The Praise and Worship Band Bassists Club part 22

[5StringFool]

Originally Posted by steve_rolfeca

What would that mean to you: Once a set, instead of after every song? Once a gig instead of once a set?

That's a good point. Hadn't really thought of it that way. For now the PitchBlack+ is doing fine though... it's a strobe with true bypass as well. If it ever dies I might give the ST-200 a shot.

[HereIGoAgain]

Originally Posted by 5StringFool

Also since the human ear can't really hear differences beyond a 5 cent increments I always thought that most of the sensitivity stuff was overkill for a live environment. For the studio, that would be way cool.

Oh really? I have a Snark SN-2, and yesterday I was noodling a guitar and my Snark showed two identical notes in tune. Guess what? I could hear that the two notes were not the same pitch. When played at the same time, I could even hear a beat frequency.

A couple days ago, I was noodling with the same guitar, and again, two notes supposed to be the same were not the same pitch. I could hear one note as flat compared to the other one. My Seiko ST777 showed 1 cent between the two notes.

A 5-cent difference between two notes that are supposed to be the same would make the instrument sound like it has a built-in Guy Lombardo vibrato.

[5StringFool]

Originally Posted by HereIGoAgain

Oh really?

Yeah, really. Go back to the article I linked to and listen to the audio examples... especially the first example.

5 cents is also the "accepted average", so to speak... perhaps you have more sensitive ears.

[5StringFool]

Here's a pretty good adaptive pitch test. Fun stuff.

http://tonometric.com/adaptivepitch/

[SoVeryTired]

Originally Posted by Lucky Strike

Hey guys, thought this was a relevant article for this group. What do you think?

http://gungormusic.com/2012/12/christian-pizza/

Spot on. I really dislike 'Christian' being seen as a genre of music whilst I also agree that 'liturgical', or what we call P&W, is music with a specific purpose.

[jmclearnon]

... $130 or approx £81, that is quite steep for a tuner, since i would need 2 for my different pedal boards ....

[theLimeyBrit]

I need some help.

I've mentioned on here that my church had a break-in over Thanksgiving, and we were relieved of all our sound equipment. I've replaced my rig, but the rest of the sound system consists of a powered 8-channel mixer running the keys and one vocal mic. Backup vox, guitars and percussion are all unamplified. Due to some weird way the priest's lapel mic interacts with the system, the mains are fed with the monitor signal (and I think the main signal goes to a couple of wedges that we're using as monitors- it's complicated, and thankfully I'm not the one who has to run it). Needless to say, it's quite unsatisfactory for the long term.

The insurance payout should be filtering back to us sometime next week. The worship minister has been told in no uncertain terms that he does not have carte blanche to just take the money and replace the gear; the vestry (leadership committee) needs to approve all purchases. I agree that oversight is necessary and appropriate, but by its nature the vestry is extremely conservative and slow-moving. It only meets once a month, so there's a minimum of a thirty-day wait for any decision.

Here's what I need help with: I've been invited to attend next week's vestry meeting to give input on the requirements for the replacement system. However, I don't know how to convey the inadequacies of our current hacked-together setup to a group of people that don't know or understand the technicalities of a sound system. As far as they're concerned, if the worship leader's voice can be heard for the music and the priest can be heard for everything else, then everything's good. Additionally, the church is in a rough patch financially (but then, who isn't these days?) and I'm concerned that there will be some people in the vestry who see a five figure insurance payout as a great way to make up some of our shortfall, and who cares about the expensive toys the worship team *thinks* they need.

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for any insight you can give.

[jmclearnon]

You can get an 8 channel system for not that much these days. It sounds like you need it wired properly when you get a new system tbh.

We all like a good PA (which are expensive) but i have played on lots of systems which are not expensive and they do the job just fine.

If you are just running 1 vocal mic and a lapel mic, i wouldn't see no reason just to get a small a keyboard amp and 2 speaker set up for the vocals. Thats just my opinion btw

[theLimeyBrit]

I forgot to mention that our previous system included a 16-channel digital board, 3 area mics for the other vocalists and/or acoustic instruments and amps for guitar and electronic drums, so ideally our replacement system should be able to match that capability.

[mizedog]

Hey all. Just found this thread. It's good to see an active bunch of worship bassists here. Is the club open to new members? Been playing in church settings for years (first song was John Denver's Annie's Song in 1975/76 - ouch!). I'm playing bass and guitar in Black Forest, Colorado.

[steve_rolfeca]

Originally Posted by 5StringFool

Yeah, really. Go back to the article I linked to and listen to the audio examples... especially the first example.

5 cents is also the "accepted average", so to speak... perhaps you have more sensitive ears.

You know the old saw about fools and statistics?

How many accredited studies have you seen in support of Wallace's "five-cent rule"?

I was trying to avoid slagging that article, but this is threatening to turn into one of those classic TB/Internet misconceptions, so here goes...

1. The test is flawed, unless you only listen to wind instruments, and only solo performances. How often do you get to play one note at a time, with no other backup, during your church services?

Sure, most of us have difficulty hearing absolute pitch. That's why choirs often drift flat when unaccompanied, and if you're away from other pitches sources for a week, your bass or guitar can drift quite far from concert pitch...

However, our ears make a pretty good test instrument when it comes to relative pitch. It's a snap for most people to hear if something is off when two or three pitches are played simultaneously. They can be the same note, and we'll pick up the beat frequency, or they can be some interval apart, and we'll hear the sour note.

The audible difference in that situation is much less than 5 cents.

2. I don't hear any difference in that test, if I listen casually. But I can hear 3 distinct pitches if I listen closely. As I indicated before, my observation over a number of decades of hanging with professional musicians, is that I have a good, but not exceptional, sense of pitch. The Tonometric test backs this up, as I didn't quite make it into their Very Good category on my first attempt.

Anyway, I suggest that instead of arguing these points on the basis of some hokey article by someone who makes tuners, and therefore has a vested interest, why doesn't everyone go into a store and check it out for themselves?

Start by grabbing a mid-priced acoustic guitar. Play a D major in the first position, immediately followed by an E major. You should find that you can get either chord perfectly in tune, but not both. So much for the popular misconception that even-tempered tuning is good enough that no-one can hear the difference.

Assuming that your store stocks high resolution tuners (a Peterson is usually easier to find than theST-200), tune a unison interval, and see how small a frequency change it takes for you to hear a beat frequency. Now check it with the tuner, and, you'll be interested to find that the difference is considerably less than 5 cents.

[adambomb]

Welcome in mizedog..... Get comfy and add in whenever possible just remember to play nice with others in all sense of the word

[jmclearnon]

It's very obvious when you play 5ths out of tune...

[Samsound]

My advice would be to focus on the specific requirements, rather than the hardware you think will fulfill them. So, highlight things like, must be able to handle 16 microphones, 2 line sources (I.e. DVD, etc) 6 AUX ouputs for monitor feeds, compression processing for all 16 channels, master FX processing for reverb and/or delay, master graphic EQ for room tuning...

You get the idea. This is how requirements are actually stated in the real world. Also, this tends to have more meaning to your decision-makers than nomenclatures and specs of your favorite hardware. Additionally, they may be more inclined to accept this requirement, than simply stating you want "this $15K box that will solve all our problems". Once the requirement is agreed upon, they'll have much less room to reneg later when sticker shock hits them. Bottom line, you may not end up with the exact kit you think you want, but the requirement should be fulfilled, at least, which is really the most important thing.
Also be sure to factor in any maintenance, installation, or service requirements, as well as cabling and any other incidental requirements which will add cost.

[theLimeyBrit]

Originally Posted by Samsound

My advice would be to focus on the specific requirements, rather than the hardware you think will fulfill them.

Excellent advice Samsound, and I am thinking along those lines. I am concerned with how to defend those requirements in the face of potential opposition from someone who doesn't understand them and thinks we sound fine as we are.

[mkandolf]

Originally Posted by mizedog

Hey all. Just found this thread. It's good to see an active bunch of worship bassists here. Is the club open to new members? Been playing in church settings for years (first song was John Denver's Annie's Song in 1975/76 - ouch!). I'm playing bass and guitar in Black Forest, Colorado.

Welcome to the thread, mizedog! You number is 1173.

Last ten #'s added to the list:

1164 FellowBass
1165 Shep_Ramsey
1166 trbostic
1167 Beersurgeon
1168 tigerfire
1169 GAPendragon
1170 marcomatic
1171 slappa_dat_bass
1172 skamaniac
1173 mizedog

[FellowBass]

Hugely successful Christmas concert last night -- packed the church, Brandon Heath was tremendous (even complimented the band afterwards), lots of kudos after the concert as well. Will post pics/audio/video if I come across any. Merry Christmas, all!

[5StringFool]

Originally Posted by steve_rolfeca

Now check it with the tuner, and, you'll be interested to find that the difference is considerably less than 5 cents.

I can hear a 1 cent interval when unison notes are played, but I wasn't talking about unison notes. We're rarely ever playing chords on our basses, so the hyper accurate tuning isn't as necessary as it is on a guitar, where polyphonics are the norm; and I have found the +/-0.1 cent accuracy of my Korg to be quite sufficient so that I don't need to go out and replace it. As I said earlier though, if it ever dies I'll likely give the ST-200 a try.

At any rate I was just attempting to make a bit of a joke, and it has carried on much further than I ever imagined. When I first posted, I was just thinking to myself that if my tuner were that accurate I would spend far too much time trying to keep it in "perfect" tune, because I fiddle with things way too much.

[steve_rolfeca]

Originally Posted by 5StringFool

...I have found the +/-0.1 cent accuracy of my Korg to be quite sufficient so that I don't need to go out and replace it. As I said earlier though, if it ever dies I'll likely give the ST-200 a try.

At any rate I was just attempting to make a bit of a joke, and it has carried on much further than I ever imagined....

At .1, your Pitchblack is perfect for your needs.

I was more concerned about the idea that +/- 5 cents was getting out there as an accepted standard of accuracy.

Of course, all of this is irrelevant if you play in a church with an upright piano, at least up here in the snow belt. I'm usually pretty happy if I can find an octave where we can get within a semitones of each other!

[TodB]

Originally Posted by theLimeyBrit

I need some help.

I've mentioned on here that my church had a break-in over Thanksgiving, and we were relieved of all our sound equipment. I've replaced my rig, but the rest of the sound system consists of a powered 8-channel mixer running the keys and one vocal mic. Backup vox, guitars and percussion are all unamplified. Due to some weird way the priest's lapel mic interacts with the system, the mains are fed with the monitor signal (and I think the main signal goes to a couple of wedges that we're using as monitors- it's complicated, and thankfully I'm not the one who has to run it). Needless to say, it's quite unsatisfactory for the long term.

The insurance payout should be filtering back to us sometime next week. The worship minister has been told in no uncertain terms that he does not have carte blanche to just take the money and replace the gear; the vestry (leadership committee) needs to approve all purchases. I agree that oversight is necessary and appropriate, but by its nature the vestry is extremely conservative and slow-moving. It only meets once a month, so there's a minimum of a thirty-day wait for any decision.

Here's what I need help with: I've been invited to attend next week's vestry meeting to give input on the requirements for the replacement system. However, I don't know how to convey the inadequacies of our current hacked-together setup to a group of people that don't know or understand the technicalities of a sound system. As far as they're concerned, if the worship leader's voice can be heard for the music and the priest can be heard for everything else, then everything's good. Additionally, the church is in a rough patch financially (but then, who isn't these days?) and I'm concerned that there will be some people in the vestry who see a five figure insurance payout as a great way to make up some of our shortfall, and who cares about the expensive toys the worship team *thinks* they need.

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for any insight you can give.

I'm not sure this helps, but I'll tell the story anyway.

It is said that one of our local colleges was building a new theater (or "theatre") a few years back. Of course they ran into budget pressure from the trustees and they had to make some cutbacks. So, they still got the lighting they needed, and they still got the audio they needed, but instead of the nice upholstered theater seats they cut the budget by buying a bunch of metal folding chairs.

Wouldn't you know it, when the trustees came to the grand opening and sat down in the metal folding chairs they found a little more money to buy good theater seats after all.

The moral to the story is that there is a time to deal with budget pressures in a way that nobody notices, and there is a time to deal with budget pressures in a way that EVERYBODY notices. When to do one and when to do the other is above my pay grade.

For more practical suggestions.

On the temptation to take the insurance money and put it into something else, if money is tight that means that people aren't coming in the door. That's the real problem. For most churches the three things that make visitors come back, or not, are the sermon, the music, and the child care. Taking money out of the music portion of the experience is likely to make even more people turn around, and make the long term problem even worse. If sales are down you don't reduce costs by cutting the advertising budget.

I'd also think about showing the committee the system at another similar church. If somebody else has what you should have let them see it in action rather than just look at a brochure.

Short of a field trip, I would try to tie the decision on equipment back to more fundamental decisions the church has already made. If the church has decided that it wants to move in a contemporary music direction then there is equipment needed to make that decision work. Otherwise you end up with bad sounding contemporary music and visitors will decide they would rather go to a church with good sounding contemporary music. If somebody really wants the sound system they had back in 1960 because they want the worship style to go back to what it was in 1960 that's a whole different decision.

Good luck with it.