Talkback for Avioms and house.

Per recommendations and needing to control a musician now and then, I have installed a mic into channel 1 on board 2 and have done an insert to Channel 10 on the Avioms. If you don't highlight the channel the Avioms get you talking, if you highlight the channel it goes to the speakers. The mic is switchable so you can turn it off completely. We will need to discuss protocol in using it so you don't talk during a song but in between and have it preselected as to who will hear you, the Worship Leader or the musician you want to talk to.

We can back up the Presentation Computer whenever we need to!

The Presentation Computer has always been a 'If it goes down we don't have a backup' computer. Coming out S-Video to the Video Editor I understand because that and video are all it will take. Randy and I tried to find an available computer to make work but it wouldn't take the video card. I don't like being backed up against a wall with no way out.
The only solution was a Down Scaler. AV Tools makes one that will take us from VGA/DVI-D to S-Video, Component and Video. Not happy about going backwards in the chain of things, but that's what we have.
I have setup my personal work computer with Media Shout 4 and have tested it. I can get to the server to save everything, pull in backgrounds, songs, whatever. Now, if on a Sunday morning something happens we have a way to correct it!

Media Shout 4 Training On Line!!

OK!!
Craig spent a few hours converting this to a usable format and 10 minute segments and I spent last night and part of today uploading and making it work with the help of the guys at Smugmug.

Below is a link to my Smugmug account and 23 videos for Media Shout 4. We had to divide them up a little but I think they are still usable. I did label each so if you want a specific topic you can go to it or a general area that might house a specific topic you are looking for. This is a very well done video and I'm sending the link to ALL of you so we can have some cross training going on. I would recommend putting this on the center screen computer and viewing it while you are doing it on the side screen computer.

http://prairiegrass.smugmug.com/Other/Training-Videos/Browncroft-Media-Shout-4/12981604_uXGG6#939166824_MqD8c

If you have any comments or questions let me know.

1Cor 12:14-19 The right people for the job

I was having devotions today and the Scripture was 1Corinthians 12:14-19 dealing with the part of the body of believers. The direction was different though. Here is one of the phrases from it.

"When we use the skills God gives us, His purposes are accomplished, and He gets the glory. In God’s service, it’s not about being the best, the most talented, or the most gifted. It’s about being the right people—the ones God “set . . . in the body” (v.18)—joining together to serve the same team."

All of you are the right person for what you volunteer for. You are in the right place at the appropriate time for God purpose. We are 'called according to His purpose' to do what He wants us to do to bring someone to Christ. We are one team for the Glory of God.

ULX mic issue

Brent called me with an issue that I had never encountered. The window on the microphone for 'group' read 'E1 or 'F1', rather than just the number. After researching this the 'E1','F1' and factory repair settings used by Shure for diagnostics. How you get there is to hold the 'MODE' button for more than 10 seconds. The part we didn't know what how to get out of it. Press the 'SET' button for 10 seconds, it will revert back. Thanks Brent for trying this out!! :-)

sound debrief, June 6 & 20, 2010

It has often been my practice to send a debrief note to Chuck, Maurice, Ann, sometimes Rob, and now Roger. So now I'll start doing it here in this more open forum. I'd encourage everybody to do it as a means for sharing information, discussing issues with equipment or technique.

New information (recording feeds):

• For recording, there is a cable terminating in two 1/4" plugs, line out from the board. It's hotter than the S/PDIF connector, for which we didn't have a volume control. You have to remember to check the M-AUDIO settings to make sure your input is set the connector you're using.

Things I noticed for the first time (Audix mics are not identical):

• Among the six Audix book mics, we seem to have two different models: Four have grille holes all around the capsule, two don't. I'm guessing that perhaps the two with fewer holes have a tighter polar pattern. Hoping that was true, I used the two lower-grille mics on the outside (to catch less speaker feedback), and the wider-looking mic in the center. It would be nice to know for sure whether we have a selection of polar pickup patterns. (Roger?) Or if we buy more, the hypercardioid and shotgun styles look the most attractive. In the future, I will favor the ones I think are less omnidirectional when I mic instruments too.

Things I once knew but forgot (stage noise):

• When micing the choir, we need to move all instruments as far away from the choir as we can, otherwise the high gain we set for picking up the choir picks up a lot of instrument as well. I learned this before, from a big event with the stage filled with musicians -- in that case, the trumpets needed to be moved very far fro where they started. On June 6 I realized that I should have moved the drummer forward, away from the choir loft, for the same reason.

Suggestions I made:

• I suggested to Roger that (as a simple low-tech solution for recording worship) we use a 1/4" splitter to take the Aviom send from the overhead drum mic and route it over to the little mixer used for recording. I believe the channel can be muted or faded from the house but the Avoim send will still be live.

Other:

• I had comments on June 20 from the congregation regarding volume (especially drum volume) that I have shared in detail with Roger and Ann. Do what you can!

Easy way to keep up with news

I am posting a few articles today, so I'm sending this note with both email and on the web site, using this opportunity to draw your attention again to the web site.

For those of you unfamiliar with getting your news from a blog site like our new site http://techupatbrowncroft.blogspot.com:

Instead of periodically visiting multiple blogs, you can set up an "RSS reader" that subscribes to whatever feeds you are interested in, and then you occasionally visit your reader, which shows you a summary of articles from all your feeds, keeps track of which ones are new and unread, etc.

Two popular RSS readers are:

• Bloglines http://bloglines.com
• Google Reader http://reader.google.com

and there are many others.

If you decide to try an RSS reader, I recommend subscribing to two feeds:

• http://techupatbrowncroft.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
• http://techupatbrowncroft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

(The former to read new articles, the latter to see [with little effort] any followups that appear in the "comments" attached to each article.)