News
Archive - 4
June
was a month for building, wiring, patching, testing, rewiring,
and finally finishing our new patchbays in the CFN Music
Production Studio. We can now access 60 lines from the
stage upstairs, 40 lines from the studio, iso booth, and
control room, and all of the gear in the racks. After months
working with jury-rigged patching, it is such a pleasure
to just plug in and go to work!
We
also added some new gear, including two new kick drum microphones;
the Audix D6 and the Audio Technica 2500 dual element microphone.
The Audix gives you that end-of-the-world, cataclysmic, ultra-hyped
kick sound, and the AT is the ultimate in flexible, realistic
reproduction of kick drums. You can add the dynamic element and
the condenser in any ratio you want, and the addition of a bass
rolloff and pad to the condenser element makes it useful in recording
drums in any style. We were also able to help Hal and Jane
Ward with what may be the first praise and worship project
in the Euskara language, which is spoken in the Basque region
of northern Spain. The Wards are based in Pamplona, which is most
famous for the annual ritual in which young men risk life and
limb to “run with the bulls.” Even if these daredevils
survive unscathed, their sanity will forever be called into question.
As
is so often the case, the preservation of this ancient language
is caught up in the nationalistic ambitions of Basque political
parties of all stripes. During the Franco years, the Spanish
authorities suppressed the use of Euskara, and its resurgence
among young people in recent years makes it a useful tool
for communicating the gospel. Blessing
Spain's Basque People (article)
Mark Bovee
wrote the brass charts, Larry Brubaker, Steve Clines, and Brian
Gleason played, and we recorded the session in the HUGE orchestra
room studio at Prestonwood Baptist Church. Everything went well,
and as always, it was such a pleasure to work with the people
at Prestonwood again. This is such a truly great church, and I
really appreciate the participation of all these fine people,
and the use of the room for this project.
A busy June
finished up with a tracking session for former CFNI worship
leader Keith Hulen. The project will be released in both
CD and DVD formats, and is designed to be used as a worship resource
by small churches and cell groups.
The
first week in July, we recorded a live project during the
Youth for the Nations en Espanol event at Christ
for the Nations in Dallas. Under the direction of Hugo
Martinez, Jason Hibdon, and Joel Contrerras,
this project is being mixed now, and should be released
in the fall of 2003. Many great musicians and singers were
involved in the project, and Jason and Joel did all of the
engineering, except for the actual live recording, which
I did, since they were both onstage playing keyboards.
It
has become an annual event for us to escape the summer heat in
Texas with a trip to Brasil in July, when it is winter in the
southern hemisphere. This year, Audrey and I went there for the
latest live recording with Diante do Trono in Sao Paulo,
a city of almost 20 million people. The logistical difficulties
of this project were incredible, but were expertly handled by
Andre Espindola, who is so much more than just the audio
engineer for Diante do Trono and Igreja Batista da Lagoinha.
He makes all of the arrangements for sound, lighting, video, projection,
staging, security, and even portable toilets for these HUGE events,
and he always seems to think of everything.
We
were joined in Brasil by our friend Major Lytton, an Apple expert
and great video editor. He came along to help with setup and training
for the new Final Cut Pro system at Igreja Batista da Lagoinha
in Belo, but it was also something of a homecoming for Major,
who spent much of his childhood in Brasil as the son of missionaries.
After the recording, we spent a little time in the Sao Paulo airport,
letting our laptops communicate.
This
project was recorded to Radar 24s, of which I am still a big fan,
using a Yamaha digital console for monitoring, and we had a grand
total of 12 Avalon 737s, along with Drawmer, Focusrite, and lots
of other high quality input gear. We crammed everything into the
same bus we used last year, which has been upgraded since then
with air conditioning that actually works!
This
is the first time we have worked with GabiSom, which is
the largest sound company in Brasil, and one of the largest
in the world. They were so helpful, and their gear was amazing!
We used six large clusters of V-DOSC speakers, and two Yamaha
PM-1D consoles for house and monitors. Andre and his crew
had never worked on the consoles before, so we contacted
Matt Wheeler of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas for
a tutorial a few weeks before the recording. He spent over
an hour with us, and the training not only helped Andre
do a great job at the house console, but helped him train
Tiaginho, who did 22 in-ear mixes flawlessly on a console
he had never even seen before! The PM-1D looks pretty formidable
at first, but is actually very intuitive. Muito Obrigado
to Matt Wheeler and Fellowship Church for their help!
The
biggest problem we had with this live event was not having enough
soundcheck time. The whole thing started with the stage going
up so slowly; the roof was a day late, the lighting was behind,
and everybody was scrambling to catch up, but we never really
did.
Even with
all of these setbacks, the recording itself came off pretty well,
but the real story of this event has more to do with the people
who were there. We were set up in a large area called Campo de
Marte, which is basically a flat, grassy area and a couple of
parking lots between two major streets. The plan was that the
city would shut down those two streets at 5 pm on Saturday, about
2 hours before we were to start. However, when we left the stage
at around midnight on Friday, there were thousands of people already
there, intent on spending the night in the 45 degree drizzle to
reserve their space just in front of the stage. By the time we
returned the next morning, there were at least 50,000 people there,
and the police had already closed the streets. By noon, the entire
area was full, so they started closing more streets. By the time
we started at 6:30 (one hour ahead of schedule), Globo TV estimated
the size of the crowd at 1.8 million people!
After the
concert was over and the gear was packed up, we went to Estudio
Polifonia in Belo Horizonte for overdubs, and were pleasantly
interrupted a couple of weeks later to travel to Paulinia for
a Diante do Trono concert with David Wilkerson,
with whom Audrey and I worked back in the 70s. We were looking
forward to seeing him again, along with his son, Gary, who was
once in our Junior High Sunday School class. The concert was sponsored
by the Assemblies of God churches in Brasil, and they chartered
a plane to take us from Belo to Campinas.
Since
this concert was part of a day long event, we were going
to have to go without any soundcheck, which is practically
impossible for a group the size of Diante do Trono.
The group fills up over 64 inputs, with 22 in-ear monitor
mixes, all of which takes hours to set up. However, remember
those two Yamaha PM1-D consoles we used in Sao Paulo two
weeks earlier? Our entire setup was still stored in the
memory of those consoles! All we had to do was call Gabisom,
plug everything in the same place, tune the PA to the concert
venue, and push one button to restore our settings. Presto!
Instant PA! Andre Espindola went to Paulinia the day before
to set things up, and we were prepared to walk directly
onstage when we got to the site.
Only one
little problem. After arriving at the airport in Campinas, we
boarded a decrepit bus, which promptly broke down in less than
10 minutes, leaving us by the side of a busy highway. We finally
arrived at the location about 20 minutes after the concert was
supposed to begin. We scrambled to set up the band gear, everybody
changed clothes, prayed, and took the stage. From the first note,
the sound was great, the music was beautiful, and the anointing
was powerful. The only downside was that, because of the delay,
we missed seeing David and Gary Wilkerson. How ironic to be so
close to a reunion over 5000 miles from home, only to miss the
opportunity!
We
returned to the US for percussion overdubs with Bart
Elliott and an orchestra session at the CFN Production
Studio, then the final mix. We booked both rooms at MasterMix
for two days, with Hank Williams working on the 5.1 mix
in his room, and Ken Love doing all of the stereo mixes
next door. The newest Diante do Trono project is
called Quero Me Apaixonar, which means “I
want to fall in love” in English. All of the songs
are built around this theme of returning to our first love;
an intimate relationship with the Lord. Ana has once again
written some great songs, and her brother Andre also has
a couple of songs on this one, including an 18 minute marathon
of power packed music and preaching. The musicianship of
the group, the quality of the songs and arrangements, and
the power of God’s anointing on this ministry increases
with each project, and this one is the best yet! For more
information, check out their website at www.diantedotrono.com.br.
While
Andre Espindola traveled to Nashville for the mastering
sessions, I went to Oklahoma City for a live recording at
OKC Family Church. They have a really good band and worship
team there, and worship leader Russell Combs has written
several great original songs for the project. For more information
on this ministry, and to order the CD, log onto www.okcfc.org.
While Russell and his crew are in LA mixing at Dream Center
Studios, Audrey and I are off to Hawaii! Aloha!
