Church Sound System Hire
A service asks more of a sound system than a party does. Speech has to be intelligible from the back row, a band has to hear itself, and none of it can go wrong halfway through.
A service, in order
Different congregations do things differently. This is the shape we work to most often, and we adjust it to your order of service.
Setup and sound check
Speakers placed, band lines run, microphones checked one at a time, monitors set so each musician can hear what they need. All of it finished before the first person walks in, because a sound check with a congregation watching is nobody's idea of a good start.
Band, keys and vocals
The loudest part of most services and the one with the most going on. Several vocal microphones, keys, drums and bass, all balanced so the congregation hears a band rather than whichever instrument happens to be nearest a speaker.
The lectern microphone
A different job entirely. Speech from a fixed position, quiet delivery, no feedback, and clear enough that somebody at the back with a hearing aid can follow it. Getting this right is mostly about microphone choice and placement.
Intelligibility over volume
Handheld or headset, whichever your speaker prefers. The aim here's not loudness, it's clarity: every consonant landing at the back of the hall, sustained for half an hour or more without listener fatigue.
Several voices, one balance
Choir microphones set to pick up a group rather than whoever stands closest. If you have a soloist stepping out of the choir, tell us in advance and we'll have a separate microphone ready.
A feed through the wall
Where a congregation spills into a side hall or a creche, we can run a feed so people in there can still follow the service rather than watching a door.
Hall back as we found it
We strike after the last person has gone rather than around them, and leave the room the way you handed it to us.
Sound built for speech first
Most hired systems get set up for music and then asked to do speech as an afterthought. For a church service that's the wrong way round. The sermon and the readings are the part of the service people came for, and they're also the part a badly configured system ruins, because speech shows up every problem that music hides.
So we start from intelligibility. The right microphone in the right place, levels that hold steady whether the speaker is loud or quiet, and enough separation that the band can be genuinely powerful in the worship without the sermon afterwards sounding thin by comparison.
We work with congregations meeting in community centres, school halls, hired function rooms and church buildings with no installed PA, across Southampton, Winchester, Eastleigh, Chandler's Ford, Fareham and the wider Hampshire area. Regular Sunday bookings and one-off events are both fine.
Included as standard
- Full setup before the congregation arrives, with a proper sound check
- Speech microphones for lectern, sermon and readings, wired or wireless
- Band and vocal microphones with monitors so musicians can hear themselves
- A mixing desk with somebody who knows it, if you want us to stay
- Speakers placed for coverage rather than for convenience
- Optional feed to a second room for overflow or a creche
- Pack down and collection, hall left as we found it
What congregations ask us
Our hall has no installed sound system at all. Can you cover a whole service?
Yes, and it's a lot of what we do. Plenty of congregations meet in community centres and school halls with nothing on the walls, which means the whole service has to be brought in and taken away again. We set up before anyone arrives, run the service, and strike afterwards, so the hall goes back the way you found it.
Can you handle a full worship band as well as speech?
Yes. Keys, drums, bass, guitars and several vocal microphones is a normal Sunday for us, and we bring monitors so the band can hear themselves rather than guessing. The harder part is usually getting the band loud enough without burying the person speaking afterwards, which is a mixing job rather than an equipment one.
We need the sound in a second room for overflow. Is that possible?
Usually yes. If you regularly overflow into a side hall or a creche, tell us and we'll run a feed through so people in there can follow the service. Worth mentioning at the booking stage rather than on the morning, as it changes what we bring.
Do you cover naming ceremonies, thanksgiving services and conventions?
Yes. Naming ceremonies, thanksgiving and dedication services, anniversaries and multi-day conventions are all regular work for us. A convention running across a weekend is priced differently from a single service, so tell us the full programme and we'll quote the whole thing.
More questions are answered on the common questions page.
Services across Hampshire
Service or convention coming up?
Tell us the hall, the date and your order of service. If it's a regular Sunday booking rather than a one-off, say so and we'll price it that way.