I first observed John Cooper’s work a little over 10 years ago when he was mixing Wynonna and the company I was working for at the time provided production for an acoustic show on a military base. I was impressed with his mix, but equally impressed with his demeanor and approach to the day. It’s always stuck out with me, so I was especially interested in this video I ran across recently on the Waves site profiling John’s techniques and tools mixing the Ringo Starr All Star Band. It’s definitely worth a watch.

I mentioned this on Twitter a few weeks ago but figured it was worth a full blog post. A little while back I happened on a weekly video podcast led by Dave Pensado called Pensado’s Place that has quickly proven it should be required viewing for anyone serious about mixing. If you don’t recognize the name, I promise you that you know Dave’s work. Dave has mixed hits for bands like The Black Eyed Peas to Justin Timberlake, Elton John, Jamiroquai, and Christina Aguilera. In 2002, Dave received a Grammy for his work on the hit single “Lady Marmalade,” featuring Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mýa, and Pink. Do I have your attention yet?

Every week Dave and his manager Herb Trawick host a roughly 45 minute program that is full of techniques, q & a, and interviews with well known current mix engineers. The content is really well done and it’s really important to me that we support Dave in this since it is highly unusual to find someone as successful as Dave creating this kind of resource.

One of my favorite episodes was #4 when he interviewed Tony Maserati. I’m linking to it here to get you hooked and then go check out Dave’s site to catch up on the rest of the back episodes already in the can.

For all of my new friends at NLC.tv, today I’m going to pull back an old video post that, while potentially embarrassing, it also still pretty cool to me.  This is from almost a year ago when I made my official stage debut at Kensington.  I had to pull the video for a while after we first did the element so its exposure was limited to only a day or two.

Our arts team at KCC had a crazy idea to rewrite the lyrics to the Black Eyed Peas tune “Boom Boom Pow” and use it as a major production element to reinforce Kensington’s core values – loving God and loving others, locking arms with others in authentic community, and living openhandedly.  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 worked 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.

I’ve written in the past about how much of a fan I’ve become as of late of Michael Jackson.  Growing up I was always put off by his off the stage troubles of the past 15 years or more so I never really explored his music or the stories from the studio or stage.  Sure, as a man, he was creepy.  But as an artist, the man was a creative genius.  I believe there is lots that we can learn in the Christian creative field from his abilities as a storyteller and his drive for excellence and perfecting his craft.  It also blows me away how many of his records have stood the test of time sonically.  In fact several of his tracks have earned a place in my system tuning playlist because they just sound so pure, even with 30 year old technology.

Do yourself a favor if you have never seen it and rent/buy the documentary/concert that came out last fall called Michael Jackson: This Is It.  This film will give you an excellent glimpse into what goes into creating excellence.  I would be very surprised if you don’t thank me for it…

That’s all for this week!  Next week we’re going to start diving into PA optimization and room tuning.

I have no words…

Incredible on so many different levels!

Since I’ve been on a Dave Rat kick as of late, I ran across this really informative video on Youtube a few weeks ago from Dave that explains a bussing and compression strategy he uses for mixing.  I’d read about this, maybe on his blog, a few years ago.  This is more concise and easier to follow than those articles.  Definitely worth the watch…

This is a video version of a workshop from the October 2009 AES show in New York City called Audio Myths workshop by Ethan Winer. In this video you will hear what phase shift sounds like, compare high- and low-end converters, learn about proper test methods, understand why hearing is not as reliable as test gear, and much more. So set aside an hour when you won’t be disturbed, and enjoy.

The original high quality example Wave files mentioned can be downloaded from Ethan’s web site: http://www.ethanwiner.com/aes

Continuing the video blog Mondays format of the past few weeks, here’s another cool gem of Manny Marroquin outlining mix thoughts from John Mayer’s tune “I Don’t Trust Myself”. There’s good insight here.

It is no secret I enjoy reading about and learning from some of the masters of the craft of mixing. �One name who is certainly no stranger to a list of the best is Chris Lord-Alge. �I recently ran across this video on Youtube that is pretty cool to check out. �One of my favorite records of 2009 was by Dave Matthews Band. �This video was shot as they were printing the final mix of the title track.

I’m always excited to see more advancement of technology in live sound. �Check out this video for more info on Waves new system that brings plug-ins to any digital desk. �Certainly will be interesting to see how this plays out knowing the new offerings from some major console players that should be coming to market this year!

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…)

I’m taking a break today from the IEM series. We’ll revisit the last few installments next week. Today is a video post…

Yesterday I re-discovered a concert that I consider a benchmark for the current state of artistic presentations.  A couple years ago Keith Urban introduced the most effective use of IMAG in a concert that I’ve ever experienced and the entire show is flat out incredible.  Check out this opening tune, especially about a minute and a half in once the band fully kicks in.  Whether you’re a fan of country or not, I think the creative use of IMAG, produced video content, lighting, staging, and a really great DVD audio mix makes Keith Urban’s “Love, Pain, & the Whole Crazy Thing” DVD a must-watch.

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!

Here’s a video I ran across on Mixonline.com that’s close to my heart. FOH mixer Nick Simons gives a tour of The Joint, the new 4,100-seat performance venue at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas, which features an extensive d&b audiotechnik installation with remote monitoring of all functions, Digidesign D-Show Profile mixers and BSS London control of processing and zone control.

When we started out on the plan to revamp the audio system at Kensington Troy last summer, moving from the Yamaha PM1D to the Digidesign platform, a new PA, new microphones, etc. this is a profile of a similarly designed system. Worth the watch!

Here’s a video I shot while we were in the middle of our run with a little backstage tour.  (RSS readers, head to the site to see the video)

It seems the biggest question we’ve gotten is how we did the big screens that move. You see a little bit of them in the video above but I’m not one to focus too much on video! However, those screens were THE set element in the day, so there were a lot of resources dedicated to getting it right. Believe it or not, it’s actually really simple to implement.

First, the projector and screen are mounted to a “wagon” of sorts so they always move together and the alignment remains perfect. That wagon rides on two tracks that are drilled into the stage, one at the front under the screen and one at the back under the projector section. The tracks are just long enough to account for how close and far the screens need to be from each other, with just enough break in the center for the drums and keys decks to fit through, and just enough break on the offstage sides for the Megabeats percussion and Slam Grand piano to get on and off stage. We experimented with a few different castor types and means of moving the wagons to find the smoothest option.

Second, each screen/projector wagon is connected to a long bar that is painted black and runs along the floor to off stage. Each wagon has a stage hand dedicated to it, and they pull or push the bar, moving the screens in and out to spiked positions based on calls from the Stage Manager. Obviously it took some practice to get them to be comfortable moving at the same speed.

Third, the screens are 9ft x 12ft. They are each fed an output from the video switcher, allowing us to feed them video content from 2 discreet Doremi Labs Nugget players (one for each screen) or PVP/Powerpoint. All of the “blended” video content was created in Final Cut and then exported as two discreet video feeds that play in sync with each other through the Nugget.

I think that covers it. If there’s something else I missed, ask away!

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!

This blog falls in the category of things I wish other engineers that I looked up to would do. Hopefully some of you will find it interesting to see how things flow in my little space in the production world! On Monday I will post a video tour of Easter both on and off stage – drum kit, keys rigs, stage patching, IEM world, video control, and more (I can show behind the scenes once we’re into our service run without anyone getting mad at me for giving anything away too soon!).

I’m trying a different video format for this one to see if I can improve the quality.  Any thoughts or feedback compared to the previous uploads?  Uploading to Vimeo takes a bit more time than native hosting with flash video, but it should load faster and look better.

3/16″ Clear Plexiglas

90 degree brackets:  http://www.abctarget.com/product1~P~P174.htm

Total Cost:  $240

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 we go. Let’s see if this works. If so, the video blog test is complete and I can start doing some tutorials on various topics that will be MUCH faster to shoot then they would be to type. I’m pretty pumped about this!  The chain is a Flip Video camera, copy the file to the MacbookPro, run it through a quicktime conversion and a flash video conversion, then throw it up on the site.  The entire processing time is less than 5 minutes.  Awesome!

Test #1 – Drum kit during rehearsal

Test #2 – “Digital” Piano visual tour

If its working or not working for you, would you do me a favor and let me know?  Thank you!