andrew dodson

Howdy y’all (That’s Kentucky for “hello”).  It’s Derby Week here in the Bluegrass, and to be honest, I don’t care that much.  I always hate to say “I’m busy” because everyone is busy this day and time, but that would be more true right now than any other.  Seems like spring time is always my busiest time of the year.

I’m working on several recordings right now.  I recorded a southern gospel concert a couple of weeks ago, so I’m moving on to the mixing stage of that project.  I recorded last week’s Georgetown College Symphonic Band concert.  That recording should be wrapped up this weekend, since it was just a few mics.  Mixing will go quickly on that.  But, I turn around on Sunday to record the Central Kentucky Concert Band’s spring concert.  On top of all this, I’m beginning the process of picking songs for The Point’s first worship album.  It’s really more of a glorified “bootleg” concept.  I plan on recording all the services from now on, and every few months, making a low-budget CD of 10-12 songs.  I’ll manufacture all of them myself in small runs of about 100.  It’ll mostly be a good outreach tool, I think.  We’ll see.

I’ve been digging in to some new graphic design techniques as of late.  I’m a self-trained artist, so I still have a lot to learn.  Mostly, I’ve been digging into Photoshop a bit more to create stuff for web and print.  The majority of my time is usually spent in Illustrator designing shirts.  But, I’m doing more graphic work for The Point these days, and I’m looking to expand BADmedia some more.  So, I think learning more in Photoshop will help.  Mostly, I’ve been playing around with new brushes and the like to create the ever-so-popular grunge and distressed looks that are “all the rage” right now.  I feel like I’m jumping on the bandwagon, but I’m learning new stuff, so that’s always good.

I’m not doing a whole lot of web stuff for the time being, but I think that will change as I move into the summer months.  I have a few sites in desperate need of redesigns, and as mentioned, I’m working on getting some more clients.  I’ve struck up a small partnership with another local business that might lead to some new web clients.  More on that to come.

Tonight was PCG night, and our group went through the study fairly quickly.  It was a good study and I think we were all surprised that we hammered through it in under an hour.  So, I find myself with some free time that I don’t normally have.  Hence, this novel of a blog post.  I’m off to enjoy the rest of the evening…

Not really a music specific post today, but more of a gear post.

Over the last few years, I’ve used several audio interfaces with my computer.  When at home, I mainly need a good, solid interface that will let me mix anywhere from two to thirty-two channels without any hassle.  To be specific, an interface that worked well with my Mac mini and Tracktion.  I don’t do a lot of recording at home, so having multiple inputs (XLR, MIDI, etc.) isn’t an issue.

I’ve settled on a Behringer FCA202 FireWire interface.  Yes, a Behringer product.  A lot of people bash them, but when it comes to bang-for-your-buck, there’s no better.  I’ve owned several of their products and never had any real complaints.  The FCA202 is a very simple firewire device - two 1/4″ inputs, two 1/4″ outputs, a headphone jack and two firewire ports.  That’s it.  A negative of this interface is no XLR or MIDI inputs.  But, if you want to upgrade your computer’s sound card (using a factory sound card for pro audio applications is not recommended) for a cheap price ($80), I highly recommend this card.  It’s also extremely compact, making it a great, portable unit.  I often throw this in my laptop bag to work on audio projects on the go.

The main issue I ran into using other units dealt with audio dropouts, pops, clicks, and more noises.  For some reason, a couple of units would only briefly work with my setup before the audio would drop out.  But, I would expect more from $200-600 units, so this was disappointing.  The FCA202 performs much better with my setup.  The units that didn’t perform as well included an Edirol FA-101, Alesis MultiMix 8 FireWire, and a PreSonus Inspire.  They all resulted in glitches while I tried mixing a project.

I can’t verify if this product would work well with a PC, or another Mac setup that differs from mine.  It does work great with my iBook G4, though.  If you have a 6-pin FireWire port on your computer, the device can be bus-powered (no power adapter needed).  Looking through reviews on Musician’s Friend shows there are issues if you try to use it with Vista (but, what else is new?  The surprise would be if it WORKED with Vista!).

If you’re in the market for a great little (affordable) audio interface, and if you don’t need XLR or MIDI inputs, I highly recommend this unit.  Combine this with GarageBand on a Mac and you’ve spent $80 to start recording your ideas and more.

The remainder of my week will be fairly jam-packed.  I have a lot to get done before I leave for Seattle at the break of dawn on Saturday.  Just to fill you in (since I know you’re on the edge of your seat), and to wrap my head around what I have to do, here’s a breakdown:

Life at CLS

After a slow January, work is picking up at CLS.  A couple of days last week were fairly busy, and today got a little more hectic as the day went on.  I’m hoping to have a really productive day tomorrow to stay on top of things.  Not only do I need to stay on top of things, but I also need to get ahead, since I’ll be gone all of next week.  To top it off, I need to post over thirty new t-shirts designs to our Got The Shirt site, as we try to finally get that project off the ground.

Life at The Point

I’ll be missing the Sunday service at TPCC for the first time in a very long while.  I really don’t remember the last time I missed.  Tomorrow night, I’ll go to the Habakkuk bible study, but then I get to go home.  I won’t have to stay for praise band rehearsal since I won’t be there on Sunday.  This actually helps, even though I hate to miss.  Not having to go to rehearsal will give me an extra couple of hours to get some things done.  One of those things being preparing for my PCG on Thursday night (and cleaning my apartment!).

Life at BADmedia

My goal by the end of this week is to have completely finished rough mixes for the Polston recording I did a couple of months ago.  I still need to get with a couple of groups to do overdubs, but I hope to have the project completed in the next few weeks.  With moving and everything else, it’s taken me longer than usual to get around to mixing, but I’ve finally found the time.  I hope to use my free time tomorrow evening to mix down a couple of the group’s performances.

On the website side of the business, I did a quick site update tonight.  My only real issue is The Point’s media site, which has been down for two weeks.  iPower is working on the issue, but it’s out of my hands - very frustrating!  I hope the issue is solved by the time I return from Seattle - hopefully sooner!

Other

I’m really excited about the Seattle trip.  It’s funny - a few weeks ago, we were all wishing it would hurry up and get here.  Now, it’s finally here and I wish I had another week!  A lot to do in very little time, it seems.

I finally got my internet up-and-running at my apartment tonight.  Since I have a wireless network, I went into my router settings and restricted access to only my computers.  This is my first time living in an apartment building, so I haven’t had the need to do this before.  But, I also don’t want people leeching off my connection.

In my quest to blog more often, I’m considering a schedule of some kind.  Like, Saturday would be YouTube video day, Sunday would be blog link day (linking to stories on other blogs - some people call this a blog carnival), Friday would be PCG Notes day…you get the idea.  I’m also considering have guest bloggers from time to time.  Anyone got any other ideas?

Sometimes, I’m asked how I record & archive sermons for The Point. I thought it’d be helpful to provide a step-by-step guide about the process. This same process can be applied to recording meetings, lectures, and more.

• Take a feed from the soundboard. Most people record directly from the soundboard’s tape outs. I like to set up a separate, dedicated recording feed. The reason for this is to avoid any other inputs from the soundboard coming through the tape outs into the recording. For example, if a channel has a hum or buzz coming through, and that channel isn’t muted during the sermon, your sermon recording will have the same hum or buzz. So, I take a feed from a direct out on the pastor’s mic channel. I run this into a small Behringer mixer (any mixer will do).
• Set your levels. Make sure you leave plenty of headroom in your recording to prevent clipping. If you have an animated speaker, they might result to yelling at some point. You want to make sure you account for this and set your levels accordingly. Knowing your speaker’s style helps greatly when setting levels.
• Have two sources of recording. Using the separate mixer also gives me the flexibility to record to two sources - a primary and backup. I don’t always use two sources, but as a general rule, it’s a good idea, in case one of your sources fails. Ordinarily, I would come out of the tape outs of my mixer into a computer or laptop. I could then use the main outs of the mixer to run to a portable flash recorder of some kind as a backup. I use an Edirol R-09 that I absolutely love. There are other options available.
• Edit the sermon using software. If you record direct to a computer, you can edit the sermon with the same software you use to record the sermon. I’m a big fan of Tracktion for all of my recording needs. If you’re on a budget, I suggest using Audacity (it’s free!). In the editing process, I usually clip the front and back ends of the sermon and apply fade ins and fade outs (after all, who wants to listen to dead space?). Next, I apply EQ, a bit of vocal compression, and I boost the levels to a good volume.
• Export as MP3. If you plan on posting the sermon to a website, most recording software will have the ability to export the file as an MP3. You can also adjust the bit rate settings of the MP3 to make it web-friendly. I like to use a “variable rate” MP3 setting, and try to keep the file between 20 and 30 MB. You can make the files smaller, but keep in mind that it will start to affect the sound quality of the MP3 (you’ll get the “warbly” sound).
• Use simple file names. Another web-friendly idea is to use simple file names for your MP3s. Titling them “No Ordinary Man - The Comedy of Jesus.mp3″ might not be the best idea. I use a system that employs the date. For a sermon, I use “sermonYYYY-MM-DD.mp3″ or “sermon2007-09-06.mp3.” For our Hebrews bible study, I’ve been using “hebrewsYYYY-MM-DD.mp3.” This also helps making links to the MP3 on your website much easier. Instead of trying to remember a complicated name, you can use whatever system for naming files that you come up with.
• Tag your MP3. ID3 tags include information about MP3 files. They can tell you the artist name, title of the song, and more when you play them in an MP3 player. iTunes makes this easy, but the downside of iTunes is that it will change the file name to whatever “song title” you give the MP3. Instead, I like to use ID3 Editor, which doesn’t change the file name.
• Upload the MP3. Using FTP is generally the best solution to upload files to the web. I use a free plugin for Firefox called FireFTP. There are plenty of other options available. I try to store all of The Point’s sermons on our media site. So far, we’ve yet to reach our hosting package’s limit for storage. You may be limited to your hosting package as to how many sermons you can have posted. I would recommend posting the last month’s worth of sermons at the least.
• Create a link to the MP3 on your website. This is pretty self-explanatory. The Point’s media site is powered by Wordpress, which makes updating the site extremely easy. If you’re using a site created by software (Dreamweaver, GoLive, etc.) I strongly suggest moving your site to a content management solution like Wordpress. But, this is a subject for a different post!

Tonight is the final rehearsal for Behold the Lamb of God before our performances Friday and Saturday night.  As I did with the JMB DVD, I figured I’d post some thoughts before it’s “go time.”

• Being a part of this has been a huge blessing.  I continue to be blessed with amazing opportunities to perform music with amazing people.
• Derek - thank you for asking me to play.
• Derek - I’ve been extremely proud to see you develop as not only a musician, but a lead musician over the past year.  I was impressed with you this summer at Crossings, and I’ve been impressed throughout the process of this project.  God has wonderful things in store for you, my friend.
• John - thank you for taking care of logistics.  Anyone involved knows that you could easily be on stage with us performing.  Instead, your servant’s heart took over and you have played an extremely important role “behind the scenes.”  We appreciate you taking care of all the details for this.
• The “extras” - John has lined up a bunch of people to help with this, and I don’t know all of them.  But, thanks anyway.  From promotional materials, to helping with the performance, all of you are helping to make this great.
• Randy & Jeremy - thanks for helping make us sound good.  We’re keeping you on your toes and you’re keeping up like it’s child’s play.
• Rick & TPCC people - thanks for hosting the event.  I’m blessed to be a part of this great church and sit under the teaching of a great pastor.
• I’m extremely pleased that this has become a multi-church production.  All Frankfort churches have had a reputation for not wanting to work together, and we’re starting to break down those walls.  I pray that we will eventually remove the walls completely and focus more on the Kingdom than what happens inside of the four walls of each of our respective churches.  After all, we’re going to be at the same place someday.  We might as well learn to get along now!  Thanks for all the different churches represented in this production.
• “So Long, Moses” is the most difficult song, but also my favorite.  It’s been a fun challenge to learn the odd structure of the song.
• I’ll be recording both nights (duh).  I pray that we get a good recording that can be shared with others who aren’t able to make it.  Also, for people to enjoy long after the performances.
• I pray for those in attendance that are lost.  I pray that the message of the songs ring loud and clear in their hearts and they may come to know Christ.
• Thank you, God, for your Word and your Son - the message of these songs.  May you be honored and glorified, and may your honor and glory be our sole purpose.

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Just a quick update on things in the JMB world…. once some of this stuff gets ironed out, I’ll post a more detailed update on the actual JMB website.  We’ve started planning the next JMB studio album, and we’re scheduled to start recording in late February.  We’re still a little unsure of how it’s all going to pan out, but here’s what we’ve got so far…

We’re planning on re-recording some of the songs from the first Josh Martin Band album.  Neither Doug nor myself were on that album.  Kelly and my recording abilities have grown since that time.  So, we’re thinking it’d be nice to get better recordings of some of those songs.  These songs may be put on their own CD, or if there’s room, added to the back end of the new CD.  Or, we may just end up putting them on the website for people to download - who knows?  Here’s the possible list:

• Talkin’ ‘Bout Grace
• Drive
• One True Healer
• The Quick and The Dead
• One Way

Another older song that we’ve never done a studio recording of is “I Ain’t the Next Billy Graham.”  It is also being discussed as a possibility.  We’ve also talked about recording some of our “cover” songs, including:

• Tis So Sweet to Trust In Jesus
• Come Thou Fount
• Grace Like Rain
• In Christ Alone

Once we get past these songs, we’ll also be recording several new songs.  Some of these have already been played, and some of these, the band has yet to even hear.  Here’s the list of new songs:

• Christ Is Our Life
• Clumsy Believer
• Good Enough
• Exposed
• Thanks Be To Jesus
• Remind Me
• Here I Stand
• Never Alone

So far, we have a total of 18 songs that are possibilities to be recorded.  This list may shrink or grow as we get a little further into the process.  I’m looking forward to it, as always!

It’s almost that time of year!  The time of year I look forward to the most - The CLS shut down.  Judging by the fact that I’m blogging about it two weeks ahead of time, can you tell I’m looking forward to it?

The shut down is one of my favorite perks at CLS.  This year, because of the way Christmas and New Year’s fall, it’s a little longer than usual.  Instead of a week off, we’ll actually get seven work days off, and in total, I won’t have to work for eleven days (including two weekends).  Last year, I spent three days of my vacation sick and laid up in bed.  Hopefully, I can avoid that this year.

The only plans I have as of right now:

• I have a live recording on the December 30th.  Setup will be on the 28th.
• Family Christmas gathering on the 29th.
• Revamp a few things on The Point’s media site.
• Complete work on a new website for BADmedia.
• Read a book (or two?).

Most of my plans could be null and void if something else I’m working on pans out.  I can’t spare any details right now, but I might know something more by the end of this week.  Stay tuned!

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I’ve very much looking forward to this weekend. I don’t plan on doing much until Sunday rolls around. I’ll have church stuff as usual, and I’m recording the CKCB concert at Transy Sunday night. In the mean time, here’s some random blogging:

Christmas Shopping

I need to get my Christmas shopping started. Fortunately, I think I can do most, if not all, of my shopping in Frankfort this year. In the event that I do have to go to Lexington, I’ve decided that Monday nights would probably be best. That way, I won’t have to fight much traffic. I will definitely not be going to Lexington on a Saturday to do Christmas shopping.

iPod Rip

I like to keep my iPod and iTunes music collections well organized. Fortunately, the iTunes interface already does a pretty good job of that. My issues come from having an iTunes music collection on my work computer, as well as at home. The iPod gets stuck in the middle. The newer versions of iTunes let me transfer purchases from my iPod to iTunes, so that’s good for when I download something at work and want to put it on my computer at home. I’m also a big geek, so I like to keep my play counts, smart playlists, ratings and things like that organized. I came across this software that will allow me to transfer playlists created on my iPod to my iTunes libraries. It will also sync all of my meta data (play counts, ratings, etc.) between the iPod and iTunes libraries. The software is free to try for 10 uses and $15 to purchase. I only plan on using it every couple of months, so the trial uses should last me a good while before I have to purchase the full version.

Psalms & Romans

My daily Scripture reading this week has been one chapter per day of my two favorite books of the Bible - Psalms and Romans. I started with the idea of “Through the Psalms in 150 days.” But, since most are fairly short, I wanted to add something else to it. So, Romans is the filler for now. Once I complete Romans, I’ll move on to another book.

The ESV

In relation to my daily Scripture reading, I’ve grown to love reading out of the ESV more. Frequent readers of my blog know that picking a translation is like Russian roulette in my world. For the last several months, the 2nd edition of the New Living Translation had been my first choice. But, for the past month, I’ve used the ESV exclusively and haven’t been able to put it down. I tried reading out of the NLT a few days ago, only to pick up the ESV again.

Not only is it an extremely accurate translation, but it’s so accessible. Think of any situation where a Bible could come in handy, and you’ll find a copy of the ESV. On your personal computer, Internet, hand-held devices, and more. In most cases, you’ll find a free copy of the ESV in these situations.

The Case for Christ

Related to my post on reading yesterday, I’ve been reading The Case for Christ. I’ve been pleased to read about the amount of credible evidence in support of Christianity. Apologetic books only help to strengthen our faith, and I strongly urge Christians to study apologetics. I’m only a fledgeling when it comes to defending my faith, but I’m growing. I’m about a third of the way through the book and hope to make more headway this weekend.

Just to give you an idea of the type of musicians presenting Behold the Lamb of God, I wanted to post a clip from our rehearsal last night. A few minutes into the rehearsal, an impromptu jam broke out. I’m always a fan of improvisation, so I had to “roll tape” on this, and I’m very glad I did. Enjoy!

Everyone knows I like to record pretty much any performance of any group in which I play. Sometimes, this means I’m sitting in front of the computer working on the recording. By the end of working on the recording, I might be tired of it and not listen to it much. But, I always think, “I’ll be glad I recorded this years from now when I can go back and listen to it again.” Turns out, that’s pretty true. Several times, I’ve pulled out recordings of bands I played with in college and enjoyed listening again (even if my recordings were pretty awful back then).

These days, I’m pretty particular about recordings, so it means I multi-track everything and spend an hour or two mixing & mastering. In my quest to have more free time in my life, I’ve been trying to think of how I can avoid all this time mixing recordings. So, I’m challenging myself.

The new plan is to record everything through a mixer and get a good stereo recording on the spot. It’s interesting because I’m also playing at the same time. But, after a couple of weeks of doing this, my recordings are starting to turn out fairly well.  It’s basically just a process of training my ears to learn what a good recording is going to sound like through my in ear monitors.  I don’t think they’ll ever be perfect recordings, but if I can leave the performance with a solid recording and not have to do much else to it, I’ll be happy.

This isn’t anything new.  Lots of bands that allow fans to tape their concerts, or bands that sell live recordings on their websites have someone that does this for them.  They will mix the concert on the spot and get very good recordings.  The Dave Matthews Band & Phish used to do this.  Umphrey’s McGee does this now.  Before the days of multi-track recordings, it was the only way to capture a live recording.  The only spin that I put on this idea is that I’m actually one of the musicians as well!  I guess I’ve always enjoyed multitasking.