Vineyard East Worship

15

Patrick,

In my experience it’s either 1) a bad chord, or 2) faulty wiring in an instrument or componant. You can troubleshoot those by removing each from the system one at a time to see if the buzz goes away.

Another possibility, if the entire system is buzzing, and if your amps are seperate from your mixer, if you have them both plugged into seperate circuts, a loop can occur. Try plugging everything into the same electrical outlet. If the buzz goes away then there’s something up with the wiring of the room.

Good luck with that. Let us know how it goes.

Eric

14

I need help with a ground loop. This one is tough. I’ll check out that website. Good info.

13

Regarding training:

I recently sent 5 people on our sound team to a “How To Sound” seminar that was held locally. The $500 I spent was WELL WORTH the cost. A bunch of problems we had have been having were solved within a week of their return. For example, we had a bunch of ground loops humming away – now the hum is totally gone. The team that came back is motived to plan the additions we’ll make to the system going forward.

These guys hold seminars throughout the country. Every 2 people in the class get their own mixing console. Check it out at HOWTOSOUND.COM. There might be a class near you coming up soon. If you send 5 or more people it’s about $100 per person. Includes breakfast, lunch and a workbook.

We are thinking of hosting one of these in 2010 in Hopkinton. If you host, you can have 5 people go for free.

As for your list:
It’s easy to spent a lot of money on equipment. Before you buy anything, lay out a plan for what you really need, then prioritize additions going forward. The lastest EQ won’t do much good if there isn’t someone who knows what to really do with it.

Always ask – what problem are we really trying to solve?

Cheers

12

i’m game!

11

Noooooo I wouldn’t think of it!

I was merely stating possibilities for the fund raising aspect….yeah, that’s it.

But ya gotta admit: a bagpipe duet would be, as the great Louis Armstrong put it: “callin’ the children home!” Especially when they hit those high notes together at a forte? Mmm, mmm, mmm! Ear splittingly delicious!

I think we should make this happen!

10

eric, are you giving away my playskool recorder?!? that’s the best thing we’ve got!

9

excellent!

8

Rich,

She might be willing to part with the Playskool Tape Recorder with DUAL Sing-a-long microphones at a decent price.

Just think of the bagpipe duet possibilities!

7

mm sound gear…
my huge contribution…
I’ve not messed with dig mixers at all: but the need for recalling scenes etc, AND recording sounds like a great defense for wanting to invest some capital.

6

eric, thanks soooooo much for your help!

kenny, i totally agree! we should do that!

5

Being that sound is such a huge topic, I wonder if having a pro who can teach well spend some time with our local church sound techs would be a worthy investment?

Randy: maybe we keep that in mind for a future training event?? Just an idea.

4

RE: “…we need sound volunteers with more training…”

Preach it sister! I’m joyous whenever anyone shows an interest; even a slight interest. BTW, huge thanks to anyone who runs sound. It’s a huge and rather thankless job and to step up continually shows awesome commitment and fortitude.

Most of your gear seems ok. I would add an EQ for the mains. I’m not an expert but getting an EQ that can pinpoint “hot” (feedback prone) frequencies and possibly respond automatically to feedback would be cool.

For the board, you definately want one that will save your settings. Some boards will allow you to save channel settings *and* mixer settings to be recalled at a later date.

I’ve seen this on recording boards; not so much on pro-audio/live sound boards. And since you would like to start recording more, search specifically for a recording board.

Best place to start your search is at the local music store that sells audio gear. But don’t start the conversation until you are clear on what your needs are. What I see is:

Sound board
==========
1. ability to record live performances to something that can be remixed/mastered later.
2. ability to save mixer settings: fader positions; channel eq and routing settings; auxillary, main and sub settings
3. the ability to save individual channel settings (may not be as imortant)

Equalizer
==========
1. display realtime frequency analyzer
2. ability to automatically (or manually) tune individual frequency bands based on analysis

This is what *I* see. You will have a greater grasp on your requirements than anyone else. My advice is to
1. know what you want and
2. get input about options from sales guys and
3. get reviews and ask around about about what the above sales guys recommend and
4. repeat 2 and 3 as needed and
5. get funding and then finally
6. get the gear

And pray lots. It’s a jungle out there!

HTH,
Eric

3

just want to add…

i know that the real issue is that we need sound volunteers with more training…

=0)

2

well, we don’t want to revamp the whole system or anything…we’d like to get a new mixer though…our mixer is very old. maybe a shiny, new digital one? we have three different teams and another church who uses our equipment. it’s kinda a pain to come back on sunday morning to find all the settings changed. and as most of our sound volunteers don’t have formal training, we often don’t know what’s wrong with the sound and can’t fix it in time.

we’d also like to start recording. we currently record onto our imac, but we’d like to start recording more seriously. maybe a multi-channel recorder.

it would be nice to have more channels, but it’s not something we’re desperate for.

we have compressors for 4 channels, but it would be super nice to have more. not sure if it’s necessary though…

we don’t need more volume, and we’re not changing venues or anything.

tape recorder? what’s that??!?!? haha!

1

Hi Debbie,

Yes there are some other details to know before anyone can advise you. Like…
Why do you need more stuff in the first place?
Are you out of channels on the Mackie?
Do you need more volume?
Are you changing venues?

Knowing the need will help determine the gear.

RE: “…could tell me what we should keep, get rid of, etc…”

Rule of thumb here: Don’t ever get rid of anything! Especially the Tape Recorder. That is *Cool!*

Eric