From the Booth: Episode 1 – 02/04/2018

Throughout the year as I mix larger events I’ll be recording them and as many other things as I can manage and posting it here for you to watch and see how I do mix.  Occasionally I’ll be recording a soundcheck as well giving you even more opportunities to see into how we do things where I work at Christ Community Church.

Here are the particulars for this recording:

1. This was the last week in our Overflow Series in which we were talking about “Brimming with Generosity.” You can watch the message here. It was also the celebration service for the end of our NEXT Campaign so we had a few extra musicians to enhance our worship (2 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 saxophone, 1 trombone, and 1 trumpet).
2. You will see 4 videos in a matrix.  The top left is basically what I see.  I setup a camera looking over my shoulder.  The top right is our broadcast feed (what you’d see on our screens) to help show some of the highlights better.  The bottom left is a screen capture from our computer running Smaart.  That feed has a number in the top right corner which is a one minute average of the dbA SPL that the room was operating at.  The RTA shows three colors.  The green in front is the active reading, the orange is a ten second average of the active readings, and the pink is an RTA of what is leaving the board (I have this because if I start seeing lots of it that means I may have a cabinet down in my array or a tuning issue that needs to be looked into).
3. Here is the general layout of the SSL L500+ that I’m operating.  Top left bank of faders generally sits on my drum inputs and drum FX feeds.  During the second set you’ll see me flip this page and that’s because I can turn my front fills back up after communion is over.  The Left bank at my waist (left hand) is used for instruments and the strings/brass and can swap if I need to adjust sub output levels.  The bank in front of me (right hand) is almost always on the VOX page of the console which also has my VCAs which allows me to quickly make larger mix changes. Also, at the beginning of songs or at other points you’ll see me reach for a small button which is a mute group setup to mute my vocal FX stems so I can quickly turn that verb on and off if Ben needs to say something during a song.
4. There is a Waves SoundGrid running, look for future posts regarding how we use that.
5. Song names are listed on the youtube page and all credit goes to the band for the performance, the song authors, and to God for allowing me to work with such a great team.