Comments for Thinking Out Loud

Comment on Sennheiser Wireless Article & My 15 Minutes by Association by mandythompson

mandythompson — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:31:50 +0000

this is a good post travis…. real good.

Comment on Pursuing Excellence: Where do you draw the line? by Sandy H

Sandy H — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:57:58 +0000

I found your blog googling “Pursuit of Excellence.” It is very good. This is an issue we are dealing with in our church and in our school. As principal, I see too many kids saying,”I’d rather have an excellent relationship with God over excellent academics.” Adults say it differently, “I’d rather have an excellent relationship with God than do excellent work for my employer.” The problem is, this is a false choice. You can have both, and I’d maintain you must have both for even one of those choices to be true. We serve an excellent God. The degree of excellence we show in our works is a reflection of how excellent we consider Him to be.

How do you translate that to a situation? Your worship team will pull people into God’s presence a little bit less than as far as the weakest team member is able to go. God expected excellence in sacrifices like lambs and animals (no spots, bruises, etc.); He expects no less than that in our sacrifices of praise. To exalt Him means to lift the praise higher in quality.

Those not able to do so may be hurt somewhat by being cut from a team. I know. I was. However, I resolved to sing to Him alone on my own time. After about ten years, someone heard me in the congregation and asked why I wasn’t singing publicly. When I said, “I’m not good. So I just sing to God.” Apparently in those ten years, God took the little talent I had and gave me more and more as I gave it back for just Him. Then He allowed others to hear it and brought me forth for public use. And that’s what I encourage others to do today. If you don’t make the team for some activity (worship team, acting, nursery duty, etc.), do it on your own time for God alone as your audience or recipient. He’ll honor your giving of little done faithfully and give you more talents to use faithfully and bring things out in His own time. In the same way, we can work with those not able to be on the first team. We give them little opportunities to be faithful, and as they ARE faithful over time, we bring in more opportunities. Someone might be gifted in auto mechanics, but should they take apart your car first thing? That would dishonor their gifting, and it would not be one part of the body protecting a weaker part. Leviticus is a good reading ground for figuring out what God’s standards for service are This is a good question to ask. God bless you and thank you for letting me comment.

Comment on New Yamaha M7CL by Chris Stout

Chris Stout — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:02:48 +0000

I along with Alex are very jealous! I hope that some day we can purchase one for our sanctuary and have as wonderful of an experience! Keep us updated please!

Comment on New Yamaha M7CL by Travis

Travis — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:28:38 +0000

Seven Rivers,

I think you will be pleased. The learning curve not only for myself but also for my other three engineers was easy. (At least I think so.) I have used a Soundcraft Spirit 42 channel analog console quite a bit, it seems similar to what you are using now. Based on my experience there, I think you would be in great shape. I spent the better part of 3 days when the console first came in to make sure I was comfortable with it before live use. I have felt fine with it ever since. We are now running about 32 inputs a week (most with 2 dynamics processors on them), 4 FX sends, 11 monitor mixes, 32 direct outs to record, and a few other sends all easily manageable by one engineer at a time. I think two features that you will quickly grow accustomed to are visual EQ curve adjustments and “Sends on Faders” which lets you instantly mix monitor sends on the main faders.

My advice for starters is two things: one is to download the Yamaha Studio Manager and M7CL control for your computer. (I installed Parallels on mine so I can run it on Apple.) Two is to save snapshots as duplicates and save often. Still today when I am building a show I save three copies as snapshots in the console. This was VERY valuable early on in case I did something I soon regretted.

I’d be happy to share anything else I can to help out with the transition. You can email me from here if you want. travis(at)travispaulding(dot)com

Comment on New Yamaha M7CL by Seven Rivers

Seven Rivers — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:16:21 +0000

I have a question about this console. It looks like we may be going from a Soundcraft K2 to this unit in the very near future. Any thoughts on the learning curve?

Comment on The Gadget Is Not Broken. by Chris Moncus

Chris Moncus — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:56:45 +0000

On the other side, I’ve been hired so many times to JUST TO READ THE MANUAL or call tech support for someone. :/

Comment on PETA Pays (for meat) by CharityMedders

CharityMedders — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:35:52 +0000

Nasty! Just thinking about this makes my stomach churn.

Comment on The Gadget Is Not Broken. by Chris Stout

Chris Stout — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:59:58 +0000

I’m the same. I like to play around with it first, move some cables, and try to figure it out before I return it. I think I’ve only returned one or two items ever.

Comment on The Gadget Is Not Broken. by Mike Browning

Mike Browning — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:29:33 +0000

Yea if it’s expensive enough I’ll try to find a work around or a fix, and then send it back if that doesn’t work. If it’s inexpensive and too much of a hassle to keep working, I usually throw it in the junk pile (ya know, just trying to leave my carbon footprint and all).

Comment on The Gadget Is Not Broken. by Jay Sellers

Jay Sellers — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:07:49 +0000

I’m guilty of not reading the manual as well. Plus, I’m quicker to return something then call tech support.

On a slightly related note, maps don’t scare me, though I typically avoid unfolding them until I’m dreadfully lost.