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.
As part of our ongoing upgrade, we have completed another set of changes in some of the websites related to this blog (mediaartsdad.com), the High Pointe media ministry and where you can expect what information to show up. Full Story
January 9, 10 and 11th the media team will have our Media workshop and on site retreat. This is a great time to get involved and see how the media team is ministering and how you can be a part of the ministry.
For those already involved in the media ministry, this workshop is an excellent time to be refreshed, learn new skills and hone existing skills. We will also work together to refine our weekly procedures to become more effective and make the work of the ministry easier to maintain and manage.
We invite current team members, new team members and those who want to at least check out the media team to this retreat.
Schedule: (All Sessions AND SUNDAY LUNCH are in the EAST TRAINING ROOM)
Friday, January 9th –
7-9pm Session 1: High Pointe Media Ministry – General Session for all current and new team members. PLEASE PLAN ON ATTENDING!
Saturday, January 10th
9:30 – 11:30 am Session 2: Video Team – Directing (TV, IMAG, Webcast) – Directing, Improving our production, rehearsals, Operator Check sheets.
1:30 – 3:30 pm Session 3: Video Team – Camera Operators – Camera Operation Training, from basic to advanced. Camera Operator Check sheets.
6:30 – 8:30 pm Session 4: Audio Team – Improving the Mix – Compressors – Routing. Audio Operation Check Sheets.
Sunday, January 11th
12:45 pm – Pot -luck Lunch and wrap-up. We will provide drinks and wares, please bring a main dish or side dish with enough for your family plus a couple. Families are welcome to attend.
Okay, so I jumped in and never really explained what “Foldback” is or what I am doing with it here.
First, a quick bit of history. Back in the dark ages of audio reinforcement, one of the cheapest audio consoles (mixing boards) that was available was the Yamaha MC series. Several churches I worked with back then had these consoles (8, 12 or 16 channels), so I was fairly familiar with them. Yamaha used the term Foldback for the stage monitor sends, but very few other manufactures use that terminology. The idea is that you are folding back some of the audio from the musicians back to them so they can hear what they are doing.
So the idea of my “foldback” for my blog is to fold back some comments, observations and planning information to those who served on the media team for the weekend that we might all grow in excellence in our service of worship. All this to further our purpose to glorify Christ, help spread the gospel and provide tools of training and encouragement for the church.
In pursuit of home network bliss, I have moved on to step 2.
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.
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.
