Would you rock some AliExpress gear on stage?

Hey guys, Ben here 👋

Full disclosure, I’m one of the mods here… no I’m not selling anything haha.

I’ve been on the worship team for 10+ years now in a couple of different churches. I usually sit on rhythm guitar / vocals, and that’s just the way it’s been. We have a quite organic team in a smaller church, grand piano, acoustic guitar, acoustic drum kit sometimes… that’s usually about it.

I would say I’m usually the most forward thinking musician in our team, I built the current setup in the church, I bring my own pedal boards, I bring the music theory and team playing mentality to the group… but this week I went out on a venture and ordered a 3-octave M-Vave SMK-37 Elite off AliExpress.

My initial thinking was that it would be great for building a worship space at home, use it with mainstage to bring ambience, gental drum loops, record Melodie’s live, then pick up the guitar for second verse / chorus etc… and I just genuinely started loving the mindset of it all.

I’m thinking of getting myself up and running with it all, then bringing it in on some of the young adult evening services, then even try to bring it in to the main service.

My question is though… can I really get away with this? And what I mean by that is, most of our congregation is not musically inclined. They won’t even understand the concepts of what I’m talking about, they just hear sounds. Around 1/3 of the congregation are 65+yo and hate anything but hymns, however the church only survived when we started to modernise, bringing in the newer 2/3 of the congregation.

In my head though, all I see when looking for worship inspiration is high-end Rolan etc… I’m looking at bringing a ~$150 setup in to a space of communal worship.

My concern is that it’s going to be fine at home, but put it through a proper sound system with ~100 people in a room, and the cracks will be obvious. Let alone fielding off the complains from the older gen as it is.

What’s your thoughts? I reckon it will be great… but I’m happy to discuss with the community!