Countryman Earclip & E6 Earset mic together

At SSCC we have been using & loving our E6(i) earsets for years now. We bought our first one 8 years ago I think (I was the youth pastor then). However, we have recently been hampered by them not wanting to sit still on people’s heads. I think this is mainly a result of multiple people using the headsets and having to reshape them, the earpiece especially, every time. (I know that keeping them seperate for different communicators would help this but it is not an option overall for us. We have 18 earsets and 30 or so people that use them.) I saw an earclip accessory in a magazine a couple of weeks ago and ran it by our pastor and we decided we needed to check one out. We used it this Sunday morning and loved almost everything about it.

Here are the positives:

1. Assembly, if you can even call it that, was easy. It was pretty straight forward from the pictures even before reading the simple instructions. It clips on the base of the existing earset and hooks over your other ear. It has a single, very thin, telescoping wire that allows it to be a custom fit. (WARNING: if you pull, the extension will come out of the tube, but it goes right back in and would not be a problem while worn.) It comes with two cable connectors (one for each thickness of E6 cable) that run the cable behind your ear to the middle of the back of the head.

2. Fitting was also easy. Even for the first time use I really spent no more time getting this set on David’s ear then I would making sure the E6 is snug and pointed correctly any other week. I simply expanded the now-headset to easily fit his head and he slid it onto his ears and I tightened it up in the back. Quick and simple.

3. Stability was improved instantly. We always use the shirt/cable clips but before I put that on and before I used the headset/cable clip it was more stable than ever before. After clipping the cable to the back wire and then to his shirt collar I had total confidence that the mic was not moving without direct contact. David moved his head and talked for a second and could also tell it was more secure.

4. Positioning was much easier. I grabbed the mic at his ear and positioned the capsule where I wanted it and there it stayed. After our first service I spoke with him and could see that it was in the same place I had left it. A few minutes into the message and we had forgotten about the mic entirely. (Which is a good thing.) I had been keeping the speaker’s EQs selected on our console recently so I could make adjustments and proximity changed throughout a message. There was no need this morning. The sound was very consistent.

Here are the negatives:

1. Limited to one ear. While the E6s are able to be shaped for either ear, the earclips are not. You must specify ECLT or ECRT which refers to which ear the actual mic is worn on. This isn’t a big deal for us because I always place them on left ears but it does limit flexibility in some situations different from ours.

2. Size of the ear padding is a bit big. To be clear, earclip is small overall, but the silicone padding over the non-mic ear seemed a bit thick and I am not sure how comfortable it would be for someone wearing glasses. David mentioned that he hoped everyone couldn’t see the “thing behind his ear.” However, once we put it on, his hair hid pretty much everything. With short/no hair on the sides of someone’s head, it MIGHT be noticeable. But then again, it is a microphone and we aren’t trying to tric the audience into thinking our pastors just project their voices really well. I would still say that from more than about 20 feet away it is unnoticeable, and with IMAG it would be less noticeable than the mic itself.

3. Larger overall. This is only an issue for us because now our pastor can’t slip the headset off between services and let it hang over his shoulder like he could with the earset. We have about 50 minutes between our two services and he usually hangs out in our atrium visiting with people. He will just have to keep the mic on his head now.

Overall:

I would highly recommended this to anyone already using countryman headsets. It is an added layer of security at least and, likely, an improvement in sermon clarity for all. A brief search led me to one for $50 from a large retailer. This is far cheaper than swapping our E6s for headset counterparts entirely, which is something we were pondering. If you don’t already have E6 mics, I’d strongly consider getting them and the earclips now. I’ve had some hesitation with recommending the E6s over other headset mics but this makes it all better. The sound quality from the Countryman mics sounds so great that now that they have the earclip accessory it makes it unbeatable in its market.

For some reason, in the past week I have had a handful of people ask how we were set up for production in our main sanctuary at SSCC. I decided I would just post a couple pics here and describe what is happening.

First, the main booth. (Click on the image for full size.) This is 4 separate iPhone pics that I stitched together, so the quality isn’t great.

SSCC Sound Booth

From left to right… first is our lighting control, we have a Strand Classic Palette with a 15″ monitor. It is covered in the image because I had already programmed lights during rehearsal and shut it down. Next is a 20″ iMac. It is used for Smaart Live, PlanningCenterOnline live mode, iTunes and M7CL control primarily. (It checks a lot of facebook and email during second services too.) In the rack is CD recording & playback, a storage drawer and a Presonus Firepod. We use the Firepod as an I/O for Smaart Live mainly. Next is the Yamaha M7C-48. After that is our tracking rack. In it are 2 Alesis 24 track HD recorders. We use two 16 channel optical I/O cards from the M7 to record 32 simultaneous tracks. Editing takes place in Logic or Pro Tools, depending on who is editing it. The last two racks are our wireless racks. The first has 13 channels of mics: 4 countryman, 4 hand held, 4 countryman OR hand held and one guitar pack. The second rack has 8 channels of IEM transmitters. We use those in stereo and dual mono depending on how many we need that week. Not pictured is a battery backup for the Palette, a key switch for power sequencing our entire A/V system (except presentation computers & projectors), and a rack with 2 GEQs for floor wedges (rarely used) and a wireless router for connecting to the M7 and Alesis wirelessly.

Second, the video booth. (Click on the image for full size.) This is also an iPhone pic so pardon the quality.

SSCC Video Booth

From left to right… first is a 20″ iMac that is used with ProPresenter for lyrics, notes, and nursery calls. Next are two preview monitors for our video switcher (one is blank). After those are the monitor, keys & mouse for our Power Mac G5 that we use for ProVideoPlayer. All graphics & video are run from this computer (the tower is underneath the counter). Last is the video rack. The rack contains a DVD player, an audio 8 input mixer for sending the video sources to FOH, a HME wireless com main station, and two video switchers. The first switcher is a FSR switcher used to send camera or computer sources to our distributed TVs and rooms. The bottom switcher is a FSR Eagle 200 used for the main screens. Not pictured is a rack of cat5 patch bays for getting video signals to and from various optional locations and a wall plate switch for turning the main projectors on and off.

That basically covers our two main tech positions without getting into even more boring detail. The main gear at the other end of those control systems is: 2 Christie DW6K projectors, Meyer M1D arrays, MM4 front fills, UPJ side fills and 700HP subs.

I hope this answered some of the questions that have been asked recently. If you have other questions, feel free to ask. We all learn from these conversations.

… or ears in this situation. Some discussions I’ve been in and around over the past few weeks have been dealing with “less than ideal” results in a few of our live environments, including the one I oversee primarily. This is in no way a “shot” at anyone who is working in those environments any more than it is taking one at myself. Disclaimer aside…

How often do you have someone else with trustworthy ears come into your worship service and evaluate how it sounds and is mixed? How well do you take criticism from that person/those people? I know sometimes it isn’t packaged well and you have to sift through the arrows and find the nuggets of truth, but how well do you take it?

Our worship director at SSCC is now trying to schedule himself off stage about once a month. He will mix maybe once every 2-3 months and just be in the room for the services on other weeks. It gives him a fresh perspective of what happens in the room and what it sounds like. I HAVE to listen to him for instance because it is a “production” that he orchestrates normally, but regardless, I WANT to hear his thoughts. There are also two other tech guys on staff with me and I always like to hear what they liked or disliked about a mix. Some times the insight is more preference than right/wrong but much of the time I get great insight. Often times I ask myself “why didn’t I hear that or think of that?” Sometimes they tweak a knob that I’m somewhat embarrassed to have missed. It is part of the gig.

So, get some fresh ears on your mix and in your room. If you don’t have those extra ears in your church, get some from another church or venue for a rehearsal and do the same for them in return. I think the more challenging of a mix situation you engineer in, the more important this might be. Our ears are super-adaptable devices and this is both a blessing and sometimes a hindrance to mixing. Let someone else come in without any preconceived notions about the challenges of your mixing situation. They may hear things that your ears have grown accustomed to. (Be ready for some suggestions that you will take too personally. Think about how opinionated you are about a mix and know that they are too.) Make notes and try the changes.

Constantly find ways to get fresh eyes on your mixing. You will get better and your audience will hear better.

Win – win.

What about you, whether you are on stage or in the booth what things keep your ears fresh? If audio is not your thing, what about video or your designs?

I don’t at all know how regular these might be. My track record so far does not lend itself to regularity on this blog. This, however, will be my second post in a week. So maybe I have turned over a new leaf. I am going to post this as part of the Sunday Setlist post with Fred McKinnon.

We had a good worship service overall. Fred gave a good rundown of it on the main setlist post here. We did have a handful of glitches, all during the first service, that of course distracted me big time but I am always unsure of just how much it takes away from the “average attender’s” worship experience.

First off, the team:

• Producer: Me
• FOH: Dana Mason (he is a contractor who used to have a recording studio, always looking for ways to get better at sound)
• Lights: Rob Furlong (a new guy who is jumping in with both feet, his second time on lights)
• Video Content/ProVideoPlayer: Russ Curry (great servant who has a nack for never being a distraction with his loops)
• Lyrics & Notes/ProPresenter: John Cenicola (a long time volunteer with a passion for “doing it with excellence” every time)

The Rundown:

I won’t take the time to give a song by song detail of worship. Fred did that.

Glitch #1 came when we were transitioning from our first set into announcements. Fred was supposed to pray and transition us into the announcements which were to begin with a video. As “Hosanna” finished I said “ready video for Curt_Peru” but Russ thought I said “go video.” So, about halfway through Fred’s short prayer, our Peru Missionary video began to roll. On the fly I elected to keep the video rolling since everyone started to look up and we let its volume overtake Fred’s prayer. By the end of the 2 minute video I had basically forgotten about it.

Glitch #2 is why I forgot about glitch #1. During the video I noticed that the fresnel lighting our stage center position was fairly “well” lit. Somehow, one stage light was left at 50% in the “video” setting which calls for a dark stage. One of our lead worshipers, Amy, was standing in a dim spotlight during the video. With about 30 seconds left I found the culprit light and rolled it off.

Glitch #3 stands on its own. During the live portion of the announcements I tried to talk to Fred in his ears to let him know we were starting to run long already. He motioned to me telling me that his IEM batteries were low. About 1 minute later I talk to him again and notice him shaking his head and taking his IEM pack off. I realized then that I had less than a minute until the next song started, I was 80 feet from the stage and he had no ears. I was unaware that Fred didn’t know there were batteries right behind the stage wall. Thankfully one of our other musicians realized what was happening and got Fred batteries and replaced them while Fred stalled, explained and then prayed into the next song. Considering there was a click track used in the next worship set, the ears were rather important.

Glitch #4 is a repeat of glitch #2 except it was during our sermon intro video (which is featured in my previous post here). I forgot that we used the same cue for the second video as the first. We saw the light a couple seconds after the start of the video and dimmed it but not before people got to see our pastor sliding his table and chair up to our main spot.

The Good Stuff: That is all for the glitches on the production end. We had a couple featured instruments that we miked up with surprisingly good results. We covered a song by Wynonna Judd called “Rescue Me.” The song featured leads by both a cello and a hammered dulcimer. We have used a cello a few times before and I have never been pleased with the results. We had a lot of ambiance in the mikes and low gain before feedback. We have used a 57, an Audix X-10 and a Senn e609 so far. This weekend we used a Rode NT1a (cardioid) on the cello and it sounded fantastic. We did have to roll some of the low off of it to avoid a boomy feedback but it was picked up beautifully on the live stage. On the dulcimer we used a MXL 992 hanging horizontally over the strings, a little bit off center. The dulcimer was beautiful and it was picked up fantastically. Both instruments were loud enough that we didn’t have to boost gain so high and get a lot of bleed. Gentle gain structure and some careful EQing proved enough. No doubt that the lack of any monitor wedges on stage played into those results. I was nervous about using “studio condensers” live but it panned our great.

Again, it was a GREAT service. We heard a lot of great feedback on the special as well.

How was your tech service?

This video is intended to set up the sermon each week of our 4 week series on fear entitled “Break Free.” We wanted the video to be a little bit more intense than normal for us and create a bit of tension. The idea is to get people thinking about their fears and waiting for the message to follow it with answers. The video starts with a “random” spin through a 3D list of “fears” that I compiled via Twitter and Facebook replies. I just took a wide range of the most common responses that I got. The goal was “to have someone seeing fears no matter where the looked.”

For those video graphics peeps who care, the following is for you. For the rest of you, skip on to the play button. I owe the “concept” of the video to Andrew Kramer of VideoCopilot.net for two fantastic free AE add ons: a SureTarget preset and a “shatter” autotrace script. I was trying to come up with some way to illustrate “breaking free” on the same day that Kramer released the shatter tutorial. The suretarget plugin technically could have been done without but it would have taken WAY longet to build the composition. I used the Suretarget preset on a null and parented a camera and a light to it. This moves between the 17 3D text layers as the video progresses. The camera and spotlight follow the null and have no keyframes. I used the spotlight to give a little dimension/gradient to the text instead of having a slightly more boring solid whitish colored text. The “dust” that floats throughout the fears was created using a single instance of Trapcode’s Particular and some “push buttons until you like it” settings. Again, I used those to add a bit more dimension and hopefully to make the camera moves more dramatic. I rendered the “fears” precomp out and placed it in the final comp where I used the shatter method from Kramer to break it apart and have the “Break Free” logo reveal itself. Chris did the initial series graphic design and I rebuilt it in After Effects so I could animate the layers. Finally, the music in the BG is “It is Natural to be Afraid” by Explosions in the Sky, fitting title I thought. I wish I had more time to find better or even have Fred create a unique background track but I had less than a day to turn this around in the end and time didn’t allow for that.

What do you think?

“Break Free” Series Intro from SSCC on Vimeo.

How far ahead do you plan for Easter & Christmas services? How far ahead do you normally plan services? If the “normal” time is different, why?

Ok, now that the questions are out there, you know why you are here, so let me set them up better.

Over the past couple of months, thanks in large to Twitter (@tpaulding), I have been in communication with a large number of media/producer/tech people as well as pastors & worship leaders. At times I have become discouraged as I hear people share, as much as two months out, that they are finalizing Easter plans. We work on being ahead at SSCC, two weeks out is the normal deadline for any media project but with some sermon series we are only a few days ahead. We try to be 4-6 weeks ahead on sermon topics and base content but it takes effort. We are working to push these things closer to 8-10 weeks ahead. This gets frustrating to me mostly because rush, short deadlines and last minute planning all very negativly effect what we have the ability to produce and even worse it negatively effects creativity. I can run sound on short notice but don’t expect solid graphics or video projects.

So, at first, I got frustrated at our being “comparatively behind.” I realize we can’t all do things the same way for a lot of reasons, but it still makes me think. I also wonder if it is “wrong” of the church to put more effort on 1-2 services a year. Some churches may have the philosophy and means to always be months ahead. Honestly, I crave that.

But I currently (but not always) am bothered by putting markedly more effort into one to two services a year and then not “trying as hard” for the other 50 or so. When I set up our planning calendar for this year I definitely noted Easter, Christmas and about 6 other “high attendance” weekends for us. I think it is super-important to be ready for what is coming and aware of reasons that might bring people to your church on any given Sunday. I really just wish the Church “put that much effort” into every week.

So again, how far ahead do you plan?

Do you plan for Easter services more in advance than others?

Do you have any planning resources you use?

Share your thoughts, tell your friends… just don’t look back to my last post unless you have a time machine.

The innerwebz are crowded with news of a huge virus spreading on Apple systems. Many non-Apple fanboys are feeling victorious. It seems like no one has taken the time to mention that the virus gets on your computer by installing an illegal/pirated copy of Apple software, iWork 09. It doesn’t sneak in through email or through hacking. You get the virus because you tried to “save” some money, or dare I say, steal something.

The virus’s only means of getting into OS X is through a willing, albeit careless, install.

Is that really Apple’s fault?

Your thoughts?

Here is the sermon intro video for our “Constructing Christmas” series at SSCC. We will play this video to set up the sermon for the next few weeks.

Chris and I tossed around a few ideas for the final look of this series’ graphics before we landed on this one. We were going for the feel of old blue prints but not technical drawings. As with many of our videos, I worked backwards. Chris designed the “series art” which appears at the end of the video. I worked backwards from there to cut everything into Illustrator layers and animate it in After Effects.

I bought John Williams’ “Carol of the Bells (Voices)” on iTunes (off the Home Alone soundtrack one-the-less). I chose that song because it instantly makes me think of Christmas when I hear it. Also, I wanted to communicate the peace and joy of Christmas and also a sense of urgency or hurriedness. I felt like the vocals accomplished all that.

Without further ado…

Constructing Christmas Intro Video from SSCC on Vimeo.

Every one can stop holding their breath. I have posted again. Mainly because Fred asked me to post this.

We are in week 5 of a 6 week series on dating, sex and marriage. It has been a great series so far, we have gotten a ton of positive feedback and CD orders and podcast downloads have been above average for us.

Here is the intro video we used this morning and will use again next week to set up the two marriage messages. I think the video is pretty self-explanatory. On a technical note, this was our first attempt at using a green screen. We learned a lot in the process about editing keys in After Effects and lighting for a green screen and I anticipate a faster process and better results next time. The music for the video was done by Fred in ProTools, he did a great job syncing up and obviously capturing the feel of the Apple commercials we are playing off of.

Hope you enjoy it!

Ignite – Marriage Intro – Man vs. Woman from Travis Paulding on Vimeo.

-Travis

Here is the intro video we are using to introduce the sermon in our current series. The series is called “Get In The Game” and it deals with our philosophy of ministry at SSCC and how we want our church body to walk it out. The main themes from the series are serving, living in community (small groups) and seeing lives changed by Christ. The messages so far have been great, head over to SSCC and pick up the podcast if you haven’t heard them. Everything for this series was designed around a ESPN Sportcenter concept. Our stage set has a Sportcenter news desk look, along with bleachers & goal posts framing our video screens. All of our staff and volunteers have been encouraged to come dressed in attire supporting their favorite teams. (Go Dogs.)

Back to the project. This is one of those deals that I am proud of but at the same time, I can QUICKLY identify things I would do differently across the board. I was limited with time to get good video footage for one thing. On the design end of things, again, if we had time, we could have created more layers and individual elements in the graphics and added more variety. But hey, we just aren’t in a place right now at SSCC where that kind of time is available. All the graphics for this series were designed in house, mostly by Chris. He designed the “title graphic” for this series first, this is the image that the video ends on. Everything else we have done has been based on that initial graphic. In the previous link you can see three images we have used.

The video is a combination of work from Photoshop, Illustrator, Final Cut Pro and After Effects. We took Chris’s graphics from Photoshop and Illustrator, video footage captured & edited in Final Cut and composited everything in After Effects. The BG music was thrown together by Fred even though I asked for it late. He got it in on his way out of town for vacation.

Again, I have to say that we are proud of the overall project. It took a lot of planning and coordination between people and applications. That being said. It is immediately apparant that there is much more we could have done to make it more professional looking. However, I have to regularly remind myself that our goal is not professionalism. Our goal is to effectively create environments where people can encounter Christ. I do believe the video did a good job of setting up our messages. Especially when seen in the context of the stage set and other elements around the building.

Here is the intro:

This second video is a loop that runs continuoulsy on two plasma screen TVs as a part of our set on stage:

What do ya’ think?