Christmas Eve

Well another Christmas season has flown by and what fun and hard work it was. This year had an extra twist with Christmas Eve being on a Friday. This made for a quick turnaround for Sunday Services the day after Christmas. Fortunately Drew had a stripped down version of the Christmas Eve band so we could just take away some elements.

Here is the input list we had for Christmas Eve:
The first column is the channel line up, SI(in brownish orange) column is the input on the stage we plugged the microphones into so you can see the soft patching we did in the console.

Console Input Stage Input


Thanks to all who helped pull off this great weekend.

Barbershop, Show Choir, and a Soundguy

The other night I had the privilege of running sound for the Christmas show of the Duke City Sound, a Barbershop Choir. They sing a capella and usually have a barbershop quartet or two sing with them. They also invite a high school show choir and the 505, which is 25 and under a capella men's chorus, to sing do a few songs. The show is always great but there are some lessons I would love to teach to all the groups involved. Here at DSC we don't exactly take a huge amount of time for sound checks but we always do them. The Duke City Sound always spend a good hour warming up and singing on stage which makes for a great sound check and a great show,but I always have to remind them to do a sound check for the quartets( I will go over how I mic up the choir and the quartets in a later post). The show choir and the 505 never do a sound check. The show choir usually has at least one song with a CD as a backing music track. The choir's timing is off because they can't hear the CD and I have to make adjustments so they can get back on during the performance. If I had a sound check they could have told me whether or not they could hear. The 505 never stays on the Choir risers and ends up out of the sweet spot of the microphones. Both scenarios bring the performance of the choirs down. I can't state it enough, always do a sound check.

Percussion Microphones

With Christmas eve services coming up I thought we should look at what percussion microphones we are using at DSC.

Congas- I use the Shure Beta 56a on congas. They sound good and have a great mounting system.

Djembe- I use two microphones on the djembe. On top I use the Beta 98a H/C it mounts easy is small and it sounds good. Underneath I use an Audio Technica Pro25ax. It can handle the low end. If we are not using the Audix D-4 on the Thunder Tom I will use it on the bottom.

Cajone- I use the above mentioned Beta 56a. Gives good attack for snare sound and a tight low end punch.

Overhead- The Shure SM81 is the microphone of choice here. It is a classic.

Washboard- Christmas Eve will be the first time I have had a washboard on stage at DSC. I am using the Audio Technica Pro35. It makes sound like a washboard. Enough said

Cause for Praise Released

Cause for Praise our DSC Worship CD is finally here. You can buy it for $10.00 at the resource center at DSC. It is also available at www.digstation.com. I think it came out great and think you will enjoy. I thank all of you who helped make the live music and recording happen.

Bass Guitar

Here at DSC we don't use bass amps so I don't use a mic on the cabinet. Our regular set up is:
The bass goes into a Peterson pedal strobe tuner and then into a Tech 21 SansAmp bass driver DI which simulates a bass cabinet.

For our recording I used a the SansAmp setup with a Audix D6 on an Ampeg SVT Rig. This is a great combo if you are not worried about stage volume like we usually are at DSC.

Guitars: Electric and Acoustic

Well guitars are next here on our microphone list.
Acoustic Guitar- Now I don't use a microphone for FOH but I do have a microphone as a back up and for Drew's ears.
KSM109-I can get a useful guitar if we have an issue with the pickup in the guitar. I don't like this because I get way to much of the drums in the microphone.

Taylor K-4 Equalizer and preamp - We use this on Drew's acoustic. In my opinion it is the only way the Taylor expression system sounds good. With like butter without like sour milk. Okay maybe not that bad but I do miss the Fishman Pickups in the Taylor Guitars.

Radial Pro DI- I use this on most acoustic. It is my favorite passive direct box. It gives me a nice even tone on acoustic guitars.

Countryman Type85 DI- It is just a classic. I like the type85 if I need to strengthen a signal or I want a little brighter tone. Great DI in the right situations.

The electric guitar I rotate through different styles and types of microphones. First thing to note is I isolate the guitar amps (Fender HotRods 4x10, 2x12) off stage in an isolation box. I use the Radial SGI Studio Guitar Interface to extend the guitar signal to the IsoBox. I will post more on this later.

Current Setup:
Shure KSM27- (replaced with the SM27) I like the way the KSM series sounds. This mic gives nice reproduction of the guitars tone.

For our live recording I used the KSM 27 with a Sennheiser 609 (replaced with the e606).

SM57- This is always a safe choice.

KSM32- I like this mic as well. I just prefer them on overheads.

Next Bass.

Piano, Strings, Flutes, and Horns.

Well as we continue through the mic drawers we now come to some of the more difficult instruments to mic up.

1st the Piano- Right now I am using a single DPA 4061 though I will use a second one if the piano is the only instrument. These DPA's sound good on a lot of instruments so I keep breaking up the set to get me happy sounds on more instruments.

Cello- I just used the above mentioned 4061 and it was AWESOME. This mic is great on violin as well so I will use the Audio Technica ATM 350 on the Cello when violin is used.

Violin/Viola- DPA4061 as mentioned before but I have limited numbers of the DPA's so I use the the Audio Technica pro35 which surprisingly sounds great on strings and is pretty inexpensive.

Flute- Again my first choice would be the DPA4061 mounted with a Countryman flute mount. Since flutes are usually used when we have other instruments that use the 4061's I go to the Audio Technica pro35. It is a little bit but sounds good and works with the Countryman flute mount.

Horns- I use Beta 98's and Pro35's again. I have a good number of 35's because I got them on sale. Both sound good and are easy to mount to the bell of the horn.

Next I will talk Guitars!

Vocal Microphones

Well continuing on microphones I thought I would move to vocals. I love many vocal microphones. Right now it is pretty simple.

Drew(music minster) I am using a Sennheiser e835 dynamic microphone. I picked it because of the it as better off axis pick up. Drew tends to move his head around and the 835 seems to keep a pretty even tone when he does.

Right now on background vocals I am using my favorite microphone right now the Shure KS9. It just sounds good.

I have a nice assortment of other mics Shure SM58's. 86, 87a, Beta 58, Beta 87a and c. They all find their way into the rotation as needed.

Drum Microphones We use at DSC

In an effort to post more regularly I will be posting some equipment we use and why it was chosen. I will start with microphones.

Shure SM/Beta 91- Kick drum, inside. I use this to get the beater attack from the kick drum. It can be used alone, like in the Youth room but I like in combo with another microphone.

Shure Beta 52- Kick drum, Outside. I use this to get more of the bottom of the kick drum. I insert just in side the hole of the resonating head.

Shure SM57- Snare drum. This is the industry standard for so many instruments. I like it on the snare nothing ground breaking just good snare reproduction. Also good for guitar amps, congas, and toms etc....

Shure KSM109- I have started using one of these on hi-hat since I started using my SM81's as crowd mics. I made the switch because of the live CD. Shure replaced this microphone with the SM137.

Audix Micro D- Toms. What can you say about these microphones. They are small and sound great on toms. On the recording we just we used Sennheiser MD421's which some day we might get to replace the micro D.

Audix D4- Thunder Tom. I use the D4 on our giant floor tom. It just gives me more bottom or thunder if you will. I really like the D6 for this as well.

Shure KSM32- Overheads. I love these microphones. They really pick up the subtle cymbal fluff and sound great when the kit is being pounded on. I also really like these on Electric Guitar amps.

Other Microphones I use from time to time are:

Shure SM81- Overheads/HiHat. Just a standard and sound great.

Shure Beta 57- Snare/Snare bottom

Shure Beta 56a- Toms/snare. I use these on percussion like congas.

Shure Beta 98- Toms. I use these mostly for Djembe.

Audio Technica Pro 35- I use these on toms in the youth room. They are also great on percussion, strings, and even micing cymbals.

Shure PG81- Overheads/HiHats. This is there budget overhead mic

Shure PG56- Toms in the youth room. Budget tom mic.

Audio Technica ATM35- Kick/Tom/DJembe bottom

Audio Techica Pro 25- Same as above just budget version.

Sennheiser e914- Overheads/Hihat. I use these as Choir mics but also work as overhead.

Well there you have it. The microphones I use on drums. I will look at the percussion microphones in the next post.

New Years Resolution (A bit early)

I thought it would be a good time to lay some goals for the near future. These are things I have let slip or just ignored over the last few months. Well here they are:

1. More gatherings of the Audio Team for fellowship, encouragement, and training.
2. More and better training. I would like to see more training individually and as a group.
3. Get the service schedules out sooner so people can actually make plans.
4. USE and FOLLOW check lists for services.
5. Try and have a member of the audio team besides me run sound at Lord's Supper.
6. Train someone to edit and post sermon audio for website. (Maybe I can take a Sunday off)

Well these are just few things I hope to better in upcoming months. Training, as you can see, is going to be a big part of the next year. I just hope I won't have to write all this down again because I dropped the ball on these six steps.

Reflections on a Long Couple of Months

Well another great couple of months here at DSC. It was one of those ultra busy times starting in March with our Music for the Glory of God Jazz and Cello recital. End of March beginning of April started the Easter frenzy. We had extra rehearsals for Easter. We added a choir, two trumpets, two flutes, two violins along with out core band of Piano,Acoustic, electric, percussion, bass, drums. Here is how the week of Easter went: Monday off, Tuesday The Well(our young adult ministry) had it's service, Wednesday we had Lord's Supper, Thursday we had our first rehearsal with choir and band, Friday we had our Good Friday Service (we had piano, cello and 2 vocals), Saturday we had our second rehearsal for Sunday, Three services on Sunday. Monday we took off and then set up for The Well's next meeting and trying recover the stage for a more normal week. We got a couple of weeks off then on the 24th of April we had a wedding, and the following week we had our Clarus conference with nine sessions and music before 6 of the sessions. We had one normal week and then had a children musical the following week. Monday rehearsal - Friday performance. There were eight leads on Lav mics CD tracks for the music, four videos and 125 kids in various choir arrangements. Great fun trying to keep up with all that. I am ready to settle in for some time off and normal work weeks until we get into July when VBS starts taking over the church. That is always a fun time. Check out some of the pics.
chris

Master Input List

Here is a link to my "master" input list with a stage plot. You will also see stage boxes are listed with channel inputs. All boxes have to cat 5 connections for Aviom mixers. This list shows what channels I put different instruments/vocals in. I try and keep it pretty standard just in case we have a full stage. check it out here.