Monday, February 23, 2009

Recording For Nerds

Here are a few pictures from various recording sessions over the last few weeks that I thought you guys might like. They are a little to nerdy to fly on my photography website, but I know they can be appreciated here!


















































































Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Don't Song

I just thought that I should pass along a great video that Pastor Kent used in his message this past sunday. Its by a group by the name of "Hairsupply". The video speaks for itself.





















Preview for THE DON'T SONG







Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Another Lighting Fail

This is not in anyway connected to the strand fail listed below other than the fact that this bulb was in a strand fixture when it blew. I thought that the way in which this particular bulb blew was a little bit odd. Draw your own conclusions please.







Sunday, February 15, 2009

First Worship Album

I am doing my best to get back into the habit of regular blog posts, but it has been an up hill battle these last few weeks.

Recently our executive worship director Kay Williams authorized Wes and Paul to begin recording CFC's first official full length worship album. I don't have a whole lot to do with the project although it has been an awesome process to observe. Wes and Paul make a great team and have been surprisingly efficient given the challenges of adding a recording project to their already forty hour plus work week and the availability of volunteer musicians. I have been taking part in the recording sessions for a technical opinion here and there, but mostly to shoot pictures and video for the sake of records and the possible "Making Of" special features DVD, but that's another story.... If you would like to keep up on the latest on this particular project, the most frequent updates will be on my photography website. It is of course also possible that during their "spare time" Wes and Paul will blog about the process themselves, but that is doubtful. I hope to continue my support of the project by keeping everyone up to date on the latest progress and events. And if I am lucky there will be a draft copy of a few tracks to post in just a few weeks!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

700 MHz Q&A Session

For those of you that are not followers of Jason Cole's blog, I am passing along a wonderful opportunity. Jason, Dave Stagl, And Mike Sessler are hosting a tokbox session Thursday night to discuss the upcoming challenges that face the audio industry. Details Here. Dont miss it!

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Strand Fail

A while ago, I filed a work order with our maintenance department to have a few of our house light bulbs replaced. A large section of lights in the balcony section had appeared to have burned out leaving a whole seating section in the dark. You can imagine my surprise when the maintenance employee walks into my office to inform me that all of the bulbs in those particular fixtures are fine. So Wes and I took a walk back to the dimmer room only to find that the entire dimmer module powering that section had destroyed itself. You can tell by the damage to that pack below, that and unbelievable amount of current had arced from the hot connection on the pack. (rated for 40 amps continuous)



After further inspection of all three dimmer racks, we have found that not just some, but ALL the packs in our installation (144 Dual 2.4kW dimmers) have the exact same manufacturing/installation defect that lead to this problem. The problem is this: every packs' hot and neutral connections are loose, causing a poor connection to the fixed connection in the rear of the dimmer rack. This should have been corrected upon installation, however our installation contractor, PARLIGHTS, whose name is now and forever will be synonymous with FAIL, didn't care when they simply unboxed each module and slammed them carelessly into the rack.

However, not to let parlights take the fall for all of this, STRAND, (whose name will also be synonymous with FAIL) is just as much at fault. Strand has several epic design flaws at work here. I won't go into too much detail here or I will most likely be here until next week and drive my blood pressure to unsafe levels. But in short, it would appear that everything with strand's name on it was designed by someone with only half a brain cell to devote to designing these units. The rack processors cannot even process a basic DMX or Outlook/SWC signal at times.

In summary, if you have strand gear, get rid of it ASAP. If you do not own any strand gear but own ETC instead, pat yourselves on the back and rejoice. And never, ever, under any circumstances, buy anything from parlights or strand as it will rapidly become the bane of your existence as it has become mine.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

This is new....

So, what would would you do if (hypothetically speaking) you came into the office one day, and walked into your worship center only to find your entire lighting system online at full power? Then, imagine my surprise when I walk up to the control booth only to find that everything is offline exactly the way it was left last night. Leading you to the discovery that the processors in strand dimmer racks just decided to turn lights on by themselves.

Would you:

a) Yell, "I HATE STRAND"?
b) Yell, "STRAND SUCKS"?
c) Yell, "Yay Surprises"?
d) Yell some of the above while adding some choice words? (Therefore financing new lighting racks with your donation the the cuss pig)
e) Somehow yell all of the above at the same time?
f) Skip All of the above and simply drop your Visa/Mastercard in the cuss pig just for thinking the thoughts that just crossed your mind.

For security reasons and job security I cannot disclose which option I used....

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Web Development

Well, the new website is finally online and working like a dream! Registration is now open, so feel free to register and start commenting! The side pages are slowly being built one at a time, but the blog section is finished. The picture gallery is still a work in progress, so for the time being most of my pictures will be embedded with the posts. I hope to have the gallery looking and working the way I want by the end of the week. You may subscribe to the blog either by RSS or Email. You will most likely see a drop in post frequency here (as if that was possible) as most of my attention will be transferred to the new site.

Here is the link to the blog.
Here is the link to the gallery.