I went to the Keys with a small group of Ocean’s Edge students the day before Easter. I was responsible for setting up the sound system and running it. It was a pretty sweet deal. I mean, I did not even have to practice. I just showed up the day we were set to leave and loaded the cars up with our sound equipment and then we headed south!

The hard part was setting up a sound system in the sand at 5:30 in the morning. It was probably the best first experience I could have being a sound engineer. If I could make it work there, I could make it work anywhere. The funniest part was that I had a really great time running sound. I spent the whole time adjusting volume on each instrument or singer to help them cut through the mix when it was their time to shine and I was also adjusting the EQ to get the guitars and vocals to sound just right. I personally think the mix sounded great… but maybe I am biased.

After service we spent the day exploring the Keys and enjoying the beginning of our Spring Break. It was an amazing weekend to say the least.

As you may remember from last year, I have been a part of what we call “Electro-Worship”. If kids listen to the radio and like Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, and Deadmau5, why can’t worship sound like that too? So this has been a long process of development and creating. Doug has had this vision before I even came to the school, but it all started coming into fruition last year. The testing phase was last year and we learned a lot. During this second half of the year, we actually put a band together called Remix Band. We do exactly what the name says, which is remixing worship music. I guess we are still in the testing stage but we are moving along now.

It has been a massive undertaking. Every time we play, we get great feedback and we also get a lot of puzzled looks from people. I think that when electric guitar was first introduced in worship music, they probably experienced the same puzzled faces and feedback. Some people think that electronic music and worship can not be put together, but I disagree. I know that one day you will walk into a church where the worship team is playing nothing but electronic instruments.

Our band currently has: two vocalist – Cortney and Cassidy || loop master, music director, synth – Myles || lead synth, synth bass, vocals – Justin || electric guitar, lead synth – David. We run loops trough Ableton Live that have programmed drums as well as whatever else we may need such as pad, bass, or rhythmic synths. One of our biggest struggles has been not having click at the venues we have been playing at. We need to get an in-ear setup that we can bring to venues so that we can all hear the click.

In other news, we will be having a Remix Band section in The Show which is exciting. We are still brainstorming on exactly what that will entail.

Snare : Shure SM57
Kick : AKG D 112
Overhead : AKG 414 B-XL

We have been discussing the science of recording drums this past week in Audio Production class. Josh and I went into the studio to try a few things out that we had learned. We only got to record three takes due to the fact that the employees in the room next to us complained. So here is the little bit that we learned.

Now of course many people put tons of mics all over the set but the truth is that you can get a pretty good sound with a couple of strategically placed mics.

During all three takes we did not adjust the kick or snare mics at all. The OH mic was very high and facing straight down over the kick drum in the first take. We then lowered it a few feet in the second take. Finally, we faced the mic towards the snare and that was when we started getting some better results.

So I have been writing experimental electronic music both cooperatively and privately for a year or so now. In that time I have made many tracks, most of them only shared between close friends of mine. This is the first track that I am releasing publicly that I created by myself. I am going under the name Galaxy Dreamer. This style of music is very chill and relaxing. I wanted a name that went along with the vibe but was also fun. I will hopefully be releasing more and more tracks in the future. This is something I love doing but it is hard to find the time to get it done. Be sure to follow my account on SoundCloud and to share this song with your friends. Thanks so much for listening, I hope you enjoy it.

Part of this week’s homework in Audio Production class was to learn a new trick in recording and explain it. I watched this video above and decided that I would try my best to recreate what he did with Ableton rather than Pro Tools. The first difficulty was getting that huge bottom end which he did not explain how to achieve. I ended up doubling the snare and drastically EQ’ing one of them so that it was all bottom end. The next part was figuring out which way I would trigger the white noise every time the snare hit. I am sure there is another way but I ended up creating an operator track receiving midi from the snare track. I then added reverb to the operator track and programed the gate to close it off slightly. Here is an audio example of the dry snare, then with the bottom end added, and then with the white noise and reverb. At the very end I threw in a kick pattern just for fun.

This week in Audio Production class we focused on creating sampled drums in Ableton since none of us have the resources to record a real drum set. The other great thing about sampled drums is the fact that you can program them anywhere which is great for demos. Doug gave us all about 20 sample sounds including kick, snare, hi-hat, toms, and some cymbals. He had sampled each sound a good 20 times each at different velocities. All we had to do now was to make a brand new drum rack. We then input a sampler into a section of the drum rack where we then dragged in our sampled drum sound. You can see one of the audio files above. As you can see there are many takes of that one sound. So we had to crop the clip we wanted and then we had to mess around with a few setting within sampler which included:

Decay: 60 s
Release: 60 s
Voices: off
Vol<Vel: I stayed between 50-70%

We then needed to adjust an LFO so that we could change sample sounds with each hit to give it a more realistic sound. Since we had multiple takes of the same sound we could have 4 cropped hits and cycle between those instead of the same exact hit over and over again. To do that we needed to turn on LFO #2 and adjust these settings:

Wave type: random
Freq.: 20Hz
Retrig: off
Dest. A: Sample Selector
Amount A: 100

Now all we had to do for each hit that we cropped was to divided the sample selector evenly among the different hits. Here are a few clips from my experimenting with creating my own sampled drum rack.

This morning I got to play at the Garlic Festival at The Avenue Church‘s annual outdoor service. This was my second year playing at this event and it was even more fun than the first time! Jessica Busboom led and let me just say this.. she is always listening to the Spirit! I love playing behind her because she is such an amazing worship leader. She speaks truth, expresses joy, and takes the band along with her. I was so pumped to play this morning. The band was stacked with Doug Farrar, Jennie Mahood, Dan Lowenberg, Jessica Bukiema, Mary Bernard, and Nikki Faith. It is really inspiring playing in a band with really great musicians. I hope to be playing out with these people more! We played a night of worship a few nights before and then this. I can not get enough of it!

It was a bit windy, but it kept us nice and cool. The sun wasn’t too bright either. I usually hate playing outdoors, but this is a fantastic venue and the weather was great. It is so much fun to blast your guitar outdoors. They had us pretty cranked.

Here is a little clip of our last song. Our build was so epic that the camera froze for a second.

I’m Alive
- Written by David Gurr (Special thanks to Forrest, Nora, and Barnard)
- Produced and recorded by David Gurr

You formed me in your gentle hands (8)
You saved me from his wretched plans (8)
Awoke my soul and burned within (8)
Suffered and gave your life for me (8)

Come and fill these weary bones (7)
Come and change my life (5)

I’m alive, I’m alive (6)
You picked me up and turned me around (9)
I’m alive, I’m alive (6)
You put my feet on solid ground (8)

You conquered death and set me free (8)
Opened my eyes so I could see (8)
You took me in and healed my wounds (8)
I choose to live my life for you (8)

I’m alive, I’m alive (6)
You picked me up and turned me around (9)
I’m alive, I’m alive (6)
You put my feet on solid ground (8)

I’m alive, I’m alive (6)
In your loving arms i will abound (9)
I’m alive, I’m alive (6)
I once was lost but now I am found (8)