Sunday Summary – Music: November 30, 2008

Okie Dokie… Thanksgiving’s over… Back to the regular grind…

Or so I thought.

Today (Monday) we spent 4.5 hours talking about what we want to do in the first 6 minutes of our Christmas Service on December 21st.

Ahhh, the joy of working in a church music department in December. Kinda like a Certified Public Accountant in March and early April…

(I’m just teasing – I love it!!)

Anyhoo, yesterday…

Last week Andy started a new series called “Listen and Learn”, based primarily on the premise that who and what you listen to will determine your actions and ultimate outcome. Yeah, it’s a pretty elementary concept, but a great reminder to all of us as we’re bombarded with media, advertising, and the people we choose to surround ourselves with.

And as a side note, there’s also a quirky title package with the series that the media guys asked me to write a theme for, as well as all the quirky, 80′s synthesizer sound effects.

Check it out HERE. Click on the blue “Listen and Learn” icon, and then click the red “F” to watch via Flash Player

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As far as worship goes, we had some fun this week!

OK, it didn’t all start out as fun – especially in East….

Chrystina Fincher lead worship in East, which is great because she’s great – but she is, well, a she!

Yep, that means GIRL KEYS!

It’s no problem in the long run, but at mid-week rehearsal, playing those familiar tunes 4 or 5 keys away plays some serious tricks with your brain. Guitar voicings change, my keyboard licks fall differently under the fingers, and all that muscle memory goes kaput! And forget alphabetical chord progressions – number progressions need to take over or you’ll have your nose stuck in the chart all night long.

But something cool can end up happening, as it did to us at rehearsal. You get your BUTT KICKED!

Yeah, you heard me right – you walk away beat up, mentally and musically.

And there’s no greater motivator!!!

Personally speaking, I know I can get apathetic, simply because I’m surrounded by these songs all the time, and could play them in my sleep. But when you have to RE-learn a tune, it can sometimes be even more of a challenge than learning a new song from scratch. And that went for the whole band at rehearsal. We fumbled through rehearsal, each one of us being more embarrassed than the next.

And THAT’S when you hit the crossroads that separates the men from the boys. The fork in the road that asks:

“Will you woodshed it on your own time this week to get it right, or will you cross your fingers and hope for the best? Will you spend the needed mental and musical energy needed, or will your apathy get the best of you? Or are you simply not good enough – and if so, what are you going to do about that?”

Gladly, I was on stage with a group of men that knew that the music had gotten the better of them at rehearsal, and they were going to make darn sure that there was no chance of that same thing happening on Sunday.

And that’s exactly what happened. It ended up being a really, really great musical and worship experience on Sunday morning, with a new life and kick to some great worship tunes.

WORSHIP:

Salvation Is Here

Let Me Sing

Lead Me To The Cross

Good times…

(And now a shot of a headless Lanny Donoho during the welcome…)

East Band: Chrystina Fincher, Danny Howes, Danny Grady, Jayce Fincher, Ashley Appling, Jordan Watts, Me

West Band: Eddie Kirkland, Mike Hines, Daryl Lecroy, Richard Meeder, Scott Meeder, Trammell Starks, Karen Bitzer

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What has kicked YOUR butt lately?

Sunday Summary – Music: September 28, 2008

Middle of the Road.

Certainly not bad in any way. Yet not really anything to write home about.

That was yesterday – at least for me.

Yeah, I was playing – which is usually a real charge – but I think I know why I was kinda ho-hum about it:

First of all, we didn’t do any specials (opener or closer), which can make a Sunday a lot more interesting.

But the biggest culprit, for me, at least, was PARTS.

Some songs lend themselves to great, naturally flowing parts – meaning what you play and when. They fall under the fingers with ease, and quickly become second nature. And that allows your conscious mind to focus more on worshipping God than worrying about what to play.

Unfortunately, not all songs are like that – and it differs from instrument to instrument! What is great and natural for, say, the rhythm guitarist might be a nightmare for the bassist. Again, each song is different.

So yesterday, while the rest of the band chugged merrily along, I was in “parts stress land”. Songs that other people love were causing me frustration. Again, not because I couldn’t play them, but that they just didn’t, how should I put it – “flow” from the subconscious.

I know that sound weird, especially if you’re not a musician. But trust me – think of something that’s part of your job that is easy and comes natural, then think of something that isn’t natural and that you really have to spend energy and brainpower on. Yeah, that was me for 2 of yesterday’s 3 songs.

Don’t get me wrong – they’re not hard tunes. It’s just the subtle things that no one else would notice – but we as players do…

BUT…. Todd and Kristian did do a great job leading the people, so kudos to them!

WORSHIP:

Beautiful One (culprit #1)

Let Me Sing (NOT a culprit – one of my faves!)

Son of God (culprit #2)

East Band – Todd Fields, Danny Grady, Karyn List, Pat Malone, Ashley Appling, Me

West Band – Kristian Stanfill, Alex Nifong, Matt Melton, Joe Thibodeau, Brad Gage, Jared Hamilton, Chrystina Fincher

And now, everyone’s favorite segment: Candid shots from stage during the Welcome (being fed from the other auditorium)

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What causes YOU to use too much brainpower on stage?

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Keyboard Korner – Soft Synths: The Hookup

OK, consider this Part 2 of what I stared here.

I realized that after going on and on about using stand-alone keyboards for live performance, that I missed answering Cris’ main point – Using a keyboard to control a computer (laptop) soft synth for live performance.

I did mention in Part 1 that I have done this. It’s not my favorite, but is sometimes the most logical answer depending on one or more of the following:

- Your financial resources

- Your gear transportation ability (or willingness…)

- Your gear storage ability

- Your computer and software

- Exactly what you want to accomplish in a live setting

- Your current stand-alone keyboard’s abilities

Now let’s first start at the basics, as this was part of Cris’ question:

“How do you hook up a keyboard to a computer?”

Here’s the problem: That’s an easy question with a lot of answers. Most of the answers vary depending on the abilities of your keyboard, computer and software synth.

Let’s start with the 2 physical keyboard-to-computer connection types:

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MIDI

Chances are that you have a keyboard with MIDI ports. If it’s a decent keyboard made in the last 20 years, it’s got one or more MIDI ports on the back – OUT, IN and THRU. All you need to worry about is the OUT port.

The OUT port does just that – sends MIDI information OUT of your keyboard. So each time you hit a key, it transmits that information out of your keyboard and IN to another MIDI-capable unit, and eventually your computer.

Now if you don’t have MIDI ports on your keyboard, you’re out of luck. MIDI is the lowest common denominator in this realm, and if your keyboard doesn’t have them, unfortunately your keyboard is not going to work for hooking up to a computer.

OK, so you’ve attached a MIDI cable to the OUT port of your keyboard. No where’s it go? There are no MIDI ports on my computer!

Well the signal then needs to be translated into a physical form that will hook up to your computer. Fortunately there’s any easy and cheap way to do that via the USB connectors on your computer. Simple, inexpensive products like THIS MIDI to USB converter do everything you need to make that happen.

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USB

USB (Universal Serial Bus) is now an industry standard platform that connects all kinds of computing components – printers, hard drives, your computer mouse and keyboard, etc.

Fortunately for us in music, manufacturers have included these types of connectors on just about every electronic keyboard in the last 5 years. And (this part’s cool) as music production software and software synths have grown in popularity, so have USB Controller Keyboards.

A USB controller keyboard is pretty much like it sounds. It’s nothing but an input device – one that controls your computer’s soft synth. And they hook up via one simple USB cable – no MIDI to worry about.

These are still transmitting MIDI data, but without the bulk of MIDI cables or ports, and no external converters required.

Most of these devices are inexpensive since they don’t have any internal stand-alone capabilities. There are no internal sounds. They also range in price due to size (number of keys, ranging from just one octave, all the way to 88 weighted keys), and quantity of controllers. Some are just a basic keyboard, while others have stuff like multiple sliders, knobs and pads. These are all used to manipulate soft synths via transmitted MIDI data.

It seems we, the consumers, are the beneficiaries from multiple companies competing for our business in this growing market. 4 years ago I got a 49 key model that I used on my desk. Last year I got a new one with twice as many features for half the price…

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PREFERENCES

OK, so your keyboard is physically attached to your computer. Now the hard part -controlling your software…

Every soft synth is different and how they use controllers can even differ from patch to patch. Some software programs are super easy, while others have a seriously high learning curve.

GarageBand, Reason and Pro Tools, for example, are pretty easy. Finale, however, is just plain nasty…

Once you’ve got your keyboard or controller attached to your computer (via the USB port), it’s time to tell your software what device you want to control it.

That’s usually done in the Preferences menu of your software. Here are a couple examples:

GarageBand:

As you can see, it automatically detects my USB controller keyboard:

Reason:

You can have it auto detect both keyboards and other control inputs. It stores them

Other times it can be determined by individual MIDI channels:

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Finale:

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Pro Tools:

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Make sure you Record Enable the desired MIDI track…

And that it’s triggering the desired plug-in. Here I’ve chosen A.I.R.’s “Xpand!” plug-in, which I have as an insert in a stereo audio track. NOTE: Xpand! is made by A.I.R., a subsidiary of Digidesign, and is available for FREE to registered Pro Tools users. So that’s cool!

It’s their take on the sound palate of a basic workstation. A wide variety of sound and instrument genres, most of which sound great – especially the sonic textures. It also has a lot of features like syched arpeggiators, verbs, delays etc. within the plug-in, and it’s not a CPU hog.

And it’s free. So you can’t beat that!

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OK, next time we’ll look at setting a few of these programs up for live performance…

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Keyboard Basics – Videos

WARNING: These are 4 of the most boring videos ever!

These are not for the mere mortals – they are for keyboard players…

I put together a few short videos discussing navigation sounds for live performance, as well as an overview of B3 organ basics and how to effectively use it in modern rock and worship.

They’re pretty elementary, but at least the B3 stuff is info that I would have liked to have known when I was starting out.

Let me know what you think…

Synth Rig

Hammond B3 – Basics

Roland X8 – Storing Favorites for Live Performance

Korg Triton – Navigation Sounds for Live Performance

See! I told you they were boring…

Keyboard Korner – Stage Rigs

Yep – that’s a cheesy title.

Basically, Cris from the Philippines has a question that I’ll start to answer, and maybe some of you other keyboard and gear junkies can add to in the comments section…

Cris writes:

“HELP HELP! I want to know any information about your playing in keyboards in church. What keyboard did you use at North Point, and how do you do live performance on Mac and your keyboard? How do you do that?

Thanks. I’m Cris from Quest Community Fellowship here in the Philippines and I’m a keyboard player…”

Well Cris, first a big thanks for being a reader! Do you know Dennis Canlas? If so, say “hi” to him for me!

To answer the first part of your question:

I have used a keyboard as a controller hooked up to a computer running a software synth on a few gigs in the past, mostly due to the inability to lug a giant keyboard around, but I don’t prefer it.

We don’t use a keyboard hooked up to a computer for live performance at North Point or our other campuses. Not because it’s bad, but for a few other reasons. I’ll explain…

#1 – Stability.

Stand-alone synths (electronic keyboards with dedicated internal sounds) are far more stable. Traditionally their internal computing components don’t crash, and their exterior shells can usually take a beating.

Computer-based sound software (aka soft synth), however, is prone to crashes and freezes. Even on the most robust of machines, that’s not a risk I’m willing to take on a regular basis.

#2 – User Interface / Live Performance.

You’ve heard the term “user friendly” and “learning curve“. My personal theory – for anything – is that the easier and more intuitive the interface, the more enjoyable the experience.

And when that translates to worship music in church, that means the less I need to focus on the gear, and the more I get to focus on musical creativity and my own personal time of worship.

Add to that the fact that we have at least a dozen keyboard players that play at one or more of our campuses, and the answer is easy.

- We need the same (or very similar) keyboards at each of our 3 campuses.

- We need them to have a very low learning curve. They need to be very easy to use, and be able to get the most results in the shortest amount of time. Easy to navigate.

- We need them to have quick recall – the ability to call up a sound, especially during live performance, with minimal buttons and menus.

- We need them to actually sound good.

The bottom line is that we want the best possible sounds. Unfortunately that is difficult to ensure if we have players bring their own keyboards. A good keyboard is very expensive, and “vintage” gear in keyboard world is not always a good thing, if you know what I mean!

A vintage guitar and amp is cool. Showing up with a Yamaha DX7 is not.

This is why we have invested in good keyboards that sound good, easy to learn, sound navigation and recall is effective for live performance, and intuitive use of the instrument is inspiring to the player.

Those are just fancy words for saying “Keyboard players WANT to play this particular keyboard”.

So, believe it or not, that eliminates a lot of keyboards on the market today, most noticeably anything made by Yamaha. Their Motif series are a total pain in the butt. Their sounds are great, but you can tell that the user interface was designed by left-brained engineers, and didn’t consult with right-brained musicians. Boooooo!!!!!

The Korg Triton series (any model) is still a great live choice, as navigating through to find sounds is real easy.

The BEST live performance keyboard we’ve found is the Roland Fantom X series, specifically the X8. Registering sounds to the FAVORITES mode is second to none for live performance navigation. I’ll make a video of these in the near future…

#3 – Sounds

This one’s real easy. Does the keyboard have the sounds you need AND the sounds that inspire you (you know – the sounds you didn’t even know you needed…).

These, in my opinion, fall into 2 categories:

A – Workhorse Sounds. These are the meat and potatoes elements, A great acoustic piano, Rhodes, Whirlitzer, Clav, warm analog pad, orchestral strings, etc. Most of these are emulations of real instruments, plus some traditional synth sounds.

These are the basics of being able to play any gig.

B – Sonic Textures. These are the sounds that inspire uncharted territory. Moving and evolving synths and pads, warm and powerful synth leads, arpeggio and rhythmical textures, effected instruments (delays, pans, sweeps, envelope filters, etc.). Most of these could be described as original, futuristic sounds that can add some unique elements to your songs.

The Korg Triton series has always excelled with Textures, while the Roland X8 it my first choice for Workhorse sounds, and increasingly with textures as well.

#4 – Tactile. A keyboard, as with any instrument, has to FEEL right. The physical keys’ texture, weight and response need to inspire – not hinder!

Once again, the Roland X8 is one of the best feeling keyboard I’ve ever played, and their new G8 is also great. As a classically trained pianist, I’m not one to be easily satisfied with the floppy response and unrealistic action of some of today’s pathetic excuses of 88 note weighted keyboards. Bleeeech! No wonder so many piano snobs hate synthesizers.

Summary: Inspiration.

These four elements, at least for me, are all integral parts of choosing a performance keyboard.

I need to be INSPIRED by it, not FRUSTRATED.

Too many people settle for a piece of gear that frustrates its players because it was on sale, or the sales guy at the store was trying to move a unit and pressured some suckers from a church that didn’t do any research and didn’t know what they wanted or their keyboard NEEDED TO DO.

So don’t take my word for it either. YOU need to take your 2 or 3 best keyboard players to lunch, and then to the music store for a few hours. Let them play EVERYTHING in the store. Have them spend TIME with each unit, seeing if it can EASILY and QUICKLY do what you need it to do.

And take a good pair of headphones!!!! The crappy speakers in the music store are not an accurate representation of the keyboard, and if it’s a mono keyboard amp it will put certain sounds, like an acoustic piano, out of phase (and that sounds BAD!).

But, in case you care, my recommendation for a church’s (or professional player’s) primary keyboard would be the Roland Fantom X8:

- It’s got the best workhorse sounds, including the best acoustic piano I’ve ever heard. We A/B compared it with the software “Ivory”, and the X8 was equal in quality and superior in latency and velocity sensitivity.

- It has great Sonic Textures, nearly at par (if not equal to) the Korg Triton series.

- It has the best live performance mode. In rehearsal, you navigate through the well organized banks of sounds according to their genre, and once you’ve picked one you’ll use, you easily register it to a Favorites bank. After doing that, each favorite patch is only one button-press away. VERY COOL!!!

- It has one of the best tactile responses of any keyboard on the market.

These are some of the reasons that the X8 has become the cornerstone of the keyboard rigs on all 4 stages of North Point Ministries’ campuses (North Point’s East and West Auditoriums, Buckhead Church and Browns Bridge Church).

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So here’s a look at each of our 4 stage’s keyboard rigs:

North Point – East Auditorium

- Roland X8

- Korg Triton Extreme (61 key)

- Hammond B3 with Leslie 122

North Point – West Auditorium

- Roland X8

- Korg M3 (61 key) **This is basically the newest version of the familiar Triton series, but is still new and yet to be tamed

- Hammond C3 with Leslie 147

Browns Bridge

- Roland X8

- Korg Triton Extreme (76 key) **(yes, I’m jealous of their 76 key version…)

- Nord Electro 2 through Trek II pre-amp and Leslie 122

Buckhead

- Roland X8

- Korg MS-2000 (interesting choice…)

- Nord Electro 2 through Trek II pre-amp and Leslie 122

We also have some of the older boards stored off-stage for special events, including a couple classic Triton 88 and 61 key Tritons, a Roland JV-88, Yamaha P-200, a broken Korg CX-3, and I’ve even got my old Korg N1 and GEM Equinox back there as well, gathering a nice layer of dust…

OK – that’s it for now on what keyboards we use on stage. Next time we’ll get into hooking up a keyboard controller to a computer to use a soft synth on stage.

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What do YOU use on stage?

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