There aren’t too many more touchy issues than volume when it comes to worship in the church. Usually the chain of events goes something like, lady in church complains to pastor it’s too loud, pastor tells the sound man to turn it down, sound man gets defensive and says he can’t control the mix with how loud the amps are on stage, sound man yells at the guitar player and guitar player says he can’t get the tone he wants with the amp turned to 1. Then more and more barriers are placed around the drummer for good measure.

Sound familiar? This is where a good SPL dB meter comes into play. It gives you a reading of how loud you are and gives you something consistent to set the mix to. They can range in price from $40 to $250, and for many churches it’s just not worth the money. Well in comes the iPhone and a nice, accurate SPL dB meter for $0.99. You can’t really beat that.

I used it at my church and we got a reading that the pastor was happy with and now we know from week to week what to set to. I’d highly encourage you to get some kind of dB meter, but this iPhone SPL dB meter certainly gets the job done. It even has some configuration options for using external mics, but comes pre-configured for the iPhone internal mic.

Many of you are aware that I don’t get paid for ministry work, I am what I like to call, full time volunteer. Yesterday I made a promo video for the iPhone app I work on that pays the bills. I did the soundtrack in GarageBand, great for quick little beats.

If you are interested in downloading the app we have a full version and free version on iTunes. Free version has static instead of animated radar, doesn’t let you set any radar options (transparency, speed), doesn’t let you drop pins on the map to get weather in precise locations and only lets you save 2 favorites. Go for the paid!