Hello all, I have a question about setting up a studio in a church. I
have the chance to move my studio to a very good sounding sanctuary in
a small church. There is a balcony that is unused that I can set up
the c-room in. This part of the church is basically a huge teepee
shaped building, and the balcony sticks out of one side. Because of
the very irregular shape of the balcony, it would be very expensive to
completely enclose it, so I was wondering about some kind of semi-one
room design with partial enclosure. I have searched for opinions on
one room studios, but haven't found anything in the half way point of
some seperation like this could be.
Sorry, it is hard to describe the shape of this balcony; basically a
five sided room with the front three walls being only three feet high
at this point. Those are the walls facing the sanctuary and could be
raised up easily.
Any suggestions on where to look for ideas would be great.
Thanks,
Rob

"Rob B" wrote in message
m
Hello all, I have a question about setting up a studio in a church. I
have the chance to move my studio to a very good sounding sanctuary in
a small church. There is a balcony that is unused that I can set up
the c-room in. This part of the church is basically a huge teepee
shaped building, and the balcony sticks out of one side. Because of
the very irregular shape of the balcony, it would be very expensive to
completely enclose it, so I was wondering about some kind of semi-one
room design with partial enclosure. I have searched for opinions on
one room studios, but haven't found anything in the half way point of
some separation like this could be.
Sorry, it is hard to describe the shape of this balcony; basically a
five sided room with the front three walls being only three feet high
at this point. Those are the walls facing the sanctuary and could be
raised up easily.
Any suggestions on where to look for ideas would be great.

I digitally record my churches' service every Sunday. I have a PC set up as
a 12-track recorder with a M-Audio Delta 66 slaved to a Delta 1010, tapped
off the main console's insert points with some simple cables I wired up. I
burn a DVD or two of the tracks and do the editing and mixing at home.

Architectural changes required: zero.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
I digitally record my churches' service every Sunday. I have a PC set up
as
a 12-track recorder with a M-Audio Delta 66 slaved to a Delta 1010, tapped
off the main console's insert points with some simple cables I wired up. I
burn a DVD or two of the tracks and do the editing and mixing at home.

How long would you say you spend a week mixing the services? Is that for
one service? We're going to the same setup in January and I haven't decided
whether it's worth it to multitrack both services. We could do a live mix
in stereo and be done with it for regular services, and multitrack the
special events.

By the way, I agree with Arny, take the tracks home to work on.

"Thomas Bishop" wrote in message


"Arny Krueger" wrote in message

I digitally record my churches' service every Sunday. I have a PC set up
as
a 12-track recorder with a M-Audio Delta 66 slaved to a Delta 1010,
tapped off the main console's insert points with some simple cables
I wired up. I burn a DVD or two of the tracks and do the editing and
mixing at home.

How long would you say you spend a week mixing the services?

Less than real time, unless I start *perfecting up* a lot.

Is that for one service?

Yes.

We're going to the same setup in January and I
haven't decided whether it's worth it to multitrack both services.
We could do a live mix in stereo and be done with it for regular
services, and multitrack the special events.

We also do two live mixes that go on cassette. One is an aux feed optimized
for the speaking parts which is timed to cover just the sermon, and one is
tapped off the feed to the speakers and covers the whole service. People get
to choose what they want.

By the way, I agree with Arny, take the tracks home to work on.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
How long would you say you spend a week mixing the services?

Less than real time, unless I start *perfecting up* a lot.

I suspect that I'll become efficient. How do you go about splitting the
tracks? Do you record the entire service as one continuous track and split
it later? If so, do you split them before you mix or after?

We also do two live mixes that go on cassette. One is an aux feed
optimized
for the speaking parts which is timed to cover just the sermon, and one is
tapped off the feed to the speakers and covers the whole service. People
get
to choose what they want.

I think we'll probably offer just the sermon on cassette (for the old folks)
and the entire service on CD.

I don't think there's much point in building anything in the balcony
unless you're going to make a control room that's fully enclosed and
reasonably isolated. Anything short of that will let in pretty much
all the sound. I suppose you could put up a glass or plexiglass panel
above the three-foot balcony wall to block direct sound.

If you have long-term access to this space, and you're planning on
recording rock or jazz music, I would suggest you do go to the trouble
of building a fully enclosed, well-isolated control room. You can
avoid dealing with the oddly-shaped roof by slapping a flat ceiling on
top of your control room below the level of the chapel ceiling. I may
not be seeing an accurate depiction of the space in my mind's eye, but
I think you should be able to pull it off unless there are some
space-shape issues I'm not getting from your description.

I envy you. I would love to have a space like that in which to build a
control room and do my recording!

ulysses

In article , Rob B
wrote:

Hello all, I have a question about setting up a studio in a church. I
have the chance to move my studio to a very good sounding sanctuary in
a small church. There is a balcony that is unused that I can set up
the c-room in. This part of the church is basically a huge teepee
shaped building, and the balcony sticks out of one side. Because of
the very irregular shape of the balcony, it would be very expensive to
completely enclose it, so I was wondering about some kind of semi-one
room design with partial enclosure. I have searched for opinions on
one room studios, but haven't found anything in the half way point of
some seperation like this could be.
Sorry, it is hard to describe the shape of this balcony; basically a
five sided room with the front three walls being only three feet high
at this point. Those are the walls facing the sanctuary and could be
raised up easily.
Any suggestions on where to look for ideas would be great.
Thanks,
Rob

In article writes:

We're going to the same setup in January and I haven't decided
whether it's worth it to multitrack both services. We could do a live mix
in stereo and be done with it for regular services, and multitrack the
special events.

That's what I would do, unless I was being well paid for the mixing.
It shouldn't be difficult to do a live mix that's good enough for the
purpose that these things are usually put.

I'm not a church person, but I can't imagine why anyone would want a
recording of a church service other than for documentation, or the
occasional sick-and-shut-in who couldn't make it and wanted to hear
the sermon.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message ...
That's what I would do, unless I was being well paid for the mixing.

Yes, I agree. I have now sworn off doing any free gigs. It always ends up
being more work than I had intended and a favor becomes a chore.

I'm not a church person, but I can't imagine why anyone would want a
recording of a church service other than for documentation, or the
occasional sick-and-shut-in who couldn't make it and wanted to hear
the sermon.

I am a church person and I still agree. I'm not sure how many tapes we
actually distribute.

"Thomas Bishop" wrote in message


"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
How long would you say you spend a week mixing the services?

Less than real time, unless I start *perfecting up* a lot.

What takes the most time is fixing up major fluffs by the musicians. I've
patched coughs, wheezes, mic strikes, missing measures, bars, and choruses;
and even one case where someone started out doing the wrong song. It's
amazing what you can get away with in the middle of a tightly-miced
multitrack mix.

I suspect that I'll become efficient.

Part of being efficient is having a fast platform to work with. IME CoolEdit
isn't that critical of CPU for most things, but it really benefits from a
fast disk subsystem. I mostly use a P3-666 with 2 80 GB 7200 rpm drives, and
that lets most common longer editing operations (silencing, changing gain,
equalizing) run in 1/5 of real time, or faster. I imagine that with a 2.5
GHz system and dual stripe sets, 1/10 of real time might be possible.

How do you go about splitting
the tracks? Do you record the entire service as one continuous track
and split it later?

Yes.

If so, do you split them before you mix or after?

It varies.

Splitting after the mix is too easy. I just highlight the portion of the
mixdown to split in EV, do Edit Copy To New, and clean up the beginning and
end of the new file, dither down, and save. In some cases I can get away
with just putting in track marks and burning with the CE2.1 CD burning beta.

Splitting before the mix takes a little work. Maybe someone knows a better
way.

I go into the Multitrack View (MV) and highlight the segment to split. I
then move editing of each track into EV by right clicking, and do a File
Save Selection of the highlighted area in EV. I have to do this up to 12
times, but I get precise timing of the track splits. I then build a new
session of the tracks I took splits of in MV.

We also do two live mixes that go on cassette. One is an aux feed
optimized
for the speaking parts which is timed to cover just the sermon, and
one is tapped off the feed to the speakers and covers the whole
service. People get to choose what they want.

I think we'll probably offer just the sermon on cassette (for the old
folks) and the entire service on CD.

Sounds good to me. Part of what drives my efforts is the fact that lots of
people no longer have cassette machines in their cars. OTOH, you don't
really need CD quality for spoken word. We have pretty good cassette
machines, but cassette is what it is.

I archive this stuff, so if someone wants a nice recording of solo sung by a
daughter who is now getting married or something, it's not mission
impossible.

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1071013456k@trad
In article
writes:

We're going to the same setup in January and I haven't decided
whether it's worth it to multitrack both services. We could do a
live mix in stereo and be done with it for regular services, and
multitrack the special events.

That's what I would do, unless I was being well paid for the mixing.
It shouldn't be difficult to do a live mix that's good enough for the
purpose that these things are usually put.

I'm not a church person, but I can't imagine why anyone would want a
recording of a church service other than for documentation, or the
occasional sick-and-shut-in who couldn't make it and wanted to hear
the sermon.

Every once in a while, even with all their shortcomings, our musicians do a
really nice job on a piece of music. Or, we have a guest musician who does
something memorable. Love of music - isn't that what got most of us here?

BTW, most churches have queues of sick-and-shut-in, so they aren't
occasional at all. We sell subscriptions to them and they appreciate it a
great deal.

In article writes:

I am a church person and I still agree. I'm not sure how many tapes we
actually distribute.

I wouldn't be surprised if a few (the majority of the few) are for
personal reasons: "Didn't little Sophie sing a beautiful solo with the
choir this morning? I wish I had a recording of it."

It probalby sucked, but parents like to be proud of their kids.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Justin Ulysses Morse wrote in message om...
I don't think there's much point in building anything in the balcony
unless you're going to make a control room that's fully enclosed and
reasonably isolated. Anything short of that will let in pretty much
all the sound. I suppose you could put up a glass or plexiglass panel
above the three-foot balcony wall to block direct sound.

If you have long-term access to this space, and you're planning on
recording rock or jazz music, I would suggest you do go to the trouble
of building a fully enclosed, well-isolated control room. You can
avoid dealing with the oddly-shaped roof by slapping a flat ceiling on
top of your control room below the level of the chapel ceiling. I may
not be seeing an accurate depiction of the space in my mind's eye, but
I think you should be able to pull it off unless there are some
space-shape issues I'm not getting from your description.

I envy you. I would love to have a space like that in which to build a
control room and do my recording!

ulysses

Thanks for all the help and ideas. I will be recording mostly acoustic
music, and not too much to do with the churches services. They already
have a little cassette setup they record the sermons on.
Part of my idea of creating a niche, is to have the group setup and
play live with a paying audience, and record the show. The ticket
sales would help the band pay the recording costs, and they would be
playing better in a live situation. I have a couple of jazz ensembles
interested already. It is a great sounding live room, I have played in
it several times.
I'll let you all know how it turns out!
Rob
In article , Rob B
wrote:

Hello all, I have a question about setting up a studio in a church. I
have the chance to move my studio to a very good sounding sanctuary in
a small church. There is a balcony that is unused that I can set up
the c-room in. This part of the church is basically a huge teepee
shaped building, and the balcony sticks out of one side. Because of
the very irregular shape of the balcony, it would be very expensive to
completely enclose it, so I was wondering about some kind of semi-one
room design with partial enclosure. I have searched for opinions on
one room studios, but haven't found anything in the half way point of
some seperation like this could be.
Sorry, it is hard to describe the shape of this balcony; basically a
five sided room with the front three walls being only three feet high
at this point. Those are the walls facing the sanctuary and could be
raised up easily.
Any suggestions on where to look for ideas would be great.
Thanks,
Rob

"Rob B" wrote in message
Part of my idea of creating a niche, is to have the group setup and
play live with a paying audience, and record the show.

And the church is going to let you do this? You're lucky.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
Splitting before the mix takes a little work. Maybe someone knows a better
way.

Nope. That's how I do it too. I was hoping you had a better way. Very
tedious. I recently recorded five bands at a festival and it took forever
just to get everything "mixable."

Sounds good to me. Part of what drives my efforts is the fact that lots of
people no longer have cassette machines in their cars.

Yes, that is my reason. 21st century calls for CD's. How do you duplicate
the CD's? I'd like to get an automated duplicator/printer but I don't know
anything about their reliability and performance. I know I'm getting off
topic, but humor me.

"Thomas Bishop" wrote in message

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message


Sounds good to me. Part of what drives my efforts is the fact that
lots of people no longer have cassette machines in their cars.

Yes, that is my reason. 21st century calls for CD's. How do you
duplicate the CD's?

One at a time on a PC. I make up CDROM masters.

I'd like to get an automated duplicator/printer
but I don't know anything about their reliability and performance.

I know that for a reasonably low price you can get dedicated microprocessor
CD copying gizmos that you just add readers and writers to.

"Thomas Bishop" wrote in message

"Rob B" wrote in message
Part of my idea of creating a niche, is to have the group setup and
play live with a paying audience, and record the show.

And the church is going to let you do this? You're lucky.

Actually it can be good promotion for the church. These days there are many
people who have never been in a church in their lives. A neutral event can
disabuse them of the idea that the roof would fall on top of them if they
went inside.

In today's environment I find somewhat of what I've been doing with location
recordings is going to churches for their own entertainment of their
congregations, although not normally during services. A lot of churches
do/allow this type of thing, often with pot luck dinners and such. When
people are afraid to go out because of local violence or concerned about
terrorism, it seems natural that they'd gyrate back to some sense of
community and this is about the only place I've been seeing this.

Besides, here in DC there's just been a major push to find any possible
method to cut down the venues for live performance, from limiting dance
floor allocation to flat out zoning an area with commercial buildings and
homes as strictly residential/commercial without allowing support businesses
like restaurants so they don't have to put up with a restaurant providing a
live music venue. It's also cutting out a lot of the local neighborhood
quick marts where one would buy milk on a Sunday, etc., just to continue
screwing with live music (not directly related, but one had to go with the
other). Kinda pushing the larger chain grocery stores when little
neighborhoods used to have a Highs or 7-11.

Let me copy a letter from Wayne Kahn that was distributed in the WAMA
Newsletter. This is allowed as I've asked.

A Message from Wayne Kahn
A day spent in the chambers of the DC City
Council. Listening to the testimony of various sides
regarding the future of proposed regulations regarding
the licensing of restaurants, bars & taverns within the
city limits of Washington DC. What follows is my moment
before the council. Many of you have seen a form of
this before. It is like a stump speech that continues
to get tweaked and adjusted. The message remains the
same. It is my soapbox and it doesn't take me long to
get on it. The testimony continues today and I would be
down there but there is a newsletter to get out.

My name is Wayne Kahn. I am a resident of Washington,
D.C., a fan of its music and a student of its
incredible music history. I host a web site that
features D.C. area musicians and produce and distribute
a weekly on-line newsletter that informs the public
about local blues and roots music – most of which can
only be heard in small venues. The newsletter is widely
read and redistributed here and throughout the world.
The talent that is found around Washington D.C.
inspired me to start a small record label, Right on
Rhythm. I produced two CD’s in a series called The
Blues You Would Just Hate To Lose. Except for a couple
of cuts, these disks feature recordings of D.C. area
musicians performing live in area restaurants. I have
also produced the two disks of local legend Nap "Don’t
Forget the Blues" Turner, who this past year received
the Mayor’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in
the city’s arts and community. Both of his discs were
recorded live in restaurants right here in D.C. One of
them, City Blues, is now gone. The other, Cada Vez, had
an excruciating ordeal just to get their doors open.
All of these disks have received critical acclaim from
reviewers here, across the country and around the world.

Time and again I have watched with dismay as the D.C.
government and its regulatory committees have failed to
recognize the important role the restaurants and small
venues have played in nurturing talent. Whether it is
the soulful sounds of Roberta Flack, Marvin Gaye, Don
Covay, Billy Stewart or Go-Go’s originator, Chuck
Brown, the country music of Patsy Cline, Roy Clark,
Emmy Lou Harris or Mary Chapin Carpenter, the blues of
Mississippi John Hurt, Archie Edwards, Bobby Parker and
Roy Buchanan, the guitars of Link Wray, Charlie Byrd,
Danny Gatton and Bo Diddley or the jazz of Duke
Ellington, Stanley Turrentine, Sonny Stitt and Donald
Byrd, it was the small venues of D.C. – taverns, bars
and restaurants, that gave these incredible talents the
opportunity to fine tune their art and to flourish.
With performers such as these, how come Washington D.C.
is not recognized in the public mind as being a great
music city. Because the powers that be have never
figured out that they needed to embrace and celebrate
the city’s musical heritage. The current situation that
small venues find themselves in is just one more
glaring example of the inattention the city
establishment pays to its musical sons & daughters.

So called "voluntary" agreements are systematically
eliminating, one-by-one, the places that musicians can
perform in the city of Washington. Reducing, one-by-one
these important incubators of world class talent. WHAT
IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE! So called "voluntary"
agreements are allowing a few handfuls of people to
dictate that live music has no place in the public use
zones of Washington D.C. Anyone that refuses to cave in
to the demands faces enormous expense. Most hopeful
owners honestly will not choose that route.

I live in Mt Pleasant. Home to no live music. Home to
the largest Latino Community in the City. A Community
that has been disenfranchised from a major part of its
cultural heritage by the misuse and abuse of
"Voluntary" agreements. We used to have Mariachi Bands,
Peruvian Pipe players and a Sunday Hootenanny in our
little commercial strip. "Voluntary" agreements made
them illegal. Donal Leace is a Washington Area Music
Association Hall of Fame musician and a Mt Pleasant
resident and a world renowned folk musician. He is not
allowed to perform in a restaurant in his own
neighborhood. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE!

Washington D.C. has been the birthplace and home to an
incredible tree of music. Small performance rooms are
the roots of this great tree. It is a family tree of
music and it is in that tree that the divisions of this
city have disappeared. Black & white, city & suburban,
democrat & republican, liberal & conservative. It is
music that has been on the front line breaking down the
barriers and providing common ground. The roots of that
common ground are not found in the MCI Center or the
9:30 Club. They are found in the small music rooms.
Those smaller rooms are restaurants, bars and taverns.
The current situation is destroying the roots of this
great tree. You destroy the roots and the tree dies.

A little over a year ago, after finishing my testimony
before Council member Ambrose’ Committee on Consumer &
Regulatory Affairs, Ms. Ambrose took the moment to
reminisce about her many evenings spent enjoying
Roberta Flack at Mr. Henry’s on Capitol Hill. Where
will the next Roberta, Emmy Lou or Mary Chapin or Duke
or Marvin or Patsy find their way to learn their art.
Where will the next Shamrock be that helps change the
course for an entire genre of music. Unless the City
Council takes steps to protect the restaurants, taverns
and bars ability to host live performance, we know
where it won’t be. It won’t be within the city limits
of Washington D.C.

It is of utmost importance that the City Council step
to the front in recognizing the significance that these
small venues have played in the incredible cultural
heritage of the music art in Washington D.C.. You do
that by protecting their ability to host live music.
Washington DC needs to support and nourish its musical
sons and daughters, not drive them away!
This City Council needs to support - not thwart live
local music.

I urge the city council to reign in the abuse of
voluntary agreements. I do not want to live in a city
that is shrouded in silence and where musicians cannot
make a living. Thank you for your time

Sorry about the length guys, but I've brought the same type of message up a
time or two, and the reason isn't to bemoan what's happening in DC. It's to
warn everyone else NOT to allow it to happen to their towns and cities. I
don't see any reason for a local neighborhood to have a club that handles
1500 people standing, nor that draws acts from the national scene, but I
have a marked sense of loss as the venues that support local music for some
small gatherings of less than 150 people (usually about half of that) are
not dying off, but being killed off as if it's unacceptable to walk down the
street and have a few hours of good local music.

So yeah, churches seem to be doing their parts in becoming a little more
community centric rather than just servicing their congregation's spiritual
requirements. Besides, the costs of being a part of today's world isn't
going down. Even a 75 person get together at church can/will generate some
income for the church. I find nothing wrong with that.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
RAP FAQ and Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at
www.recaudiopro.net.
See how far $20 really goes.





"Thomas Bishop" wrote in message
.. .
"Rob B" wrote in message
Part of my idea of creating a niche, is to have the group setup and
play live with a paying audience, and record the show.

And the church is going to let you do this? You're lucky.