My Church's All-Original Worship Album - Critiques Wanted!

[rogerramjett]

Hey Everybody,

I'm the Worship Guy at Calvary Chapel Jupiter here in sunny Palm Beach County and our church just put out it's first worship album containing all-original material. The goal is to create worship songs that are from the local church, for the local church.

I'd really appreciate any feedback and/or constructive criticism that you might have. We're hoping to make this an annual project, so we're already on to the "Things To Differently" list for the next project! I'm interested in knowing whether or not these are songs that you would use in your church and why or why not.

You can listen to the full-length album over at ccjworship.com

Thanks a million!

Jeff T.

[chrismoncus]

I'd buy it. The music is of good quality, especially for an inhouse recording.

[SaintLewis]

Congrats on the new c.d. - I have a passion to see more original music used in our congregation and it also inspires me to see local churches growing their own original worship music in-house.

My very first impression: upbeat, punchy, & fun - very well engineered - simple and singable.

It was hard to pick a favorite - though none of the songs made it into my personal top 10 (that would be hard to do: it's filled with stuff by Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, Eoghen Heaslip, and newer Vineyard), I need to follow that by saying that there are absolutely no duds here: I can imagine that nearly every one of these songs would work in most congregations comfortable with contemporary worship styles. I most definitely particularly enjoyed the lead-off track, "Praise", and "Reckless" - I think it wise to have placed such energetic, but un-similar (they sound quite different form one-another) at the very beginning of the c.d. I also love the piano work on "Marvelous" - original, indeed.

Lastly, one thing that really stands out: the drum sounds are absolutely incredible. Where did you record those, and who was the mix engineer? He needs a special tip for that, because drums are tough - ya'll nailed it though.

You all should feel very proud of what God has given you all in the area of creativity! Congrats.

[rogerramjett]

Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate you taking the time to listen to it and share your thoughts.

We recorded with a buddy of mine named Cooper Getschal. He's one of these guys in his fifties who just knows almost every trick in book! We recorded them in our church office worship practice room, which is a carpeted garage (how glamorous). We just made sure nothing on the kit was rattling, that we used decent hardware and recorded everything EQ'd completely flat and dry (no effects). He miked the kik, snare, hat and used 2 condenser overhead mics. But instead of having the 2 condensers on either side of the kit, he had them right next to each other, almost pointing right at each other. He said it had something to do with stereo imaging and avoiding phase cancellation. Even so, we were all blown away when we sat down and listened to the raw drum tracks - there's almost no EQ'ing or effects at all used on the drums. I'm definitely a big believer in creating your drum sound with the actual kit and not with EQ's and effects after the recording...

[twc_admin]

Jeff -

Nice - listening now ... would love to podcast some on the Highest Praise Worship Podcast .. I also PM'd you about some publishing info.

[lytesource]

Hey Everybody,

I'm the Worship Guy at Calvary Chapel Jupiter here in sunny Palm Beach County and our church just put out it's first worship album containing all-original material. The goal is to create worship songs that are from the local church, for the local church.

I'd really appreciate any feedback and/or constructive criticism that you might have. We're hoping to make this an annual project, so we're already on to the "Things To Differently" list for the next project! I'm interested in knowing whether or not these are songs that you would use in your church and why or why not.

You can listen to the full-length album over at ccjworship.com

Thanks a million!

Jeff T.

Hey there Jeff,
Great project! About half way through listening to it I hopped over and downloaded it along with all the pdfs. I'm an old school praise team product with a history of country music and it's sometimes hard for me to have that edgy new sound you younger folks are blessed with. Thanks for provoking me on in the ministry. :)

I also appreciate hearing what is happening among the churches over on the east coast side of town, (especially Calvary Chapels). The scope and depth of your cd is wonderful. The tunes have depth both musically and lyrically and the Biblical content is rich. I'm sure some of them will make it into our worship sets in the future.

May the Lord bless your cd and your ministry there in Florida and thanks for sharing with us. It was a genuine treat!

[Jimmy Purchase]

hey man, i'm Jimmy from the Church of pembroke pines (the ones who are doing the Charlie Hall show) i listened to your cd after we broke out of the gathering today, and man its some good stuff, and great quality. The drums sound absoulty amazing, not to mention your vocals sound top-notch

the only thing is the guitar tone, its a little tinty. it almost sounds like you plugged direct to the sound board with no amp (which i'm sure you didnt)

but overall man, its a good cd, see at the next gathering!

[rogerramjett]

Hi lytesource - Thanks for the encouragement! I was also really blessed that you were able to hear the heart of the songs, even though it "stretched" you a bit, stylistically. Maybe I'll get to hear you singing some of the songs with a country twist someday! God bless.

Hey Jimmy - Thanks for listening, man! I wasn't gonna mention it unless somebody else did but the guitar tone is the one thing that I definitely wasn't completely satisfied with. It was a learning experience for me and I now know that I'd rather take a month longer and get the tone I want, than have to rush through it. I was talking with some of the guys today about guitar tone and because of the difficulty I had getting a tone I was pleased with, I'm currently on a "tone quest". I'm trying out a million different amps, pedals etc. to get "my tone". I did it all through a Line6 Pod XT Live and I'm kicking myself for not using my tube amps - it's practically blasphemous to not do it that way! After all that, I'm glad you dug it and hope that the songs prove to be useful to you.

[twc_admin]

Jeff -
Interesting that you say the Line6 Pod XT - we are looking at buying those for the players in our youth dept .. are you not pleased with them ... or, outside of recording, are they the way to go for live usage?

[rogerramjett]

Hey Fred,

It's really a personal preference. I bought out Pod XTL for our secondary guitar players (me being the main guitar player as I'm there every week). What's nice about it is that you have something like 25 banks of save-able settings (with 4 different settings available per bank). This means that my different guitar players can each set up and save their own settings without messing with anybody else's settings. And when they play again, they can just recall their own saved settings.

It's pretty involved to truly set up great tone. It can be done but it's a buttload of work! You're looking at a tiny LCD screen and using little buttons to navigate through the system. The effects and tones that are available are fantastic, it's just quite a bit of work to get to the, Not complicated, just a lot of work (if that makes sense).

If you're going to use it for multiple players, it's definitely the way to go but you need to let your players take it home at least a week before they play using it. You can't just dial in a great tone in 5 minutes...

It's also the cheapest way to get a ton of effects and Line6 is undoubtedly the king of digital effects (as opposed to a GT-6, Vox Tonelab etc.).

If one guy's going to be using it and you're serious about tone - go with analog pedals. They're easier to use but cost a lot more.

'Hope that helps!

[twc_admin]

Thanks, Jeff! Keep it writing and producing!

[tony c]

Good morning, Jeff,

I listened to some of your worship CD, and I really liked it. The songs were varied, the lyrics were wonderful ("You're Beautiful" - simple, but no need to say more, right?), and the recording quality was quite good. You're also performing a great service to the worship community by making the chord charts available on your website. I know you said that the idea was to make song "from the local church, for the local church", but by making them available to the rest of us, you're spreading these wonderful songs.

Now, about the PODs - I met an electric guitar player who didn't use an amp ... he had his POD and took a line out and fed the house PA, and used a monitor. When I asked him why he didn't bring an amp, he told me his amp weighed 100 pounds, and he got tired of carrying it. He got plenty of good sounds out of it for his purpose. For me, I would still want an amp.

My son had used a GT-6 for years - "every sound on the planet", but after a while, he sold it, bought a half-dozen individual pedals, and now carries a big pedalboard around with his Fender Blues Deluxe, and his sound seems cleaner, purer, and he can tweak things more to his satisfaction. Different strokes ...

[MeredithLCurtis]

What a wonderful worship CD! :):)The words are beautiful on every song. I enjoyed the music. It was easy to sing along with the CD and worship our beloved KING of Kings!:):)