Hi, I'm Jeff. This is my personal blog – random thoughts on Media, the church, the arts, popular culture, being a husband and father and about any other thought that comes to mind.
The acoustics of a space affect the ability to understand speech clearly (intelligibility), the blends of the sounds as they are mixed, sound captured and recorded, and the perceptions of the music quality. All these elements of the sound are important in a worship environment. A definition of room acoustics includes the size and shape, the construction and finish, and what is in and out of the room. Because requirements vary for each room and its own purpose, acoustics needs to start with a facility still in the planning stages. Acoustic Engineering will typically focus on three variables: controlling background noise, creating noise isolation, and designing the acoustical environment. Full Story
At the Verge 10 conference we were introduced to each main session by a very creative video featuring Alan Hirsch introducing the topic. Besides incredible content in the videos, I was impressed by how easy we can be trained to read from right to left, bottom to top, randomly, etc while watching the videos. And even more, how easy it is to catch pieces of words, fast moving word and silly phrases while we are exposed to the content in multiple media (video, text, sound, lighting) at the same time. How often do we limit ourselves based on what is normal for us when we could be more creative, produce pieces that would inspire, hold the audience attention and get the message across in a memorable way? How can you make your next video better? [Sorry, the original video has been removed – I will update this when it becomes available again, but here is somebody’s cell phone version.]
Any time of the year, your tech team is busy planning on, preparing for or producing an extra service. Easter and Christmas tend to be the first bigger productions a tech team will have on a schedule, but the calendar is full of events that are outside of the normal weekly worship. Concerts, outreaches, conferences, VBS, holidays, awards, celebrations and facility rentals; each of these events requires additional planning, preparation, equipment, and crew. How can your creative, tech and media teams support these events, make them extraordinary, and yet endure well on the week to week support of the ministry? As a Media Ministry, we’ll define the purpose, put proper time into planning, and then systematically check each medium in place to support the event. Full Story
austinTech.org church audio basics workshop that I will be leading – if you are in the Austin area and interested in attending, here are the details, and if you don’t know about austinTech.org, head over to the site and check it out.
Workshop Details:
When: 9:30AM to 12:30PM, Saturday, November 14th, 2009
Where: At High Pointe Baptist Church, 12030 Dessau Rd, Austin, Texas. We will be meeting in the choir room. CLICK HERE FOR A MAP
What: This class is the perfect overview of audio systems for new team members, as well as a way for existing team members to get a better understanding of the overall operation of sound systems. Topics covered include: Components of a sound system, Signal and Connector types, Hooking it all up, Basic Operation. Our conversation will be somewhat driven by your questions, so come ready to participate.
Cost: It is free of charge
Please RSVP if possible to jeff@soundbooth.org. Space is somewhat limited, we want to make sure we have a spot for everyone who wants to participate.
Sometimes we get so caught up in the latest gadget or what tool we need to accomplish whatever it is we are trying to do that we miss seeing other ways of accomplishing the task. You have a screw to remove and no screw-driver? What about those vise-grips in you hand?
Other times we have a problem and we go diving in looking for the solution in deep inside the equipment when we should have checked the power cord first. Twice this weekend I was guilty of looking too hard for the solution. Full Story
“Free” software is heavily relied upon in church ministry, but by using this software the church is often seen as being “cheap-skates” and “free-loaders” – not a very Christ honoring image. This image is portrayed because the ministry is often only thinking of themselves, selfishly using the software but not giving back to the computing community, not abiding by the software use terms and even stealing the software by not paying for appropriate use. Not all “free” software is free and we as Christians need to be careful that we are honoring Christ in all we do, including our use of technology in ministry.
When mixing a large number of instruments and voices the overall sound can get heavy or dense, especially if there are not many parts in the orchestration and everyone is playing / singing the same thing. This is a typical problem we face in churches with large worship teams on the platform and can contribute to the volume level feeling too loud, even when the SPL meter is right where we want it. How can this be prevented? What can be done to fix the mix and bring life back to the music? Full Story
When discussing Media Ministry, we often get hung up on how to use technology and media better in our worship services, which is a very limited part of our life as a Christian. Each media / tech ministry has slightly different missions & goals, but in general we seek to help others minister through the use of technology and media, to spread the gospel beyond our abilities to do so in person and to lift up Christ in the arts and creativity. So let’s step outside the box of the worship center and look at, how a church can use technology outside the worship services and how our media ministries can support those endeavors. Full Story
“Turn it down!” is an easy concept to grasp, but the reality of lowering the volume is not always that easy. To take steps to control the “sound makers” on the platform requires thinking through the larger picture. Ask some questions: what is making sound? Where does that sound need to be? From what does that sound need to be kept away? The answers to these questions can then help the team make adjustments that will help lower the stage volume level and help everyone hear what they need to hear. Full Story
Step 1: Managed network switch – Netgear GS108Tv2 switch will allow setup of multiple VLANs for managing network traffic.
Step 2: Small PC to setup as a firewall / router – Jetway Quad Lan / Fanless Case (don’t forget to add a small SSD harddrive)
Step 3: Install and Setup PFSense as the firewall software / OS
Now here is where the trouble begins: the Google Fiber Network box can’t be put into bridge mode… so it looked like the only answer was to double NAT, not a good solution…. until this came along:
Spent a good part of my weekend improving our online security. One big part of this improvement was to tighten up some of my online accounts. We have all seen the new stories of the massive data breeches, the stolen credit card data, the big hacks & wide scale identity theft. And while we need to be careful, there is not a lot we can do with our data that other people have. But what we can improve is the security of the small things.
So Google fiber is here, you would think that would be enough. But consider our crowdedhouse. Our network not only serves our family (which admittedly is larger than average, ranging between 9 and 11 people depending on the day, your definition of family and my general attitude), but the network also serves our carriage house apartment, 3 guest rooms being used by long and short term guest and whoever is couch-surfing in the basement at the time. Add up all these users and all their devices plus the odd server or six we tend to run, and we have 25-35 devices on the network at any one time. Supporting this network has become quite the job.
Trash everywhere. That is one thing I am noticing about this urban living. Sure, Main street is nice and clean, but that is because people are paid to keep the trash cleaned up. What about the rest of the streets we live on? Who is responsible to cleaning them up?
In general, we have found that the median life cycle of audio equipment is around 10 years. Some pieces will last longer, others will require maintenance or refreshing to continue to perform to specs and some things will need replaced much sooner. Environment, handling and maintenance, and materials and workmanship directly affect longevity of components. Indirectly, the experiences and expectations of people effectively shorten product efficacy.You could call this the “inside, outside, upside down” theory of life cycle of audio systems.
A worship facility is not just another performing arts space. As the spoken Word- the sermon- is at once equal to and yet higher than the “singing of hymns, psalms and spiritual songs” it is therefore neither lecture hall nor concert space, but Worship Facility. Designing the Worship Facility means to design a space that supports speech as well as music.
Church bulletins are calling people to the Lenten season of reflection and preparation for Holy Week and the most important Christian holy day, Resurrection Sunday. This season is a time when the technical staff can get stressed out, because we know if anything goes wrong, everyone will look at us.
During our last move we left behind a spotlight that had been used for a college touring choir since 1976. It was a used donation when they got it, and it was still being used for special productions in a technologically geriatric setting [stored under risers and used once a year] at a large Baptist church. In finance circles, there has long been a mantra that leasing is not good stewardship. People want to own homes, not lease, to build equity. Buying a car, not leasing, is said to be less expensive in the long run. So why would I promote leasing equipment? You do want to purchase the durable workhorse whose technology remains steady- predictable and reliable. Things susceptible to needing upgrades and becoming outdated should be leased. Here are four points to consider when deciding to buy or lease equipment.
If technology used in the church is of poor quality (in the eyes of those attending), it will tend to reflect poorly on the message, evening cheapening the message. If the technology is too glitzy and fancy (again, in the eyes of those attending), it will make the message feel more like a story, entertainment, even fantasy. We want to get the right system into the right church to give the right message while recognizing that the real question being asked is, “But, how can we make the most of available resources?”
How can I mic our choir so we can hear them? We are hearing the orchastra / band through the choir mics and if we turn up the choir any more we get feedback. We currently have six AKG CK47 mics suspended above the choirloft. Do we need new mics?
… I wanted to talk through a couple of the issues and my thoughts on the solution of your choir mic problem. Your setup and arrangement is very similar to what we had at High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin where I was on staff and we battled with some of the same issues.
