Church IT - Supporting ministry with IT

I got a comment the other day recommending the website Audiotuts. I’ve kept an eye on it over the last few weeks and it does seem rather good. The latest post has caught my eye especially, 50 Great Lyric Writing Resources. I have to say I have a soft spot for web link lists and I’ve just finished reading God Songs by Paul Baloche that has a lot about writing songs.

Composition was never my strong point at school when I did music, so I’ve been trying to brush up on these skills. There’s plenty of stuff to keep me occupied for a while.

I’ve been writing about using software to create music to go with text and images in the Sheepdip, and here’s my first video.

It’s nothing spectacular but hopefully gives you an idea of what can quickly be achieved using software like Magix Music Maker 14. The music was generated from the samples included with Music Maker, I didn’t have to play any instruments. That’s for a later project…

There’s one reason why I miss the tape recorder in own sound desk. It’s the sole reason, but still important. It was really simple to use. You popped a tape in and pressed the large record button. And it was simple to check. Just look for the depressed button, the tape spindles moving and maybe some activity on the level monitor.

My MP3 player - an MSI Megastick 528 - fantastic little device with a line in socket - takes up a fraction of the space, records for longer than a briefcase of tapes (ok just a guess) and runs for hours off a single AAA battery. So it’s better surely?

Well no, not really. There’s no way to check levels without playing a track back, and there’s rarely time for that before a service. It’s also a little slow to respond to button presses; once it’s going it’s fine but sometimes getting there can be a pain.

Now, this is one thing for me, I’m reasonably comfortable at messing around with technology and can normally get it to work without raising my blood pressure too much, but there’s no way I can recommend it in a situation with people who are less happy with playing around this way. What we need is something with that familiar red button, preferably large and easy to see when active.

The trouble is, most electronic devices are just a variation on my MP3 player. We used to use an M-Audio portable recorder for podcasts and even I managed to fluff up recordings by not pressing the right combination of buttons. It’s not that the device didn’t work, just it wasn’t as simple as a tape deck.

I asked this question at the Worship conference held at Crawley Baptist last month as we had a seminar dedicated to sound and pa. They recommended the iKey Plus as offering the right balance of functionality and ease of use, and it certainly looks that way from a quick read of the manual.

Interestingly as I was mulling this post, an entry appeared from Musicians Tools for this rack mounted recording device for iPods. We’ve already got an iPod Nano for day to day background music in the church, I’m sure one more iPod won’t hurt.

I treated myself to a copy of MusicTech this month (it’s a choice between that, ComputerMusic or Sound on Sound). The decision was largely based on the samples on the cover DVDs.

I have to admit that the Summer Chill samples weren’t really to my taste, though I can’t fault the sound quality. The Ultimate Samples Collection Vol 3 was another matter however. Plenty of really good drum samples, both individual drums and patterns.

I’m looking forward to trying them out with some songs. If you’re interested I’m mostly using Magix Music Maker 14 these days. Very underrated software in my opinion and with some great features for playing live at church. I reviewed the previous version last year and thought it was pretty good. It was XXL version that comes with a MIDI/USB keyboard, which I’m still using.

I picked up a copy of Reaching the Unchurched: Some lessons from Willow Creek last night and had a quick read. It’s only 20 pages so only took as long as some updates to Windows.

What struck me was that even 16 years on it is still very relevant and challenging (yes I know how old the Bible is!).  It made me think about how seeker friendly our services are and I fear we could do better.

It’s always hard because many parts of church become habit.

A good example was at church on Sunday when we had a baptism, so lots of visitors compared to normal. The person doing the intercessions (first bit of jargon) finished off in the usual Anglican way ‘Merciful Father…’ and those of us in the know finished off with ‘accept these prayers, for the sake of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ Amen’. Now we didn’t announce where these words could be found (I do this all the time as well) so there was no way the visitors could have known what to say. For the record, I didn’t have to look the words up.

I feel bad about it now, but it didn’t cross my mind at the time, which only makes me feel worse!

The booklet hit the nail on the head with the assertion that seeker friendly services cannot be the same as ordinary church. What I’m looking for in terms of spiritual refreshment isn’t going to happen.

If you want a read, there are copies still floating around. I found five on the Amazon Marketplace.

I’m making a start on Mission Shaped Church now. Currently half price from Church House Publishing with some sample chapters available as PDF.

I’ve been playing around with Ableton Live for a little while now and I’m very impressed. I’ll post some more specific comments soon but in the meantime there are some informative posts over at Thoughts on drumming, programming and church . .

Also check out some of the videos on the page, especially those of  Abraham Laboriel Jr.