and steal some of your gear? If it's documented, you'll have an efficient method of providing equipment descriptions and serial numbers to the proper authorities.

Training

System documentation can help in training your ministry team as well. There is probably no more effective way to introduce new audio ministry recruits to the sound system equipment than to hand each of them their own copy of the most important sections of the owner's manuals for each piece of audio gear used by the church (in both the main auditorium and in other ministry areas) along with a comprehensive study guide. Each volunteer can then be thoroughly and systematically introduced to the capabilities and proper operation of all your gear. This will eliminate a lot of stupid mistakes and confused questions about the system, it will improve the organization and appearance of the ministry and, in the eyes of your new sound team recruits, tangibly illustrate your support of them and the investment of time they will be making in the ministry. And who knows ­ maybe when they read the original manuals they'll even come up with a new way to use the gear that you never thought of or dismissed because it didn't apply to your needs way back when. Of course, you know what this means ­ YOU are going to have to make up that study guide.

So get with it! There are a lot of tremendously helpful ideas packed into this short, innocent little article. Those of you who jump on it before you forget about it, and implement these ideas will benefit. Those who don't ­ well, those warranty cards probably aren't really all that important any way.