Worship on Sunday, etc. March 5, 2008
Posted by Phillip in Church, Guitar, Music, Worship.trackback
Sunday was interesting.
Rewind to last Thursday. Rehearsal was pretty rough. We had to play without our main rhythm guitarist (recovering from Lasik surgery) and our bassist was unfamiliar with several of the songs. Our worship area is in the middle of renovation (our stage is being entirely rebuilt), so we had to set everything up on the fly and try to get some rehearsing in. The rehearsal went pretty badly, in my opinion. The sound was bad, mostly due to the new construction. The drums were bouncing off of the new drywall and throwing everyone off. There were issues.
Our lead pastor decided that he wanted to rewrite the words and sing that Hank Williams Jr. “all my rowdy friends” song to go along with his message, so we had to learn a country song. Let me just say that I am not a fan of country, unless it’s of alt-country variety, and even that is a bit of a stretch, depending on the band.
Suffice it to say that it was a long rehearsal, and I was not very happy with where the music was when we were finished.
Fast forward back to Sunday morning. When we played through everything, it was a totally different experience from rehearsal. I was prepared for a train wreck, but it was actually a really good time, even though I broke the B string on my Les Paul in the first service and had to use my strat for the rest of the day since I didn’t have an extra set of strings in my case.
It’s weird how that happens sometimes.
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In other news, I’ll be making the move to in-ear monitors this weekend. In an effort to reduce stage volume, the rhythm guitarist and I will be ditching the wedge monitors and plugging Shure SCL3s in our ears. That should make a huge difference, since we place a close second to the drums in terms of overall volume.
I also ordered some new patch cables for my pedalboard from Lava Cable. I’ve been using generic junk from Radio Shack, and felt like it was time for a little upgrade.
hey where exactly are you putting your amp?
We keep the guitar cabs offstage in isolation boxes. It works really well for us. We get to turn our amps up (without attenuation) so that the tubes are cooking, and there’s no bleed into FOH.
Sometimes, when we expect the worst, we forget that God can take what little we have to offer and use it to His glory. Glad to hear the worship went well despite your misgivings.
Isn’t it ironic that rehearsals can be an absolute pile of garbage, and the performance can still work out? It happens so often with my band that I start to worry about Sunday when we have a good rehearsal during the week!
In Ears sucks a lot… at least to me. I have a hard time working with them. I like to ‘feel’ the music…
Our whole team uses in-ears with the Aviom personal mix system. It’s weird to get used to at first but if you know how to give yourself a good mix then it becomes just as good if not better than using wedges.
My sound guys recently hooked me up with some sweet Westone in-ears and they are freaking awesome.
I still think they suck. We have Avioms as well. I could deal with them a little better when I had a little more control of the mix, but the way we have our system set up sucks because of how the mix is sent to the Aviom system, and it’s always changing which defeats the purpose of having them.
Part of the problem is that we use wedges for front line singers which change weekly since they have no in ears, so adjustments are made on the board, which leads to people making changes for other instruments on the board as well. Anyway, I don’t like them…
So the changes on the board for the singers affect your Avioms? How much are you sound guys getting paid? I have full control over my mix and it always sounds great. It might also be partly attributed to the Westones I use and we all stand on elevated platforms with Butt Kickers fastened to them so we can actually feel the low end from the bass and kick.
Yeah, because the singers don’t just change their vocals but everything else since they’re using wedges.
Unfortunately, our sound guys don’t get paid. All volunteers but those Butt Kickers sound really nice.
The Butt Kickers work wonders! You can use in-ears and still “feel” the music.
good to hear it happens to others. (been there this morning. rehearsal, eh. service went well.
What in-ear set-up are you moving to? we’re in the process of evaluating in-ears.
We’re using the Shure PSM400 sets. They were okay today. It’ll take some time to get the mix right.
Do you guys with Avioms get a stereo or mono mix? I’ve used systems with both and stereo was GREAT! If it’s possible get it set up that way. You can pan one guitar all the way right, another all the way left, etc. It really helps for hearing everything at once.
With you guys who put your guitars in iso boxes off stage, did you build them yourselves or did you find them somewhere to purchase?
We built ours. You can buy them, but it’d be much cheaper to build your own.