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…

I was listening to some classic music today. I don’t mean classical music, but some stuff from the 60’s. I was admiring the sound of the drums, and it got me thinking about most of the drums I see and hear at churches. Drums seem to be the enemy of a lot of church audio volunteers. They try to tame the drums by confining them to cages, putting tape all over the heads, and telling the drummer to use small sticks and play ‘jazz’ style. Let me offer a different approach to the drums.

Not long ago I wrote a post about EQ and what the numbers mean. It’s one thing to be told that humans can hear 20Hz to 20kHz and that we consider 1,000Hz (1k) the mid-way point, but it’s another thing to  know what a kick drum actually sounds like with a bump at 2k and some low mids cut out at 400Hz. In this post, I’m going to talk a little about some of the basic concepts I use when applying EQ. I’m also going to give you some tools to help you along the way… if you haven’t found them already. The first concept I’m going to mention though, has nothing to do with EQ!

No. No. No. I didn’t run sound for the iconic rock band who may or may not be knights in satan’s service. Oh no- I’m already off topic.

This blog post is going to be about one of my rules for running sound: KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. Me. I’m the stupid one. Not you. OK? Don’t get offended.

The other night I got to use the Yamaha M7 digital console, which has tons of available plug-in, EQs, compressors, gates, FX, blah, blah and really cool blah… Instead of a standard FOH package with 8 comps, I could, if I wanted, put a compressor on every channel!

I just got done posting 3 sections of audio files in a new “Download” section. Before making my own files, I researched the web for a product out there that provided these type of tracks. I found none. The 1 product I did find was $80 plus shipping from the UK, and it was produced in a recording studio! My files are NOT produced, and it’s on purpose.