The Critical Heart

 This is an Email I received from "Church Tech Arts".  I wanted to re-post it and share. It really spoke to my heart, I hope it does yours.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about our tendency to be hyper-critical of other people. I’ve thought about this off and on over the years, and it was brought back to the forefront when I came across a post on EchoHub that had generated quite a lot of controversy. A church in Texas created a pretty cool opener for their Christmas production using 54 iPads were moved around by a small army of people while imagery was mapped to the iPads and screens above. It was kinda cool and innovative.

  But oh, how it stirred the wrath of the critical Christian. Several chided the church for it being a “waste of resources.” Another said for 700 man hours, it should have been “more awesome.” Still others questioned how such frivolity could possibly draw anyone closer to Christ. 

As I was contemplating my response to some of those comments, I started thinking about the steady stream of tweets I see during award shows and major events. So often, the harshest critics of anything are church techs. I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he corrected me, “It’s not just church techs, it’s Christians.” 

As saddened as I am to admit it, I fear it’s true. If the broadcast mix of an awards show doesn’t meet our exacting standards, Twitter lights up with an amazing amount of criticism (never mind the fact that there are a dozen places for a perfectly good mix to get squashed between the engineer’s monitors and your living room…).

If a mic isn’t turned on at exactly the right time during a show, within seconds you’ll see Tweets, Facebook statuses and blog posts decrying, “These guys suck!” 

Now, let’s think about that for a moment. Say you’re the broadcast engineer for an event, and let’s say you don’t have a relationship with Christ, or a real desire to attend a church. You make a mistake on air, and in the coming days start seeing a vicious critique of your work broadcast on the internet. 

You might see things go by on Twitter and maybe even click on a few posts to see who all these people are who are crying out for your immediate resignation from ever mixing again. “Who are all these angry people? Hmm, there’s one. Huh, that guy works at a church. There’s another. ‘Christ follower’ it says in his bio. And another ‘church sound guy.’ 

Now put yourself in that guy’s shoes. Would you have any desire to be involved with the Kingdom of Christ after being publicly flogged for a simple mistake? Or imagine you were part of the iPad wall I mentioned earlier. After working hard to create something unique and cool for your church, how would it feel to be told it was not “as awesome as it could have been?” 

About a year ago, I ignited a fire storm when I shared an experiment I was doing at FOH. Because of our poor mixing position, I tried mixing the service on my UE7 in-ears and found the results—much to my surprise—quite good, at least in that setting. Like I often do, I shared my findings here, with the clear disclaimer that I don’t necessarily recommend it, but it seems to be working well and I find that interesting. 

That post was also published on ProSound Web and in Live Sound International, meaning live sound guys—both inside and outside the church—all over the world read it. Interestingly, the only negative feedback I received was from people inside the church. And man, was it negative! 

Now, I’m all for debating the relative merits of various techniques, but much of the criticism went well beyond the debate zone and deep into personal attack mode. And it all played out on Twitter and blogs for the world to see. As I write this a year later, I can still feel the sting of those posts. Also interesting is that I did receive a few notes of encouragement as the backlash unfolded—and every single one was from people outside the church family. 

Recently, I heard Bruce Smith ask a group of techs, “What would it be like if the tech team was the most spiritual team in the church?” I pose that question here as well. What would it be like if instead of publicly humiliating those who made a mistake or whose work wasn’t up to our standards, we encouraged them? I mean, it’s not like we’ve never missed a mic cue. It’s not like one of our “great” ideas has never crashed and burned. 

What if instead of being known as “those critical church techs,” we became know as “those amazingly encouraging church techs?” How would that affect the church? How would that affect the world? Just a thought...

Video Venue – Video Setup (Part2)

After my last post I want to focus on what we do to create the IMAG (Image Magnification) experience on the big center screening the video venue. As I mentioned before, the center screen is the only HD screen in the video venue. We did this because we wanted the live shots of the teachings from the main worship center to look as real, crisp, and clear as possible. However we don’t have a large budget to work with and HD video can kill any budget.  So here is what we did for our video setup and equipment.

For cameras we used the Panasonic AG-HMC40. I will admit this was not the “best” camera for live video however; it was the best one for us and our price range. We tested this camera several times before we committed to purchasing. It met our needs and allows for future growth and expansion. 

(Panasonic AG40)

We use a two camera set up but have the wiring to add more. Our cameras are set up on opposite sides of the room, neither of them directly lines up to center stage but one is more off center then the other. (Camera Setup)

For our video mixer we use a Panasonic AV-HS400A. This is a great mixer. Easy to use but allows for multiple mixable outputs.

It allows us to mix our side screens and center screens separate, giving us a lot of creative flexibility. We split our main feed out to our side screens and to our video venue and then mix the center screen separately. We do have the ability to override the mixer to the side screens which then allows for a separate mix to the side screens, center screens and video venue all at the same time. (This is our current setup in our video booth)

We also have a camera in the video venue that we send to the video production booth.

This allows the video director to see what is actually happening in the video venue. It helps the director know how the camera shots look on the screen and what is happening in the video venue so the right feeds are sent at the right time. 

(This was taken while the worship was closing before the live feed was sent to the center screen)

Video Venue – Video Setup (Part1)

 Along with a quality sound setup, it was vital that we make the video in this “Video Venue” be  at the highest quality possible while creating an experience that made the user forget they where watching someone on a screen.

Our main worship center has a large stage in the center and two large screens on each side of the stage and a screen directly behind the stage. (See Picture)

My goal was to replicate that same feel in our video venue by having two side screens and one very large center screen on even level with the stage so that when a viewer sees the speaker they feel they experiencing a life size person on the stage. However before we committed to this format we did an experiment for an Easter service. We took our youth area and duplicated the desired look of a potential new video venue. (Easter Setup)

This setup was a success and we received a lot of positive feedback. This gave us the green light to design what would eventually become the video venue remodel.

(These pics were taken the day before we opened for the first service)

 

We are still running in our video in standard definition (4x3) in our worship center. Due to this we had to consider how to make the video venue video and worship center videos resolutions work together. So we decided to mirror the two areas. The side screens in the video venue are standard def, like the worship center. The center screen would be high def and we also replaced the center screen in the worship center to make that one high def as well.

Now for both venues the video distribution and looks match to create as much of an authentic feel as we can and allows for crossover video between the two venues.

Yamaha M7 or LS9

I wanted to follow up with some of the other key sound components of the video venue. When designing the venue one of the big technical and financial questions we had to figure out was what sound board to use in the space. Before this project we where using a Yamaha M7CL 48 in our main worship center. (Yamaha M7 48)

Moving to that sound board was one of the best moves we ever made. Prior to creating the video venue we had to move our sound board station to the back of the worship center, away from ideal location on the floor (Due to needing to free up more seats). The ability to mix well from that location was nearly impossible, so we added an iPad to our sound setup and currently we are mixing for the worship service primarily form the iPad from the center of the room, the ideal location. (Yamaha M7 iPad app)

This has been on of the best tools I have ever encountered for resolving the problem so many churches encounter, where to put the sound board.

With our current experience with the Yamaha M7 getting that board in the Video Venue was high on my wish list, but that wish game with a big price tag.  I explored the Yamaha LS9 series, comparing what we would loose if we went to the model that is the next step down.  (LS9 Pic)

A few of the big differences is the loss of the touch screen. Plus the largest size of an LS9 is 32 Channel. (Visit Yamaha.com for more differences). I added an LS9 16 Channel to our youth area this past year so we where fortunate to have experience with both of the Yamaha series.

I decided that it was important (for cross training purposes) to have the sound boards in the two different venues be the same in functionality and use so that techs could cross locations without needing to learn a new process for mixing. That landed us on the M7 model, now to decide between the 48 channel model (like our worship center) or the 32 channel model. (Now we are just talking money)

The budget was still the issue and I didn’t want to spend more then was wise so I admit, this was a tough decision for me that I had a very hard time making. However, a week before completion, I decided to go with the M7 48. I didn’t know how this new venue would be used in the years to come and, as I wrote in my previous post, I was not going to go with sub par options and regret it a few years later like they did when building our main worship center. So the M7 won out and I have NOT regretted that choice ever since.

(On a side note we also have an iPad for the video venue we use with the M7 – later I will do a post on how that has changed our mixing, EQing, and monitor checks in a way that I can’t ever see going back)

The Video Venue - Sound Design

The most important part of designing any worship center is the sound/acoustical design. I have been in enough bad sounding worship environments, as well as well designed ones to know the dramatic difference the right system makes. Take a good sounding band with a good sound tech and good mix but, if the sound design is week, the quality of a bad sound setup can take away from the entire worship service.

Our main worship center is one of those worship rooms that has more mistakes in its sound design then successes, so when we started to design the new video venue worship center I was determined that we would not make any of those mistakes in this project.

On a side note, if you don’t want to make mistakes in design you can not allow the voices of those that don’t know what they are talking about, in the world of audio design, to make final decisions and cuts to the project. If cuts have to be made let them be made by those that can decided what is really wise, not by those that do what looks good on paper to an accountant.

Knowing I wanted a good sounding room I had to address the many issues that came with this space. The issue of a concrete floor, cinder blocks walls and a low ceiling. The solution was to put 10 speakers, the Yamaha IF2208 speaker, throughout the room. (See pic)

We placed these speakers strategically for each to cover a small space and placed them about 20ft apart so that there was even coverage throughout the room. (See Diagram)

I know for some this may seem like overkill but this was the best thing we could have done, and it worked! The room has perfectly even coverage. As one person said “No matter where I go in the room I feel like the speaker (person) is speaking right at me”. This also allowed the sound board to be placed to the side of the room in direct line of sight of one of the speakers and still be able to mix for the entire room.

We also placed two Yamaha subs at each side of the stage. The Yamaha IS1218 gave us a great sound and they fill the room giving a one of best sounding rooms I have ever heard. (See Pic)

This again speaks to the point about doing it right. The Yamaha IS1218’s are nearly twice the size as the subs we have in our main worship center. The main room is twice the size of the venue yet was installed with only 3 speakers (cheap speakers) and two subs; both speakers are smaller then ones installed in the video venue.

If any church is going to invest into a worship center sound system it is vital that you get the right people for the job and the leadership recognize the need to do it right and empower those that will be running that sound each week. The leadership at First Free did just that and now we have an incredible sounding room that has setup our ministries to be successful at what they where designed to do in this space.

Starting the Remodel (Construction)

We started remodeling the room in late July. The room was carpeted (green carpet), glued to the floor with a non drying permanent glue. The ceiling had a white drop ceiling (what you would expect in any office building). The walls where cinder block, painted off white and there are 4 sets a big windows on one side of the room. (See the pictures below)

We were now tasked to turn this space into a contemporary, edgy worship center…in 2 months. We stripped the carpet, took out the ceiling tiles, painted the walls, painted the ceiling grid and painted the remaining tiles silver. (See Pictures – these pics are about half way through the project).

Some of the crazy setbacks we ran into:

The carpet glue would not dry and the carpet was completely glued down. Ripping it out was easy (it was not easy) compared to what it took to get the glue off of the floor. It took 2 weeks of many 12 hour days scrubbing and scraping scrubbing and scraping cement floor. What was supposed to be a three day project took over 2 weeks before we could continue the technical install. At the end of we decided to leave the cement floor its natural state for our permanent look in the video venue.

The room has a vaulted, round ceiling (see picture in previous post) and we had to leave half the room covered with ceiling tiles (painted silver) so we had to paint the grid of the drop ceiling. The paint we originally got was not mixed right and painted on black, instead of dark chrome. However it wasn’t until 2 days of painting occurred that we realized what was wrong. That led to reordering the paint (took over a week) and having to repaint (took two days).

Ok, this is all I will talk about for construction but I wanted you to get a idea of what goes into a remodel, in case you are considering.

The Need and The Plan

My church (First Free Church), where I am on staff as the Young Adults and Creative Arts Director, has experienced some major growth in the past two years. Two years ago we where averaging around 900 people each week on a Sunday morning, now we are averaging closer to 1400 a week. With this growth we were presented with a challenge; do we add another service? We currently have two services on Sunday morning. We decided adding a third would not work for several reasons, time of services and drain on volunteers and leadership ranking high on the list of reasons not to. So we looked to see what we could do. We decided to turn one of our multipurpose rooms that was divided into 4 classrooms and make one large worship center. The space totals around 5000 square feet, where we could fit around 300-350 seats, in contrast to our main worship center that holds 600ish. (See the picture below)

The goal was to create a worship space, video venue, which would run simultaneously with the other worship service in our main worship center. The video venue would have its own worship and production team but we would send the teaching each week over live video to that space from the main worship center.

We knew that we needed to create a feel and atmosphere that would not feel like an overflow space where people where sent to watch something on a screen. To goal was to create a venue with its own unique style and feel so that it was truly another worship service with the same message, yet was timed and synced with our main worship center services.

Not only were the room esthetics important in the creation of the space but finding the right equipment and leaning how to create a live video room that made you feel like you are a part of the teaching experience happening in another space was the challenge to overcome that would make this room a success or failure.

Over the next few blogs I will discuss the work we put into the remodeling the space, post some pics, and give some descriptions of what we are doing now to make this worship center flow and work simultaneously with our main worship center on Sunday mornings. I’ll look at what equipment we use and how we use it and even what we could have done better. I hope you find this to be something that helps and inspires you in what you are doing in your ministries and churches.