Unsolicited Promotion of Audio Blogs

I read a lot of blogs. Most of them are technology or ministry based. I receive good information from most and hear inspiring stories. I often link to these blogs when something really speaks to me where I am at. The blogs that I want to bring to your attention today are not like the rest of the blogs that I subscribe to but I enjoy reading them just the same. These blogs are simply journals from people getting it done in audio ministry. They don’t post often but when they do I enjoy relating to what they are going through and reading about their trials and their excitement as it relates to audio ministry. Check these out when you get a chance.

The Rotary Encoder

Going to 11

Random Announcements & Thoughts

Well, I have been wanting to post several times over the past week but time has not allowed. So today I just wanted to throw out some random announcements and thoughts.

1. The NSCA Expo has announced that they will host Fits and Starts Production’s HOW-TO Church Sound Workshop at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando FL on March 16th & 17th. All information can be obtained by visiting this page. You have heard me announce this workshop on several occasions. It is some of the best training you will receive for the money.
2. We completed week 17 of Quest for Authentic Manhood at our church this morning. This life changing experience is part of Men’s Fraternity developed by Robert Lewis, pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, AR. I know that I have never been through anything that has challenged me week after week like this series has. If you are looking to get a men’s ministry off the ground at your church then this is an excellent option to consider.
3. I wrote a post almost a year ago to the day titled Church Media Consultation. What brought it back to my attention was that I received a comment on it this year from none other than the church media consultant guru himself, Anthony Coppedge. Anthony has been low key the past few months so it was great to hear from him. Also judging from some conversations that I have had recently at my own church and some other blogs that I have read this is still a hot button issue. Take time and review this post and check out the good comments and there is a hint that Anthony may having something coming soon as well. Wouldn’t that be great?!
4. I’ve been hearing a lot about innovation in churches here lately but what about innovation in conferences. I received an e-mail from Doug Gould of Shure yesterday announcing that he will be conducting seminars at a conference. OK, nothing new there. What caught my attention is where the conference will be held and that is a Royal Caribbean cruise liner. Now I may just be out of touch here and they have been doing this but this is the first time I have heard of it and to me it is a great idea and innovative. Check out Worship at Sea for all the details.
5. Speaking of innovative, I’m sure everyone has heard by now that Perry Noble’s church Newspring are hosting there very own conference called Unleash. The price is right and the location is just a jut to the left. I’m up to hear what they have going on over there.

Have a great weekend!

Time Accountability

Good post at God::Media titled Accountability and Culture in which David brings up the dilemma of people not being on time for services or for serving. In a few cases people just don’t take church services seriously or the time aspect of those services. In the case of our church and maybe others is that there is just not enough time between classes and service start time. People are arriving late because there class has just let out.

On the service side of things I believe that David is having the same problem that a lot of us experience and that is getting people to be on post in enough time for them to adequately prepare themselves for the upcoming service. Now there may be a few that just have a lackluster interest in serving and that goes back to my post last year of Why Are You Here? Those few need to be dealt with on a one-on-one basis. The issue that I run into is that those that serve on my team also serve in several different areas. If they are a teacher then it is impossible for them to get to their designated post in the time that we ask for people to be there.

What is the answer? I believe that part of the answer is to pray for workers as I alluded to in Reflections On Service. Like I said before they may be a few that you need to have a one-on-one talk with about their service. It may be that your church needs to take a look at how service times are structured altogether.

I’m really just thinking out loud here in this post so feel free to chime in on the comments section and/or at David’s post if you have some wisdom to impart.

Product News

Aviom Now Shipping Pro64 Series of Audio Networking Products

Aviom is now shipping its Pro64 Series of audio networking products for corporate AV, broadcast, education and more. Pro64 products are designed to deliver the flexibility of a digital network combined with the audio performance and simplicity of analog. They promise to deliver low-latency audio via Aviom’s A-Net audio transport protocol.
Click here to read the rest of the announcement

Cubase 4 Photo Gallery

Click here are some screen shots of the new Cubase Pro 4.

What To Do With Cassettes?

This certainly caught my attention. Recently I was cleaning out my office and found case after case of cassette tapes in a closet. I was thinking of what I was going to do with all of these cassette tapes. It would take years and some bucks to replace all of these with CDs or to download. Today I find the answer. Thank you Greg Atkinson of Church Video Ideas for making this known to your readers. What I’m talking about is the Plusdeck 2c. Plusdeck2 is a fully functional cassette deck for your computer.
Greg has the review from Jeremy Dunn of WorshipMusic.com on his site.

I have some great content for training on cassette from guys like Bill Thrasher and Ron Lambros that could now be converted into a more accessable format for my team. I think I will have to buy one. I see that WorshipMusic.com has the item available for online ordering.

Fired Up!

Perry Noble wrote a post on his blog last year titled Creating An Experience in which I linked to from this blog because I think he hit the nail on the head about church services.

Obviously he has also caught a lot of flack from that post because he expounds on that post with some bold statements in which I believe he is also correct. One thing that really caught my eye was when he stated that, “Once again (I said this in my first post) THIS TAKES EFFORT!!! It takes prayer, planning and preparation…and either you will do it or you won’t. It really is that simple.” Wow, that sounds familiar. I have been saying that for a while now. Starting with this post. It absolutely takes effort. I have a problem with people that do not want to put forth an effort to serve our Lord and Savior because of whatever their selfish reasons are. You either want to do your very best to offer something pleasing to God or you are taking up space. Nothing fires me up more than to have someone poorly plan and prepare a service or special event that is intended to be worshipful and then expect us to perform what they envision with no practice or even prior knowledge of what was going on in their head. I must say I don’t think much prayer probably went up either.

OK this is kind of getting away from what Perry is talking about in his post so please take time to read his post I’m a Little Fired Up!!!

New from Neutrik

Here is something interesting for all of us that have burned our fingers with a soldering iron.

Neutrik Crimp-XLR Series
Neutrik introduces the Crimp-XLR cable connector and chassis receptacle products at Winter NAMM 2007 in Anaheim, Calif.
Click here to read the rest of the article.

Cultivating Gifts

This time of year we usually do two things: we reflect on the year past and we resolve to change something for the coming year. Maybe this past year the Lord revealed in you a talent or aptitude or even your spiritual gift in which He wants to work through you. Maybe you pursued that purpose or maybe you didn’t. Either way I believe that God demands results. As we see in the parable of 3 servants in Matthew 25:14-30, God is not interested in us just having what He gives us; He expects us to do something with what He has given us. Another example is Paul exhorting Timothy to “…not neglect the spiritual gift you received…” (1 Timothy 4:14 NLT) and to “Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress.” (1 Timothy 4:15 NLT) And also to “…fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you…” (2 Timothy 1:6 NLT)
The reason that we cultivate and manage our gifts is to bring glory to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He gives us this ability to do His purpose and we should be doing all that we can to offer that ability back to Him in service.

Now you may not be certain as to how your ability in a specific area correlates to your spiritual gift and I believe that may be common. I know I had difficulty in that area. I know that God gave me the spiritual gift of administration but also knew He had given me specific ability in technology and media. God taught me to use the gift of administration to facilitate the ministry of media and technology. We can see another example of this in Exodus 31:1 – 5 (NLT)
1The LORD also said to Moses, 2“Look, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, grandson of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. 3I have filled him with the Spirit of God, giving him great wisdom, intelligence, and skill in all kinds of crafts. 4He is able to create beautiful objects from gold, silver, and bronze. 5He is skilled in cutting and setting gemstones and in carving wood. Yes, he is a master at every craft!
God gave Bezalel the spiritual gift of wisdom and knowledge but his specific ability was creating beautiful objects from gold, silver and bronze. His purpose or task was to create these beautiful objects for the temple of God.

I pray that in this next year that you discover your gifts and abilities and that you cultivate those gifts and use them for the glory and purpose of God.

1 Peter 4:10 – 11 (NLT)
10God has given gifts to each of you from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Manage them well so that God’s generosity can flow through you. 11Are you called to be a speaker? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Are you called to help others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then God will be given glory in everything through Jesus Christ. All glory and power belong to him forever and ever. Amen.

Articles of Interest

I have actually had some time to think the past couple of weeks. Tonight I found myself with some time on my hands and decided to tackle the e-mail inbox. I respond to personal e-mails as quickly as I can but the plethora of e-newsletters I receive really add up. Anyway I was perusing the headlines and I found a few that piqued my interest so I thought I would pass on to you as well. These are from July, August and September. Maybe in a few more months I can see what was there from the last 3 months of this year.

I have considered a home studio for audio recording and other media production for some time now so this first hand account of an artist building his own studio in a spare bedroom was interesting.
THE BOOM BOOM ROOM
Between albums, producer/MC Thes One of the L.A. hip-hop duo People Under the Stairs (also including MC/DJ Double K) got married and bought a house. But the house wouldn’t be a home without a real studio to record the group’s new album, Stepfather (2006, Tres), so Thes and a few inexperienced friends took on the challenge of converting a spare bedroom into a high-level project studio. Here, he relays what he learned.
Click here to read the rest of this article.

Here is an article that has some practical advice for planning in media ministry.
Planning for the Unforeseeable
Are your sound, video and lighting systems a disaster waiting to happen? Even if you have a great system from mic to speaker and source to display, it’s all delicate electronic equipment, and something could go wrong. If you have a system strung together with bubble gum and baling wire, your chances for trouble increase exponentially. And unless your budget is about the same as Walt Disney World’s, your workforce is primarily, if not entirely, volunteer. What do you do when a key team member doesn’t show up?While your budget may not equal the one for Mickey and company, you can share in their investment simply by visiting with Discovery Church’s Technical Arts Director, Sean Kruckenberg, a former Disney employee. Can’t fly to Orlando? No problem. We’ve done that for you. Read on!
Click here to read the rest of this article.

Tim Vear is one of the most knowledgeable and also approachable people I have had the pleasure to meet. This guy knows audio and he knows churches. That is why the publication “Audio Systems Guide for Houses of Worship” that he authored should be in your library.
The Insider: Tim Vear
Shure & The Church
In preparing this issue, it was clear that the many of facts of Shure’s church audio history resided in one individual. The author of Shure’s popular “Audio Systems Guide for Houses of Worship”, continually revised and expanded since its formal debut in 1990, is Tim Vear, Senior Applications Engineer in the Applications Engineering Group.Tim took us almost all the way back to the very beginning. We talked about how Shure grew with the modern church, the impact that the Church has had on Shure product development, and what makes you – our community of church audio specialists – so remarkable.
Click here to read the rest of this article.

Quickly becoming one of my favorite artist on the Christian music scene is David Crowder and his band. Nice interview from Shure.
Collision:Head-on with David Crowder
Sold-out concerts, six Dove Award nominations, the 2006 pop/contemporary song of the year from his new “A Collision” CD and a faithful following that’s growing exponentially. This, of course, is the David Crowder Band. We hooked up with David to talk about the early days, home recording and the tangible benefits of clean living.
Click here to read the rest of this article.

I prefer Shure microphones in most live sound applications if for nothing more than their consistency. Great sound doesn’t hurt either. Here is a history of this great company.
Genesis:The Story of Shure Inc.
Late last year, we sent a survey to Shure Notes subscribers, asking for article and topic ideas. Surprisingly, many of you wanted to know about the company. As Shure celebrates its 81st year, still owned by the same family that founded it, here’s a brief look back at an enterprise that began as a radio parts store, supplied broadcast microphones for every US president since FDR, joined the war effort, made Elvis look even better, and won the hearts and minds of musicians, engineers and consumers. It’s the story of the entrepreneurial spirit, a commitment to its customers and an American brand.
Click here to read the rest of this article.

I’m starting to see more and more of this type of application.
Sennheiser New Mic Stands
Sennheiser is introducing three new microphone stands with a cable connection at its base rather than at the microphone. This new system means that plug-on wireless transmitters can now be attached to the bottom of the stand or, if preferred, cables can be connected at the base, eliminating the necessity to run the mic cable up the stand.
Click here to read the rest of this article.

This article made me wonder if any churches are actually still mass producing cassette tapes. It seems to take forever to move the church toward change especially in technology but once that start using something it is just as difficult to get them to move on to something better. As for myself, I don’t even listen to CDs very often. Most of my music is saved on some type of memory whether it is hard drive or flash.
CDs Still Dominate in Church Media Publishing
Despite the advent of web streaming, podcasting, DVD publishing, and other new technologies, a large number of churches continue to give audio CDs the central position in their outreach and media publishing programs.
Click here to read the rest of this article.

I hope you enjoyed this hodge-podge of information.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!