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Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Church Sound: When Our Tech World Is Turned Upside Down
Gary Zandstra
08/28/12 08:55 AM,
Most of us who have been involved in church production have had at least one (I have many) mistake or failure during a service where you just want to disappear in the booth. One of my most egregious mistakes took place a number of years ago. It was so significant that I still wear the scars from it. Back in “the day” when video projection was almost nonexistent because of the huge cost of projectors I was serving on staff…
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Friday, December 09, 2011
Selecting The Right Contractor For Your Church Sound System Upgrade
Gary Zandstra
12/09/11 03:19 PM,
Let’s pretend . . . Imagine you walk into your next committee meeting and to your amazement discover that they have approved your suggestion to seek bids for a new sound and video system. You leave the meeting excited! Finally all of you problems will go away. No more buzz, no more hum, no more having to dim the lights and shut all the shades just to barely make out what you are projecting on the screen! You figure by…
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Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Lessons Learned In Blending Science & Art For Improved Worship Sound
Gary Zandstra
01/26/11 02:16 PM,
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Over the years at various venues, many of them worship oriented, I’ve had the privilege of working as producer and technical manager for many touring groups as they come to town to perform. In that time, I’ve seen a lot of crazy things: mic’ing a snare drum with the rear (strongest pick up rejection point of a cardioid microphone) of the mic pointed towards the drum head; mic’ing a guitar amp with two mics placed tight together (and taped) with…
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Monday, September 27, 2010
Church Sound: Who Will Train The Tech Crew?
Gary Zandstra
09/27/10 11:01 AM,
One of the most discussed topics in the world of church sound and A/V is training. Integrators are installing more sophisticated and complex systems as more churches are incorporating A/V and production into their weekly services. Churches spending big dollars on these installs are expecting big results. But a big problem rears it ugly head as volunteers will little or no training try to operate these highly technical systems. Whose Problem Is It? The technical advancements that have happened in…
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Monday, September 20, 2010
A Brief Moment As King Of The World!
Gary Zandstra
09/20/10 12:10 PM,
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For a brief moment in time, I, the lowly sound guy, had enormous power! Our story begins late one Friday afternoon when I received a call from Andy, the technical director at the Breslin Student Events Center on the campus of Michigan State University in Lansing, Mi. He wanted to know if I could be front-of house mix engineer for an upcoming event the following week. Sure, I said, searching my calendar, half-listening as he described the event. Then, whoa,…
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Monday, September 13, 2010
Church Sound Basics: Turning “More Me” Into Quality
Gary Zandstra
09/13/10 01:00 PM,
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What is it about engineers and musicians getting along? In my experience getting these two groups in sync is like putting angry cats in a room full of dogs. More often than not there’s instantly enough tension it feels as though a fight is going to break out! While commissioning a sound system in another state, my friend Jeff saw the cats and dogs ready to brawl and picked up some new lingo that he passed on to me. During…
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Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Church Sound Files: Sometimes “Live Sound Can Just Be So Live”
Gary Zandstra
08/10/10 05:49 PM,
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A good friend of mine, Mark, is the technical director at a large local church. About a year ago he sent me an email describing the “disaster” he had on a Sunday morning. An excerpt: “To our surprise we had a total audio failure during the first 1/3 of second service yesterday. The audio stuttered for a brief second, came back on for about two seconds and then went totally off…. To make the story short, I found the fault…
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