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A Church Setting

#21
i_got_a_mohawk said:
I understand about a pianist or an organist, both churches on each side of my house ( i live about half an hour away from dundee ) , have huge organs that are a fair few hundred years old, but and organist or a pianist isnt a band, that is all im saying, yes, you could probably find a few over here, it just seems more common in america, around where i live most churches are still traditionalist, sunday best, old people looking down their noses at you and such ( one of the reasons i personally cant stand religious preachings and evangalism )

( not meaning to start any arguments here ) :hiding:
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its all good...

even back then, those instruments were "in vogue" at the time. using modern day instruments only brings worship and church into the 21st century.

IMHO, its the so called traditionalist / ultra-conservative people that are usually hung up on their own older "cultural" biases that get in the way of making christianity relevant in the modern day. its a shame that those people get their particular cultural biases all mixed up in the more spiritual aspects of the church community, making it sound like gospel. :(

sorry, didnt mean to make things too religious... :hiding:
 
#22
jokerjkny said:
its all good...

even back then, those instruments were "in vogue" at the time. using modern day instruments only brings worship and church into the 21st century.

IMHO, its the so called traditionalist / ultra-conservative people that are usually hung up on their own older "cultural" biases that get in the way of making christianity relevant in the modern day. its a shame that those people get their particular cultural biases all mixed up in the more spiritual aspects of the church community, making it sound like gospel. :(

sorry, didnt mean to make things too religious... :hiding:
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Haha, i know exactly what your meaning tho, because of the way they look down and disapprove of everything ( what do they think when they are going into church and im wandering down the street on sunday with my hair spiked up ! ( its bright red, and 7 - 7.5 inchs long ), the looks they give say it all )

But a few years down the lines i can see the churchs being dead, because its only the older generation ( 60+ ) that seem to go

But i can understand what you are saying about keeping something trapped in the past, thats never good (especially not with basses n such, ampeg '72 amps are overrated, mwahahaha :hiding: )

Anyways, sorry to have derailed this thread!
 
#23
My church has 2 bands. The 'orchestra' and the contemporary band. I play in the contemporary band and they don't allow a BASS amp (they allow keyboard and guitar amp) because of past bad experiences from the bass player being too loud. We use in ear wireless monitors and I HATE the way they sound. Just terrible. Bass goes direct to the board. I have now purchased a preamp and compressor which I'm going to rackmount to try and get a better sound out of that.
 
#24
We play fairly loud (1 acoustic and 2 vocals through the PA, 5 piece kit, sax, and me - bass). I play a Hartke 3500 through a Dr. Bass 2x10 cab with airhead - plently for the room (300 seat or so). Going separate bass combo/amp and running the rest of the people through the PA seems to be the concession, and I would agree. Running bass through the PA makes it much harder to get a PA that will fill your needs.

Aaron

Mohawk - sorry about your church experiences, truly. I know for a fact I am no better than you - I have just realized the true love and acceptance that can only come from Jesus (and no, he isn't dead). I hope that you stumble accross a good house of worship where you will be accepted and loved, everyone needs that, and you deserve it as much as anyone.
 
#25
A big thumbs-up for in-ear monitors in church. They really allowed us to clean up our sound (so much backwash from the monitors that the mains had to be close to painful to clear it up!). You can get away with louder if its clean. The goal is to facilitate worship for all concerned. After all, you are the server, not the served, in a church group.

If you're just starting out, find someone (not in the group) with a good ear, and trust them to tell you when the group is out of balance. What sounds good on stage may be WAY out of line by the time the sound hits the congregation!

Larry
 
#26
merrill1 said:
Aaron

Mohawk - sorry about your church experiences, truly. I know for a fact I am no better than you - I have just realized the true love and acceptance that can only come from Jesus (and no, he isn't dead). I hope that you stumble accross a good house of worship where you will be accepted and loved, everyone needs that, and you deserve it as much as anyone.
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+1 Nice going Merrill!

We have some churches over here in the States that you would fit right in at.

It's not about what you look like. It's about having Christ in you and having a personal relationship with him.

If someone thinks they are above you because they are a Christian they are totaly missing the point and going against what Jesus tought us. THEY ARE SINNERS TOO. Evan more so since they are using God to look down on you.
 
#28
i_got_a_mohawk said:
Haha, i know exactly what your meaning tho, because of the way they look down and disapprove of everything ( what do they think when they are going into church and im wandering down the street on sunday with my hair spiked up ! ( its bright red, and 7 - 7.5 inchs long ), the looks they give say it all )

But a few years down the lines i can see the churchs being dead, because its only the older generation ( 60+ ) that seem to go

Anyways, sorry to have derailed this thread!
Click to expand...

No need to apologize. You're asking questions and that's great.

IMO, many churches are dead or dying because they are not expanding the size of their congregations at the same rate (or faster) than member are dying off. I know that sounds bad, but I think it a fairly accurate statement.

You know the old saying of, "Different strokes for different folks?" The same goes for churches. My grandfather's church does only vocals. There are some churches in my area that follow the same. Some go the ol' piano/organ route, while others have a band of some kind. My church has even done rap, rock, blues, big band, and secular tunes. IMO, it's all good. The membership of my church tends to be younger families. I volunteer at another church that just started up an 'alternative' service that you might find quite acceptable, Mohawk. In fact, if you ever get to the Seattle area, consider this an invitation to attend a service. The church has its own coffee shop and you'll find a few comfy couches in the sanctuary.
 
#29
"Ok, fair enough there probably is, but trust me, i supose its just the small town beliefs, but around here there is no contemporary, and i hate how the people that go to church think they are better than me (seriously, over here its like something out of the 1800's!) , there is no contemporary music or such"

I understand what you mean. Never been to Scotland, but been to Wales and England and pretty much experienced what you are refering to here. It is alot different here in the US, even in the smaller towns.

If you are interested, look around and see if you can find a church that would be willing to let you play. Even if you don't care much for the music it can be a learning experience for you. I had a hard time adjusting to it at first. I had to learn how to read music and chord diagrams, but the hardest part was coming up with bass lines for those hymns!! You wouldn't think it would be that hard, but take an old bar song (written only for piano, with piana covering all apsects of the song) and try to add bass and drums to it and make it sound comtemporary. Not an easy task, but it can be very gratifying in the end, from a musical perspective.

Dave
 
#30
This weekend I'm playing at a new church (about 200 people in each service), and they run the bass directly through the board. It's the equivalent of a small theatre. Thing is they do a great job of keeping the bass level up (it's a definitely a contemporary church), where at my old church I dragged in a small combo (100-watt) that did an okay job of filling the space of a large room. The board guys at that church wanted things barely audible, and when the one time I didn't bring in the amp, I could barely hear myself in the monitors, although I kept signing for them to turn it up (and yes I played decently).

Lessons:
- If you go direct to a board, make sure you trust the board crew to adjust your volume so you can be heard in the mix, and your monitor volume is sufficient. If your board crew is new, I recommend to bring a combo as a back-up and really take the time to work out sound issues at practice. Going direct beats dragging your equipment around (unless there's a house amp).
- If you use an amp, don't overdo it. Bring a long chord so you can walk out a bit during soundcheck and get a taste of your sound/volume mix from the pews or chairs.

About the earlier question of why bands play in churches anyway, Psalm 92 lays out the groundwork for guitars in worship. Funny there's no mention of pipe organs! Just stringed instruments. There's some TB guy around here who recently posted a pic with a 10-string bass who might be interested, too:

(King James)
1IT IS A GOOD THING TO GIVE THANKS UNTO THE LORD, AND TO SING PRAISES UNTO THY NAME, O MOST HIGH:

2To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night,

3Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.

4For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands....
 
#31
The only thing a small combo is good for IMHO is as a stage monitor. Go through the board into a sub if that's the case. We had a Fender 200W combo with an 18' speaker in it...mud,mud,mud. PU.....I couldn't handle it, we borrowed a GK 700rb thru a GK 410 and that was a whole lot better. Now we use my Eden Metro on top of my Eden D210XLT(500W)....now we're talking. I still run through the house, bassically just the sub(mostly) but I fill the front of the house out fine with my rig. Headroom is a beautiful thing.....
 
#32
I guess its good to see that at least some cultures are more apt to moving on, and i dont want to be loved by jesus, its just like me saying to one of you guys that you should be loved by Alla, sure i was christened, but i have "evolved" my own morals and beliefs, and they do lie in a religion.

And one thing i can second at least, straight to PA sucks, thats why i always have my sansamp bass driver :p
 
#34
I kind of decided to go with LoJoe's advise. I like how I can control the bass sound and have XLR out at the same time. I think I'm going to get Hartke Kickback 15 unless somone knows better one.

Church is willing to spend up to $500, do you know anything better than kickback 15? :rollno:
 
#35
Look on the TB classifieds...you could probably get a used Peavey BAM for $500, maybe a Fender Bassman 250/210(new they're $629..maybe you could kick in some cash) Look at Carvin stuff maybe as well...Peavey...Ampeg....anything but Hartke in my book. :spit: Get as many watts as you can afford and go for a 210 rather than a 115. You might even find a nice head and cabinet seperately, such as an Eden WT300...pair that up with something and you got a nice warm rig with punch. Skip the smaller stuff, you'll outgrow it. (IMHO)
 
#36
I was looking at the Kickback 15 as an onstage monitor for myself at our church, in the hope we could get a more balanced sound out front. We have about six front of house engineers who alternate every week, and of those guys, only two really have ears for a good mix. Anyway, the Hartke Kickback 15 I borrowed worked great (nice punch in the low B, easy controls for tone, etc) but still the bass sound out front was lacking. So I have now gone for a Hartke 115 paper cone cab to sit under my Sovtek 4x10 and Ashdown ABM 500 watt head, which runs direct to FOH through its D.I. With the addition of the 15, the bottom end now comes off stage, and the results have been amazing! Our church is about 700 people, at which we get about 300 to each service on a Sunday. Its been two weeks since I have had my new rig set up and I have had heaps of great comments about how good the bass sounds and how people at the back of the auditorium can hear it! My next experiment is to flip the speaker cabs (with the 115 on top and the 410 on the bottom) to see how that sounds.

Church has been my main "gig"for nine years now - its one of the most satisfying things I have ever done. The sense of team in our band (which is usually two keyboard, two electric guitars, an acoutstic guitar, Roland V-Drums, myself and about five vocals) across three congrgations is amazing - I doubt I will ever tire of playing bass for Him.
 
#37
This (playing bass for a worship band) has been my main gig for over 20 years...I currently play for a congregation of about 300 - the band includes three guitars, drums, mandolin, violin, keyboards, etc.

This is my advice:

At some point you're going to need to go through the P.A. in order to let the sound guy (hopefully you have one with a musical ear) balance the sound. A previous poster mentioned that what is right on the stage is not always right for the congregation. This is very wise advice. As long as your monitors are capable of your overall load, you can tweak your "stage" sound during practice and Sunday warm-ups.

Now, as to the bass sound itself, I strongly recommend running your instrument through a small combo (and any effects) prior to "lining out" or direct-boxing your sound to the P.A. (like many have advised here). To put perspective on the size of amp - I run a 60 watt combo (1x12 speaker), and I am constantly needing to turn it DOWN. That's for a congregation of 300. I use the combo as my personal bass sound monitor as well, and let the P.A. pick up the volume balance needed for the mix.

All this is my opinion - each venue will require different sonic options; however, you need to hear yourself well to play well in addition to allowing someone off the stage the ability to mix your overall volume into the blend.

for Him,
Jay
 
#38
hey guys. just a reminder, not to be a jerk, but keep the religious discussion to minimum. If ya want to discuss theology cough up $20 and take it to the lobby. :)

not that it's over the top in here but these things can get ugly or offensive fast. :rolleyes:

anyhow, i've played in a worship band in the past for a 400 seat room. I agree with the small amp reccomendations. You're going to be able to hear yourself much better unless the church is willing to spend a LOT for good monitors or an in ear system. I used an swr electric blue and a bag end 1x15 with no problems and set up next to the drummer in a backline setup. I would occasionally have someone give me feedback on my volume, but got a feel for where it should be after a couple of weeks.
 
#40
i_got_a_mohawk said:
Isnt there an ampeg kickback of sorts ?

either that or get the Hartke Kickback 15, and a sansamp :D
Click to expand...

Yup, BA112 & BA115 are kickback combos.

Another idea would be to buy a Peavey Max160 head and an Avatar 2x10 or 1x12 cabinet. That would also be in the $500 range and would give the potential for more upgrade options if you wanted to play out. With the MAX 160 you get a decent pre or post EQ DI out, so there's no need to purchase a Sans Amp to get to the board. Steve's Music in Toronto (a huge music store) sells a lot of the Peavey Max 160's to churches. It is a veritable swiss army knife amp. It's light, has a lot of facilities, is electronically very quiet and with a 4 ohm cab you get a decent 160 watts which is more than enough for big-booty stage volume with your typical worship team. Also, it will actually fill out a rather large auditoriium even without PA support.

I think it's great that Wesleypak's smallish church congregation is willing to put up some money for the bass amp. With a recent $1.4M expansion of my church's facilities, the AV budget has been left to the last and we have not yet implemented the PA upgrades that were planned.

So far, our church has not contributed anything expcept the PA and piano to the worship team. The acoustic drums were initially rented and then were contributed by one of the members. All of the guitarists have had to contribute their own amps.

Our sax player is also a backup bassist and before I started playing he was bringing a Squire 15B practice amp to play thru with no PA support. It was totally lost, not worth the effort.

I have an Ampeg SVT3 Pro pushing a Peavey 115 BX BW cab that I purchased myself and just leave at the church all the time for myself and the other bass player to play thru (he's a college student, so I certainly don't expect him to contribute any $$) . Otherwise, I'd be playing through our crappy PA that was designed primarily for voice and mics for the piano and choir. We've moved far past the current PA's capabilities with the expansion of the worship team to include electric and acoustic guitars, sax, trumpets, keyboard, bass, drums, piano, and even violin sometimes.
 

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