Worship Together Blog

Gear Purchasing - A Good Rule of Thumb

As worship leaders, many times the responsibility of purchasing sound and lighting equipment with the church budget falls upon us. Church music has become a major target audience for most gear manufactures and is a growing market while other markets are shrinking. 

Churches are becoming much more tech savvy and in some cases have worship rooms rivaling the best music venues in the country.   

As pastors and stewards of God's resources, it is our responsibility to make "God inspired" decisions on spending church money. So I thought the following guidelines might prove helpful when you get ready to make that next A/V purchase:

1. Do your research. Getting good advice is a huge part of making a smart purchase. Read information on-line. Visit other churches and see what they are using. A sound or lighting consultant is well worth the cost.

2. Make a positives/negatives list for each product. This makes it easier to compare products, especially complex products like a front of house mixer or a lighting package.

3. Target upper mid-line versus top of the line. There is diminishing return on products once they reach a certain price point. For example, a Shure SM58 is a great mid-line mic for about $100 and most of your congregations would tell a big difference over a $29 mic. However, the average person could not tell the difference between the SM58 and a mic costing twice as much. There is a diminishing return. The following chart represents this fact:

  

There are some exceptions to this, especially churches that double as a concert venue or if the ministry is tech driven to achieve its ministry goals. But for most churches, you can waste a chunk of precious church funds on high end gear that no one will appreciate other than your musicians and the person that sold it to you.

4. Leave room for growth. It doesn't save money to buy a 16 channel mixer if you will need 24 channels within a couple of years. The cost difference to move up is usually way less than trying to re-sell and buy again.

5. Buy used when possible. There are really good deals out there on "experienced" gear. I especially recommend this for items that have a long life such as mics, lighting, amps, guitars, drums and rack gear.

Remember, to be as frugal as possible. Every dollar you save could be a real blessing to someone in your church that is sick or hurting financially. Blessings!

Get A Great Pair Of Professional In-Ears For Only $59

Right now, for a limited time only, Musician’s Friend is offering the White version of the Shure SCL3 In-Ear Headphones for the incredibly low price of $59. Normally priced at $149, this is an incredible deal that you shouldn’t let pass you by. We’ve used these ourselves and can assure you there is no other set of in-ears that will give you this level of sound at this price!

The Shure SCL3 Sound Isolating Earphones are designed to offer the demanding audio monitoring quality required for live performance. With a sleek, low profile design, the SCL3 earbuds combines WideBand MicroDriver technology and incredible sound isolation for detailed highs and enhanced bass across an extended frequency range.

Head on over to Musician’s Friend and get yours today! 

Gear Corner: Blue Snowball USB Mic

Want to turn your office or bedroom into a studio for $100?  Blue Microphones has developed a USB condenser microphone that is an all-in-one solution for a number of applications.  The mic is called the Snowball.  We got a couple of these for our studio here at the office.  The intent was to provide them for our writers so they could create quick demos in their writing sessions. Immediately, I realized how useful these little mics could be. They are so simple, and the cool factor is a 10!

Gunk & Gutie Gear Review: Blue Snowball USB Mic from Worship Together on Vimeo.

Listen to a demo of Matt Maher's "Lay It Down" that we made in 10 minutes using the Snowball:

How It Works
To start, there are no drivers or software to install. It is a true plug and play product.  Second, this is a studio grade condenser microphone.  The quality is far beyond anything else in this price range, costing just $100.  Third, there is nothing else to buy.  There are no XLR cables and no interface. Everything you need comes in the box.  The Snowball even comes with a sweet little desktop mic stand.

If you are a Mac user, plug in the USB cable, open up Garageband, and create a new “real instrument” track. Then go to preferences/Audio-midi, and select the Snowball as your audio input. That’s it; you are ready to go.  If you are a PC user, just plug in the USB cable, choose the Snowball as your sound recording device in the control panel, and open up your audio software of choice.

Potential uses for the Snowball
I would imagine a lot of you are worship leaders that have either written, or thought about writing songs.  You can use this mic to create quality recordings of your songs to burn to a CD or record ideas and melodies that are being developed.  My wife plays piano and sings, but she has trouble finishing songs simply because of time and unfinished lyrics.  While I have my studio set up in the next room, I don’t want to record her songs until they are finished.  Last night, I handed her the laptop and the Snowball and told her to demo her ideas.  At the end of the evening, she had 3 great sounding demos.  I can see the Snowball being used for a number of church applications as well.  It is perfect for podcasts, video voice-overs (for all those low budget church videos), as well as simply recording church services.

Get the Snowball, Recording Software & Headphones for $99
Now through the holidays Costco Online is offering the Snowball, Mackie Tracktion 3 Recording Software (a $100 value) and Koss UR40 headphones all for just $99! This deal won’t last forever.  It’s a $240 value, so we encourage you to go get it today!

Our Wireless Mics Could Be Rendered Useless

If you use wireless mics in  the US, please stop what you're doing and read this right now.   

Next, download Shure's White Spaces Proposal and study it.  It's concise.  You can download it here! 

Then before you do anything else, write out your thoughts on the matter  and
send your comments directly to fellow CSC member Doug Gould with Shure. 

You can write to him at Gould_Doug@shure.com.  You can also copy Chris Lyons
with Shure at Lyons_Chris@shure.com. 

This is important to all of us in the US.  Don't delay.  They need your comments as soon as possible, absolutely no later than Friday, October  24th. 

You should also call, email or fax your state representative to voice your concern over this matter. 

Please share this URL with every church pastor, music pastor,  worship pastor and church leader you know:  http://www.churchsoundcheck.com/whitespaces.html

Line 6 POD X3 Live vs Amp

While attending the Thriving Musician Summit at Bayside Church last weekend, I was surprised to see the Bayside worship team going amp-less using POD X3 Live guitar processors.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PODX3live/

I'm not a big fan of "all in one" guitar processors, but I have to admit the guitars sounded pretty good. I've tried using the Line 6 POD Pro at my church with my Fender Tele and I've never been able to get a good overdrive sound from it.

Lincoln Brewster, who is the worship pastor at Bayside, says that they don't use the stock patches. So that could explain the great sounds.

Anyone else using one of these? If not, what are you using and how do you keep the volume under control?

Maher pedalboards

Okay, I admit it. I'm a gear-head! I love guitar pedals. All the shapes and colors and fun sounds they make. All in pursuit of that perfect tone!

So everytime I'm around other guitar players, I love to check out what they've got strapped to their pedalboard.

Here is Kenny's board who plays for Matt Maher. Kenny's backline is usually a Vox AC-30 or a Fender Twin:

He's got the Line 6 delay, Boss Giga-Delay, Boss Compressor-Sustainer, Boss Tuner (the best). I don't recognize a few of his pedals, so I'll have to get Kenny to clue me in unless someone knows what they are.

And here is Maher's board. He is currently running direct (without an amp):

Matt is using the Vox Tone-Lab for his SG with a Fulltone distortion. I'm not sure what the blob of gaff tape on the left is all about. :) He routes his acoustic separately, thus the 2 Boss Tuners. He is using a tubed pre-amp for his SG as well, but I can't remember what it's called. I'll find out.

Church Gear Swiping

Dear church music gear swiper,

This is a plea. I am calling on your sense of kindness and compassion. Please stop swiping gear from different worship venues without letting someone know or bringing the item back once you are done.

When I was rehearsing for worship last Wednesday night I realized that the monitors weren't working, so I went to the soundboard to investigate. I noticed you had swiped 2 cables that connected the soundboard to the monitor sends on the snake.

I corralled one of the students who helps out with sound and blamed him for the swipe. He assured me that it was you and he went and swiped the 2 cables back that I needed from where you left them!

It seems like every time I lead worship, someone is scrambling around to find a music stand, guitar stand, mic cable, or a hundred other items. I'm beginning to think that you are a modern day church "Robin Hood" who is stealing from the ministries who have gear and giving the stuff to the ministries who don't.

About a year ago, you were swiping my music stand every week. I would find it in your Sunday School class and swipe it back, only to find it missing again the next week. I even put a "Do Not Remove" sticker on it, but you disregarded it.

Last Christmas, the church bought about 12 poinsettias to set along the front of the stage. By the time Christmas rolled around, we were down to about 6. Every week we would loose a couple of them. "Why? Why? Why?". If you needed a poinsettia, I would have bought you one!

I've been assured from season worship pastors that there is someone like you in every church, finding interesting things and moving them to places where no one can find them. Please stop before all my volunteers quit or the church has to purchase a gun vault to lock up everything between services! :)