I have been extremely blessed to work with great technology, that is not out of reach to most churches. I’m going to take a few moments and tell you about my most useful technologies… while I’m vacationing, at my house.
Logic Studio 9
I love Logic. Anyone who knows me will testify to this.
Logic is extremely user friendly, 95% everything you’ll ever NEED (maybe not want… gotta have toys) and it’s professional grade at a consumer price.
I use Logic for all of my audio editing… whether it’s a podcast, voiceover, part track, click track or recording for an album… I use Logic everytime.
Yamaha M7cl
My front of house mixing console. I have used the LS9-32 in the past, but have absolutely fallen in love with the M7cl. Here’s what I love the MOST:
- USB key system. Every operator has a key to unlock with their individual permissions, which I’ve granted. No key, no access to ANYTHING.
- Scene memory. We just had a solo-artist concert, children’s program and daycare program. None of which bothered any of my sound settings. After each program, I simply pulled up my sunday morning scene and everything was back to normal.
- Three additional card slots. We use adat card slots (about $500/ea) which I run OUT to ADAT HD-24′s that allow me to record each individual channel… and I’m about to patch IN with presonus digimaxes to allow me more inputs fr my snake and wireless equipment, as to eliminate unplugging and plugging in.
- Studio Manager 2 for my Mac and M7CL StageMix for the iPad, which allow me to control the board over the WIFI network… WOW!
Now, on a personal note, this board has been great for me… because I hate the monitor systems like aviom and hearback. I don’t like having to submix and omit things for them to work. So we run all of the mixes straight from the board, using one of the 12 available outputs (after master sends)
ProPresenter
ProPresenter is not perfect, but it’s the best thing out there. It allows me to index all songs, messages, videos and then pull them into playlist for services… allowing the big picture preparation to work into Sunday. Not to mention the remote app for iPhone and iPad… again, I can control it over the wifi network. We run ProPresenter on a 24″ iMac.
Stylus RMX
If you’ve watched/read my “creating click tracks” material, you know I place high value on Stylus RMX. It allows me to create loops, beats and EFX for my tracks. It has been invaluable to me for the last several years.
Jands Vista
Jands Vista is the lighting software that I’ve been using for the last few years… incredibly easy to use with just a little dmx knowledge. Their customer support is incredible. The other great thing, it doesn’t take a super powerful machine to run… we use a mac mini. You can purchase a console with it, but we run straight from the software.
Apple Mac + iPhone + iPad
The heartbeat behind EVERYTHING we do. I use 5 macs in our department (my personal 15″ macbook pro in the office for admin, 27″ imac for studio, 27″ for video editing, mac mini for jands vista and 24″ for propresenter), I need a few more, but I’m happy that I have any.
iPhone -
I run a series of apps on my iPhone that make things so much easier:
- PlanningCenterOnline.com
- Evernote, syncs to my computer and iPad… keeps my notes organized
- ProPresenter remote
- iTunes remote
- Audio Tool, which I use for a db meter… after calibrating.
The iPhone has also pretty much replaced my need for an iPod.
iPad -
The question I get alot… “Is an iPad worth getting?” YES! It did take me a little while to figure out how it was going to be useful… other than being a toy. I’ve found that it’s great for staff meetings, email, calendar, reading and you can even do word-processing now.
I’ve downloaded two apps that have made the iPad super useful:
- M7cl StageMix. I mentioned this a moment ago… it allows me to control the front-of-house sound console… incredible convenience.
- Jump Desktop. I’m also using this on my iPhone, but it’s more suited for the iPad. With Jump Desktop, I can access all of the above listed macs, remotely. This has come in handy when I’m away from the church and even when I want to control something like jands vista, which doesn’t have a remote like ProPresenter of the M7cl… or if I want to do something that a remote won’t allow me to. Very handy app. Cost $20 and only takes a gmail account to run… super easy to set up.
A Few Others: