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.

After starting with the main speakers, I work outward from there until we get to the speakers in the back of the room.  Often the first step after mains is downfills.  I like to work my way out from the mains because as I add more speakers to what I’m listening to, they all start to work together and I have to follow that energy rather than fight it.  Every change you make to one set effects everything else so you have to think holistically and experiment.

The key to making fill speakers work is two things – delay time and EQ.  If the main speakers are our starting point and benchmark that everything else must align to, fill speakers such as downfill or delays will normally arrive at either slightly different or perhaps greatly different times to your ear depending on where you are standing in the room.  The trick is to use delay so that speakers that are separated by 5 feet or 75 feet sound like they are all arriving at your ear at the same time and thus working together.  I use my software program to help calculate the necessary delay times, often times with a bit of trial and error in real world to nudge things forward or backward just a bit so it feels right.

After the delay time is right, I like to first turn off the speaker I’m getting ready to work with and just measure how everything else we’ve already optimized sounds in the location of the fill speaker.  This tells us what is missing sonically in this location from what we’ve already done and that is what we will focus on with EQ’ing the fill speaker.  I will high-pass the speaker so the low frequencies that are already hitting the area from the main speakers are not competing with additional stuff trying to come from the fill.  Now balance the sonic EQ of the fill so the response curve sounds as close to standing in front of the main speaker as possible.  Continue this process with each set of fills and eventually all parts of the system are operating at the same time.

As I said, this is a very high level discussion because the reality is that the process of tuning a PA is as much art as it is science.  For me, depending on the complexity of the system and the acoustics of the room it is installed in, there can also be a fair amount of experimentation & trial/error.  One of our largest rooms at newlifechurch.tv has a distributed audio system design – 4 main arrays in the front of the room with downfills below them and then a ring of delay speakers 2/3′s of the way back.  It took me three attempts at tuning this room before I arrived at a product that I’m reasonably happy with as a long-term starting point.  Each time I did it, I learned more about how all of the speakers interacted with each other, the acoustics of the room, and the result was less and less needed EQ each time.

In my experience with trying to get a great board mix for broadcast from the same console mixing FOH, a well-tuned PA is absolutely required to have any chance of success.

I have a basic process that I follow when tuning a PA.  Everyone probably approaches something like this differently so your mileage may vary, but here’s a sampling of my thoughts.

First and foundational for me is to not take anything for granted pre-existing in the system from past engineers, the installation company, or “helpful” volunteers. Crossover points in bi or tri-amped speakers, the manufacturer recommended EQ points on a box, amplifier processing either bypassed or enabled, every speaker functioning, balanced levels between boxes, and on and on.  I like to begin by ensuring that every box is actually functioning, the array is balanced so that the level remains consistent as you walk the room, and that all DSP in the system is either flattened, bypassed, or disabled.

There is nothing worse then spending hours working on a set of speakers to then find that a circuit was engaged somewhere, thus coloring what you’re doing, and you didn’t know about it.  In one of the newlifechurch.tv rooms, just this step alone brought huge improvements to the system because I found that one of the three boxes in each of 4 arrays was operating at 50% of the volume of the other two boxes due to amplifier trim.  The result was unbalanced coverage front to back that had likely existed for a long long time.  Don’t take anything for granted!

Next, I’ll always begin a tuning process with the main speakers.  In some rigs, like one of our main rooms, this is all I need to deal with because there are no delays or fills to add into the mix.  The main speakers will always carry the biggest load of the work in a system and put the most energy into the room.  Because of this, I like to start here and then fit the other boxes around the mains.  I’ll talk about the software I use in another post.  For now we’re keeping it to a 10,000 ft level and just talking process.

The ear doesn’t hear things “flat”, especially as the volume level increases to concert levels.  As such, I’m not looking to create a flat PA.  Some guys named Fletcher & Munson did lots of research years ago on this hearing phenomenon, resulting in the Fletcher – Munson curves.  (Google it if this is completely new to you – fascinating stuff.)  In working with the main speakers, I’m looking to smooth them out sonically and ideally emulate a Fletcher-Munson curve (smooth cut in the PA that starts around 1k and has its deepest point at 4 or 5k before returning to normal by 10k).

I go back and forth between measuring a 2 second sine sweep in order to graph frequency response and listening to a playlist of room tuning songs from my iPod that I’ve been using for this purpose for years and KNOW how they should sound.  Often times you can over-tune a set of speakers by going crazy with every little dip and peak on a frequency response curve, but the real test is how it actually sounds with music.  The magic is in a healthy balance between the two – science and art.  In the end, the ears always win.

Tomorrow we’ll cover delay speakers…

In my mind there are three places in a system where equalizers normally reside.  CHANNEL EQ –> SYSTEM EQ –> SYSTEM PROCESSOR. We’re going to talk about them out of this order in order to get my point across so here we go…

First is the channel EQ that exists on the mixing console.  I view the responsibility of this part of the chain to provide correction or artistic shaping of the interaction between a microphone and an instrument or vocal.  If a mic is too woofy on a vocal or a guitar amp is too harsh (and you’ve already tried to improve the situation at the source by working with the artist), the channel EQ is the place to make the necessary adjustments.  Carrying this out, once you’ve made all of the corrections to the various inputs, you should then be able to listen to the results of this mix through headphones or record the left/right mix and play it back on another speaker system and have a good representation of what you intended the mix to sound like.  It shouldn’t be too bright or too dull because you’ve fixed all of those individual combinations on the channel strips.

The second equalizer/processing location in a large sound system is the system processor which addresses the PA speakers themselves – the crossover points of a bi or tri-amped system, signal delay necessary to get all of the speakers arriving in a common time domain, and equalization that addresses the natural interactions between all of the speakers in an overall system.  Normally this degree of processing occurs inside a system processor – a Dolby Lake, BSS London, proprietary amplifier, or in my case, Shure P4800′s.  It is located in the chain directly before the signal coming from the sound mixer hits the amplifiers that drive the various speakers.

The final equalizer/processing location is the overall system equalizer.  This point in the chain falls between the output of the mixer and the input to the system processor/amplifier/speakers.  Sometimes this processing point might be combined into the system processor, in the old days it used to be simply a trusty 31 band stereo graphic equalizer.  The purpose of this equalization step is to optimize and correct the speaker system as a whole to the acoustics of the room where it is located.  If the room is boomy or harsh, live or dead, etc. the system EQ allows the engineer to craft the overall sound of the speakers so that what comes out of the mixer sounds transparent (meaning what came out of the mixer is what comes out of the speakers) in the room.

I outlined the three parts in the order I did because I kind of look at them in that order of mental processing as well.  The channel EQ corrects for individual inputs and builds the mix itself, the system processor corrects for all of the individual speakers and amplifiers and builds them into a cohesive system, and then the system EQ is the glue that brings those first two pieces together into what is heard in the room.  If any of those three places in the chain is not properly optimized, the overall product will suffer.

The primary goal I’m trying to achieve as I think about these three parts of the sound system is transparency.  I want what sound came out of the console to come out of the speakers with the same sonic characteristics (transparency).  The simplest way to test this is to play a known recorded track (I have a playlist of songs that I use to test how a PA sounds) through the speakers and see if what comes out sounds like how I know that track should sound because I’ve listened to it thousands of times through hundreds of different PA’s – the balance of low end to top end, the harshness or lack thereoff, the warmth of the system, etc.  Why does this matter?  Because if the PA is not transparent, if what comes in is NOT what goes out on the other end, I’m going to have to make corrections somewhere else in the chain (normally at the same places on every channel’s EQ) to make the mix work and this will likely compromise that board mix.  It also makes it far more difficult for a more novice engineer to achieve a great mix unless they are more comfortable with channel EQs or for me to get something great happening quickly because I’m going to have to apply more corrective EQ which will take more time to dial in.

In my experience, the biggest weakness I find in installed PA systems is in the optimization of the system EQ.  More often than not (and exactly what I’ve dealt with at NLC.tv), the system EQ does not make the PA system transparent.  Playing an iPod track through the console without any channel EQ will sound far different coming out of the speakers than it would listening through good headphones on the console or a different speaker system.  The core sonic characteristics of the song do not translate through the room.  As a result, the engineer needs to apply channel EQ to correct for these room problems in order to start mixing with a blank canvas.  In our iPod example this can be easily done because we’re only talking about a single stereo input.  However, explode this out to a 6 or 7 piece band, 5-8 vocals, and 30 or more channels and the task can be far more daunting.  The byproduct is that the L/R board mix, which often feeds video recording or internet feeds, suffers greatly.  All of the board mix changes that are made to make inputs work in the poorly tuned room are more drastic than what was really needed so the L/R mix isolated by itself is nothing to be excited about.

Next time we’ll start getting specific about a tuning philosophy to correct these problems.

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.

First, it is extremely important that you be able to monitor your mix through headphones on the console or record the L/R feed, play it back, and it sound good.  This is a biggie.  If you’re working with a big room (more than 750 seats for this example) and sonically the mix you’re listening to just ain’t happening, you most likely need to revisit how the PA is tuned, something in the speakers themselves, etc.  I have a series of posts coming in the next week or two about my philosophy when it comes to system equalization & PA/room tuning so we’ll dive into all of that later.  For now, I’m assuming the mix you’re hearing in headphones sounds good, but its just dead – sounds like it was recorded in a studio.

We’re going to add two pairs of mics to the room.  The first pair is a set of shotguns that will be placed somewhere along the front corners of the stage, out of the way, aimed out perpendicular to the front of the stage and in such a way they can throw out into the room without picking up too much of the first couple rows.  I have ours on tiny floor bases that make them just poke up over the front lip of our stage, pointed up at probably a 15 degree angle so they aim over the heads of those first couple rows.  These mics will be the primary pickup point for the audience themselves.  Pan them to 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock.  The exact make and model of these mics is not that important to me.  At Kensington and now at newlifechurch.tv I have used Audio Technica 8035B’s from Sweetwater, the least expensive name brand shotgun I can get.  I might feel different about the level of quality necessary if I ever tried better mics, but I’ve always had to do this project on a budget so bang for the buck rules here.  I’m most interested in the pickup pattern rather than necessarily the sonic character.

The second pair of mics needs to be condensers hanging about half way back in the room.  These can be high and also out of the way.  I have mine about a foot below the lighting grid so they are very high.  At Kensington I used some Audix small diaphragm units that were sitting on a shelf.  At newlifechurch.tv, I’m using some existing Shure MX choir microphones that were already in the air.  The purpose of these mics is to add space to the recording, so it will feel like its happening in a big room (which it is).  These get panned in the console to hard left and hard right.

Now in the console we do two things.  First, we split up all of our inputs to one of two main busses – left/right and mono.  You must have a console that has left/right/mono discrete busses for this to work.  M7CL’s do.  Everything music related (band, vocals, playback, effects) routes to the left/right and we call this one music.  Everything speech related (pastor mic, MC’s, and spare pastor mic) go to the mono and we call it speech.  Now we need a few matrixes – a pair for the PA and a pair for what I call WORLD.  In the PA matrix, route music and speech at the same level.  But to WORLD, add about 6-8 dB to the speech side.  This will effectively balance out the perceived difference between music and speech on a recording.

Step 2 in the console is really easy with an M7CL – add the two pairs of audience mics in to the WORLD matrix we just built.  The ratio between the shotguns and hanging mics I’ve found sounds best in our rooms is almost 2:1 shotgun to hanging.  The hanging mics will wash things out really quickly so the trick is to get just enough to add the depth and dimension without putting in so much that it totally collapses the mix.  EQ both pairs of mics by adding a high-pass centered at least at 250 hz, pull out some 400hz & 2k, and I like to add a bit of sizzle to the hanging mics.  The last thing to do is turn on the buss compressor over the WORLD matrix, 10:1, medium attack & release, and set the threshold so the band pulls 2-3 dB off the top of the mix when things hit hard.

The finished result sounds like this…

DISCLAIMER: This is the first audio sample I’ve posted from NLC. It’s getting there but still a long way to go! Figured I’d give you samples in process rather then just waiting until it is all perfect. Ok, resume…

On our M7CL’s, I’ve invoked user levels in order to lock out access to the room mic channels and the WORLD matrix so that everything happening behind the scenes to build this mix will be protected and can be relied upon.

I’d love to hear your modifications on this system and, if you try it, your experiences.

For VOX verb, the Rev-X Plate does it for me 99% of the time.  Between the reverb time, pre-delay, and hi/lo pass filters, it is easy and fast to create subtle yet effective verbs.

For VOX delay, my favorite preset on any Yamaha desk I’ve ever mixed on is Delay LCR.  This one is insanely powerful because you can quickly create any combination of straight ahead 1/4 or 1/8 delays to intricate left/right/center ping pongs.  Again, the built in hi and lo pass filters make it simple to adjust the sound of the delay so it can be subtle and musical.

For a Kit verb, again either the Rev-X Plate or the Rev-X Hall with one of the stock presets sounds great to my ear.

We also use one more instance of Rev-X Hall for a generic instrument verb that can be put over piano, violin, or acoustics as appropriate.

One thing I’m trying to wade my way through is that Kensington really taught me to go much lighter on my effects then I ever used to before KCC.  I’ve encountered most engineers here at NLC.tv who lean back towards that wetter (and, in my opinion, more dated) sound.  The reality is that unless we’re talking about a worship ballad, most music being released nowadays is far drier than it was even just a few years ago.  So the challenge is to find ways to give vocals and instruments spice in the mix in a timeless fashion without letting it go so far that the mix loses definition or takes a 1-way trip back to the 80′s.  More on this later because I’m sure I’m opening a can of worms here…

Everyone has their own ideas for how best to lay out the 12 user defined keys on the console.  Up until a few months ago, my norm was for keys 1-8 to be direct sends on faders buttons for mix busses 1-8, with keys 9-12 reserved for a couple mute groups, talkback, and a scene advance button.  However, I discovered an option for user keys that I used to utilize on the PM1D and never realized existed on the M7CL:  page bookmarks.

The touchscreen on the console is a blessing and a curse to me.  There are some parts of operating the software that lend themselves quite well to a touchscreen but sometimes I miss having more direct access buttons to things such as the EQ & dynamics sections, as well as FX processors that reside on the Rack page.  Assigning a user defined key as a page bookmark is REALLY handy because it allows me to bring back some of that fast access I want to menus or screens I’m getting to all the time so I can remove a touchscreen key press and instead get somewhere quicker with muscle memory and button feel.

I’ve started setting up my user defined keys so the first row of 4 are set up as page bookmarks that get me in 1 button press to the EQ detail, Dynamics detail, and my VOX Verb & VOX Delay.  It’s a simple thing but it feels like it speeds up my workflow around the desk because now I can select a channel, press my EQ shortcut button, and then start dialing away at that channel’s sound.  Same for dynamics.  I’m constantly going to my verbs to dial them in exactly how I want them to sound.  Without this shortcut, getting to that edit screen is at least a 2 step process and might be 3 depending on what screen I’m coming from.  Now 1 press of the shortcut brings it up and another brings me back where I was previously.

Check it out.  You might find page bookmark shortcuts does the same for your workflow.

Incredible on so many different levels!

There are some tricks I’ve learned along the way from absorbing content from accomplished engineers in the field that made life mixing on the Venue and PM1D a bit easier and gave me better mixes.  A new challenge since coming to NLC.tv has been trying to find creative ways to get the same bang for the buck out of the M7CL.  I had already started exploring some of this process in my last few months at Kensington but I’m working now to flesh them out a bit more.  I’m going to share some of my favorite M7CL tips and tricks over the next few entries (there’s too much here for a single post).

Today we’re going to tackle parallel compression.  I’ve written on this before, as have others, but in its simplest form, parallel compression means double bussing a set of inputs to two different signal paths on the console.  In the first path, everything remains clean and unprocessed.  In the second path, a nice compressor is placed over the signals and they are compressed as a group, usually pretty hard with variable attack & release times depending on the song.  Then the clean and squashed signals are recombined before going to the stereo bus on the mixer, for me usually at a 2:1 ratio of clean to squashed.  This is especially magic for vocals and snare/toms for me.  Mixing the styles of music that I do, vocal intelligibility is normally one of the most important goals I’m fighting for and getting the vocal to sit nicely in its place with the rest of the band can be challenging.  Since I started implementing this parallel compression trick last fall, it has done wonders to the ease with which I can accomplish vocal consistency I really like.  It becomes an even more powerful tool the larger the vocal group becomes.  At Kensington it was normal to only have a single lead vocal and perhaps a BGV or two.  At NLC.tv, 5 to 6 vocals is the norm with sometimes as many as 7 or 8 on a given weekend.

Doing the parallel compression thing on an M7CL is really easy.  First, I like to set up 2 busses as fixed busses instead of variable so I don’t have to worry about making sure the sends to them are all at unity.  This can be accomplished under Bus Setup in the console setup menu.  Next, as long as I have enough mix busses available, I like to set up one buss for the clean group and just call this one VOX.  I unassign the VOX channels themselves from going straight to the L/R buss and instead route them to this VOX “subgroup”.  While I plan to keep the processing here as clean as I can, especially the larger the vocal group you have, it can be really handy to have a single place you can grab an EQ and deal with a problem area that effects all of the vocals during the heat of mixing.

Now I also route the VOX channels to the 2nd group that I call VOX Smash.  This group is setup just like the first one except on this one I engage the compressor on the buss, set to a 6:1 ratio with a medium attack and release.  The M7CL has an excellent feature called automatic delay compensation so even though the same channel is going through two signal paths with different processing times, they stay perfectly in sync so that when they are combined into the master L/R buss, they are still in phase with each other.

If you’ve never tried this concept before, I can’t suggest strongly enough that you do.  I always had the preconceived notion that a trick like this was only available to execute on larger desks but have been very pleased with the results I can achieve on our M7CLs and have started sharing the love with all of our engineers on this easy and effective mix technique.

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’ve yet to write much about NLC.tv but I’ve been sent lots of questions about the church and my new role here.  NLC.tv is nine years old now and has campuses in Conway, Greater Little Rock, Heber Springs, Fort Smith, plus a new internet campus that launched this past winter.  A fifth physical campus is coming this fall with the exact location to be announced formally in the next few weeks.  The church officially averages around 7,000 people per weekend between all of the locations and is growing significantly every year.  In fact, it isn’t talked about around here very often but I think it is worth mentioning that NLC was recently ranked as the fastest growing church in the country by Outreach Magazine (you know, those impossible to verify, totally crazy survey things that magazines like to do).  All of this to say, it seems that in ways I’ve never personally experienced before, God’s hand is directly on this place and moving in supernatural ways.

My official title is Audio Director which means that I’m attempting to carrying the flag for the audio brand of NLC.tv.  That translates into leading the volunteer teams who mix all of our services, building best practices and procedures for our team, building bridges between audio and the other creative artists on the larger team, getting behind the console myself every once in a while, optimizing and maintaining the audio systems campus wide, and dreaming/implementing new & upgraded audio solutions as the church continues to expand and grow.  Wow.  Putting that all down on the screen looks pretty daunting!  It’s a big elephant to eat at the outset, but it seems already that each week we make big progress towards the path of audio bliss wrapped around the mission of NLC.tv.  My time at Kensington helped me to learn I was made for a challenge like this and I’m excited to use all of the gifts I’ve been given to help shape a ministry still in its formative years.

I’m part of an exceptional creative and worship team.  Being able to work with and learn from gifted leaders such as Neil Greathouse, Brandon Shatswell, and many many more makes me so thankful that God brought us here.  The talent pool I’ve experienced both on and off the stage is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, especially given the size of the teams necessary to pull off services between so many venues and the fact that teams are by far majority volunteer-based.  The artists on stage are tight musically, humble, and self-motivated.  For example, the drummers and bass players got together this week by their own initiative on a weeknight to work on parts and consistency between themselves so they could be a stronger contributor to the whole.  I’ve never seen buy-in to this degree and it is contagious to the rest of the teams.

I have lots to write about over the coming weeks as I dive into this journey.  I’ve already spent hours tuning PA’s so they are more transparent, cleaning up and organizing stages, stripping the cabling and starting over in order to properly label and make things more volunteer friendly, console repairs, implementing audio for video processing chains & audience mic’ing, etc etc.  I have committed to documenting the steps along the way for the same reason as why this blog was started originally over 3 years ago…communicating with my team.  Anyone else who happens to come across the site is welcome to follow along on what is sure to be an adventure for all of us…

Here we go!

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!

Life has once again gotten in the way of regularly contributing to this blog and I sure do miss it! Hopefully I’m only days away from being able to share more about the journey of the past few months.

Until then, I ran across a blog post from Dave Rat, who I’ve shared from in the past, about breaking into the industry and building a career in professional production. It is great insight from a great engineer and well known company owner.

If you aren’t following him already, you can find Dave’s blog here…

“Rat gets about 2 to 3 inquiries a day from humans looking to work for Rat. That equates to about a 1000 a year. I must say it is one of the most difficult things I deal with and though I try to respond to all the ones that come to me personally, I must admit that when I get busy and I have 20 or so backed up in my in box, more than a few get lost in the mix, for that I apologize. I am truly honored and appreciate the interest in working for Rat. I also fully support the concept of following your dream and doing all you can to get there. So it is really tough to respond to these requests. While I do not want to disregard the inquiries, Rat rarely hires new people except if we meet them and are impressed by their work ethic, skills and we also are in need of adding someone and the person comes highly recommended by someone that already works with us.”

“So I have been pondering the answer to the question “How do I get in to the pro sound business and get to work for a company such as Rat?” And what I am realizing is that if your plan is to try and get hired by a sound company supplying systems to highly desirable bands and tours, you will first need a stellar skill set, reputation, work ethic and have some highly respected people that are willing to recommend you.”

“But the quandary is “How do I develop that skill set if I cannot get hired to prove myself?” Excellent point and one that I face myself over and over with each new level not only as a tech and an engineer but also as a sound rental business as well. I did not get here by walking into a killer gig. I did not reach this point by expecting someone to hire me based on my potential. I did not look for ‘getting lucky’ and in general I avoid the whole lottery success concept.”

“While those rolling the dice for a shortcut to happiness are plentiful, it is the ones willing to build their happiness that are desirable.”

“I chose to work very hard for a very long time and definitely grueling beyond anything I would ever expect from someone else. So the answer is simple. “Do your time, earn your credibility, establish yourself as one of the best at what you decide to do.” Whether that means digging the trenches in audio boot camp of misery or studying software and specifications and mastering the mental side of in this highly competitive industry, it is those that are most willing to push the hardest that are most likely to come out on top. And by pushing the hardest I am talking about pushing to the point of obsession, borderline insanity and when everyone else throws in the towel for the day, you just getting warmed up. Being willing to forgo the luxuries like nights off and sleep and all the other stuff that so many normal people enjoy. Most people will not gravitate to the top, most people will settle for mediocrity and that’s why it is called mediocrity, because that is the realm that the majority reach, and there is nothing wrong with that, it just is not the path that will most likely get to traveling the world with rock bands as a successful sound human.”

“So when you can answer the questions with confidence and credibility: “what makes you exceptional?” “What have you done that is above and beyond to develop your skills?” “Can you truly say that no matter how bad it gets, that you’ve already voluntarily been through worse?” It is then that you are at the point where you should be able to pull the gigs that you dream of pulling. Until then, get in those trenches and have a blast kicking ass on the most grueling gigs you can get your hands on. Trust me, it builds character and if nothing else it will make for some great road stories when reach the next level.”

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

IN THE STUDIO WITH MICHAEL JACKSON by Bruce Swedien

No one was closer to Michael Jackson at the height of his creative powers than Bruce Swedien, the five-time Grammy winner who, with Jackson and producer Quincy Jones, formed the trio responsible for the sound of Jackson’s records – records that topped the charts and shook the world. Friend, co-creator, and colleague, Bruce Swedien was a seasoned recording engineer-plucked from a job at legendary Universal Audio in Chicago – when he began working with Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones on the soundtrack to The Wiz, and he was the master technician who gave the records their sound as the trio progressed to Jackson’s greatest triumphs, Off the Wall and the iconic, history-making Thriller, which revolutionized music and video and fixed Jackson in culture as the King of Pop. In the Studio with Michael Jackson is the chronicle of those times, when everything was about the music, the magic, and the amazing talent of a man who changed the face of pop music – and culture – forever. In his laid-back style, Bruce Swedien offers anecdotes about being part of Quincy Jones’ extended “family” and reveals the technical details of creating Michael Jackson’s biggest-selling albums, as well as Bad, Dangerous, and HIStory. Including over 100 photos, In the Studio with Michael Jackson provides an insider’s look that will thrill anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of hit making and the history of some of America’s most influential music.

HOW DOES IT SOUND NOW? LEGENDARY ENGINEERS & VINTAGE GEAR by Gary Gottlieb

Chet Atkins was playing his guitar when a woman approached him. She said, “That guitar sounds beautiful.” Chet immediately quit playing. Staring her in the eyes, he asked, “How does it sound now?” The quality of the sound in Chet’s case clearly rested with the player, not the instrument, and the quality of our product ultimately lies with us as engineers and producers, not with the gear we use. How Does It Sound Now? Legendary Engineers and Vintage Gear contains insightful interviews with 31 of the most famous audio engineers of all time on how they utilized (and in some cases invented) classic analog recording hardware to make some of the highest quality recordings of all time. Each interview provides a walkthrough of audio and music history as you learn how some of your favorite recordings came to be made. But the interviews don’t only reveal what gear was used and why. Throughout the discussions, each interviewee brings up how creating quality recordings was and always will be the ultimate goal of the engineer. And of course, a big reason why each of these legendary engineers was so successful was that their standards for quality were so high. The interviews are loaded with advice and insight on how recording is an art form and how one might go about becoming a master.

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

Because of my heritage in the Church of Christ, I have lots of experience with acappella vocals.  I’ve always found this background served me well as an engineer.  If you can mix/blend 4 or 5 part contemporary vocal stuff, it seems like mixing a band is often times MUCH simpler.  My background made a big difference in mixing bands with money vocals like Avalon or Huey Lewis.

Below are some samples of what we did.  Everything you’ll hear, including the percussion, is all vocal.  Each song is comprised of 6-10 bed vocals – all doubled.  Add lead vocal, bass, and percussion and all told, most tunes come in with anywhere from 24-40 tracks.  I work exclusively in ProTools and this was my first project to do completely in new Version 8.  I have about 90 hours in the project – 35 tracking and 55 editing, tuning, & mixing.  My friend Michael Forehand, a great engineer himself, mastered everything for me and I’m very pleased with the finished result.  Check it out and if you’re interested in more about Chris or picking this up for yourself, head over to his website at chrislindseymusic.com

Let God Arise

Oh The Deep Deep Love

Mighty To Save

]]> http://www.cordernotes.com/blog/other/we-believe/feed 0 http://www.cordernotes.com/blog/monitors/the-iem-missing-piece http://www.cordernotes.com/blog/monitors/the-iem-missing-piece#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:00:46 +0000 timcorder http://www.cordernotes.com/blog/?p=1656 This one goes in the category of why didn’t I think of this sooner?

Last time I wrote about the improvements to our IEM system that have come from implementing a new transmitter/receiver combo and some additional ear piece options.  The problem with adding more wireless into an already congested environment is a higher probability of failure.  I’ve personally managed to avoid Murphy’s Law when it comes to IEM for a long time but I realize it was only a matter of time before someone’s system failed during a service and we’d be in big trouble.

Enter Sidefills.  A friend spent a couple services with me post-Christmas and suggested that what we were missing was a good holistic stereo mix that will fill in the missing pieces when someone pulls an ear out and also provide some added energy to the first couple rows that might be a tad light from the PA over their heads.  It seemed like a good idea.

In my past life as a monitor engineer, sidefills were an important part of getting a great onstage sound since I worked with lots of vocal groups who would often times only wear 1 ear anyway.  For some reason, I never even considered it at KCC since our old PA already put energy everywhere except where I really wanted it – the prospect of adding an additional full-range sound source was unappealing.  However, in the new reality of a controlled PA without a ton of stage spill, it seemed possible this might just work.

Work it does.  I have a set of EAW KF300s that have been unused for a while.  I put them on top of the subs, about 5 feet off the ground, pointed in towards center stage.  Stereo mix gives more clarity & separation than mono, add some EQ to smooth out the rough edges of the boxes themselves, and add a few milliseconds of delay to the PA so the clusters in the air are in relative time alignment with the sidefills and the result is really good.  I’m feeding these boxes from FOH subgroups so they essentially get a rebalanced FOH post fader mix.  The mix is split up to rhythm, band, and vocals.  Using this approach keeps them specifically music-focused – playback and speech mics stay out of them.

We still keep a set of wedges on the front row for lead vocal monitors.  The addition of the sidefills allows the vocal to literally be surrounded by themselves – just a touch of vocal in those front wedges pulls the singer’s image forward.  Needing less band in those front wedges reduces mud heard at FOH since the sidefills are actually working with and as a part of the PA rather than against it.  I find myself putting 100% vocal in them, 80 or 90% band, and 60% rhythm (since the acoustic kit on stage adds its own ambient sound).

If you mix on a primarily IEM stage as I am and haven’t revisited sidefills in a while, this experience enthusiastically suggests they’re worth a try.

First, a few weeks before Christmas we were finally able to upgrade from wired IEMs driven from a headphone amp to Sennheiser EW300G3‘s.  The difference has been awesome in a few ways.  First, the sonic quality of the 300s is nothing short of amazing.  The low end is tight, the top end natural.  When paired up with a good set of ear pieces, I’ve been blown away by the mixes some of our guys are dialing in.  Second, not being tied to the IEM wired cable has made a big difference in the comfort level of our artists.  Often times we had to be very careful in how the service was programmed to make sure artists had ample time to get on stage, plug in their ears, put on guitars, tune, etc.  If something went wrong plugging in their ears or they accidentally pulled the cable out, we were in trouble.  Along with using more wireless instruments (I’ll write about this soon), the result has been a much smoother & more polished presentation.

We purchased 4 transmitters & 6 receiver beltpacks.  For the majority of things we do, we will use the 4 transmitters/beltpacks, along with our existing PSM600 and 2 wired mixes for keys & drums.  With some extra beltpacks for the 300s and our PSM600, we can easily expand by adding a few more mono mixes the few times a year they are needed.  It is so hard to justify extra transmitters in a rack if they aren’t going to be used very often so this seems like a reasonable compromise.

A big surprise is how much some of our female artists enjoy the bundled Sennheiser ear bud – the IE4.  The sound quality of the buds is probably on par with a Shure SCL3 or good set of iPod buds.  What is appealing about them, though, is how well they seem to fit smaller ears.  Our vocal director, who’s been wearing our generic Shure pieces for a year and a half or so, felt like these were the most comfortable thing and for the first time she can actually forget she’s wearing them.  Definitely a good problem solver.

Another important piece of the puzzle is the addition of some Westone UM2′s to our inventory.  After someone recommended trying them out, I’ve finally found something to make me give up my Future Sonics that I’ve had forever.  These are the most comfortable universal fit I’ve ever worn and they are the first universal bud that I’ve heard with really natural midrange, which is really important for vocals & guitars.  The Shures, Future Sonics, and Ultimate Ears I’ve heard all can sound really nice in the low and high ranges, but often times feel a little scooped, honky, or just otherwise unnatural in the midrange.  The Westones seem to bring a lot of that presence back.  Best of all, the Shure foamie’s I can purchase in bulk fit on these as well so its a win on all fronts.  Adding Westone’s into the mix have brought 2 of our hold-out musicians into the IEM fold.  Finally they feel like the guitar sound they hear in the ears feels like what it should actually sound like.

I’ve been really disappointed with the build quality of the Shure SCL3′s and 4′s so time will tell if the Westone’s can withstand heavy use.

So from a music team standpoint, we now have 100% of our band members transitioned to IEM.  Next time I’m going to outline another addition to our monitoring system that feels like its filled in the missing link in the chain.

This is just a quick post to let you know I’m still here and will be back regularly updating this site once we get on the other side of Christmas.  For the past year I’ve managed to always have 8 or 10 posts in the queue so its made it easy to keep things fresh on here.  With all of the life things happening the past few months (a trip to South Africa, lots of responsibilities at work, and two kids at home that keep getting bigger and bigger every day), I’ve not been able to find the extra time to devote to writing.

BUT…

I have lots to write about.  The trip to South Africa was life changing in lots of ways and I want to share some of what we experienced and God taught me through the trip.  We just released a DVD of Danny Cox’s CD release show from October and it turned out so great.  I can’t wait to share a few clips!  I think this disc captures the essence of what we’re trying to do musically and artistically at Kensington better than anything I’ve ever seen us release.  I’m currently in the throws of 32 Christmas at Kensington services between 6 campuses.  Last week was my campus’ heavy rehearsal week.  I’ll be mixing 10 of those 32 services at the main campus in Troy so if you’re in the area for Christmas, come check it out.  This year is very music heavy (I think there are 6 or 7 tunes in the day) so the rehearsals were extra intense.  God’s also doing some crazy stuff right now that I hope I can talk more about soon.

I’m now the dad of a 4 year old and 1 year old which is so hard to believe.  Time is REALLY flying with Maddie & Brady!  But a couple of big “landmark” dates are coming, I guess.  January 10th I’ll turn the big 3-0.  I know to most that I talk to who are older than me, 30′s not that big of a deal but I’m not sure how I feel about it yet.  I guess there’s a lot of life evaluation sort of stuff going on in my head right now, which is probably good.  But still.  Then on top of that, Mindy and I will celebrate our 6th anniversary in February.

All of this to say I will be back come January.  Lots to share and lots to catch up on.  See you then!

I’ll leave you with a clip from the concert in Cape Town with Acappella Classic.  We started the show with having the group’s founder, Keith Lancaster, come out on stage all by himself, sing a bit, and then take it from there.  This clip is from my Flip Camera sitting at FOH but I think it captures a bit of the genuine excitement and joy we experienced from the thousands of people who came to the concerts in South Africa.  You’ll see what I mean that the crowds literally knew the words and harmonies to every single song in the set list.  The experience was one I will never forget!