So this year I was planning to take Christmas Eve off…I really was.  After spending the past 5 years working in churches professionally, this year seemed like a great chance to take the year off.  However, in November I started mixing at several of the North Point Ministries campuses here in Atlanta.  So when the request came to mix Christmas Eve in the West Auditorium at North Point Community Church, I couldn’t stay away, although t felt like a lightweight only mixing 3 services rather than the normal 9-13 I’ve done each of the past 5 years!  It is an honor serving with the team at North Point – truly one of the most talented and well organized production teams on the planet.

Enjoy the opener from the service below.  The bands in the East and West auditoriums are playing together to a common click track with the lead vocalists spread between the two stages.  Todd and Candi are in the East and Eddie and Ryan are in the West.

The best part of this year – I was able to mix on Christmas eve morning and be done in plenty of time for our family to go to church together in the afternoon and spend the evening at home preparing for Santa to arrive.  It really was the best of all worlds!

Christmas 2009 has come and gone.  Below are a few clips from this year’s services.

(All visual & music content in the Chasing Stars clip is originally created for this service by Kensington artists…)

It’s been fun going through this IEM journey the past 2 weeks.  To wrap up the series, I thought I would post the full songs that all of the mixes were taken from you so can see the context of the performances.

These two tunes are from an all-worship series we did in late August/early September. First, “My Savior, My God”…

Next, a Danny Cox original I’ve posted before but with a fresh mix of the track…

Thanks everybody.  Back to regularly scheduled programming next time around.

This weekend was a first for me at Kensington.  Our arts team had a crazy idea a few weeks ago to rewrite the lyrics to the Black Eyed Peas tune “Boom Boom Pow” and use it as a major production element to reinforce our core values – loving God and loving others, locking arms with others in authentic community, and living openhandedly – and hopefully inspire and recruit volunteers to join our team.  Below is the result of all of our work.

At 1:15 into the video, I make my first actual appearance on the KCC stage (along with the rest of this weekend’s team in the booth) to rap the bridge.  I was pretty apprehensive of doing it but it ended up being a lot of fun and was a cool memory.  I work with a really incredible group of people!

If you can’t figure it out, I’m the “SOUND GUY”!  That’s also my wife carrying the soul to my left.

Several have asked for a new mix sample on the new PA, so here you go.  We did this song this past weekend as the service closer.  It kind of puts together a bunch of the techniques and tools I’ve written about recently – D12E on kick and 414s on overheads, guitar mics, upward compression on the drums and vocal, etc.  Check it out!

Posted in blogServices

Wrapping up the Easter marathon coverage, here’s a photoblog of the awesome Good Friday service.  This set was built in front of our mid-traveller, so the Easter set lived happily behind and the turn from GF to Easter wasn’t too bad on Friday night after the last service.

Thanks for following this year’s Easter journey!

I thought it might be interesting to go through the various documents I create in order to execute a large service such as Easter 09.  If you’re interested in the master versions of any of these files, just drop me a line and I’d be glad to send.

The most important step for me for successful mixing on the Digidesign D-Show Profile is good planning for console layout and bussing.  I developed a worksheet in Apple Numbers that makes it easy to experiment with layout and plan out my bank assignments.  Once this worksheet is complete, I can use it to build the actual console show file.

Once the show file is created, the D-Show will automatically generate a patch worksheet that can be used to patch the stage inputs into the D-Show.

Here is a sample of the stage drawings that are created by our set designer.  There was a specific drawing for each transition in the day, creating a “playbook” for the stage team of where everything should be placed.

And finally, in case you are interested, here is a version of our production copy for the service.  This isn’t the final, final version but its pretty close.  You may see a few question marks or whatnot but it gives you the idea of the script we’re working from.

Be sure to check out yesterday’s post for the background on this service and video from the front half of the day. Today is the back half…

This song came directly out of the message just our Slam Grand piano and vocal.

After Shadowfeet, we transitioned into a voiceover testimony with photos on the screen, followed by this song as the closer. This is another KCC original, written by Ben West.

The music for this service has been some of my favorite that we’ve ever done in my time at Kensington.  Today is the elements from the front half of the service, tomorrow is the back half!

The theme for the service was based on 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” God takes the trash and junk of our lives and makes us into new creations every day!

The opener began with this…

Which transitioned into this…

After a drama about life crashing down for a married couple, this song came next leading into the message. This is a KCC original, written by lead vocalist, Danny Cox.

Come back tomorrow for the back half of the service!

Posted in blogServices

I think Easter 2009 was one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional career. The entire process from rehearsals to services was very special! Lives were changed, reminded that we’re all new creations when we’re in Christ.

I’ve got a few different posts on audio pre-production/documentation, behind the scenes stage tour, service samples, etc. that will come throughout this week and next. For now, here’s some cool shots that capture the essence of the day. I’ll be back with you in a few days after some rest and recharging!

Today is day 8 of my 17 day Easter setup/rehearsal/service marathon at Kensington. This year we’re doing 22 identical services at 5 locations. Last night the Troy team premiered the service for the cast & crews of all of the other campuses at the end of our dress rehearsal process. Next week the campuses will go through their rehearsals in their spaces.

I’m really excited about this service but it has been a unique challenge from an audio perspective. There are a couple of really cool original tunes in the day, a “stomp”-esq percussion opener, video screen blending, drum & keys decks that move, 62 physical inputs plus effects returns, 20 channels of RF (ears, instruments, vocals, drama, & speakers). I’ll write more about the process for the service and learnings once there’s free time on the other side of next weekend.

In the meantime, I shot a “teaser” time lapse of rehearsal on Wednesday night. Check it out! If you’re in the Detroit area, come check out the service Easter weekend!

Here’s a sample from this past weekend of the Imogen Heap tune called “Headlock”.  The song is pretty outside the box for us but it was a lot of fun to stretch a bit.  As always, you’re listening to a board mix from the noon service through my little broadcast processing chain.

A few new things I’m trying that are reflected in this mix:

• Demo’ing a set of Heil PR30s on toms.  I am really impressed with the drum tone that came with them.  More meat & midrange to them then my normal Audix D2/D4 combo or even standard 421s.  Very musical & natural.  The only EQ I found I wanted/needed was a small drop centered around 300 to keep them from getting woofy & a small boost around 2k to make them cut just a bit more.
• I’ve tried swapping my kick drum philosophy from the Audix D6 being my primary full range mic with a Shure Beta91 used to provide a different character and more click when needed.  I really like the newfound low end of the Beta91 and have been having a much easier time getting the kick to sit nicely with the bass by using the Beta91 in full-range all the way down into the subs, rolling off a big chunk of 1k-3k out of it to keep the drum’s click under control, then hi-passing the D6 around 150 and putting it almost equal with the 91.  You can hear the result.
• Lead vocal is a Shure KSM9 wireless.  This song was all over the place for her dynamically – too much so for any major compression I tried to work well.  That meant “hand compression” was the only option so one hand was on her vocal channel for the entire song, riding all of the jumps between the higher power stuff and the quiet low register.  The vocal effects come from ReVibe & Echo Farm in the bridge.  ”Inverse Long” on the exposed part at the front end, Lex Warm Plate on the bridge with the delay (sorry I don’t remember the exact Echo Farm preset, 1/2 note, no repeats), then back to Inverse long.

Anyways, enjoy!

This is the first in what will hopefully become an ongoing installment of photo blogs.  I’m working on a quick & efficient way to implement video blogs but its not ready yet.  Hopefully soon!

Saturday, 9am.  Start of the day.  Time to wire the stage & prep for the band…  Tunes are rolling – today’s playlist is Peter Frampton I think.

Drum kit after its wired.  Rode NT4 for overheads, Shure Beta91 inside the kick (primary mic), Audix D6 on the short boom in the kick hole (some extra midrange & click for the kick), & Neumann TLM103 out in front of the kit for another artistic option for kick.  All of the cables for the kit are loomed and labeled so it is fast & clean to wire.  They terminate into a custom 16 channel fan snake that pulls to the drum deck for each service regardless of where it is located.  Channels 1-12 = audio, Channels 13-16 = PQ mixer, ears feed, & Dr Beat connect point.

Audio-Technica ATM-450 on snare top, Shure SM-57 on snare bottom (though hardly used), Neumann KM-184 on hat, Heil PR30s on rack & floor tom (auditioning them this weekend and quite impressed).  Although we have a house snare, most of our drummers bring their own.

Ready for the two electric guitar rigs.  Guitar 1 using a Shure SM57 and CAD E100, guitar 2 using a Sennheiser E609 and CAD E200.  Our electric amps are always faced directly upstage and this measure seems to be enough to provide reasonable control over stage volume.  I don’t anticipate us going the ISO cabinet route because our artistic folk like the “raw-ness” of amps on stage.

Ears & PQ mixer ready to go.  We provide Shure E3s or E5s to artists, although some are starting to bring their own.

12:30p.  Band rehearsal is underway.

Christmas at Kensington for this year is officially in the can and in light of all of the system changes made this year in audio world, I thought it would be fitting to outline some learnings and experiences.  I’ve started writing and will gradually put things up over the next week or two.

In the meantime, here’s a sample of the big epic tune that was the centerpiece of the service as part of an original 9 minute spoken-word, dance, video, & music package.  You’re listening to a live FOH board mix simply through the new broadcast chain (more on this later).  Little bit of Massey limiting and Cranesong Phoenix and presto!  This track was written by our music director, Danny Cox, for this service and has quickly become one of my favorite songs of the last few years.  Enjoy!

More photos of the service can be found here:  http://tinyurl.com/kccxmasphotos

I found an open-source app that does time lapse video with the built-in iSight on my Macbook Pro now that the feature has been removed from the latest version of iMovie.

So I now present…A Saturday at the Office

A Day at the Office from Tim Corder on Vimeo.