I love electronic gadgets! I have always had pocket pc phones, gps units, and I love my iPhone. My wife, however, always buys these kitchen gadgets. The irony in that is that I’m the one that cooks (and she cleans- it’s a good system).

Too often, the magic slicing and dicing gadget that costs as much as eating dinner out, is a disappointment to me. I’m no master chef. I’m not above being lazy sometimes. The honest truth is though, that most of the time, a good trusty knife does just as good and usually a much better job than the newest gadget. So what if the gadget is quicker if you are not happy with the results? Also, gadgets tend to be a pain to clean up!

So, you’re wondering what this has to do with your Sunday audio set up, aren’t you? Well, read on…

This past summer I did a few shows that were outdoors in a festival set up, and the production was provided by fairly large companies. It’s not uncommon to have way more gear than needed for these types of shows, and one thing I typically see is gates on all of the drums. As you may already know, I want to keep things as simple as possible, yet on the rider I use most often, I ask for at least 4 gates, but preferably 8. My logic is simple. I’m going to use as little as possible, yet if I need more, it’s nice to know they are there waiting for me.

A lot of church sound engineers do not have the luxury of mixing 5+ shows a week, and most church musicians do not have the time to do a full soundcheck before each rehearsal. What this means, is that the average church sound engineer does not get to a chance to experiment with gear, learn EQ, understand gates, or tweak good compression. So, I present UNFINISHED sounding (on purpose) sound check audio files for you to use in your sound system and get more alone time with your gear.