I asked if Bill would write an article and share some wisdom.  When he sent me the article, I realized the best time to publish this, was just shortly before Easter…a time when church techs are burned out, discouraged, and they feel like they have lost their sense of meaning and purpose.  He talks abou a Christmas production in it but it can just as easily apply to the high stress levels that we experience around Easter as well.  If that’s how you feel, this article is for you.  Be encouraged…hopefully, this article can serve as a healing balm on the hearts of the techs that read this.

Let me Encourage You

Serving in ministry for a good part of my adult life I’ve been around long enough that I have experienced disappointments in ministry.  I’ve been in situations that have left me exhausted, disillusioned and sometimes, devalued.  I’ve found some of those disappointments have been because I have lost sight of God’s calling on my life.

It was around Christmas a few years ago. We hadn’t even got to the prep for the Christmas Eve services and I had already hit my wall.  I was exhausted. I was head down focused on getting the long list of To-Dos done. I had switched into survival mode….just make it through to the next day.  I was sitting at lunch, with lots of details in my head, while my pastor was speaking to the church staff about the upcoming Christmas season.  As he wrapped up he spoke these words.  These words came over me like a healing salve.  “You’re not crazy. You’re not alone. God is using you to impact His Kingdom.”

I often share those words of encouragement with church technical leaders over phone calls, at events I’m privileged to be a part of and have even tweeted them.  While I believe they are some of the most encouraging words for a church technical leader, they can impact anyone serving in ministry.

You’re not crazy.

Really.  You’re not.  It may seem like it after spending hours upon hours on a set design or new system install.  You may feel that each weekend with the amount of stress you carry to ensure your volunteers execute the worship services .  You may reach the point where you wonder if it is all worth it.  Let me assure you, if the reason you do what you do is to serve God, then you are not crazy.

Even though it may go unnoticed by others, God is in every little detail that you care for.  He has entrusted you to help communicate the Gospel.  When you remember that, it is an incredible privilege to be serving Him in the ministry He has called you to.

You’re not alone.

Ministry is a unique profession.  We are often put into situations where the details, process or denominations can isolate us, even as we work with others.  It can be a lonely job.  I encourage you to find and reach out to others that share your heart for ministry.  There are many networks available for ministry professionals, like Church Technical Leaders, or pick up the phone and call your counterpart at the other church down the street.

God did not intend for you to be alone.  It is easy for church technical leaders, or even senior pastors, to be consumed by responsibility and to feel like everything is on their shoulders.  Build your team by adding people who have skillsets that you may lack.  By doing this you will not only have help to get the job done but it will help you become a better leader too.  And, it deepens the community you are called to.  Allowing others to step into His story with you and helping them use the gifts God has given them will benefit everyone.

God is using you to impact His Kingdom.

It is easy to lose sight of what you are called to do; not just in the busyness of holidays but in our day to day operations.  Being in ministry is often mistaken for making church ‘happen’ and we tend to lose ourselves in the tasks instead of His story.  You may even question the how or the why of where you are serving.  If you are being faithful to God wherever He has you then I believe He is using you to impact His Kingdom.  I encourage you to start finding the stories of how God is working in the community you serve.  It’s important for you to hear the stories of how God is moving within your church community.  Take the step to talk with your leadership to find those stories.

I will catch myself feeling sorry for myself.  Then God reminds me that He has called me to do this.  I’m not sure why I am privileged to do this or why I get to do this, and sometimes why I am stuck doing this.  But I know His plans are bigger and better than mine.  Those words bring me back to the vision and mission of what I do.

So, again, let me encourage you.  You are not crazy, you are not alone and God is using you to impact His Kingdom.

Doing things well doesn’t just start on Sunday morning; it starts long in advance with strategic planning and attentiveness to detail.  Kevin Poole is a friend of mine who is the tech director at Mobbery Baptist Church in Longview, TX.  I had the opportunity to see his workflow and ideas first hand as they were planning things out for their Christmas production this year.  He goes into detail on how they’ve planned automation in worship and for special events that they do.  The only way you can get to this level of excellence is through careful planning, attention to detail along sensitivity and maturity in understanding how the Holy Spirit will lead the congregation and anticipating it.  Kevin gets it.  This article may be advanced for some but I do believe that there is something that every church can take away from it.  Make sure you follow Kevin Poole on Twitter at @kevinrpoole …he’s full of great insight and ideas!  Check out his article:

Automation in Worship

Before I start this, let me give credit where credit is due. There are three men that taught me and led me along this workflow, I would know none of this without the help of Jon Daggett, Mike Gerringer, and Daniel Albert of Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University.

Excellence is critical; Make it as easy as possible

In worship settings, we strive for excellence. In a volunteer driven technical ministry, many of the team members have careers that are none technical. They serve faithfully, learning the craft as they go. My goal was to create systems that could be used in worship and production that would allow anyone to operate the gear. The preproduction planning of people who have chosen the technical disciplines as their ministry would help lower the learning curve of technically advanced gear.

Sync is a big deal in production. Time is constant and can never be paused or slowed down. Therefore, we as a team all have to be in sync. Musically, this is accomplished through a director with tempo. Technologically, this is accomplished with timecode. These are the two foundations of this post. This does not eliminate the need for execution by a technical ministry, but it helps control the number of moving parts and failure points.

Keeping the musicality

Lets start musically. Our worship team, which includes a praise team of 10, 30-piece orchestra, 6-piece rhythm section, and a 100-voice choir. When I started down this path, we were not using click. The first thing we needed to do was to create a means for them to hear a click source and start learning to play in a time specific constraint. We bought a metronome beat station and inputted that into our console. The rhythm section was already on ears, I had to get the director on ears so he could hear it. Currently, only our rhythm section and director have the ability to hear click. This has worked for now, but we are seeking to allow the orchestra members this option.

Next, we had to get the source click to coincide with a technical timecode of some flavor. There are several applications that allow this. We choose Digital Performer (DP), mostly because I had seen it done by the mighty three mentioned above. DP allowed me to create tempo maps from demo tracks provided by my Worship Pastor. DP could then output timecode along with a click so that digital devices would track in time with musical moments signaled by click.

Now I had to figure out how to get multiple types of devices talk to each other given the same timecode source. Our largest devices we wanted to sync were video playback, lighting control, and audio cues. I found that these three types of devices like to talk sync, but they each talked a different kind of sync, or had a different sync input type. Some strategic purchases had to be made to make sure that all would speak the same timecode.

The workflow

For our workflow, we are using two types of timecode simultaneously. First, DP is very good at handling midi. DP allows multiple tracks of midi, much like audio tracks. They can be assigned to different outputs of an interface (see diagram below). Once I could get midi out, I could then get midi in to other devices, either natively or through an interface. I won’t mention brands of gear because most gear has this ability, and if not, may have a work around.

I set DP to output Midi Time Code (MTC) and connected my midi interface to my lighting desk. I also connected midi thru my audio console. Some audio consoles allow for MTC, but for me, all I needed was midi note values to recall presets in my audio desk. So now as DP tracks along in time, the MTC flows to a timeline in my lighting console which is programmed with cues, and my audio desk listens for midi notes telling it to recall specific presets. My lighting now is automated with my mix/mic cues.

Now lets talk about video. This is a bit more complicated yet easier. Video playback has a frame rate that plays back at a certain specified number of frames per second. In our case, we sync video playback to 30fps. DP allows you to set this playback amount with in the app, so if 29.97 or 24 or 60fps is your workflow, there are ways to do this as well. Finding a video playback device that listens to MTC is difficult. The video world has seemed to standardize on SMPTE as its timecode of choice for this kind of workflow. I’m an audio guy first and foremost, so if I badger anything here, please give me grace.

DP is also capable of outputting SMPTE timecode as an audio source. As an audio guy, I found this very comforting. It was simple to then route audio through XLR cable to a video playback box which the capability of inputting and tracking to SMPTE.

In DP, there is a feature called “Chunks. “ Our workflow uses this feature as discreet multitrack sessions, each being labeled as one song. I can then set each chunk to its own specified timecode hour. I set our video playback box to play the appropriate video at the appropriate timecode hour related to the song in DP. Now, when I press play in DP, my audio desk will fire the appropriate preset for the song, lighting will start its thing, and video playback will start. All three disciplines, one play button.

In this workflow, the only position that was required to make the look happen was a TD switching video. While there are means to automate points of a switcher, we have not taken it that far yet. GPIs are limited in what they can do, and can be complicated to wire. This may be a next stage for us. I’m not saying we would automate every camera dissolve, but perhaps we could automate a cut when video playback starts so that first frame of the video is not missed. We haven’t yet seen a need for this.

There are other ways to fire video playback such as via a midi note. Some would say this is an appropriate method in this kind of workflow. This has one fatal flaw in my mind. Simply starting a video does not ensure frame accurate alignment or constant playback speed. If the video playback jitters, or audio slows, the lip sync, or the alignment of video transitions will not follow. Its perceived as a failure or less than excellent. Purchasing a video playback device capable of SMPTE chase is more money, agreed. Our goal is to not create distractions but eliminate them. The margin of money to the security of not having distractions seemed appropriate. We purchased the more expensive device in this case.

There is one more fun feature to this workflow. As an audio engineer, one task of my role I prefer not to do is cueing and firing playback tracks. There is always that awkward moment if the track fires late, if you miss a cue, or if the device freezes. While DP is remarkably stable in starting and stopping playback, it also allows for remote control of transport via an iPad app.

I have placed an iPad on a stand near our director running DP Control. I have set DP to cue the following chunk at the end of each song, and waits for the play command. My director then presses one button in the course of the service/production: play. The director does not need to know the ins and outs of DP, just when he wants the next element to start.

This workflow will not happen over night. There are many moving parts, and many pieces of gear that must work together in order for the end product to come across as seamless. Once the foundation is set, however, the workflow opens all kinds of possibilities. Remember, midi can control many devices, and DP can have many autonomous midi tracks. I think I once saw a midi controlled coffee pot…maybe that was DMX, but I could still automate through lighting!

I hope you can see the power of preproduction and automation. Remember, poorly planned productions will lead to poorly executed productions.

Check out some other guest blog posts in this series:

Allen & Heath GLD vs. Midas Pro 1 Hands on Review by Peter Wituszynski

Behind the Scenes Technology: A Children’s Pastor’s Perspective

Check it out on Mike Sessler’s website here.

Check it out on iTunes here.

Google Drive in Kids Ministry

Being a leader of a Child Evangelism team, Light Children’s Ministry, means that a lot of work we have to get done throughout the week is when we are apart from each other. I have people on my team who run projection and audio, people who run the puppets, and some help with games. I have people everywhere doing very different things. My challenge was how do I communicate with my entire team in a way that we can work together, see what each other is working on, and see our progress. My answer was Google Drive, formerly known as Google Docs.

Google Docs has been an incredible asset from the beginning of my team. In preparation for the upcoming school year for kids, my co-leader and I began by creating a shared folder in Google Drive that we both had access to with full permissions, read/write. This was the start of utilizing technology so far behind the scenes that nobody being ministered to knows about it but without our team utilizing Google Drive as an asset for communication our ministry would not be the same.

One of the greatest features that has helped the preparation of our team was the “Comments” feature in Google Drive. My co-leader and I were able to read through each other’s materials and mark it up without ever touching the original text. The comments feature is more than what you find within Microsoft Word because not only is it available in real-time just like the live type feature, the comments are similar to an Instant Message Window for a specified text. This made it simple to go back and read what our though processes were as we were preparing.

After everything was done it was just as easy to share with my entire team. I was able to set my team to “Read Only” so that the files were not accidentally deleted but when they needed to edit and add to the files it was just one click away for me to grant them writing permissions. With my entire team being able to access Google Drive both online and offline it ensured that we were all looking at the same document and not an older version. We were and still are all up to date with each other!

If you are part of a team and don’t use Google Drive in some way you may be missing out. There are other technologies out there similar to Google Drive but in my opinion they don’t match up just yet (not saying they won’t one day).

So how can you get started using Google Drive in your ministry? Simply go on your web browser to drive.google.com and get started. They do a quick run through of everything for you. Once you get started meet with your team and figure out where your communication skills may be lacking or where they could simply improve. Google Drive provides Document, Spreadsheet, and Presentation support that all function in similar ways to the Microsoft Office Suite.

If you are used to sharing documents on a network drive you can download the Google Drive app for PC/Mac and simply drag those files into the Google Drive folder location and share it with your members on your team. I prefer this method because instead of limiting a document being open only on one computer at a time, you can all open it, edit it, and chat with each other either in video or text as you collaborate as a team.

Just like with all other technologies in ministry we must remember it is a tool and not a method. If the technology fails our execution of ministry should not be hindered. Yes, Google Drive provides an

incredible way for a team to collaborate on files and many other things, but that should not be the only communication your team experiences.

Behind the Scenes Technology should be the same way. If Google Drive suddenly cannot be accessed my team still knows what is going on and what we have to do. If the sound system at the church we are ministering to gets hit with a demon (okay, typically it’s user error or cheap technology), we still have to go on. If the projector fails we still are able to make the points from the sermon.

Google Drive is one of many “Behind the Scenes Technologies” that can be used in ministry and/or teamwork. What are some technologies that you use to help you prepare?

Pete Wituszynski is the volunteer audio director at Restoration Church in Dover, New Hampshire. He loves all things production and enjoys the challenge of pulling church services together. He will receive his BS in Electrical Engineering from UNH this May, and always looks forward to meeting and hanging out with other techs, especially in the New England area. Connect with him on Twitter: @peterwit

Allen & Heath GLD vs. Midas Pro1 Hands-on, head-to-head comparison review

This past Christmas, I got to demo an Allen and Heath GLD and a Midas Pro1 side-by-side for a week of services. The GLD was shipped from our usual equipment vendor, and the Midas came from a local dealer who knows a few people in our congregation. These are both $10,000 audio consoles, but they are aimed at different audiences with different feature sets. Both mix audio quite well, so I am mostly going to compare the features and quirks that set them apart.

THE GLD

The GLD arrived on Monday, one week before our Christmas Eve service. I unpacked it on Tuesday, just in time for a frazzled rehearsal soundcheck. Patching the board was quick, but the touchscreen needs to be finessed a bit when dragging and dropping. With Allen and Heath, you put any fader anywhere you want it, including mix sends and master faders. It was easy to lay out channels the way I wanted them, and I was able to fit most of my inputs across the top layer of both banks. That way, I could use DCAs if I wanted, but I could also just leave everything up to grab quickly. Everything “fit” very well within the 20 faders and the layout was logical to use. One of the first things we tried to do was attach a USB keyboard to make the naming and patching go quicker, but we discovered that the GLD forces you to use the on-screen qwerty keyboard. It’s about as easy as texting on an iPad.

Our unit arrived with the 24 channel snake unit and one 8-channel expander. These stage racks are just the right size for our church, letting me put 24 inputs behind the stage and 8 more on a drum riser. That’s some nice physical flexibility, and the 12 outputs gave me just the right number of aux sends.

As far as sound quality, I was impressed. There was an unmistakable improvement over our 1993-ish analog GL4 console. There was certainly more clarity in every channel, and even my playback tracks sounded better. The processing feels very “standard”. There’s a comp, gate, and 4-band EQ on every channel. I have no complaints about any of that, however I was expecting a little more in the way of FX processors. There is only one delay plugin, with different “presets” you can choose from, but I did not see a way to change the delay rhythm (triplets, for example) and while it sounded good, it felt like it could use more “character”.

The Pro1

The Pro1 arrived thursday afternoon, just in time for our next-to-last rehearsal. The guy bringing the rig also brought a Midas DL rack (48 in and 16 out) and a recording setup to play with. My mind had turned into mush by the time he was done patching it. The interface is so easy to get lost in, and its not always clear what the rotary knobs should be doing, or why they aren’t doing anything at the moment. But once it was configured, the console was entirely mixable. I do like mixing with POP groups, though there are times when I would rather see more than one thing at a time. It certainly sounds great, and it feels like the processing has more life and character to it than the GLD. However, it was cramped-feeling. Mixing on only 8 channels at a time is fine until you need to do 3 things at once. Then it quickly becomes a game of “where is that button?!”.

Like all the other Pro models, there is a trackball and yes, you do need to use the mouse for a lot of things. However, I thought that the trackball itself was probably the best one I’ve ever used. It is “stiff”, so to speak, so it is easy to control. What I did not like was the click button placement. I am used to using my thumb to click on a track pad. This is impossible when the click buttons are above, not below the trackball, so you are stuck using your fingers to click. You may connect any USB mouse or keyboard to the console, and the model I had was in a flight case with a built-in keyboard tray. It is important to note that while you do need to mouse around configuration screens, all the actual mixing is done with the console’s physical controls.

I had a few issues booting the console, such as needing a power cycle once when the outputs weren’t passing audio. This may have been due to the funny clock situation I was in, though. The AES50 connections needed plugging and unplugging more often than is comfortable, but again that may have been due to my specific situation with network bridges and the MADI interface for the recording rig.

Comparisons

The consoles are in the same price point, in fact they are just about the exact same price. They have some feature trade-offs between them, though. Here are some comparisons between feature sets.

 I/O:

The GLD is designed for a remote rack, with only 8 inputs on the surface. This is great news if you want to ditch analog snakes. The Pro1 has 24/24 I/O on the surface, with optional (expensive) expander racks. This means that the console works right out of the box all by itself, but you can add more channels to get 40 mix inputs. The A&H guys hit a chord with me for putting 4 RCA inputs on the surface. In fact, for christmas, I used all the RCA inputs and the 4 XLRs without needing anything more at FoH. The Pro1 loses points here for only having XLRs, since I needed to scrounge for DIs last minute and ended up running my aux sources in mono to save channels.

Design and Layout:

The GLD has a sporty frame with angled corners. It features the same soft-feel black plastic that comes on Thinkpad laptops, and that earned points with me. Everything is laid out thoughtfully, although it is weird that there are so few buttons on the surface. This means that you have to interact with the screen quite a bit, and you end up paging through menus to get what you need.

The 20 faders give it a “just right” feel. It is small enough that you can stand in one place, but there are enough channels that you can have what you need in front of you.

Pro1 Design and functionality

The Pro1 is a design atrocity. It looks like it was conceived in 2002, and is all curvy and bulbous for no good reason. It is a clutter of blinking lights and buttons, and it takes a good study to get to know what everything does. This leads to the console feeling cramped, not because it is too small, but because there is just so much available. This was compounded by the fact that you can only mix one group at a time. The Midas way of mixing is to assign every input to a VCA (there are 8 ) or a POP (there are 6). A POP is just a VCA without a master fader. The VCA faders and POP buttons are all on the right-hand fader bank. When you want to mix an individual channel, you punch the VCA or POP button, and it “spills” over on the left-hand fader bank. In this way, you always have access to all your VCAs and all your POP groups, and can have any one group spilled over at a time. But it gets funny with small channel assignments. A VCA with only 3 instruments in it means you are wasting 5 faders on the left any time you are mixing that VCA. The GLD lets you always have 20 things up and mixing at any moment. After mixing on it for a while, I learned to like the Midas style of mixing and I didn’t miss the extra faders, but it is certainly disconcerting at first.

GLD Design and functionality

The GLD allows you to mix while you make changes to an input strip or do anything else (patching, naming, setup) on the touch screen. But the Pro1 is very single-tasked. You can really only do one thing at a time, since all the information is coming from the LCD screen. Sure, you can always move faders, but you wouldn’t be changing an EQ while editing an effect patch. This sometimes translated into having to interrupt my work on something (like an FX or automation settings) when a musician needed a monitor tweak. You sortof have to drop everything in the interface to see what you’re doing.

Curiously, the GLD does not display a number for the fader’s position. There are screenprinted numbers on the surface just like any console, but the screen never tells you what level the mix is at. I’ve been told that there is a button that lets you see a number, but I didn’t discover it while I had the console. This is consistent with the physical controls, which have lights to indicate position but don’t show you any numeric value.  It’s not a particularly crucial detail, but it stands in contrast to the Pro1, which shows the fader’s dB level in large numbers as soon as you touch it. In fact, every control on the Pro1 is touch-sensing, and rotary controls draw a big box around the on-screen control that they are moving to make sure you know what you’re changing.

Channel Strip:

The channel strip is very different between the consoles. The GLD has a horizontal strip with a knob for most things. The full EQ section is there (with a “push for Q” on one knob that was not very intuitive), and most of the dynamics knobs are there. The Pro1 has a vertical strip with knobs for everything and little buttons that bring a detail view on the screen. The knobs tend to share functions, with the “dynamics” section controlling both the comp and the gate, with arrow buttons to pick which. The EQ section has just 3 knobs, with those arrow buttons to pick the band you’re editing. This took some getting used to, but I don’t have a problem with it. Once you’re in a detail view of the input processing, touching any knob in the channel strip will display the view for that function. EG, if you’re looking at the comp, touching the EQ knob switches you to the EQ view. The input “channel strip” has more features in the Pro1, and the screen shows you things like Aux send levels and bus assignments, whereas the GLD only shows you that information in the “Routing” screen.

Auxes/Busses:

The GLD has a flexible bussing system. You go to the config page and tell it how many Mono Aux, Stereo Aux, Groups, and Matrixes you want. It then tells you how many you can actually use, based on its output and mix bus limitations. In other words, if you don’t use matrixes, you can convert them into groups or auxes without sacrificing functionality. It will do up to 20 mix busses, so that’s the limit for any one category as well as the combined total.

The Pro1 seems less flexible at first, but it can actually do a little more. It has 16 physical “Aux” buttons, and 8 physical “Matrix” buttons. But it turns out that in Midas-Land, a “Matrix” is actually just an Aux, except you can mix other auxes into it. If you don’t use matrixes, pretend that the label isn’t there, and you have 24 Aux sends! Neat! But you can also set different modes for the “aux” sends, such as “group” and “mix-minus”, which are both fancy things that I don’t understand. Link 2 Auxes together and get up to 12 stereo sends.

Both consoles come ready to go for an LCR mix. In the GLD, you have to tell it if you’re doing LR, LCR, or “LMR” before you can route things and start mixing. The Midas just shows up with an LCR mix and you can leave the C channel unpatched or not assign things to it.

Auxes:

The way auxes mix is very different, too. On the GLD, every fader has a “mix” button alongside the “select”, “solo” and “mute”. You can mix an Aux by pressing “mix” on that aux. The board does a fader-flip, where each input becomes the send to that aux. You can also mix auxes by pressing “mix” on an INPUT fader, which turns the Aux masters into all the sends for just that input. This is the way I prefer to mix for sound checks, as it is very easy to dial instruments into everyone’s mix at once.

The Pro1 lays out Aux masters on the master fader bank, but selecting them only gives you the output processing. In order to mix an Aux, you have to press it’s corresponding (and unlabeled) button, #1-16 on the upper part of the console. This means that instead of seeing the label that you have set, you need to know the number that each Aux corresponds with. After pressing the button, the board does a fader flip and your input faders become contributions to the Aux. However, this is the only way of mixing auxes. There is no way to mix all the aux sends for a particular input channel at once. The Pro2 has a bank of 8 knobs to give you aux sends on the selected channel, but these are absent in the Pro1. That flies in the face of my sound check method, and is a little bit slower for some situations. It also means a lot more flipping through channels, adding wear and tear to the surface.

GEQ:

For Christmas, I had an upright bass with a crummy pickup on it. There was no way the parametric EQ was going to cut it, so I wanted to add in a graphic. It turns out that the GLD only has GEQs as part of the output busses. The only way to put one on the bass was to assign its channel to a group, and then assign the group to the L/R mix. This seemed like a waste of a group bus to me.

When I went to the Pro1, I originally thought it couldn’t be done either, but it turns out that one of the FX processors is a dual-31 band GEQ. They can be patched anywhere in the console, including a mix channel’s insert. The crummy part is that the insertable GEQs will not work with the GEQ FLIP button, meaning you can’t use the faders to tweak the EQ. Instead, you have to use the rotary knobs, 8 at a time, which is really annoying. Luckily, like everything else, you can save presets of your work and copy/paste at will.

Tap Tempo:

The Pro1 has a nice “Global Tap” button that can be assigned to any or all of the FX processors. However, the tap button itself is crummy. I had a hard time getting it to actually hit the tempo I wanted. Sometimes it gave me half-time of what I wanted. Strangely, the light that flashes on the tempo is among the options that the board has for “LCD brightness” and whatnot. You can tell it to only flash once after you hit it, or never flash. If you’re easily distracted by flashing lights in the corner of your eye, that’s a slick detail for the Pro1.

The GLD has no tap tempo button, but any of the 10 soft keys may be assigned to ONE of any FX processors. This means you can have multiple different taps going at a time, which is flexible but mostly pointless. If I had 3 different delays going, I wouldn’t want to waste 2 more soft keys on tap-tempos.

Faders:

The GLD faders are okay, but they are a lot like the Yamaha faders I remember from 10 years ago. When you recall them, they zip to their location with a familiar scraping sound. If two faders are linked, the following one kinda bumps around all jittery-like. The Pro1 has much nicer faders that are smooth to move and also more “reserved” when they recall. They slide up a little slower and a lot quieter than the GLD. They also don’t to the jittery dance when moving as a linked pair.

Sound:
The GLD is very clean, and I can’t say anything bad about it. The Midas is smoother, maybe a bit more mellow. I don’t have much experience with Midas gear, but it seems like the “analog gain + digital trim” split gain controls are supposed to let you dial in how much “Midas” you want in your sound.

Nevertheless, the GLD is a 48kHz system and the Pro1 is a 96kHz system, so take that as you will.

Virtual Soundcheck:

The GLD will work with any I/O card already out for the iLive line, which means you can pop a Dante card in there and be off and running with 64 channels both ways. These are managed in the “Patching” screen, on their own tab. I did not have a card to try with my demo, but it seemed straightforward, and there was a setting that lets you pick clocking options for that card.

You can get digital signals (Ethersound, Dante, MADI) out of a Midas, but you first need a $900 rack-mount box and then a third party card (another $900) for whatever you’re converting to. The console itself only supports Midas’ AES50 protocol, so you’re kind of in a corner for getting things into and out of it. The rig I demo’d was converting to MADI and then went into a mac pro for 48 channels of recording at 96kHz. You can also get PCI-E cards from Lynx which take AES50 straight off the board, at 24 channels each. The I/O is set in the patching page as “tape returns” on the input channels. Each input channel in the console’s patch has two inputs, the “normal” and the “tape return”. You patch physical mic preamps to the normal input, and your virtual soundcheck I/O to the “tape return”. You also have to double-patch the physical inputs to your digital outputs. Then there is a global setting in the “preferences” menu to turn on the tape returns so you can run your virtual soundcheck.

Conclusion:

Of the two consoles, I would consider the Pro1 as “More Complete”. It is, after all, part of the Pro range, and it inherits most of the functionality from its larger siblings. It has all of the same FX processors (just less of them) and the same routing and patching flexibility, but with a smaller mix-channel count and with fewer faders. Since it uses the same rack hardware, you know it has that Midas sound in its mic pres. The GLD is its own product line, and a strategically lower-mid-range one at that, so it doesn’t necessarily have all the bells and whistles you might want. Its scene functions are pretty limited and it doesn’t have buttons on the surface for recall. It also doesn’t currently have iPad or computer editor support, which almost puts it in a lower class than the Midas out of the gate. However, for a lot of situations, it is exactly what you need with no superfluous features to get lost in. That is my strongest feeling about the comparison, especially for my less-technical volunteers. The GLD presents itself easily and the user manual is built-in for a super low learning curve. For a room with 300 seats, it is a fantastic fit. On the other hand, the Pro1 will sound and act like a console costing 3 times as much. The downside is that there is a lot to learn, but the advantage is that there is a lot to learn. My same less-technical volunteers would have a system to dive into and really get to learn, and spend time knowing the ins and outs.

There is no “perfect console”. If I was buying for myself, I would go for the Midas,  but I’m still not certain which console my church will go with. My volunteers all warmed up to the Pro1 more than I expected, and after mixing with Midas VCAs and POP groups, I really didn’t like the layered approach anymore. So while I’m leaning towards the Midas, I hope this comparison has been a helpful and unbiased look at two great consoles in the same price range.

Each time that I’ve come across problems such as this, the Lord has always provided someone to help me, challenge me or guide me.  It doesn’t mean I’ve averted failure; nor does it mean that I made good decisions every time.  But , it does mean I’ve learned and changed how I do things because of people who the Lord has placed in my path.  It comes from people who are older then me and sometimes from people who are younger then me.

In the next month, I want to highlight a few people who I have had the pleasure to get to know over the past few years and some I have had the privilege to do ministry along side of them.

Two of these guys are church technical ministry gurus.  Bill Swaringim and Kevin Poole have been huge influences in my life over the past two years for church tech but also for leadership in technical ministry.  Their voices carry experience and wisdom.  Bill is the leader of CTL (Church Technical Leaders) which has networked church technical directors across the nation.  His website and faithfulness was one of the reasons I figured out that being a church tech director was something I could actually do and pursue as a career and had a life-altering effect on my life.  Kevin is the tech director of Mobbery Baptist Church in Longview, TX but has been a TD at First Baptist Church of Dallas as well as the audio director for Liberty University.  He’s attention to detail, intricate planning and technical orchestration is amazing and there is much to be learned in the church world today from his insight.

The other two guys are up and coming leaders who I meet while I was on tour as an audio engineer with Valley Forge Christian College in Chosen and Pneuma.  David Brock was a youth leader who that I connected with and wound up touring with a year later and is now a Children’s Pastor integrating tech into other areas of ministry.  Pete Wituszynski was a camper in my cabin as a youth leader who is now on his way to becoming an electrical engineer and has become a solid production tech.  He’s an ultra-nerd when it comes to gear functionality and workflow and is doing an in-depth product comparison on two new consoles that are rocking the market right now.

I’ve done alot of writing…and you all have done alot of reading!  I just wanted to take some time to kind of sit back and stop talking and allow some of these stellar tech guys to talk for me.  They’ll be posted on Mondays this month and potentially next month depending on the response so make sure you’ve subscribed to the blog and you’re getting updates.  I’m also asking people to tweet these articles if you enjoy them or if you’ve learned something from it.  I want to amplify the voices of these guys because of their knowledge and faithfulness.

Thanks for your support!

1.  Connect with your team during the week

It doesn’t matter how you do it, just that you do it.  Connect with them in small groups (whether it’s one you lead or just participate in that happens to include some of your team members), comment on select, daily things on social media to let them know that you care about their every day life, or keep your team updated on what’s being changed, improved or share small status updates on projects that effect them directly via email or social media.  It helps cultivate relationship between team members and leaders as well as allows them to feel a sense of ownership in the ministry they work to support on Sunday mornings.

2.  Be Cheerful

At least smile!  Sometimes, it’s difficult to be that way on Sunday mornings simply because of stress of making sure everything is ready to roll and because of other conflict or problems that arise.  Don’t expect your team to be happy, cheerful, and easy to work with if you, as the ministry leader, are not.  As the leader, your team will mirror your attitude and outlook, so make it a good one!

3.  Know your gear

The gear you use and run production with is your tool for making it happen.  While your tech gear will not LEAD YOU INTO worship, it certainly will keep you from ENTERING INTO worship.  To overcome this is to have things set up and prepared beforehand to reduce problems.  This will help you with last minute changes and service flow modifications because you’re already pretty close to where you need to be already.  But, when there are serious problems or failures, knowing exactly how your systems, setup, design and gear works is critical in troubleshooting problems and getting fast results.  Production errors tend to get way more notice then anything else over the course of a church service.  That understanding will help you get out of sticky situations quicker!  I wrote about when one nightmare came true for Sunday| Magazine a little while back.  Check it out here.

4.  Don’t be afraid to call shots

You’re the tech director, it’s your job.  So many times, I talk to people who are afraid to make a judgement call because they are afraid that they’re going to make the wrong call.  Then, instead of actually making a decision, they don’t do anything thinking that it will just work itself out.  If you’re really directing and coordinating this thing, do something and say something.  Weigh the pro’s and con’s taking the time frame into consideration and make the call being as intentional as possible.  If you make the wrong decision, evaluate your performance and learn from your mistakes.  Then, change how you make decisions for next time.  If you’ve done something well or made a tough call that ended well, then take what you’ve learned from that and see if it can be applied to anything else you may be struggling with.

5.  Circle back afterwards

Bring your team together if possible after you execute a service together and talk about what went well, what didn’t go so great and could be better, and what was a total failure.  Allow them to give input from their perspective and from the specific roles that they served in.  Weigh their input and take it into consideration as your prepare for the following week.  You don’t have to use everything, but you may still hear something or realize something that you missed that can help you create a better experience for next time.

What other tips and ideas do you employ at your church?  What other tips can we all learn from?  What things have you learned to avoid?

On Sunday, one of our volunteers was struggling to figure out why the console wasn’t passing audio to the mains.  The channel was registering that signal was passing through the channel, but he was perplexed as to why he couldn’t hear it.  Many of you, are thinking, “well, was it routed correctly?”  It wasn’t routed correctly and it was easy for me to see because I knew the process well.  It was a good moment for teaching troubleshooting and procedure in a real world situation where results were immediately apparent once I explained it.

It’s easy for experienced technical directors and production techs to glaze over the small steps or get frustrated when less experienced people don’t do exactly what we want.  But, if we haven’t clearly defined what we want, we are doing them a disservice and we’ve failed as a leader in what we’re doing.  Sure, there’s a certain level of experience that we need for specific events and that’s fine.  But, we also need to make sure that we’re training new people from whatever level they are on, even if that means from the ground up, and raising up new people to fill the roles of a growing ministry.

Here’s my plan of attack moving forward:

1. Define The Goal

When new people want to get involved, we need to have defined goals and steps laid out.  I need to verbalize and set the standards for what is important and what we want the end product to look like.  This should be applied to shows, services, presentations and organization.

2. Define the Steps, Technique and Jargon

As I mentioned earlier, not everyone understands how to get to the goal I shooting for.  Some may understand the process and technique but might not understand how to communicate it and some may be able to communicate well and show an understanding but get terrible results.  The key is to make sure that I know how approach people from both angles.  Personally, I can get the necessary results, but struggle more with explaining to others how to get there.  I need to learn to unlearn some of the advanced techniques and terminology and get back to the very definitions of what I’m doing and the steps of the processes I’m employing.  That doesn’t mean I’m supposed to overwhelm someone and deluge them with everything I know and expect them to run a large format show right away simply because I explained everything, but it does mean that everything can be broken down into smaller, easier and more palatable words, phrases and definitions so that people can grasp what I’m talking about and thereby learn and grow.

3. Define Commitment

This should be a given and I believe it will develop from getting the other two right.  If I organize my goals and explain why those goals are important and how important the volunteers who take those conceptual goals and make them a reality, it will help develop a deeper commitment and “buy-in” into what we’re doing in our specific area of ministry.

This is definitely a discussion-based article that I’m looking for feedback (ha…audio guy joke) on.  Comments are certainly welcomed here.  Let’s here thoughts and critiques…I’m learning along with the rest of you and I’m all ears!

Crazy right?

Or do we do that in church ministry as well?  As technical directors working using technology as a tool every day, have we blurred the lines between the people who are serving and the tools they are operating?  We all have pressure on us to do the very best we are capable of doing.  Sometimes, that pressure comes even more from ourselves then the leadership above us!

It’s easy to become frustrated when something fails regardless of whether it’s a gear failure or human error.  But, what do we do with that?  It’s extremely easy to take it out on the volunteer who is running the gear even if it’s not really their fault.

I think a lot of times our first reaction is to just want to do it ourselves because we have the experience and the confidence to get it done.  But, that’s not what its really about.  Being possessive and controlling is never a good quality to have in a team situation.  It’s our job as technical directors and production leaders to instruct, guide, teach and challenge our teams.  If we’re not approaching it in that way, then we’re not leading our team right.

What can you do to lead and instruct your team better?  Have you blurred the lines between technology and the people who operate it?  What can you do to make the distinction between the two clearer?

It’s quite a face-lift from the previous version of Klout…in fact, it’s almost completely different.  But, before I kick into that review, I’ll like to talk a little bit about what goes into your Klout score.

Basically, you’re ranked on a scale of 1-100 with the average user coming in at about 40.  (My Klout score is about 60 at this point…hehe!)  The higher you get, the harder it is to raise your score which explains why you don’t see many Klout scores that are sky high.  Also, you can’t raise your Klout score by simply generating more content or getting more followers.  You have to generate contant that people want to talk about and engage follows who are interested in what you have to say.  And the more influential you are, the more chances you have to get recognized in the social media universe and even the potential to get free stuff.  In fact, I’ve gotten a $10 Visa gift card as part of a T-Mobile 4G promotion as well as free Lipton Tea.  However, some people have event gotten free plane tickets amongst other things.

If you want to see exactly what parts of your social media accounts Klout monitors and is included in your Klout score, check out: http://klout.com/#/understand/score.

But, on to what everyone wants to see: the preview.  The dashboard screen when you log in will now look like this:

This screen gives me not only important information about my influence across the various social networks but also gives me a graphical interpretation of the information.  If you look at the graph above, it gives me a 90-day history of my Klout score as well as a circle/pie graph that shows what percentage of my influence comes from where.

If you scroll down or click the “hide my score summary” tab located at the top right side of the page and you’ll see your social interactions from the past 90 days and you’ll see a ranking in the form of “green lights” to the top right of the post.

Another section of the website outlines moments where you were most influential over the past 90-days.  It basically arranges your posts in order of how much it influenced your followers.  Below the post, you will see the profile picture of who you influenced and also either their Klout score or a button where you can easily invite someone to join Klout.  On the left sidebar, it also lists who your most influential followers are.

Personally, I’m a huge fan of the new Klout website.  Hopefully, they will keep adding new options and features to the site.  One thing I’d like to see is update and post scheduling for each social network that is connected.  That way, not only can you see what, where and how you’ve been influential but you can use Klout to increase your influence based on the information Klout gathers.

What else would you like to see on Klout?

For those who have used the new Klout preview, what do you like or dislike on the site?

Do you think Klout will become more or less prominent in social media in the months and years to come?