mikeymo's place

Here's this week's setlist from Gospel Light Community Church for Thanksgiving weekend and Advent Sunday. 

Opening:

History Maker (Smith)(G)

Main Set:

Tell the World (Douglass/Houston/Sampson)(G)
We Cry Out (Johnson)(C#m)
Revelation Song (Riddle)(D)
The Power of Your Love (Bullock)(G)
He Reigns (Furler)(C)

Offering:

Blow the Trumpet in Zion (Tendrup)(Dm)
Cover the Earth (Houghton/Houghton/Cruse-Ratcliff)(D)

We had a very slight misstep on the opening: I started the wrong song.  We were supposed to do "Tell the World" as the opener, but for some reason I grabbed by guitar and started playing "History Maker."  After the song, Josh had a good chuckle, but we just rolled with it. 

We had two keyboards again today, which is a very cool setup.  I aslo had taken advantage of Black Friday and bought a new power supply for my pedalboard, so I had all the pedals and no batteries!  Needless to say, I had a pretty good time.   With the two keys I had little melody duties, so I played electric on "Revelation Song," which I've never done before.  It really added some nice dynamics to it, I think. 

We haven't done "Power of Your Love" in a long time, and it came out really nice today.  And then we ended with faster song, which we do once in awhile, just to mix things up. 

All in all a great Sunday.  How was yours?  Check out others at Fred McKinnon's Blog. 

I was too busy to get an update out last week, so I'll recap and get everything up to date. 

First off, last Thursday we finally completed all recording.  It's "in the can" as they say.  The last bits to do were some female vocals on a couple of songs, and we had Esther and Emmanuella come in and record.  (This makes the total "talent" who contributed to this recording 15 people.)  

Their parts mainly involved "Draw Me Close," where they are splitting the verses, and singing choruses.  Their voices blended so well together it gave me chills.  During the choruses, Esther sang a hauntingly beautiful counter-melody that has to be heard to be believed, and that added an incredible subtle texture to the song.  This was the inspiration of our engineer Gabby, who is an accomplished singer in his own right.

Finally, we were finished.  Whew!   That was hard, but there was (and is ) still much work to do.  This past Wednesday, Gabby, Josh and I gathered in the studio to begin the mixdown, which is combining all the elements of a song into a coherent musical piece.  Mixing is as much part of the artistry of the song as the musical and vocal performances.

We got four songs mixed in the first session: "Draw me Close," "We Prepare the Way," "Calvary" and "He Reigns."   Josh and I also decided that we would need to extend our contract with Gabby, as we would need several more sessions to complete the mixing.  That's a budget-buster, but it has to be done.

Clips of the mixed songs can be heard on our Facebook Page.  Also check out this post on how you can help get this project completed.

Finally, here is the final art on the front of the album cover.  Thanks to Joel at Roodgraphics for some pointers.   More of the art will be forthcoming as we finalize the song order.

My last post challenged all of you who read to do something creative.  I also mentioned a promo video I was working in.  I blew off using Blender; it's an amazing program, and totally above my learning curve right now. It's hard being creative when you don't even understand how to use the tools. 

Instead I used Gimp and Movie Maker to see what I could come up with.  Here's effort #1.  




I was also playing with Wordle today, which is a site that turns text into a graphical image, like a tag cloud.  You can load your RSS feed into it, and boom:

Check out what your words look like at wordle.net

I don't watch a lot of "reality" television.  I like my escapism to be more escapist.  There are a couple of things I do watch, though.  I watch American Idol because of my involvement with music, and because I live with four females who watch it.  I watch some home-remodeling shows as well, like Sell This House! and especially Flip This House.

I also like watching cooking competions: shows like Iron Chef America and Chopped! are favorites of mine, but I've become somewhat addicted to The Next Iron Chef. I'm a bit of a (now) amature chef myself; I worked in restaurants (including cooking) for a long time, and love to cook now, and especially come up with creative ways to prepare whatever's in the pantry at the time.  So I like shows like this that test people's ability to create on the fly.

The show's second season has just ended, and my choice to win has prevailed; Jose Garces was crowned as the new Iron Chef.  There was much heated debate by the judges (can anyone really stand Jeffery Steingarden?) and three of the current Iron Chefs over the selection.  The judges seemed to prefer creativity, and the chefs technique. 

One thing stood out to me, however, as something that can be applied to life and ministry in general, and not just a cooking show. At one point in the argument, Iron Chef Michael Symon asked this loaded question : "If you're creative and you fail, are you creative? Or are you a failure?"

Symon was seeming to indicate the latter.  I'm not so sure.  I'm a big proponent of the theory that you fail at much of what you try in life, but you fail at everything you don't try.  And that goes with creative endeavours as well.  I've been trying recently to create an animated short film using Blender as a promotion for our upcoming Christmas Cantata.  And I've been failing miserably.  Everything I do stinks - I can't get the shapes right, I can't get the textures right and forget about the motion.  But if I don't try to do it, I'll never do it. 
This blog started as one such "creative" endeavour.  I thought "Let's see if anyone cares."   And while it hasn't set the world on fire, Google tells me that over 6500 people have taken a look, and I've been invited to speak, for example, based solely on my online writing.

I would answer Symon like this: if you create, you are not a failure. Not every creation becomes a success, but can be a stone on the path to success.  So keep writing, keep drawing, keep singing, keep playing, keep preaching, keep directing, keep producing, keep... whatever it is you're doing.  

What did you create today?

Here's this week's setlist from Gospel Light Community Church.

Opening:

Rescue (Anderson)(D)

Main set:

One Way (Houston/Douglass)(B)
Freedom (Bushard)(B)
Your Grace is Enough (Maher)(G)
Higher/I Believe in You (Fieldes/Zschech)(C>G)
The Stand (Houston)(G)

Offering:

Give to the Lord (Kenoly)(F)
Let it Rise (Davis)(E)

We had some real gremlins this morning at rehearsal - cables that cut out, amps that were turned down, batteries that failed, a bad ground hum...   It was a challenge just getting through the set.  We pushed through it, however, with help from our intrepid sound department. 

Daniel was down from college, and he brought his keyboard, so we had two keyboard players today.  It was great - Justin and Daniel had a great time switching off parts, and playing piano and strings/pads.   All of that left me to free up from playing so much melody and do some vamping. 

We played "Higher" for the first time in forever, it seems.  It tooks us awhile to get through it in rehearsal, but it was worth it in the end.  It's a great song, and was like an old friend to much of the congregation.  For the first time we did the medley with the chorus to "I Believe in You" like on the live album.  (Mighty to Save, I think.)  It worked out well, and we'll have to make it a regular part of how we do the song.   And, of course, The Stand is just one of our favorite worship songs.

So...  how was your worship Sunday?  Check out some others at Fred McKinnon's blog.

Did I say it loud enough?   FREE STUFF!!!  GRATIS!  NO CHARGE!!

Ever see one of those blogs that give away one CD or book?  Maybe a coupon for an ice-cream cone?

THOSE GUYS GOT NOTHIN'!


The Joint is giving away a prize pack containing 31 items!  Wipe off that dirty monitor and read that again!




SPK Curriculum
Shout Praises – Today is the Day DVD
Hillsong Kids Follow You – DVD
Shout Praises – Today is the day CD
Hillsong Kids Follow You – CD
God & Me – God Made me CD
God & Me – God Loves me CD
God & Me – God Helps me CD
Ultimate Praise songs CD
Ultimate Sunday School songs CD
Ultimate Bible songs CD
Lull-A-Byebaby Christmas
Lull-A-Byebaby Worship

You will also get..here we go!!


Freddy Rodriguez – Light in the Darkness
Desperation Band – Light up the World
Hillsong – Faith Hope Love
Lincoln Brewster – Today is the day Deluxe Edition
iWorship Hymns – essential collection
Hillsong songs for Communion
Worship and Adore: A Christmas Offering
Worship and Adore: A Christmas Offering DIGITAL SONGBOOK
Todd Agnew – Need
Skillet – Awake
Ken Reynolds – 1W1G
Israel Houghton – The Power of One WORSHIP LEADER EDITION DVD/CD
Hillsong United – Tear Down the Walls
Power of the Cross – Live at free Chapel DVD
Power of the Cross – Live at free Chapel DIGITAL SONGBOOK
Kari Jobe – Kari Jobe DIGITAL SONGBOOK
Desperation Band – Everyone overcome DVD
Once an Arafat Man – Tass Sadda BOOK


We must be insane!    But this is how cool the guys at Integrity Music and Ardent Records are. 

Why are you still here?  The contest ends NOVEMBER 30th at 12pm noon, EST. 

Since my old Acer has been on it's last legs for months now, I haven't had a working Linux computer for some time.  The Acer's video card finally gave out, so I had to use an external monitor, which Ubuntu didn't support on the SIS graphics chip.  (SIS's fault - they won't release the code)

So when I got my new (used) Dell Inspiron B130, I was anxious to try out Studio on it.  I had wiped the drive and did an OEM install of XP Home via the recovery partion, so I had a nice, clean drive to work with, 20gig bigger than the Acer. 

Since I didn't have any DVD-RWs around, and I am notoriously impatient, I dowloaded the ISO image of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Live CD.   Install was a snap.  It ran quickly and easily, using it's own easy-to-use partitioning software.  I gave it a 25gig slice, and soon it was humming along with it's sleek new Gnome 2.28 desktop.  The Dell (unfortunatly) has the same klunky Broadcom 4318 wireless card as the Acer (at least I have a spare) so I had to add the BC43 driver (on the CD) and the fw-cutter driver (download).   I knew this from the Acer, and  was ready, having already downloaded them to a flashdrive. I didn't have to jump through any hoops, though, like with Hardy and Intrepid. Install the packages and boom - working ever since.  (on Intrepid it would work sometimes, not work sometimes) A run of the Upgrade Manager to get the latest and greatest, and we're all set.

Surprise #1 - Grub2 - Since my wife uses my laptop from time to time, I like to make Windows the default OS.  In the past this was done by editing a small text file called menu.lst in the GRUB directory.  Except Karmic ships with Grub2, and there is no menu.lst file.  There is a grub.cfg file, which you are warned everywhere in BIG RED LETTERS never to edit.  Ever.  Seems Grub2 dynamically configures the config file when you make changes.  There are a couple of ways to make the change.  One involves downloading the Startup Manager package, which gives you a nice, pretty GUI to do it.  Very un-Linuxy.  The other is to edit etc/default/grub and change the number in Default=O.  You have to figure out which number to put by counting your entries on the startup menu.  Mine was 5.

That done, I wanted to get right to work.  Installing Ubuntu Studio was a snap: open the Synaptic Package Manager > Repositories window and enabling the additional repositories.  Reload.  Search for "studio".  Click on ubuntustudio-desktop, ubuntustudio-audio, ubuntustudio-graphics, ubuntustudio-video.  Click "Mark."  Click "Apply."   Watch Criminal Minds while it does it's thing.

So, how does it do it's thing?  Excellent.  I had some guitar parts to record for the record, so I started with Ardour, the awesome DAW program.  First, launch JACK to connect to the soundcard, then Ardour. Once I had started a project, imported a soundfile and set up the JACK connections, it was time to go.  The system worked flawlessly for recording and editing.  I didn't have to change any setting on the soundcard mixer to duplex, and multitracking worked perfectly. (was was working off an imported wav file produced in Audacity.)  I was able to easily save the new track as a wav.  Ardour did hang while exporting it as an mp3, but I think that was more a processor-heat thing.  (the Dell gets pretty warm)  I let it cool for awhile and was able to complete that export.

The real test was using Audacity.  Although Audacity uses a lot less processor and memory overhead than Ardour, I would be working with projects that had 10-15 tracks running at once while recording. Time to plug in the portable and load a project. (I had been working in Audacity all along because of the Acer issues; there is no Ardour port for Windows)

Surprise #2 - Native NTFS read/write support. I didn't have to tweak Karmic at all to use the portable. (Previous versions required an additional package.  Take that, Apple.)  Audacity easily opened the project files that I had created in a Windows installation without skipping a beat. 

I was able to load up a project and import the wav I had made in Ardour easily.  A little mixing, and then export it to mp3.  Done.

Next was a song I needed a new acoustic track for.  I use a Behringer Xenex 802 into the mic-in on the computer.  One limitation of Audacity is that it doesn't duplex very well, so you usually can't hear what you're recording.  I was tracking acoustic, so I really didn't care, but that's something they need to work on.

The system performed well, however - no latency even with 11 tracks going out and 1 coming in, and TweetDeck running in the background. 

Conclusion: All in all a great experience so far.  I know there have been issues with 9.10 on a lot of boxes, mainly with upgrades from Jaunty and with certain video cards.  So far I've had only one minor hiccup, and I've worked the system pretty well.  Multitrack recording on a three-year-old budget laptop is pretty intensive stuff.  The only thing left to do is see how the video editors fare.

If you've been reading this blog, following me on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook, you know that we are nearing completion of the recording phase of our upcoming worship album, Prepare. The album has been a labor of love for us, a ton of hard work, and an opportunituy to press on through some severe setbacks.   Listening to it as it comes together continuously gives me goosebumps.

We find ourselves at a crossroads, however.  One thing we, in our inexperience, did not plan on was having the record mastered before pressing.  Nor did we completely understand the costs and processes involved in getting from a finished recording to a completed, mastered and packaged product.
Here's how you can help.  There are two ways, actually. 

The first way is easy.  We have partnered with a local business (ok, it's my wife's business) to have a fundraiser for this holiday season.  Jill is a consultant for PartyLite Candles, and provides wonderful, high-quality, affordable gift items.  You're buying Christmas presents, right?  So, if you purchase some of the gifts you were going to buy anyway through her, she will donate all of the profits to the project. 

Doing this is easy.  Simply go to this page and where you see the blue box that says"Shopping for a Show?" click on the "look up your host" link.  In the search box, put "mi" in the first name and "ma" in the last.  Our show will pop up, and you can begin shopping.    Items can be shipped everywhere, or if you're local, they can be shipped to us and we'll bring them to you. 

The second way is to pre-order the Prepare album.  Doing so saves you $2 off the cost of the CD, plus assures you will get it "hot off the presses."   To do that, go to the GLCC Resources page. 

If you choose to be a part of this project, thank you so much.  If not, that's fine.  Keep checking back for updates, and please keep the project in prayer.  Believe me when I say, we've already seen fruit from this, and it has already accomplished great things. 

Some thoughts on an excellent event, involving some excellent bands and some excellent people.

All this came together to move the main RTS event this year from Bridgeport to Springfield, Mass.  The concert was held at a great venue - the Mass Mutual center, right in the heart of the city.  It turned out to be a great venue - lots of space, good acoustics, good views. 


The next band up was one that gave me a little pause at first: Family Force 5.  FF5 is a "crunkcore" band, which apparently means they yell a lot.  I've seen a few of their videos, and heard them on the radio.  I can tell you they are more entertaining live then they are in videos.  I probably won't be doing any FF5 tunes in church next week, but I had fun watching them.


The last act of the night was the incredible Third Day.  Somehow, I keep missing these guys when the come to the northeast, so I planted myself right up front for the whole set, right in front of Mark Lee. These guys were worth the wait all day long. They opened with the blazing tune "Otherside" from the Revelation album, whipping the crowd into a frenzy.  Along the way they did (among others) great tunes like "Call My Name," "Slow Down," "Revelation," "God of Wonders," "Consuming Fire," "Cry out to Jesus," (just Mac on acoustic) and "Creed" before giving an encore with "Agnes Dei."


Click on any of the photos for Super Largification.  More photos are here.

Below is a video of Third Day going from "Holy" into "Call My Name."   The sound is pretty lousy - I was standing in front of one of the stage subs - but the video is pretty decent. Play it at about half volume and it doesn't sound too bad.. 

Well,the last few recording sessions have gone amazingly well, so we were about due to have a night where things didn't go as quickly as planned.  It's tough, because we're getting down to crunch-time; we're near the end of our budgeted recording time, and we still have much to do. 

Our scheduled for the session involved getting the girls into the studio and recording much of their vocals.  We did get them in, and we did get a lot of stuff done - it just would have been nice to get more.  We began with some spoken word vocals that are going in during one of the interludes on the album.  It was cool to see Danny in the studio after so long!

Next came  Gabrielle singing her verses to the one original song on the CD, "Calvary."  It was her first experience in the studio, so she had a little difficulty getting used to the way things were done.  But her voice was so lovely and sweet on the track, that it made it all worthwhile. 

We let her catch her breath a little, and had Mariah, Celia and Emmanuella record their parts for "One Way" and "Mighty to Save."   To be honest, I was a little sketchy about "One Way," but hearing it with the completed vocals completely turned the song around.  And "Mighty to Save..."  Wow.  The addition of the alto line in the bridge really brought a depth to the song.  (You can hear a quick snippet of it in the video below.)  Finally, we got Gabrielle back to the mic to finish out "Calvary."

We're doing a second session this week on Saturday, where hopefully we will get the vocals finished, and can get down to the mix.  Stay tuned, and check this out.


  

The Joint has released it's review of Skillet's new album, Awake. 

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The bottom line? 

JOEL: There may be a few tracks in here you will want to purchase separately, but overall this comes off as one of the bands in the 90’s that didn’t make it. A dated sound with very little substance.


CONNER: There are a few tracks here that are great additions to the Skillet portfolio but overall it feels a bit dated.


MIKE: Buy some singles off this, then put ‘em in a mix with Comatose.


ALASTAIR:  Poo.

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Way to go, Alastair!  
 
Read the whole Joint Review!
 

Do you think it could've been...  *gulp*...  gremlins?

That's what I was thinking during the service today.  But thanks to some quick thinking and action by our sound techs, everything came off fine.  

First, the setlist:

Opening:

History Maker (Smith)(G)

Main Set:

All Because of Jesus (Fee)(C)
Blessed Be Your Name (Redman/Redman)(C)
O Praise Him (All This for a King) (Crowder)(Bb)
Mighty to Save (Morgan)(G)
Came to My Rescue (Davies/Sampson/Thomas)(G)

Offering:

Eres Todopoderoso (Salinas)(Bm)
Free For All (Houghton)(Townsend)

First off, it was a great list.  Anytime you can combine Delirious?, Fee, Crowder, Hillsong and New Breed in one set, you've got a good thing going.  And rehearsal went well, save one broken guitar string.  Fortunately, I had just picked up strings on Saturday, so that was covered.  Then this weird screetching noise came out of my amp right after rehearsal, but went away, so I never figured out the cause.

It turned out to be a weak battery in a pedal.  How do I know?  Because if came back during service.  But I was able to kick off the amp quickly - I was playing acoustic at the time.   Right after that, though, the cable from my DI box to the snake died, and took the acoustic with it.  But Israel, our sound tech, replaced it on the fly, and all went well.


We had a special speaker today as well, Mark Cahill.  Mark is very active in pro-life ministry and speaks nationally on that and evangelism. He is the author of several books on evangelism. We'll be posting his message up on the church website by tommorrow.

So how did your service go?  Check out others at Fred McKinnon's blog.  

We really are getting to the point where we can see the finish line of the recording part of producing the album.  We finished up just about all the male vocals this week, and began some of the female vocals.   We had Justin, Josh and Celia in this week, and I was really impressed with how much got done, and what the results were.

Josh began the session by recording his verses for "He Reigns."  After that we moved onto "We Prepare the Way," which Josh is singing as a duet with Celia.  It's great how their voices go together (must be a sibling thing) and how Celia was giving us a Jenn Johnson kind of vibe.  They wound up completing the entire song, with Justin doing harmony in the choruses. The only thing left on that song is the Scripture reading during the interlude, which we will record next week.

After that,. Celia recorded her parts for "Your Love is Deep."  She's doing the verses in that song.  Justin did his parts, which involved the choruses.   After that, Josh did his verses for "You Said."  Finally, Josh did all his parts for "From the Inside Out."





It's really amazing listening to this come together, and each part building.  We have enough of most of the songs now to really hear what they are going to sound like, and I have been spending time during the week trying different mixes - this record is really going to be something special.


More details are always available on the Facebook Page, including some "in studio" videos.  Like this one from last night.

The Joint Review has released another album review, this time of Paul Baloche's new album Glorious. Here are the highlights:

JOEL: Amazing songs and great writing sadly crushed by produciton that waters it down and makes Paul’s vocals very weak. I may however be the rare one to say that "Today is the Day" and "A New Hallelujah" are both better than Brewster and MWS versions. The songs on this CD are well worth the purchase.



CONNER: This is a stable, solid collection of songs that won’t jump out and slap you in the face but neither will they put you to sleep. What an attitude of worship. The pitfalls of this CD are "Today is the Day" and "A New Hallelujah". Already having those songs in my head by Lincoln Brewster and Michael W. they just fall completely on their face for me here. Otherwise, wonderful CD for any worship leader looking to pick up some new songs or if you need a new collection of worship songs to sing along to during your morning commute.


MIKE: Good, solid worship recording. If you like Brenton Brown, Michael W. Smith, Matt Redman-kind of worship songs, this record is for you.


ALASTAIR: A solid album, perhaps lacking a little excitement.

Check out the complete Joint Review - Paul Baloche: Glorious. 
 

THE JOINT has released it's review of Tim Hughes' new CD/DVD Happy Day. What did they say?


 KLAMPERT: It’s Hughes. The man is great, but I am really hoping this CD finally puts him on the map and makes him a household name. With that said get the CD with the DVD. The video is amazing and I just love watching worship concerts. Rating:



BYRD: The CD itself is righteous but shell out the extra cash and pick up the CD/DVD bundle because hearing this is truly only half the experience. The production on the video is just as excellent as the audio and I say a “must have.” I like Tim’s new stuff and I’m so glad Tim went to breathe new creativity into the old stuff too!


MAHONEY: Tim Hughes = great songs. Get this CD just to see how these songs are supposed to be done.


VANCE: A great worship cd/dvd package that hopefully will propel Tim Hughes’ music throughout the United States and beyond.

Check out the entire review at The Joint Review.  
 

Weekly worship recap from Gospel Light Community Church in Bridgeport, CT.


We had a busy weekend, with a youth party on Friday and Hallelujah Night for the kids.  Sunday worship was a needed refilling and refreshing,  Let's start with the list.

Opening:

How Great is Our God  (Tomlin/Reeves/Cash)(C)

Main set:

Your Grace is Enough (Maher)(G)
Finding Who We Are (Shamburger)(B)
For Who You Are (Sampson)(B)
I Surrender All (Van DeVenter/Weeden)(D)
Hosanna (Fraser)(C#m)
The More I Seek You (Neese)(E)

Offering:

Freedom (Bushard)(B)

We wound up being short-handed today, so I played drums for most of the set, with the exception of "How Great..." and the Zach Neese song, both of which I played acoustic on.  Chris sat in for the offerings and I got a litte electric in as well.  I wasn't expecting to play drums, and I was quite tired after our kids event Saturday night, so honestly, I could have played a little better. 

The hymn went over really well.  We've been trying to incorporate some more hymns into our services, trying to find a way to make them fit our sound.  We threw a little gospel twist into the end of it, and it worked really well.   We haven't done "The More I Seek You" in a long time.  It was a Christ For the Nations/Gateway song, and is a great worship song.  We reprised it once because the worship was flowing so well.  For me, Zach Neese's imagry fit in perfectly with our Communion Service this week.   For those unfamiliar with it, I'm including a video of the incomparable Kari Jobe singing it with CFNI.  

Check out other recaps at Fred McKinnon's blog.