Posted in blogDECADEFeaturedProduction

So I’ve shown you the cool official photos from our DECADE photographers and you’ve seen media samples from the service itself.  Today I’m going to share the snapshots I took with my phone throughout the two days.  Production fans will probably enjoy these most of all since they really show nuts and bolts of the process.  Enjoy!

Now for the part you’ve been waiting for…

These are raw, but I decided I am ok with putting them out there so you can see what raw looks like.  Are there some mix things I would change…sure.  Is everything perfect…no.  But there was such a spirit to what happened and I believe that translates to these videos in a way that supersedes everything else.

For more cool content, go to Youtube and search for “NLC Decade”. There are a few videos out there that really capture what it felt like in the room and I’m really pleased with how things translate.

Enjoy a glimpse at DECADE!

So if you’ve been following the series, you saw a few posts ago that the PA was a very large d&B J-rig.  Let’s just stop right there for a second and enjoy those words hehehe.

In this post we’re going to talk about the drums and keys rigs for DECADE and some overall direction things we’ve learned the past few months at NLC.

We’ve gotten our drum sounds as far down the field as we’re able with what we own, but it is in the plan for this year to replace our kits and go for a more vintage, timeless sound.  For DECADE, I took that future direction for a spin by renting a Ludwig Classic Maple kit from SIR in Nashville.  16×20 kick, 13″ and 16″ toms, and two snares – one for each guy…a 6.5×14 Black Beauty and a 6.5×14 Supraphonic.  For cymbals, I spec’d Zildjian…  17″ K Custom Dark crash, 19″ K Dark thin crash, 22″ K Custom Dark ride, and 15″ A hats.  Overall a very classic sounding kit and it sounded AMAZING!  I think this kit (or one very similar) is now at the top of our list for purchase this year.  My philosophy is to go for classic, timeless sounds that will translate to lots of different styles of music and sound good over many years.

I received a few questions regarding the Sub-Kick you may have noticed in some pictures.  If you’ve never played with one before, personally I’ve really enjoyed using one – especially with a nice and small, tight kick drum.  You put the condensor mic inside just as usual – in my case a Sennheiser E901.  Then add a bit of channel delay to line it up with the Sub-Kick on the outside.  High pass the E901 so the Sub-Kick takes care of the thump from the kick and the E901 handles the attack and character of the drum.  The combination sounds really really good on a well-tuned kick drum.

For Keys, we’ve been experimenting with a more software based approach as of late with strong results.  We own Yamaha CP-300 stage pianos that are used every week but I’ve wanted to enhance the quality of the sounds for a long time.  We spent some focused time over the past few months listening to demo’s of newer stage pianos – ideally looking for something with really killer sampled piano tones that can also do organs and strings really well.   There are a few options out there that seem to do both – the Nord Stage 2 piano, the Yamaha CP1 being two of them.  The problem is that both of those sell for upwards of $4,000…outside my budget with all of the other pressing needs to address.

The solution for us is the Native Instruments Komplete 7 collection, along with Ableton Live.  For a few weeks prior to DECADE, we experimented with using MIDI to trigger sounds from laptops since our players were content with the feel of playing on our CP300′s but we just weren’t crazy about the tones.  Now with a smaller secondary keyboard on top and MIDI going from both into a laptop, there are amazing organs, strings, electric pianos, and auxiliary percussion at our fingertips.  Combine that with Ableton Live to generate click tracks for the band and you have a really powerful package.

In the samples that you heard yesterday (if you missed them, go up to the media tab at the top of this page and you’ll find them along with a few others) the piano downstage was the Native Instruments New York Concert Grand.  The keys position upstage is running Live to trigger clicks and some tracks, along with Native Instruments exclusively for all of the other sounds generated.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you may remember my journey with Receptor and sampled piano libraries when we replaced an acoustic grand at Kensington with a piano shell from Slam Grand and sampled sounds a few years ago.  Now that was a little while ago so I disclaimer with that, but let me tell you how impressed I am with the grand piano samples in Komplete.  The ability to control three different lid positions, key noise, and pedal noise is amazing.  When you hold down the pedal, you hear the “dampers” let go of the strings, the voicing sounds great, and its low in resource requirements so it runs great on our Macbook Pros.

For the piano rig downstage, we just came out of the laptop into a stereo DI and went from there.  The upstage keys position was more complex.  We used a Digi003 interface to give us up to 8 line outputs.  Outs 1/2 and 3/4 were two stereo keys stems.  One stem was primarily keys sounds, the second a few loops and percussion sounds.  Outs 5/6 were some stereo ensemble tracks and Out 7 was click.

In the near future, I’m planning to roll out a Mac Mini on stage in our regular setup that will run Ableton Live and the Komplete bundle.  We’ll connect MIDI from our CP300 and from the secondary keyboard, then add a M-Audio Fast-track Pro interface so we can have two stereo discreet outputs and we’ve got our new keys rigs for our two main campuses.  Why the Mac Mini?  It will give us a dedicated machine that stays off the internet and is kept production ready for this singular purpose.  It is also clean, low noise, and has good reliability.  Finally, by keeping it connected to the network, our players can screen share into it for programming and control simply and easily.

As you can imagine, it required a tremendous amount of detail to pull off an event like this.  I’ve received a bunch of requests to release the production documents and so here we go.  I think most of this will speak for itself so maybe it would be best to just open up the comments section to questions if there are any.

Production Binder (49 pages, includes room drawings, script, input lists, lighting notes…given to everyone on the crew)

Worship Information (the specific information for the worship team)

Crew Information (the specific information given to the crew approx 3 weeks before the event)

I’m sure there are better ways to do most of this, but I’m just showing you my way.  There were some lessons that came out of this, especially with the service documents themselves.

There are a ton of people on stage throughout the service.  A TON.  I went back and forth on how best to document this – using generic VOX1, VOX2, E/G 1, E/G 2 titles or using everyone’s names.  I eventually settled on names as I knew this would be best for all of our volunteers who would be operating.  However, this was not best for the Majestic Crew who didn’t know anyone by name.  Especially in audio world with so many mixes, it would have been easier for them had I created a version of specific documents that was more generic.

The production schedule was intimidating to create.  Because we were trying to keep our catering numbers as low as we could, we had to make sure as many people as possible had time in the schedule to go off site and eat.  We kept the on-site number to under 40 in most meals and this was a huge win for our budget.

The script was created in Numbers so it would translate easily to iPads, the building maps done in OmniGraffle, and Majestic drawings in AutoCAD, and most of the credentials lists done in Google Docs.  One note about that…we use Google Docs extensively at New Life Church and normally it is an awesome tool.  However, once we got on site at Verizon, internet connectivity was extremely spotty and inconsistent.  I’m REALLY glad that all of the important documents were created outside of Google Docs so we were able to maintain access.

Again, if you have questions, feel free to ask in the comments section.

I’m in the middle of a series documenting the process for DECADE, New Life Church’s tenth anniversary service we recently completed.  If you missed the first two parts, make sure and catch it in the archives.

It was really important to us to maintain the look and feel of New Life Church even though we were doing an event in a potentially larger than life venue.  So we very intentionally selected a level of production system that would be the right fit for the space, especially in regards to the audio system, while not being so over the top that it would overshadow the content of the service itself.  The service was really just a longer version of our normal weekend and we wanted the production to match.  So no LED walls, a modest lighting rig that could provide beauty and wow, again without being over the top.  The most striking part of the entire set was the huge 22ft x 6ft letters that spelled out DECADE.  There will be a whole separate post on that from our set designer, Angie Brown, at a later date.  We went the direction of these letters to give the whole stage a NLC feel by creating something stunning in a “non-tech” way.  Often times those of us in production think the only way to create wow is through the latest and greatest technology…LEDs, versa tubes, Chroma Q, you name it.  Our creative team was 100% correct with this one that often times the best and most impactful design maintains simplicity and achieves the wow in the most low-tech way possible.

For those of you who are interested in the nuts and bolts of the systems you will see in the event video, here’s the overview.

Audio

(64) D&B J-Series Loudspeakers & Subwoofers in the air
(14) D&B B2 Subwoofers on the ground
(47) D&B D12 Amplifiers
56,400 Watts of amplifier power
46 input channels
FOH – Avid D-Show Profile w/Protools HD system
Monitors – Yamaha PM5D
26 Channels of Shure UHF-R Wireless Mics & Sennheiser G3 Wireless In-Ears
56 Channel Whirlwind Snake with 3-Way Transformer Splitter
(4) 16 Channel Whirlwind Sub-Snakes

Lighting

(32) Martin Mac 2000 Profile/Wash, Martin Mac 600 Moving Lights
(28) Martin Stagebar 54S LED Wash fixtures
(12) Arri 2k 10” Fresnels
(12) ETC Source 4
(6) Thomas Crowd Abuse Lights
Whole Hog III Console
ETC SmartFade 1248 Console
DF-50 Hazer with Fan

Video

(2) Barco SLM R12+ Projectors (12,000 ANSI Lumens)
(2) Draper 12ft x 21ft Projection Screens
(4) Panasonic 58”/42” Plasma TVs
(5) Panasonic HPX-370 Cameras
Panasonic HS450N 16 Input HD Switcher

Stage

One of the most important values we had in organizing the crew for DECADE was to utilize as many of our volunteers as possible.  We knew there would be many areas of load-in and load-out where we would need to rely on the Majestic crew and local hired hands, as no one on our team has experience in rigging or large builds of this scope.  However, once we got to the service execution portion, the ultimate goal was to give our core leaders the chance to raise the bar, work with some of the best of the best in the Majestic team, and hopefully be challenged to take what they learn back to our regular services.

With this in mind, we created the crew roster with lots of redundancy in roles – partly to involve as many people as we could and partly to ensure many hands make light work.  Looking back, I think the staffing level was just about right.  I’m not sure I would have changed anything.

Here’s the overview of the positions we filled with our team…

- Service Producer & 3 Assistants – lead the service elements, content, and overall direction of the service, call service cues

- Production Manager & 2 Assistants – lead the production of the event by interfacing with the production vendor & crew, venue, local union stagehands, and NLC Wired team

- Stage Manager & 2 Assistants – manage the event production script, maintain the schedule for rehearsals, manage stage transitions and people to/from stage

- A1, A2, A3 – positioned at FOH…A1 mixes the event audio for the room, A2 is the script manager – calling music cues to the A1, A3 is on com with Service Producer for video cues and countdowns

- M1, M2, M3 – positioned in monitor world…M1 mixes monitors and was from Majestic, M2 is wireless wrangler, M3 manages the stage from an audio perspective – communicating monitor changes, making sure everything goes as planned

- Audio Assistants x2 – all things audio…stage setup, runners, cabling, band setup, you name it.

- LD – lighting designers and operators came from Majestic.  I didn’t think we had anyone on our team who was ready for this challenge so we leaned heavily on Majestic in this area.  This was definitely the right call as evidenced by the LD walking out of the venue on Saturday night before I did with a completely programmed, gorgeous lighting show.

- Video Director – from Majestic

- Video Assistants x2 – script management, calling shots and keeping up with what is coming next, knowing names for our people on stage, maintaining the NLC look and feel.

- ProPresenter x2 – we set out to use two ProPresenter machines…one for anything lower third and one for full screen playback.  We ended up only using one machine but we were prepared for two.

- Shader – operating the camera CCUs

- Camera Operators x5 – camera positions were two center, two handheld (one stage left and one stage right with tripods to land in during the message), and the 30ft Cam Mate Jib (operated by Majestic)

- Each camera had a grip assistant assigned.  This person’s function differed based on the camera.  For handhelds, they fed cable, kept the op’s path clear, and so on.  For stationary cams, it gave us a backup in case anyone needed relief or couldn’t come through for some reason.  We tried to get as many of these people seat time behind the camera as we could.

- Stage Crew x2 – these guys handled any moves needed on stage during transitions.  Mic stands, table and stool on and off, communion elements to the pastor, etc.

So if you are keeping track, that equals 9 team members from Majestic:  production manager, 3 audio, 3 lighting, 2 video and 30 staff and volunteers from NLC actually operating the event.  Add an additional 10 or 12 stagehands helping with the DECADE letters load-in and other projects around the arena and you get a sense of the scope we’re talking about.

In wrapping up this part, I have to brag on these people a bit.  I’ve been doing this production thing professionally for over 10 years now.  In that time, I’ve worked in large and small churches, arenas and theaters with lots and lots of different people – union/non-union, staff/volunteer, you name it.  I’m convinced I’ve never been more proud of a team than our Wired team serving at DECADE and what God allowed us to experience and accomplish for Him and for NLC – the way everyone stepped up, gave this event everything they’ve got, rolled through the changes and challenges, dealt with the nerves and uncertainty of producing something so epic, and served so gracefully through it all.  DECADE would have never happened without every one of this team serving and giving of themselves to something that is far bigger than any of us and worth our entire life!

From New Life Church:  Neil Greathouse, Nathan Pruzaniec, Bryan Barnard, Drew Spurgers, Kyle Basham, Jenna Wilson, Jason Hollis, Mindy Corder, Jade Gay, Emily Stockdale, Seth Jeffrey, Ken Barnes, Jack Benson, Nick Keith, Everett Ellis, Markus Turkia, Shelly Weir, Pamela Floyd, John Sketoe, Brent Hill, Robert Floyd, Derek Lewis, George Perkins, Bill Cunningham, Jim Rice, Doug Avra, Braeden Gregg, Gary Morrison, Brett Brownderville.

From Majestic Productions:  Ryan Bates, Jeremy Dodd, Derek Seal, Christian Hahn, Joey Davis, Ethan Frazier, Kyle Shepherd, Jeremy Seawell, Chris Ferrari

Thank you everyone!!

If you’ve been following my twitter for the past few months, you’ve seen me refer to the most challenging project I’ve ever been involved with or led, New Life Church’s tenth anniversary service called DECADE.  My role for this event was to lead the execution of the production at Verizon Arena in Little Rock, with 9 contracted production staff, 21 local union stagehands, riggers, and electricians, and 41 volunteers from the New Life Church Wired team.  I’m going to take a few posts to detail much of the process that went into this event in hopes it will be helpful to other churches considering undertaking a similar type of event.

To celebrate ten years as a church, I first learned of the vision last summer to host a service where we could have everyone from our 5 campuses together under one roof.  In Arkansas, there are only several venues that could hold that size of a crowd so we quickly knew we were headed to Verizon.  The arena has an in-the-round capacity of just over 16,000 or just over 13,000 in an end-stage configuration.

The most important decision was the production company we would partner with for audio, video, and lighting systems.  I knew all along we would need to hire someone – there was no way we had the kind of inventory, resources, or expertise necessary to even consider doing the event ourselves.  In early fall I interviewed 6 different options, both local and national.  From the document presented to our executive team when we made our final choice, my criteria in selecting a provider included:

- Single point of contact production company to be solely responsible for entire event (audio/video/lighting)

- Large worship team (including ensemble) = 48 channel audio system with separate monitor desk, large scale arena PA system (d&b, Meyer, etc)

- Lighting system to deliver similar experience to what we create at the GLR campus (modest moving lights, bright colorful stage, excellent lighting for video)

- 2 large screens on each side of stage for video playback & IMAG (21’ x 12’, 12k lumens minimum).  Lyrics to be keyed at the bottom of the screen over live video during worship.

- Multi-camera IMAG system with Jib for side screens & capture

- Multi-track audio recording and video capture capability so we can capture the event for potential future release (worship CD recording, highlight reel to web, etc)

In the end, we hired Majestic Productions based in Summitville, IN and this was by far the best decision we’ve ever made.  During the interview and bidding process it was clear that Ryan Bates and his team “got” our event in ways others missed.  Their bid was the most complete, including things not even on my radar that I would need such as a 4 channel com system, confidence monitoring, video distribution gear to the building, etc.  Ryan and Majestic acted as our single point of contact and him and I spent much time on the phone from October until the event in February.

Even if you’ve never heard of Majestic, I promise you that you are familiar with their work.  Since 1997, the Majestic team has provided production for events such as Passion, Catalyst conferences and Catalyst West , Orange, Youth Specialties, Chris Tomlin, Jeremy Camp, Gaither Homecoming, Hillsong United, and on and on.  For an event like DECADE, it was important to me that our partner be completely comfortable with what we were trying to accomplish as I knew the timeframe for rehearsal would be tight, we hoped to utilize as many of our Wired volunteers as possible, and expertise was everything in getting it right the first time.  It was comforting to our whole team that while this event was a huge deal to us, it was just another service to the Majestic team.

Over this series we’re going to first talk about production systems, then crew, the documentation we created, and finally some media samples from the service.  Come back tomorrow for the next post…

Posted in blogFeatured

Well as you can tell, the flow of posts has recently come to a halt.  While waiting for things to kick back in again soon, I just experimented with my first official foray into the LD chair in addition to mixing audio and have some photos to share.  Newlifechurch.tv recently hosted our first ever 2-day Woman conference and I programmed all of the visual looks for each of the sessions during rehearsals in addition to mixing audio for the actual event.  It was a rewarding experience to be able to use a completely different part of the brain but I also confirmed that audio is the lifegiving seat for me.

Enjoy!  I’m posting an audio clip from the session 1 opener as well as the photo gallery.

Posted in blogFeatured

This post has been sitting in my drafts literally for months and for some reason I never finished it off to post it.  Mindy and I had a great opportunity last February to hang out with the audio crew on the road with Rascal Flatts when their tour came through Detroit.  Jon Jon Garber (Flatts FOH) was a gracious host for the day and the entire experience was a great case study in excellent live production.  Please enjoy my photos and commentary of that day…

I mentioned this announcement last week on Twitter & Facebook but wanted to elaborate a bit, so here we go!

I’m excited to announce a new chapter in my professional life and for our family.  After 4 years as the audio director at Kensington Community Church in Troy, MI, God has called us to a new adventure with New Life Church in Conway, AR.  For those of you not familiar with New Life (I’d never heard of them either before we started this journey), the church is 9 years old, has 5 campuses all over Arkansas that average 7,000 people per weekend with more on the way, and has awesome leadership and vision we’re looking forward to being a part of.  My new job will draw from my experience at KCC in leading all things audio related and joining a talented & gifted staff and creative team.

The journey leading us to this decision first began 8 months ago.  Since that time, at every turn, our life has led back to New Life.  I was never sure if I would work for another church besides Kensington because it was hard to imagine another place would be as great of a fit spiritually, creatively, and personally for our family.  It was especially wild to be visiting this church a few months ago for the weekend having no idea what to expect when we’d get there.  As God always does, we were completely blown away.  Every excuse I had made in my mind ahead of time of why New Life wouldn’t fit was out the window.  The talent and artistry I experienced was inspiring, we loved everyone we met and spent time with – so friendly and welcoming, the volunteer audio guys currently serving are rock stars with such great attitudes and dedication to the ministry, Rick Bezet, the senior pastor, is the real deal – gifted communicator, down to earth, and approachable, an instant connection with the guys I’ll be working closest with (Brandon, Neil, & Phil), etc etc etc.  I could go on and on.  In my limited life experience, opportunities come along all the time but the doors normally close on their own as quickly as they open.  This time, the door kept being opened, often times not even by my doing.

It has been clear for a while now that God was using my experiences at Kensington to prepare us for an adventure that would require us to completely leap out in faith and trust Him with our security.  This step represents that jump off the deep end for us.  Already God has been so faithful, providing us a brand new house to rent, bringing a buyer for our current house in Michigan, and resolving countless details along the way.  I’m humbled to be able to put my money where my mouth is, following God even when it is scary and doesn’t make sense to some.

There is lots to be done between now and mid-June when we will pack up the cars and head southwest.  Prayers for this transition would be greatly appreciated by our entire family.  For as excited as we are, it is bitter sweet and emotional to leave everything we know here – our families, a church we both love, and great friends.  I am so thankful for my time at Kensington, the lifelong relationships that have been formed, and the way I’ve been shaped artistically, creatively, and personally by this place.  This time has been a great gift.

A new chapter…here we come!

It is no secret that I’m quite a fan of Digidesign’s Venue line of live audio consoles.  There are certainly other tools out there but Digi has proven to be an excellent fit with the kind of art we create at Kensington and the way I am most effective mixing.

Check out a really cool video from Digidesign on the Making of the Venue platform.  One of the best parts of partnering with Digi is the accessibility of the leadership team and this video is a great example.  I’m not aware of another console manufacturer with a more public and accessible team.

I ran across this feature article in downloadable form that is by far the most in depth information chronicling the U2 360 Tour.  New details about the concept and creation, as well as each of the major systems of the tour.  If you’re interested in mind-blowing production, this article is worth the read!

Download it here. (10 mb .pdf)

In a break from some of the serious content of the past few weeks, I want to share a couple of what I think are really cool videos about the production team and music team at Kensington.  These were prepared as part of a Fall push for more volunteers on our teams.  Kensington can sometimes be criticized by outsiders for unorthodox methodology in reaching the community for Christ, but I think these videos really capture the heart and mission of why we do what we do.  I’m very proud to serve on this team.  

Watch the music one first for more on our mission and some stories about our incredible artist team, then check out my team’s profile.

If you work or serve in any level of production, I have a resource for you that has come through for me a number of times now and I want to share!  I think I’ve written about them before, but regardless…

Audiovend is a wireless rental specialist – Shure & Sennheiser, Lectrosonics, wired & wireless IEM, Comm – if its wireless, they deal with it.  They also have a very large inventory of specialized mics and wireless capsules.  I first learned about Greg Stevens and Audiovend a few years ago when I needed to rent 12 string mics (DPA 4061s).  One of my friends suggested talking to Greg due to a recommendation from DPA.  They were very easy to work with and provided exactly what I needed for the weekend.  On top of that, rental rates for such specialized mics were fair and reasonable.  It was a win/win for everyone.

Since that time, we’ve done a couple of other similar rentals for special service elements.  A few months ago, however, a unique opportunity came along for us to partner on a higher profile and that event’s success is the inspiration for this post.

Every summer, Kensington does an outdoor baptism event at a local park/beachfront.  Hundreds of people participate to declare their love for Jesus, with several thousand spectators lining the beach to picnic, celebrate, and support.  This event is always one of the highlights of the year.  As a part of the production needs, we have utilized waterproof microphones in the water so that the pastors can make things more personal for each participant and lead everyone through the event.  The concept is REALLY cool and the event hinges on these mics’ success, but for the past several years of attempting this, the execution has been marginal due to poor support from our previous vendor – a large national rental company.

After last year’s experience, I suggested that we seek out a new direction this year and approached Greg for his help.  He designed a Lectrosonics 6 channel system with waterproof transmitters and headsets, helical antennas, and the needed distribution and cabling to remote the antennas 100 feet from the receivers.  Everything was shipped to us to arrive the day before the event.  It was sent in such a way I could unpack, make the necessary RF and audio connections, and be good to go.  Greg did a frequency coordination plan prior to shipping so when the system arrived, it was ready to rock.

Below is an excerpt of the email I sent Greg following the successful evening…

“…Everything worked as it should for the entire event.  This event hinges on these wireless working and your system delivered for the first time in several years of trying!  The headsets sounded really good with little channel EQ, lithium batteries saved the day – we powered transmitters on at the beginning of event and made it all the way to the end with no battery swaps, helicals were great – no RF issues at all.  It was so great to be able to turn the transmitters on and go because the frequencies were all taken care of from the start.  In the past the team has always had to guess and tune with mixed results.  Everyone on our team was very impressed.

You have a raving fan in Kensington – we’ll certainly be making this an annual thing   You made me look very good today but I know you and your team are the real heros.  Thanks again for all you do!”

What is most ironic is that Audiovend provided a similar set of actual gear as our previous vendor – I think the biggest difference was their proper planning, implementation, and improved RF distribution.  Greg and the team are obvious experts at the art form of wireless audio systems.

If you’re also placed in situations where you need to deliver wireless solutions for high-profile events, I HIGHLY recommend Greg Stevens and his team at Audiovend Wireless.  His expertise is vast, his prices fair, and the service and support is excellent.  He’ll make you look very good as well!  Let him know I sent you…

We’re a few weeks into the OwnTheMix.com experiment for audio team training.  I thought it might be a good idea to provide some follow up since a few have asked offline about it.  To read more about the background of OTM for Kensington, check this out.

I continue to be very impressed by the content of OTM.  The video production is well done and the training materials are spot on for the church audio engineer.  I’m especially excited about new content that will be coming online in the next few weeks with more focus on Digidesign D-Show consoles/software and the essential ProTools training for working with click tracks and virtual soundcheck.

As solid as the micing, mixing, and interview videos are, I continue to believe the biggest value of this content will be for our team to go through it as a group.  While I may not agree with every specific suggested technique, I anticipate the discussion these topics will create among our team will be as valuable, if not more, than the video content itself.

Probably the biggest disappointment to me so far is the social networking side of the site.  It is not the most intuitive to search for other members or groups that would be interesting to follow.  There’s nothing the OTM guys can do about it, but the community side would also be more beneficial if more people actively participated in the forums and their personal profiles/groups.  Perhaps some contests for SWAG to encourage increased participation would be beneficial or something else like that.

There is no such thing as perfect in anything, and the same holds true when you talk about a training resource like OwnTheMix.  However, the content itself is so strong and unique that it overcomes any of the minor weaknesses regarding community participation.  I still wholeheartedly recommend this for teams of any size who are mixing in churches.  Thanks OTM guys for such a spot-on service!