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.

Full Compass = Full Service

When we were first doing sound stuff at our church we were really the small time. Our first sound system, back in the late 80's was $1500 - for everything! Now, I think the quality was decent but over the years I've come to learn that you get what you pay for. Just to give you an idea of where we've come from: One of my great sound mentors - Pastor Jonathan, who is now leading Gracepoint Davis and taught me a lot - loved shopping at Radio Shack! Now, Radio Shack certainly has some useful and interesting gear for sure. But I think the flagship sound products is like Realistic - not to diss Pastor Jonathan too hard =).

Well, we've grown a lot since those first days and so have our needs. Our vendor of choice over the years has been Full Compass and our main sales contact is Kurt Krueger. Let me tell you that Kurt has been awesome for us over the years. He's given us great and competitive pricing and Full Compass has a huge selection of gear. Also, anytime we've had problems with our gear upon receipt Kurt has always been generous to swap it out right away for us. He'll send a new piece of gear before we even return ours. And their selection of gear is enormous - along with some great B-stock deals and other specials. And I can't tell you how many times Kurt has helped us out with shipping - when we needed something in a pinch or just to help with us with some of the costs. Recently, we needed a new Kramer switcher for our overflow needs and I also knew we needed one for our RISE event so I ordered one thinking it was in stock 1 week before RISE. But it turns out they didn't get it until a few days before RISE and the regular shipping wouldn't get it to me in time so Kurt upgraded me for free so I could get it on Friday - the day before RISE. I don't need to wonder why Kurt is part of the Million Dollar Sales Club. Thanks Kurt!

Of course, I think I could scour the internet and find better pricing on individual pieces of gear and such but most of those places are in NY - you know what i mean? =). And I realized that you don't just pay for gear but the service that backs it up. Sure I could save a few bucks here and there but I do believe you get what you pay for. And sometimes we get even more with Full Compass.

Is this a shameless plug? Well, Kurt didn't ask me to do this but I often get questions about where you get your gear from and I just like to let others know where we go. I don't think my post will give them a whole lot of business but I did want to give them a shout out!. But I wanted to let our church members that we try to go for quality. Especially as a church on wheels we need the roughest and toughest gear. On a tangent, I'm sure we can break any piece of gear. B/c we've broken about everything we've bought before. =)

My First Sunday with Pastor Ed Kang

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!