Gear Needed for the Music Director Position
The four things you need for an MD to talk to the band without the congregation hearing — in-ears, a mic, a talkback system, and an open console channel — with budget-friendly options for every size of church.
Duration · 4:20
To let the MD speak to the band without the room hearing, you need four things. None of them have to be expensive.
1. In-ears
So the congregation never hears the MD’s cues. Budget path:
- A small headphone amp (~$35 on Amazon) — what Bloom started with years ago, and it works great.
- A Behringer in-ear monitor amp — same idea, a little nicer, clips to your belt.
- High-end Sennheiser / Shure systems if budget allows.
2. A microphone
Some way to communicate. Options Mike has used:
- A little Nady mic (~$18.99) with an on/off switch — also great as a drummer or engineer talkback mic.
- A Shure SM58 or SM57.
- Most churches already have something serviceable lying around.
3. A talkback system
You don’t want the MD mic open all the time (you’ll just hear bass and drums bleeding into it). Use a momentary or switchable system:
- A latching mute / sign-off switch (Bloom’s monitor engineer uses one).
- The Hotshot DM1 — momentary: on while pressed, off when released.
- A “panic button” with two outputs (one to the MD channel, one to the console) — perfect for an MD who also sings. Their mantra: green is sing, red is said.
- The OptoGate — essentially a laser-triggered gate that opens when your mouth gets close to the mic.
- A wireless option with a foot switch, so a worship leader up front can talk to the band too.
4. An open channel on the console
You need somewhere to bring all this in — but it doesn’t have to be one of your main channels. Bloom runs theirs on an aux, so it doesn’t eat one of the 32 channels on an X32-style board.
Application
- Price out the budget path (headphone amp + a spare mic + a momentary switch) — it’s likely cheaper than you think.
- Decide where the MD channel will live on your console (a spare channel or an aux).