Nope, this is not about my first time meeting Pastor Ed Kang. It's about my first time doing sound at the board with Pastor Ed. Now, I've been doing sound/tech stuff for church for about 10+ years and I've learned a lot but when I first started as I was as green as grass. I was running the board after only 1-2 months of training b/c the previous sound guy was going to LA for grad school and I had to fill his shoes.
And that first Sunday I was running the board we had some major feedback problems and mics not properly set. In particular, Pastor Ed's mic was not set with the right gain and so it gave out a loud and sharp feedback loop through the system causing everyone to wince...I remember Pastor Ed Kang saying with a smile, "Man, I miss Jeff..." and many roared into laughter. So my first Sunday running the board was with Pastor Ed and as much as I made that big mistake his funny comment helped relieve some of the pressure and stress. It's like another time when some of my peers and I were doing a special verse recitation and Pastor Ed....well, maybe I won't go there with this one.
But did you know that Pastor Ed was actually the original Sound/Tech guy for our church? He was the first to use Pagemaker and make the Sunday bulletins and he and Kelly bought the first PostScript printer for our church b/c they were only ones making money when we were first starting. They helped fund an audio translation system b/c we used to be a more bilingual speaking church. He was the one running the cables, electrical, etc... He's the original Tim Fitz!
Just wanted to give a shout out to Pastor Ed! I think that's why he's always supporting all of our tech/sound endeavors. He's always for us!
I'm always really thankful when the speaker--Pastor Ed in this case--is gracious and cuts the sound guy some slack... because with 300 people looking back at you, it's pretty nerve wracking! I like it that Gracepoint Berkeley sound is filled with a long line of sound guys (and boys): Pastor Ed Kang, John K, Tim F, John L (the German), moi, Rich T, Mike K, David W, Esther I, Danielle P, Mark L, Evelyn Q, Jackson L, and many more... it's cool seeing the audio family grow and grow!
ReplyDeleteWow - that does date back quite a bit...
ReplyDeleteI've been doing sound for Gracepoint for around 6-7 years now, though in the beginning I didn't do that much...
I'm always thankful to do sound and tech stuff. Believe it or not, I've never been on the SWS rotation, so never mixed for P. Ed haha. I wonder how that happened... But man I still remember the first time mixing it was like the worse day of my life... keys have no sound, major feedback, and I think I accidently turn Mike Fu's electric off on the last song of the set because I was so nervous (sorry Mike). I think it's been 2 or 3 years since that first time but I've learn so much from all of the mistakes I've made and just getting honest feedback from the team.
ReplyDeleteI've been doing sound for about... one month? I've been helping out here and there with setup for about 2 years, took the MYT class this past summer but my first Sunday on the board was about two weeks ago. I had Esther Im with me so it wasn't all that traumatic. At least I don't remember it being a traumatic experience.
ReplyDeleteTrauma, was last night, my first time running the board by myself at our sister's prayer meeting. Maybe it was not all that traumatic but it was definitely a night of many many valuable lessons learned about what to do and what not to do at a prayer meeting and definitely what not to do in the middle of a prayer meeting...
Here's a snapshot of what happened...
I forgot to check the volume level on my mac before prayer meeting started and so during prayer time, the music was not loud enough even though the gain was up and both the levels were really hot. Because I turned the levels on the main controls up so high, when I turned up the speaking mic, there was feedback. So then I tried to correct that in the middle of prayer meeting as she was speaking by turning off the prayer music and then increasing the volume on my computer. But then I forgot that the gain on that channel was really high so when i turned the music back on, it became really loud... pain...Then there were few other incidences where I was trying to balance the speaking volume and the background that was kinda painful...
Wow Evelyn that sounds more painful than my first Sunday. Well, that was pretty bad...so now you can only get better =).
ReplyDeleteIt was kinda painful but that's the only way to learn... from painful experiences like that. But somehow knowing that Esther Im was praying like 5 feet away from me was comforting...
ReplyDeleteI've been doing sound for just a few months now, and boy, is there pressure! I used to take it for granted when sound ran smoothly and get bothered when there was something wrong, but now I know it's not easy! I'm thankful for John Ko and Tim Fitz who have been trailblazers and trained up our group of sound guys (and girls).
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