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.
“Should we have it at 95dB?” “They put it at 95 but that’s too loud.” “85?” “You should have heard them rockin, they pushed it to 105 the whole time.” “Where should we have it?” Full Story
At Infocomm09 last week, I had the privilege of teaching a session titled Managing Stage Volumes for Technology for Worship Magazine. In that session I addressed this issue experienced universally- the stage that is too loud.
Too loud on the stage cannot be measured in dB. What’s too loud for one person is fine for another- and most often musicians ask for “more.” Generally, it’s understood that feedback is what happens if the stage is too loud (although that’s not an accurate understanding). The true problem with a loud stage is ambient bleed which means a muddy house mix, and another problem- something not always considered- is hearing damage. Usually communication and education with the proper application of technology can manage stage volumes nicely.
I will try and address these thoughts over a couple upcoming blog post – (see links below)
What should the stage dB be? (Managing Stage Volume part 2) – Click Here
We have worked hours on producing graphics for a particular moment in a service: an outline, a Scripture, the perfect illustration for a main sermon point. The time comes to put up the graphic, and the computer just won’t cooperate, the wrong button is hit, a popup freezes the screen… there is a fumble and a recovery, and the image is up in all its glory— but the speaker has moved on, and the image is no longer relevant. It distracts. Full Story
Why would your church worry about being on ” the internet’s’ “? This topic is discussed on today’s The Resurgence blog.
Do you have a pre-screening type of method? In the past we have taken anyone who has been willing to volunteer. This has given us poor results. We found that willing does not mean capable even after training has been given. Seems the recruits need to possess certain natural abilities. More than willingness, faithfulness is very important. Musical ability is very helpful. The best screening that I have found is to recruit for several positions (sound, projection and setup/tear down crew for example), then as you work with the people find where they will fit best. If one has good ears and good technical chops and always show up, it’s a soundtech. Another is extremely faithful but hard of hearing, projection. A third is strong and reliable…. a perfect help for the setup crew. Once we have a group who has responded to recruiting efforts, we have a better indication of what type of training would suit our group.
We just did a recruitment drive at High Pointe this winter. We placed the following in the bulletin:
Full Story
Okay, this was so great I just had to blog about it.
Late last week the trackpad button on my MacBook Pro was stuck… would not click. While investigating, I found my battery was swollen up, bulging up against the underside of the trackpad, keeping it from clicking. I removed the battery – it showed a full charge, but it has not been working right, dying at 30% charge, so I now knew what the real problem was. I put off calling Apple as I was busy.
So Today (Monday) I realize I have a trip coming up and I really need a battery. A quick look online, nope, will not get here in time – guess I need to run over to the Apple Store. I have heard some people have had good luck getting their batteries replaced under warranty, but those were newer computers, and most as old as mine just had to pay for a replacement battery (although my computer is still under the Applecare warranty.)
I arrived at The Domain around 1, and it is crowded – everyone is enjoying the nice weather after a couple days of winter. The Apple store is really crowded. I make my way towards the back when I get stopped by a guy in an orange shirt, “Can I help you sir?” “Um yea, I have a little problem” as I show him the battery, which is now split open. “Right over here, we can help you.”
My battery gets handed to a couple Geniuses, one to the next, finally a young lady says she just needs to check with a manager real quick, glances across the room and apparently got the nod – okay. The she explains to me that I really need an appointment, but since they don’t have any appointments available in the near future (SXSW maybe?) she would get someone to take care of it, just wait right there, it may be a few minutes.
Well before I can even get my iPhone unlocked, someone ask me for my battery, grabs a new one off the shelf behind me and ask me to go ahead and open it up as I follow him. We walk back to the counter, I snap the new battery in my MacBook as he scans the info, gets my name, zipcode and verifies my laptop is still under warranty. There you are, good to go.
And all of that took less time than it took for you to read this post. I am happy. My computer is happy.
The reverberation response of the room at different frequencies is one key measurement to examine in room acoustic design. What proper acoustic control does in a room is create a “live” feeling space while minimizing room excitement and slap-back to the platform, terms describing the effect of sound waves bouncing between the walls of a room and towards the stage. Well designed acoustical treatments will make it easy for hearers to listen, improve musician’s and vocalists’ performance space and reduce feedback, and clarify the sound picked up by the microphones to carry through to the loudspeakers.
Controlling reverb for the hearers
Acoustic control creates a good atmosphere for both musical worship and speech. Good control is making sure the spoken word is easy to hear while making sure the room is significantly lively for congregational worship. A singing congregation tends to sing more if they can hear themselves singing, thereby participating in worship. If the congregation can’t hear themselves singing, they tend to sing less; the atmosphere becomes more of a concert than worship. During speech- announcements, testimonies and sermons- it is critical to avoid ear fatigue.
Controlling reverb for the musicians and vocalists
Slap-back, long delayed reflections back onto stage, tend to muddy the sound. This makes it harder for the musicians and vocalists to hear themselves (distinguish themselves in the mix) so the stage is forced to drive louder volume levels. This sound is then jumping all over the room, creating a lot of noise that few find comfortable or appealing and musicians find frustrating.
Controlling reverb for the audio system and its engineers
The room acoustics need to work with the speaker system to keep the audio aimed on the congregation and absorb or properly disperse spill on the wall areas. The acoustics also need to help limit delayed sounds from bouncing back onto the stage and being picked up by the microphones, thus contributing to muddy sound and feedback problems. The ideal is a flat reverb where room acoustics are consistent across all frequencies (or pitch). When it comes to controlling sound, the acoustic device will be larger in size to accurately control larger frequencies (low tones) while higher frequencies (high tones) need smaller acoustic devices. Some of the room treatment will need to be fairly large, and these would be best placed on the large side walls or back walls above doors and windows. The mid to mid high frequencies are 
balanced with the smaller panels. Other treatment options include clouds (larger treatments on the ceiling), sprayed on materials, different wall construction techniques and curtains or other soft goods.
Sometimes overlapping goals of acoustics compete. The needs of speech, instrumental music, and congregational singing require compromises in the design of the acoustic package, keeping costs under control. The solution is to design acoustic packages that balance these needs and provide a cost effective solution that improves all these areas.
This is why we recommend SM-58 microphones for youth groups and touring setups.
Under the category of cool tools is a program I have used for planning and script writing, Celtx, has released an update to 2.0, and it is better than ever (www.celtx.com).
It has a lot going for it – it’s free, it’s cross platform (Windows, Linux, Mac OS) and it has a lot of flexibilty. Now they have added Celtx Studio, which is an online collaboration site for teams using Celtex – free beta, and after that fairly inexpensive.
So why use celtx? Honestly I did this pre-production for years in MS Word, but celtx does a great job of helping organize and format many pre-production task, making it easier to actually do it, and allowing you to produce professional looking scripts, storyboard layouts, schedules and reports.
Loving the “Paperless” mobile boarding passes on Continental (more info here) and have learned a few tips.
1) they are a pain to pull up live off the web when you are traveling – much easier to load them in your browser (on your phone / pda) ahead of time and take a picture or snap-shot of that webpage (or save it to a file), and then just load that picture when you get to the gate.
2) Don’t zoom in too much when you put your phone under the scanner – they seem to work best small -like what is shown in the picture to the side. I usually just zoom in enough to see the traveler info (name / conf number – it makes it easier to get thru security) and this seems to work best at the gate scanners.
3) the one thing I don’t like is sending my phone thru the security x-ray by itself. I wish they would figure out a way to scan it at the metal detectors before I put the rest of my bags thru.
4) if you have a baggage attendant help you at the counter, you have to tell them NOT to print your boarding pass, otherwise they will.
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.
