Hey, everyone. We had lots going on this Sunday, so there's a bit to go over, especially with the tech rehearsal after church. Several things went really well. Couple of things fumbled.

Before I get started on that, though, I want to introduce you to VISION | SOUND. I want this to be a more convenient and more helpful format for us to evaluate, discuss, testify, etc. about what goes on during the week for the team. I also want us to be able to share ideas for songs, sounds, etc. This might work, it might not, but I've seen it work as a tool for other ministries. Let me know if you have any suggestions for how we work the blog, and I'll try to get it function to serve us best.

MUSIC | ...

But on to this Sunday. Roster was: Mark - vocal | Daniel - piano, electric, vocal | Albert - guitar, drums | Jenn - cello. The tracks are available via the links below. The first song didn't get recorded, neither did the first half of the second, but I put what did up.

song2

song3

song4

song5

Most notably, we did the new song, O Church Arise. I think it went well. People seemed pretty unfamiliar with it, so we'll be doing it again this coming Sunday and probably again before too long. It was the second use of drums ever in our service, and I think they worked. Albert played the necessary rhythm to give the song that mildly militant energy. Patrick commented that the snare was a little harsh in places, so we need to be careful of that. It may be more of a tech issue, though. All the other instruments worked together pretty well. I would like to try keeping the cello on more of that rhythmic pattern.

I like how Albert kept the guitar in on the 3rd verse of Nothing But The Blood. We wanted to make more room for the congregation to sing responsorially. I think it was a nice change of texture from the thick piano.

I am inclined to agree now with Albert's original opinion that the guitar part wasn't working as well as we would have liked. It is almost completely hidden by the piano, except for that third verse. I think the piano is a little too repetitive to be the lead, or only lead instrument. I think it will as a strong backup instrument that can come back and forth in the mix.

I think we did a lot with changing textures this week. Good stuff. Adds a lot of life to the repetitiveness of songs. We should pay attention to that in the future.

Another comment from Patrick - he really liked Mighty To Save. He thought all the parts worked really well. I definitely think that song gets stronger and strong. That's probably due in large part to the fact that we do the same arrangement every time. Albert and I made an effort at one time to try to nail down ways that we liked to do songs and make the arrangements reproduceable. We change things a lot each depending on how the song is going to serve the service, but if we do a song a certain way that we really like it, let's make note of it and try to build on it.

One last thing. We dropped the bass loop from the first two songs because they were out of sync. I thought at first it was the metronome's problem, but after playing them back again, I recorded them out of time in a couple spots, throwing the entire thing off. So my bad.

TECH NOTES | ...

Let's be careful of how we amplify the snare. We need to have it in the mix, but depending on how it sound naturally in the room, we may not need to give it much. Let's be really sensitive next time we use it to make sure the EQing keeps it from being harsh. If we need to, we an look at compressing it.

Thanks to my lovely wife, I got hold of a couple small diaphragm mics that we can try for a couple applications. Right now, I'd like to try one on the cello and one for an ambient. The SM57 does ok on the cello, but it isn't as flat and sensitive as a condenser. The SM57's EQ profile has an spike that I think pulls out a less desirable tone. We'll need to be very, VERY careful of feedback when using the condenser on anything being amplified in a speaker

TECH REHEARSAL | ...

Thanks to those who stuck around. Hope you liked the pizza. We accomplished one or two really important things.

Summary:

The main bus on our FOH (front of house) mixer is noisy if it gets very high. It need to be kept down around -25db and the channels need to be gained high enough to get a good signal within that threshold. Kyle noticed a "wind" that went in and out with the keyboard. We discovered it also occurred with other signals and think we isolated it to the main bus. Remember that every time you double the amount of active channels on the mixer, you at 6db to the main bus without turning it up. If all of the channels were unmuted, the hiss was present. If only the one channel was active, there was no hiss. My theory is that with all the channels active, the main bus was receiving a lot more gain which translated into a worse signal to noise ratio. (Hope that makes sense to you sound guys. It's intended for you.) We brought the main bus down to -25db and boosted the gains (which vastly helps the signal to noise ratio), and the "wind" was pretty much gone. So use those solo switches and get the meter lights much closer to the yellow when setting gains.

We also worked with the instruments to get the sound we desired out of the mains. We'll need to take the full sound of each instrument into account when mixing, then fit it in with any EQing. (Remember, backing off EQ is better than adding!)

I'm going to leave off here. Please listen to the recordings, even if you weren't playing. Please leave comments. Let's use this thing. And thanks again for all those who were there for the tech rehearsal. Thanks for your sacrifice and service.