Best Portable Screen

hey gracepoint sound peeps,

i'm looking to get a couple of new screens for us to use for venues like retreats, weddings, prayer meetings, etc...

we have a very nice 9x12 rear-projection but is a bit dull when you're pointing forward at it, unless it's right up against a wall. So i'm looking for forward-facing screen, fast-fold and....i'm not sure about the size.

i don't want a tripod style b/c at that size it's easy to break and too tall. also the one we use for side screens at willard is too tall as well and requires those separate stands, which we lost.

any thoughts on size and addl things to look for?

Countryman E6 on a Shure Wireless

here's question from our SF campus:

"We are using a Countryman for Matthew's wireless and he likes to pace back and forth as he talks. However, when he does this, the volume goes up when he turns left and down when he turns right. He wears his mic on the right ear. I am not sure if this is an issue I can improve by playing around with the gains on the wireless pack.

Do you think a DPA mic would be better or could solve the problem? (We currently don't own one.) Or a compressor? Matthew also likes to speak softly at times and then he raises his voice for added emphasis. I ended up having to play around with the volume turning the speaker up and down if he was too soft or too loud. Another factor was that I used the Countryman mic whereas the wireless pack was calibrated for the lapel mic, and I didn't adjust the gain. I was going to try just using the correct wireless pack that is calibrated for the Countryman mic next time to see if that improves the volume for Matthew.

Please let me know what you think from your experience. Thank you!"

Blue Flame Pro

Blue Flame Pro is a Bidirectional Media Converter that we use on Sunday's for our overflow setup.



Here are setup steps:
1. Connect output A YC (s-video) via s-video cable to projector
2. Connect output A CH1 and CH2 via XLRs to snake
3. Connect DV I/O via firewire cable to DVoverIP laptop

Once all the devices are powered on,
1. Turn on power of Blue Flame.
2. Turn on codec by clicking “ON POWER” button.
3. Start digital to analog decoding by clicking “DV DECODE” button.

Other things to know:
* Press the DV Decode Selector to do a RESET.
* Main Power Switch: Should the unit be powered off, allow 10 seconds for system reset before turning on power again.

Video Recording Directly to Computer

We video record some of our skits, messages, talks, etc.. for archiving purposes as well as for future training. The standard procedure for us has been:

1. record event to DV tape

2. capture/digitize DV tape with Final Cut Pro in real time.

3. edit and export FCP project into a smaller/portable format - like h.264

I've tried a new method recently.

1. record event to DV tape AND directly capture/encode with Quicktime Broadcaster.

* this way we have a backup of the event on tape and we have an already captured and compressed digital version.

* i haven't tried doing this with regular Quicktime and especially the new version of Quicktime with Snow Leopard which i hope to test soon.

I'm attaching some screenshots to help you to know what settings you should use. Main thing to note is that the resolution is small, the data rate is lower and audio quality is lower. This is a good and fast way to make video files available for others. It's not the highest quality but this is very, very fast and speeds up the whole process. I think we save around 3 hours that would normally go into setting up the capture station, capturing and then exporting. Below are some screen shots of the settings I use. For better audio quality you can do stereo instead of mono.

AUDIO SETTINGS

VIDEO SETTINGS

Sound Mixing

Wow, can't believe it's my first post on Gracepoint Sound! I wanted to learn how to mix well at our bible studies and Sunday Worship Services for some time now. But given the amount of time and people involve during our typical run through, it's very difficult to have a good understanding of how each frequency works on the mixer (I tend to just turn the knobs and hear what sounds best). So I started doing some research on how to mix well and the theory behind mixing online and I've stumbled onto a website that has a lot of good info on mixing and just church sound systems in general:

http://www.behindthemixer.com/

The website gives a lot of theory and different preference on how to mix and what to look out for. I've been playing around the EQ on my iTunes and car stereo and it's been great =) ! Hope this website is helpful for everyone and kudos to Chris who runs the site.

ProPresenter Dual Head Tutorial

In this short clip, learn the very basic and rudimentary way to setup ProPresenter for our Sunday Worship Service. Now one person can run the slides for both the main screens and the ones the singers use. Remember the main screen has words on a colored background or even picture while the background for the singers must be completely black. I'm very glad we were able to reduce our team by one person. =) Really, I much rather have more people in the actual service.

Black Box

I learned this term at a conference about training, raising leaders and growth. And it's a topic we've discussed among the leadership at our church as well. A black box is a mystery and it's something few can figure out. And when it comes to leaders of things like sound/tech, etc... this can be quite dangerous. It means that not enough people are learning and growing and possibly even control issues.

I've been thinking about this for myself a lot lately as one of the tech leads at our church. We've been training a lot of people in the past few years and that's really exciting. In fact, recently I've removed myself from the Koinonia Sound Team so that the students can do the setup and one of the junior guys is leading it all. But I think this is not enough. I cannot and should not be the limiting factor for growth and transfer knowledge. Being replaceable is a very important trait to have for growth.

So I'm trying to train up with even greater zeal and intensity the next generation so that I can be phased out. So the focus of many of my posts is going to be on process and ideas and systems we have in place and that we should.