Life Church of Temecula

[j29teamtahoe]

Here's a link to our message and worship (not always the worship):

If you're using iTunes, click here and subscribe. (http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=75938636)

If you are using an RSS feeder, click here for the RSS feed. (http://www.getlife.tv/podcast/dircaster.php)

[El Ben]

Hey guys out at life church. I've got a friend over in Morena Valley at Generations Church with Pastor Troy Shadeed. Good to see you on the boards.

[j29teamtahoe]

My wife works in Moreno Valley. It's amazing how small this world is and how God connects us all! Take care!

[twc_admin]

Hey Chris -
just subscribed to the podcast - looking forward to it!

[j29teamtahoe]

Hey Chris -
just subscribed to the podcast - looking forward to it!

I hope you like it. THe problem I have with the worship portion of it is that I'm trying to mix it at FOH and not in a separate room. Any tips?

The messages should be pretty good!

[twc_admin]

Hey -
Are you guys compressing the Pastor? I subscribed and attempted to listen to the sermon (I can't get no satisfaction) today, but honestly - the pastor's dynamic range was all over the place - in the same sentence, he'd go from a near yelling/shouting to a whisper that was so low it was inaudible ... I could find no "happy medium" on the volume knob of my car stereo that would work for very long - it would either get way too loud or not nearly loud enough.

I suspect that either:
1 - the pastor's mic isn't being compressed at all, or properly
2 - the pastor may not be wearing a good headset mic, and is looking away, down, to the side, etc., when he speaks much more softly.

So .. that being said - love you guys, and I'm not trying to be critical .. but hopefully you'll hear what I'm hearing and make the necessary adjustments ... it sounded like a great message, but I must confess, I got weary riding the volume knob back and forth, and rewinding the iPod to hear sentences that finished a thought, but were inaudible w/o ramping the volume all the way up.

Still love me?
fred

[j29teamtahoe]

I suspect that either:
1 - the pastor's mic isn't being compressed at all, or properly
2 - the pastor may not be wearing a good headset mic, and is looking away, down, to the side, etc., when he speaks much more softly.



THANKS FRED! Yeah man I still love ya.

TO answer your questions:

1- It is compressed, but not properly. I need some help in that aspect.
2- Wears a Countryman mic and yes, he looks away, down, to the side, etc., when he speaks, period!

We're using a Presonus DSP and I have it set to auto at the moment. I've got the Gate Part of it down, but the compression I don't know too much about. Hints/Tips?

[twc_admin]

Hey -
Glad I'm feelin' the love! :D

The countryman is good - it should "move with him" to a degree ... make sure it's curved around to get close to that mouth.

As far as compression goes .. glad to know you've got one going. I woudn't be so concerned about gating on a speaking mic as compression anyway.

Basically, compression (and limiting, which is super-heavy compression) will help you get the gain up for the soft times, while tempering the loud times.

I also should make it clear that I'm not ragging your Pastor for having a wide dynamic range - it's pretty hard to speak passionately in a monotone!

I'd set your compression to at least 3:1 or 4:1 ... and you want to tweak it up so that when he's louder, or excited, the compressor is kicking in and knocking back the signal several db ... ultimately, a "limiter" is like compression, but stronger ... maybe someone who is more "tech saavy" can correct me, but I think limiting is more like 10:1 .. and you set a threshold that he just can't pass .. and it holds it there.

You want a fast attack time on your compressor so that it kicks in quickly, as I found the speaking style to be quite unpredictable as to when he'd be loud or soft. A faster attack time, a tight compression ratio, and watching the compression so that it's really working on the loud spots should enable you to get some more overall gain on the softer, lower points.

I'm not a compression pro, so maybe I'll flag this for Adam or Travis to come in and have a few words as well!

For the Kingdom,
Fred

[j29teamtahoe]

Perfect! I will give it shot this weekend. I do know that my ratio is not that high, so maybe that's the case. I tighten it all up. Thanks for the tips, keep them coming. I by no means an expert!

[dtpuga]

J29...
If your pastor is the only one going at one time you don't need to worry about a gate too much. I'd set it pretty low to keep breathing out and thats about it, with a countryman you shouldn't have to worry about it. A countryman headset should give you no changes in sound audibly with head movement, that is what its designed to take care of. If his movement effects it, it is not fixed tightly enough to his ear and it is flopping around. You want is just off the corner of his mouth, if you gets 'esses' then its a bit too close.

As for the compressor... You want to be careful not to set your ratio over 4:1, that is the point where it starts getting 'digitized' in sound. Ours has a separate limiter and gain boost. I set the compressor level where it starts to kick in if he goes at all above his normal speaking volume. I usually find that spot and set the ratio at 3:1 to start. Then I boost the output gain up a bit so the quiet parts don't drop out and with the compressor tight it will keep it from killing your ears when he gets excited. Then I just keep an eye on the limiter at first and set it whereever it needs to be for my board. I just use the limiter to stop distortion, never to really 'control' the sound.

I tend to compress our pastor pretty flat, similar to a bass recording really, this keeps the levels consitent for recording and with only one voice in the mix at a time, you still hear the dynamics as he speaks. Even though the dBs do not vary widly, it is still easy to hear his inflection.

Hope this helps,
Travis

[j29teamtahoe]

Well, I tried to work on it, but I had so many issues and ended up changing out my boards again. So maybe next week. LOL...

[j29teamtahoe]

Well, a few months have gone by. I've got our DSP working really well for out FOH mix but...I just figured it out tonight while I was eating dinner. The way that I have the DSP's plugged in is after the record mix. :-( So, now I have to figure out a way that I can re-wire it and make it better...

I've got a Presonus 8 channel DSP and another 4 channel limiter. I have currently the limiter on my aviom rig for vocals, and four of my eight presonus chan's on groups. Maybe I'll just insert a DSP on my Worship leaders, the pastors, then the goups. That should put the DSP before the record mix. I guess I'll just have to see how that works. What do you think?

[twc_admin]

Hey ... I'm not sure if you'd need to put the limiter on the aviom rig, assuming they are using IEM .. most of the IEM have a limiter built in for protection on the receiver packs ... maybe Travis can chime in on it ... but I know he's headed on vacation!

[j29teamtahoe]

Well, I was wathing (and hearing) Karl's level's peak out on the Aviom rig on day so I turned it down a notch. He immediately started freaking out like he lost his entire mix. That was obviously when we were still using wedges. Not exactly 100% on IEM's yet, but just about. Right now we're hard wired. Saving the money for the wireless...

[dtpuga]

I guess you just need to decide what is most important and process that. We have 8 channels outboard and 2 channels built into our Soundcraft console. One built in channel is always on whoever is the primary speaker for the day, the others I pick based on what the Worship Director and I feel are most critical in that line.

If you are limited on your compression options, you need to decide what is most important and go that way. If the podcast audio is way down on the list then people will just need to deal, haha. Otherwise, take a channel of processing out of your main instruments or a vocalist and shift it too the pastor.

One other bootleg fix would be to 'share it' with another similar channel. This is not the best practice but can get the job done in the mean time. I have a couple of male vocals on our regular crew that have settings similar to what we would use for out pastor. Since they don't sing and preach at the same time here, technically we could switch it pretty quick on the fly.

Hope this helps,
Travis