Looking For The Right Fit
Reynolds has also taken on a variety of other projects, notably house of worship design/installs, both on his own and since September 2020, as an account manager for Hamilton-area production house Soundbox Productions. System projects include the Evangel Temple in Toronto, Selwyn Outreach Centre in Peterborough, and, more recently, Kingdom Life Ministries in Brampton and Grace Life Centre in Scarborough.
In doing so, the approach Price drilled into him early on remains a major influence. “We’re not just in the sound business, we’re in the people attraction business,” he explains. “If you operate creatively, you attract more people. And when a pastor or artist doesn’t have to worry about the technical stuff, that allows more room for creativity. At the end of the day, we’re there to support someone’s vision,” he continues, adding that while technology is integral in that effort, what’s most important are the people using it and benefitting from its use.
What those people require to fulfill their vision informs his recommendations on any given project. Granted, he does have preferences for the products he deploys and uses personally. “In recent years, my workflow has skewed heavily towards DiGiCo consoles,” he notes. “They’re extremely rider-friendly, sound amazing, and are incredibly reliable.” They’re also relatively easy for inexperienced engineers to get a handle on, which is critical in church sound when working with volunteers. “I’m also excited about the new self-powered Adamson CS Series loudspeakers and the control software for them. And, of course, DPA is always raising the bar for microphone technology.
“But I always focus on what gear suits the church’s volunteer staff. It doesn’t matter if a console is, in my opinion, the best on the market, it might not be the best console for that church. So when someone asks, ‘Which console should I buy?’ my answer is always, ‘The one your people can use.’ There’s never a cookie-cutter solution. It depends on what fits your people.”
While clarity, coverage, and reliability are critical in any application, those considerations take on, in Reynolds’ opinion, additional importance in church. “If you have tickets to go see Stevie Wonder, for example, it’s likely because you’re a Stevie Wonder fan and you probably know every song or (at least) every hit song. So if he starts playing a certain song you can sing along whether or not you can hear him clearly because your brain fills in the blanks. After all, you know that song.”
That’s not necessarily the case in a church environment, he notes. “Every week our pastor stands up and God gives him a different word; not something that you’ve heard before. And depending on what you’re going through in life you might just need that word in that moment. If you can’t hear that (or the lyrics for an unfamiliar worship song), how do you connect with it?”
To further hammer that point home, he mentions a conversation with a friend who was working on a Stevie Wonder show that Reynolds attended in 2014. “At that time Stevie had 28 people on stage, but my friend said that wasn’t as hard a job as when he was on tour with a comedian – one microphone, one guy on stage. That was the hardest gig he’d ever done because he had to ensure that every word had the best speech intelligibility, and that was in an arena, which is not the vibe an arena is designed for. You come in and you’re listening to a guy tell jokes you’ve never heard before, and if it doesn’t resonate with you, if you can’t hear what’s being said, then you lose the entire point. It’s the same in church – it’s not something your brain can fill in the blanks for, because, in many instances, you’re hearing it for the first time.”
That’s especially critical for newcomers to services, he adds: “We need to make sure that they have a distraction-free environment because everything we do is geared towards growing the congregation.”
People First
It’s about people all working together to achieve a common goal. Whether it’s a sacred or secular setting: “I take the same approach. It’s about the same thing; people. And we can’t do everything on our own. So, I think a leader should empower those around them to be able to operate within their gifts and to be confident in what they do. Whether it’s in church or not, I always tell my crew, ‘You are here for a reason.’ So, as a production manager, I hired you because you were skilled in that area. I don’t feel the need to micromanage or look over your shoulder. If I did, I wouldn’t have hired you.
“Empowering people, for me, is the key to any successful operation whether it be volunteer ministry in church or a hired crew on the road, it’s the same idea. I don’t know anybody good enough to do it by themselves. Especially when it comes to production because you physically can’t be in more than one place at a time. There are so many jobs that need to be done to effectively execute any production. People are everything. If you have people with the right mindset, gear is just semantics. Some people like DiGiCo, some like Yamaha or Midas or Avid. It doesn’t matter. It’s about what’s between the ears of the person operating the console. That is 100-percent my philosophy, people are everything.”
Priorities In Order
Reynolds is the first to call attention to the help he’s had along the way, from Price to the friends, family members, and mentors who helped foster his growth as an audio professional and provide opportunities for him to apply his knowledge and skills.
It was a cousin, he points out, who first offered him an opportunity to work in audio for secular shows with EMG Jamaica, through which he supported the likes of Luther Vandross, Kirk Franklin, Kurt Carr, and many more. “They produced a lot of large concerts and festivals in Jamaica,” he adds. “So, I’d go out as a backline/stage tech just to expose myself to larger productions.”
It wasn’t until 2004, after he moved to Canada, however, that he decided to pursue live sound as a full-time career. Then 20 years old, he’d begun studying commerce at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology but ultimately returned to audio, enrolling at the Metalworks Institute in 2005 and later founding his own companies, Jason Reynolds Pro Audio and Anjel Music Productions. This led to freelance jobs with various Toronto-based audio companies, and, through a connection with Production Manager/FOH Engineer, Dean Pond, a gig as Shaggy’s monitor engineer and later Veer Dhaniram (FOH for Stephen Marley who hired him for the Stephen Marley and Marley Brothers tours).
Another family member was instrumental to Reynolds’ contributing his efforts at Faith Sanctuary, he adds. “My mother’s cousin was on the leadership team at the church prior to us moving here, so it was a natural transition. When we used to come and visit Canada, we always used to go to church there because that’s where my family went. When we moved, we were very familiar with the leadership and the pastor, and they had known of my involvement at my home church in Jamaica. So, right away they asked me to be involved.”
As much as he’s accomplished in his career in audio – and as much as he speaks passionately about it and about what he’s been able to continue to do, even with pandemic devastating the audio and music industries – for Reynolds, the other silver lining over 2020 is the time he’s been able to share with his wife and two children.
“I’ve been around a whole lot more than I was in 2019, that’s for sure. And we’ve grown closer, especially with my kids, by just being here every day. They’re six and four and they love music – especially Pentatonix and Rachel Platten. I think I listened to the Pentatonix Christmas album 5,000 times over the holidays because that’s all they played,” Reynolds concludes, laughing. “My daughter looks forward to the days when I drop her at school and pick her up, which is a lot of days now. And my son starts school next week. So, 100 percent, that’s been a blessing. Nothing can replace being present, being physically here; no matter how much you talk to folks on FaceTime or you text and call, it will never replace physical presence. That’s huge and it’s been phenomenal. Everything I do, I do to make them proud.”