This week has been far from exciting compared to last week’s installation saga. This week we have our off-site baptism event so it is the only week of the year with no midweek service. What does that mean? Work week!
Our big project this week is revamping our Clearcom matrix intercom system in the main auditorium and chapel - adding stations, revising the programming and logic, etc. We’re also working hard to finish remaining punch list items like configuring Synergy for keyboard/mouse control, re-connecting and testing tie lines that had to be cut at FOH to facilitate the cable pulls through conduit last week, and installing a paging system from the stage manager’s FOH position back to our green room and dressing rooms.
I’m also very excited that our new grand piano shell arrived today. We have now completely made the switch from a 9ft acoustic grand to a 7ft 4in Slam Grand piano shell with a Yamaha CP33 controller/Muse Receptor Engine/Synthogy Ivory Sampled Piano plug-in. The system never goes out of tune, looks great, and I can’t say enough positive about the Receptor/Ivory combo for usability, reliability, and flexibility of sound libraries. For those of you not familiar with Ivory, you need to be. Basically Synthogy sampled 3 different pianos (a Yamaha C7, Steinway D Concert Grand, and Bosendorfer 290) - each key at 10 different dynamic intensities. Each piano library lets you fine tune the dampening, sound board, key noise, timbre, dynamic range, release and comes with a variety of excellent sounding presets per library. In the hands of a great piano player, I don’t think there’s anything that sounds more like the real thing. When you consider this system has no mic leakage or feedback, I think this is the best piano package you could possibly buy. The entire system was less than $10k so it really is a great value as well. Check it out!
The Venue performed very well this past weekend. Coincidentally it was one of the most difficult services we’ve done all Summer, putting all of the new gear to the test right out the gate. Normal 5 piece band with a lead vocal, a 7 minute musical theater piece with 9 actors, all on new headsets and new wireless, 8 channels of tracks running from ProTools, rented ears for click/count to the actors, and recording the musical element and Saturday night message for use on Sunday at campuses. Everything went off without a hitch to the congregation but not without some scary, heart-in-my-throat moments for me.
First, I tried borrowing work flow ideas from some of my Venue friends and that wasn’t a good idea in such a complicated service, let alone my first such on the desk. I got bit in the first service on Sunday by snapshot channel scope - somewhere in Sunday AM rehearsal I accidentally unscoped the band channels from the snapshot for a feature song, so in the first service I recall the scene as the drummer clicks off and nothing changes on the console. Quick on my feet, I unmuted things manually and threw up the faders before the piano player hit his first note.
Second, in trying the new workflow, I also ignored my own advice for digital consoles in our fast paced environment - be careful not to get snapshot happy. I think at one point I had 13 or 14 snapshots for the service and this was way too much. 1 for starting video roll, one to take video down at the end of the roll, one for each song, then another for each spoken moment. Long story short, because the weekend was so packed there was never enough solid rehearsal time to actually step through all of my scenes and make sure everything happened exactly as I intended. Lesson: keep it simple. If you can turn down a video roll manually and mute the channel when its finished, do it. Maybe in time I’ll be able to find more ways to implement automation but I don’t want to ever make a mistake in a service because of ill-executed automation.
The system still sounds amazing. I’m so pleased with the sonic improvements. Wireless is very solid as well. The remote monitoring on the PC is spectacular and was a lifesaver this weekend!
Only 3 more days until we leave on 2 weeks of vacation and I am SOOOOO ready. These past few weeks have worn me out and I’m running on fumes. It will be very good to disconnect for a while and recharge the batteries. When I get back, it’s full steam ahead into the Fall ministry season and I’ll resume my normal service schedule of 4 weekends and 3 midweek services a month. I’m looking forward to spending a few months focusing on dialing in the Venue and PA to see what the two are really capable of!
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