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Auditions

I was asked to be on the panel for the auditions we were holding at our church for the worship team. This was an all-day event and we met with 15 people throughout the course of the day.

The format was straightforward: introductions, a few questions and performance of the assigned song.

I have auditioned candidates for worship teams in the past and it was usually done on a demand basis meaning that if someone had expressed an interest in joining the worship team we would set up a time for the audition. For this event we had provided an invitation to the church for people interested to register and to attend the audition on a specific date. A group event as opposed to a one-off meeting.

There were support materials provided to the candidates along with a link to the Playback app that we use for rehearsing our parts.

There were some outstanding auditions and, unfortunately, there were some train wrecks. Admittedly auditions can be intimidating for people. You are on a stage. Alone. Looking at a panel of three people. And you know that they are making a judgement on your musical talent. Easy to be nervous.

We did try to make it as easy as possible and to create an environment very similar to a typical Sunday morning.

Musicians and vocalists can fall into 5 broad categories related to their level of talent: beginner, intermediate, advanced, exemplar, virtuoso. More often than not I see most church musicians and vocalists falling into the first three categories with a limited number in the advanced category.

Hence the need for auditions as we need people that are in the intermediate to advanced levels.

It is tough to decline someone that wants to serve. We prefer to say not now but later and here are some areas to develop.

Bless God

I mixed Bless God yesterday and quite happy with how it turned out. This was our first Sunday with the new stage layout. The drums were no longer caged and I wasn’t sure how the mics would capture the kit. Turns out the drums sounded just fine. I do add samples to the kick, snare and toms when I do the post production mix to give the drums just a bit more of a sound. Church drums are generally not in the best condition and the drums are often not well tuned.

This was also the first Sunday this year that I used my old pedalboard.

Since last year I have been playing exclusively with my Fractal FM9.

The tones are great. The workflow to craft parts is very efficient. So quick and easy to dial in delays, verbs and other effects as needed. And it is an easy unit to take to a gig. I have a custom case from Studio Slips and I usually just need my Mono guitar case and the Fractal case and I am good to go.

For reasons unknown I decided that I wanted to use my old pedalboard. Now don’t get me wrong. I love that pedalboard. I have spent untold hours not only putting it together but learning how to get the most out of it.

I almost gave up using it for this Sunday. The workflow is archaic by comparison to the Fractal. A bit like using a terminal app to run Linux commands. What I wound up doing was crafting the tones I needed in the Fractal first and then using those crafted tones as a basis for configuring the old pedalboard. And that worked fine as a one-time effort. I would not want to be doing that every week.

This is the old pedalboard. Certainly a work of art. And I did thoroughly enjoy using it on Sunday. Did anyone notice a dramatic difference in tone? No. These days, modelers are really good. Hard to distinguish from a mic’d physical amp.