Jake Russell Audio

I help church sound volunteers facilitate more engaging worship by learning to create a professional audio mix on the gear they already have. For more free resources and to go deeper with me, check out my website jakerussellaudio.com

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Jake Russell Audio

Hey friends! If you're struggling to get great drum sounds from a less-than-ideal setup, this video is for you!

20 hours ago | [YT] | 1

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Jake Russell Audio

Did you miss this one? Check out how I mix female vocals on the X32. New video drops this week where we'll deep dive on the drums in this video!

3 days ago | [YT] | 2

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Jake Russell Audio

Did you catch my latest video about mixing female vocals? Check it out here!

1 week ago | [YT] | 1

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Jake Russell Audio

Sometimes feeling burnt out isn't because you're working too hard.

Sometimes it's because you've lost sight of why you're working.

When the task becomes the goal, you're headed for trouble.

When serving Jesus gets in the way of your relationship with Jesus, something's off.

This is just what I've noticed about people who stay in ministry for a long time.

Their relationship with Jesus comes before what they do for Jesus. Not the other way around.

That's it. That's the whole game.

So ask yourself honestly. Why am I doing this?

Is it for the music? I'm too distracted to sit still for more than a few minutes? Or... is it just to hang out with my friends?

Or is it because God called me to it?

If your answer points back to Jesus, keep going.

Your work matters more than you know.

#worship #worshipleader #churchsound

1 month ago | [YT] | 10

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Jake Russell Audio

Here’s the biggest lie musicians believe about the mixing console (and a short story...)

I’ve heard this for years,

“My tone isn’t great, but the sound person will fix it in the mix.”

It comes from an innocent place of fascination with what the sound board can do.

Buuuuut... we can’t fundamentally make a “bad” sound good.

Taken to the logical extreme, if someone sings off-key, quietly, with the microphone pointed at their forehead, while clapping off beat closely to the mic, there isn’t a darn thing we can do about that (maybe the mute button, but you get the point).

So if we back this idea up a bit, let’s just say someone doesn’t have the greatest voice, then the guitar tone is wayyy too distorted, the drummer is playing with inconsistent dynamics, and the bass player only plays the frequencies of earth itself... These issues built up over the whole mix in ways that,

a. make it very difficult to create a stable and cohesive mix

b. these issues can’t be changed with basic processing because it would require undoing what is being sent to the board.

Here is what we can actually control at the console:

Turn frequencies up or down (EQ)
Automatically adjust volume (compression)
Make it louder or quieter (fader)
Add effects like reverb and delay
That’s pretty much it.

We can polish what we’re given. We can solve a few problems. We can bring out the best in what’s there.

But we can’t fundamentally change your tone. We can’t fix bad playing.

A few years ago I mixed a festival. The artist had some amazing Nashville musicians with him and those guys had their sounds DIALED IN.

I barely touched the EQ. Barely moved the faders (except for normal mixing moves). And to this day it’s probably my favorite mix I’ve ever built.

Those killer source tones freed me up to actually MIX instead of constantly fighting problems. I could focus on serving the music instead of fixing issues.

All of this to say, what comes out of your amp or instrument IS your sound. We can enhance it. We can balance it with other instruments.

But great sound doesn’t start at the board. It starts on stage.

When musicians create tones like they’ll never be mixed… insert magic emoji.