Nathan Peterson's Blog
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Keurig vs Aeropress
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Implementing A Click Track
I’ve had some people ask me about how we do our click tracks with Hello Industry and at Richwoods. Hope this helps.
TOOLS
We use Ableton Live to run our click. If a simple click is all you’ll ever need, you may want to look at something more simple like a Dr Beat. But using Live gives us the ability to also run loops (backing tracks) and even runs our light show (another post).
We run Ableton from a macbook and output using the built-in audio port. Nothing fancy.
We run a stereo 1/8 to L/R 1/4 cable from the laptop to a stereo direct box. We use a radial DI which has served us well for years.
SIGNAL FLOW
In order to avoid adding an external interface, we keep our loops/tracks mono. That lets us output the click and count off to the right channel and send that only to our in-ears. Then we send the left channel (“L-eft for L-oop” is easiest to remember) to the FOH console the same way we send any other instrument. * Always test this before a show. We almost always plug in the cables backwards!
USAGE
We set up a template which we start with for every show. The template includes a 2-bar count off for every song. So we hear a lady say “1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4” and then we start the song. We set up shortcuts to each song so that our keyboard player (or drummer) only has to hit one key on the keyboard to trigger each song.
Each scene (row) in Live is a different song. By changing the title of each scene in the Master column, you tell Live to change its tempo for that song. This lets us cut and paste songs and just change the BPM to get the desired tempo of click track. So essentially, every song without a loop is identical.
Rather than try to explain every detail of this, I’m attaching a couple of screen shots and a blank template I made up, including the count off and click wav files. You should be able to load this up in Ableton 8 and start using it right away. I made sure it was less than 6 songs so that it will still load in Ableton Lite (Lite has a 6-scene limitation). Try it out and let me know if you have any questions.
Have fun!
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Life is hard. But not nearly as heavy as we make it.
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Implementing In-Ears At Church
I’ve had this conversation several times lately, so I thought I’d post my thoughts here as well, in case it’s helpful. Here are some of my thoughts on implementing in-ears in smaller churches:
Do you need them?
In-ears aren’t ideal. They take getting used to. They can create an emotional barrier between a performer and the crowd. They can be expensive. They’re difficult to share in cases where there are multiple bands at a given church. If implemented improperly, they can do more damage than good.
BUT, they can also be a lifesaver. I’ve been using ears for about 10yrs and wouldn’t go back, because for my purposes, I truly do need them.
Here are some ways to tell whether or not in-ears are a good move for you at your church:
If you don’t have a full band (5+ members, drums, amps, etc), maybe not. In simple, quieter setups, a couple of stage wedges work just fine, and you avoid the negative aspects of ears.
If none of your team has a technical bent, maybe not. Ears take some work to set up. If you set them up wrong, your musicians can end up not hearing entire portions of the mix. At least with wedges, you hear a little bit of everything, even if it’s through the mains off the back wall.
If your stage is super loud to where your sound guy can’t make a good mix because the stage monitor mixes are interfering or to where your band members can only hear mush on stage and are afraid of losing their hearing, then ears may be a good thing to look into. From my experience, most small churches who do a full band setup are in is camp to some degree.
Which ones to purchase?
Assuming you do feel you need to move to ears, what should you purchase? There are so many components to an in-ear system and so many options when it comes to each component that it can be overwhelming to the point where we just forget it and deal with the wedges. While there are a lot of options and while new stuff is coming out all of the time, let me piece out a system I feel would work very well for just about any smaller church. After everything I’ve tried over the past 10yrs, here’s what I’d be confident recommending to you.
(disclaimer: this is not the best-ever system. you can spend a lot more money and get a higher quality, and much more confusing, system. But this, IMO is your best bet for ease of implementation and value for your money. Let’s try to keep a clear head - you don’t need the latest and greatest. You need something that works will and get out of the way, so you can get back to making music. Forget about the last 2% of sonic quality - spend your time and energy making your music better, not researching gear.)
Avioms
Yes, there are cheaper options - they’re a pain to use. Yes, there are higher fidelity options - they’re a pain to use. Avioms have had the quickest learning curve for the broadest range of musicians in my experience. I can’t emphasize the importance of this enough.
Get one aviom unit for each band member. Get one head unit or aviom card (if you have a digital board) to get audio into your avioms. Get the distribution hub. It means you don’t have to daisy chain the units or plug power into them.
20’ RadioShack headphone extensions
Don’t go wireless unless you absolutely have to (you don’t). 99.9% of church musicians don’t move around enough to necessitate wireless ears. Wired connections sound better, require infinitely less setup and upkeep, and have infinitely less drop-outs than wireless. There is no sonic benefit to going wireless. Our church and Hello Industry do wireless for he front guy. In most cases, even that is unnecessary. Go wired. You can always go wireless later. These work fine.
Shure in-ears
While my favorite ears are from Sensaphonics (see my top 3 favs here), the Shure 215 ears for $99 are a great option for most musicians. At Richwoods we ask our musicians to purchase their own but buy them a pair if they can’t afford it.
There’s your shopping list. By going wired, you end up spending half of what most churches or bands pay, and you end up with less than a quarter of the headache. Refer to aviom’s documentation for installing and implementing. I may do a post at some point about affectively implementing ears in small churches as well - would that be helpful?
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What If Emptiness Is Good?
Usually I like to post on stuff I know something about. Today I think I’ll post on something I know absolutely nothing about. ;)
A couple of weeks ago I spent the week with some friends and with a guy named Larry Crabb. The week was focused on spiritual direction. The experience was life changing and I’m sure it’ll work it’s way into a lot of what I write (blog and music) in the future, but right now I’m thinking a lot about the idea (and value) of emptiness.
It seems like most of our lives are spent avoiding it. Things to buy, things to do, Facebook, Twitter, arguments with our spouse, addictions, movies, church, reading, what we wear, hobbies, passions, mission statements… in a way, they all serve a single purpose. I’m not saying any of these things are bad, but I am questioning the way we use them. Particularly how we use them as a way to avoid emptiness.
What if emptiness is good?
What if something amazing happens in the midst of emptiness which can only happen in the midst of emptiness, and what if our endless pursuit to avoid emptiness then results in a lost opportunity to experience something that would have finally ended our search and satisfied our soul?
What if the thing we long for the most can only be experienced in the dark room we’ve spent our entire life avoiding?
I’m starting to believe this is true.
But I’ve spent 32yrs becoming professional at avoiding emptiness and the dark room - I can’t shut it off. I’m suffocating my own soul and my flesh won’t let me stop. Someone has to die.
I wonder how this will turn out.
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Church Staff As Helpers, Not Managers
After 14yrs working with volunteer musicians and leaders, I’m questioning a common mindset I see in church staff leadership, and in myself: Managerial leadership.
First off, let me clarify that I do believe management is important. Everything with structure requires management. But…
Pastors Are Not Managers
When pastors become managers, people become a means to an end. If I need you to do something in order for my ministry to work, I can’t be generous toward you. I can’t fully love you if you have the power to destroy me. I need. So I can’t give.
What if we were to specifically hire a manager when we identified a need for a manager? What if we were to somehow take the responsibility of executing processes off of our pastoral staff? What if we were to teach our staff and volunteer leadership how to differentiate between leading managerially and pastorally?
Some Things Are Not Meant To Be Managed
Believe it or not, people aren’t coming to your church in order to add one more talley to your attendance sheet. They don’t care how many sites your multisite church has (they can only be a part of one). And they shouldn’t care. They’re hurting, lonely, broken. They want community with other broken people. You may have a great kid program or great music, and that is very important (especially great music, right!?), but ultimately if that’s what keeps them at your church their experience with church and God will be incomplete. And if they start to feel like you’re more concerned with making them a productive citizen of your organization, they’ll eventually find the community they were originally searching for somewhere else - somewhere simpler.
What if instead of volunteer pushes, we conducted periodic aggressive program and process demolitions? What if we let volunteers determine what’s important to do and not do, based on their needs, passions, and availability?
Pastors Are Helpers, People Will Manage
Is our job to make things happen? Or is it to equip God’s Church (the people)? What is more affective? (1) A church with 20 pastors who manage 2000 people who maintain the church’s programs or (2) a church with 20 pastors who help 2000 people discern God’s unique vision for their lives and help them find the courage to become who God made them to be, and teach them how to build programs around their passions when appropriate?
What if pastors were program and process killers (the way a shepherd kills a wolf looking to eat one of his sheep) and only the items which volunteers wouldn’t let die and were excited to manage were the ones which survived?
That would free up some time. I wonder what we’d spend it doing?
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Coffee Gear Recommendation - Clever Dripper
My favorite coffees ever have been as a result of a Chemex brew. But my most frequent and consistent very very good coffees have come from the Clever Dripper brewer. There is by far no easier and more consistent way to brew a great cup of coffee at home, at least that I’m aware of.
Here’s how I use it:
- Grind 20g of fresh coffee grounds, fairly fine. Like you’d do for your automatic dripper.
- Boil water.
- Place filter in brewer.
- Fill brewer with boiling water, then place on cup to let water release (this rinses out the paper filter and pre-heats the brewer).
- Pour 20g of ground coffee into brewer.
- Set timer for 4min.
- Pour 350g of water (just after it’s finished boiling) onto grounds.
- Start timer.
- Stir around and pat down the bloom until everything is mixed together well.
- Scrape any grounds stuck to the side of the filter down and stir into the water.
- Cover top until about 1:30. Then stir around a few times.
- Cover top again until the timer goes off.
- Stir one last time and then place brewer on a cup (make sure it’s big enough to hold 350g!).
- Should take about 1:30 to release all of the coffee. If it goes way faster, use a finer grind next time. If it goes way slower or never finishes emptying, use a courser grind next time.
- Clean up and then enjoy your coffee!
Other tools I need to make my coffee this way are:
- Decent burr grinder
- Kitchen scale (digital is easier)
- Electric kettle for boiling water (you could use a stovetop kettle though)
- Decent coffee
- A spoon for stirring
- Cup big enough to catch 350g (about 12oz) of coffee
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Employers will never stop piling responsibility on you (they’ll call it “promoting”) and increasing the consequence of you failing them (they’ll call it a “raise”).
But ultimately it’s your call. Don’t blame them.
* This post is mostly just an excuse to play with Paper by Fifty-Three. ;)
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