Blog.

My computer is scheduled to arrive on Thursday. Stand by for updates in the next week or so…

Just a quick update on things:

My desktop computer at home died, which makes it hard to blog. This stinks, but I do get to build a super awesome machine to replace it, as soon as I make some money.  Intel I7, mmmm.

Preparation for our Christmas eve service consumed December, and all the time and effort that went into it paid off because it went really, really well. Pics, audio, and perhaps video to come sometime in the (hopefully) near future.

I lost our camera in an airport last November along with a good bit of camera gear, but the silver lining to this story is that it was insured and we’re now the proud new owner of a D90 and some other goodies. It’s a significant upgrade to the D70 we had…

I’m in Williamsburg with my family and my in-laws blogging on my new iPod touch. I’m not really an Apple fanboy, but this thing is awesome.

That’s it for now! Sorry about the lack of updates, I’ll try to work on that!

Warning:  This post is technical in nature.  If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, don’t worry, you’re still a normal person who just hasn’t ascended into “geekdom”.

In my last few months in my new job, I find my anal-retentive tendancies will not let me be satisfied with “good enough” and I’m always listening and watching for ways to improve on what we have at CFC.  Approxamately a month ago, our main audio system’s DSP started flaking out and we had to replace them or be left with a sound system that looked good, but didn’t actually put out any sound.

That would be a problem.

As much as I like looking at the huge EAW cabinets, I would rather listen to them and enjoy the sonic properties for which they were purchased.  So we replaced our old BSS Soundweb Original units with the newer BSS Soundweb London units, threw in an EAW UX8800, and started programming.  As the original program had been tweaked a number of times, it was definitely time to take a fresh look at what was done, why it was done, fix a few problems, and iron out the wrinkles.  The result was a much more dynamic system with significantly increased clarity and imaging.  Since I don’t have any system evaluation tools such as EAW’s SMARRT, everything had to be set the old fashioned way: by listening.  After tweaking crossover values, fixing the system delay’s (which cleaned things up tremendously), and playing with parametric EQ’s, we settled on a “good enough for now” setting that has worked up until now.

Thanks to a women’s conference I worked this weekend, I had the time to sit back and evaluate several aspects of our audio/video/lighting systems and came to a few conclusions.  First of all, the lighting on the front of the stage isn’t even, which severely affects one of our camera positions, and two, thanks to Kathy Triccoli, I discovered that the new system is particularly harsh with sibilant’s, mainly the “esse” (“s”) sound.  Kathy is a powerful and dynamic vocalist that when paired with the Shure KSM9 reveals all the flaws within a sound system.  Couple that with the new track I discovered from Meredith Andrews, and I am now determined to identify the offending frequencies in the system and smooth them out.

There will definitely be some more system EQ work, but what I’m delving into now that is new to me is the concept of “de-essing” using the sidechain of a compressor.  If you’re reading this, know what I’m talking about and have any tips, please share, as I’m always in need of good mentors.

For all you other readers that are now completely lost, you can now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

You need to check this girl out.  She has some serious God-given talent and a voice that will rock your world.  Listen here.  (Be sure to listen to the accoustic version of “You’re Not Alone” at the bottom of the list, it’s absolutely stunning) Check out her blog.  That accoustic track is joining a small list of “test tracks” that I consider are exceptionally well recorded songs that I use to check the sonic properties of sound systems.  If you follow contemporary Christian music, you’ll definitely be hearing more from her…

I bought new tires for my new car today and on the way back from dinner my wife joked about me having a mid-life crises due to the sports car and the fact that I shaved my head.  Actually, Heather and our friend Chalyce talked me into the head shaving, so I have to fault them for that one, although I like it and will probably stay bald for the foreseeable future.  You’ve heard people talk about how much heat you lose through your head?  well, it’s absolutely true.  I get cold much easier than I did when I had some semblance of hair, but never fear, I bought a couple of caps to keep my cue ball warm this winter.

Anyway, because some of you have been asking, I’ll include some pictures of the car, which is a 2006 Infinity G35 coupe.  I bought it from a guy on Craigslist and got it $2,500 under bluebook and about $15,000 less than what a 2008-2009 model with the same features would cost.  It’s practically new, as it was babied and only had 23,000 miles on it when I picked it up and it still smells new.  Anyway, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

A quick update tonight… I wanted to fill you in on the baptism service we had almost a month ago, which was absolutely amazing. Definitely one of the most incredible things I have ever experienced. We ended up having 131 baptisms, and over 650 people in attendance!

I have uploaded the video that my intern put together of this event, but due to copyright protection and the like, I have password protected the post. To view it, send me an email at wes at wakefi dot com (replace the “at” with @ and the “dot” with, well, a dot) or leave a comment below (ensuring to put your email in the email field) and I’ll send you the password so you can watch the video. Believe me, it’s worth watching. I won’t require your social security number or anything personal, so if you’re interested in seeing it, let me know!

This Sunday, my church is doing a baptism service at this little camp in the middle of the country at a small pond they have there. Amazingly, as of this writing, there are 80+ people signed up to be baptized, and we expect to have over 100 by Sunday. We’re also expecting 600+ people to show up, which makes for quite a few watermelons and smores!

I thought you guys would like to hear a glimpse of the music set that we have planned for the evening. The following are four of the five songs we will be doing and were recorded by Paul Kordon (our worship leader) and I last week, with both of us doing the vocals, Paul on guitar, and me on mandolin. For the actual set on Sunday, we will add an acoustic bass guitar, a lead electric (country-fied) and a small percussion/drum setup. Needless to say, I’m very excited about this.

Enjoy the audio. (Click on the triangle on the far right of each player to play the song…)

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Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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I admit that I’m just a little behind on keeping you guys up to date. Ok, I’m really behind, but hopefully this will make up for it: Three sets of pictures to keep you guys happy…

First, Heather went to Seattle in May on business, but was able to sneak in a day of tourism.

Full Gallery HERE

Second, here’s a few more pics of Truman for all you dog lovers.

Click HERE for more.

And last, my parents spent a week with us recently, and we really loved having them here. Here are a few pictures of our adventures with them…

Full Gallery HERE.

For all you daily readers, I promise there will be pictures and updates soon.  My parents are in town visiting, and we’re having a wonderful time.  Hopefully this weekend I’ll get around to posting something besides my crazy “sermons”…