 Hey everyone, good morning. Once again, thanks for joining in. Welcome. I hope you're nice. Thanks for joining. Alright guys, let's pray and we'll get started. Father, we submit this time into your hands. We'll come and have your way. Jesus, even as we learn about ministry and worship ministry, God, I pray that you will continue to pour out your wisdom, your knowledge, your understanding, your insight. Over us, Father. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Awesome. Okay, I hope you all are doing well. Today is an exciting class, a more practical, more practical, not hands-on class with Sib. So we look at chapter six in your notes, in your content. All about today is going to be about music and technology, worship and sound and technology used in worship ministry, the importance of it. So you can follow along in your notes, but I'll also share my screen. Oops, sorry. So I'm sure you can all see the image. What I'd like to do is just before we go ahead and start talking about all the gadgets and whatnot, so can any of you share the importance of worship technology in ministry and worship ministry in general? Would you say it's important? Yes, no, maybe. That question is for all of us. How important do you think sound and technology is important in ministry and then in our context when it comes to worship ministry? Yes, okay. All right, so here's the next question. Why is it important? Yeah, Louis, go ahead. It depends because I have a friend who knows how to worship. But for excellence's sake, I think it's also important. But for worship's sake, we have to come to a place where we know how to worship, whether it's good or bad. I'm not saying you should not go for excellence. I'm saying that he taught me something very different, whether the sound was good or the sound was bad, he just knew how to connect and worship. So he didn't disturb his flow of worship. Invariably, he comes from a place, or he comes from an altar that has worship. So when we come into a couple of settings, whether it's good or bad, he just connects. He knows how to connect. It depends on everybody from a pastoral point of view, that's only a pastoral fact. With good sound, they flow better. It helps with their grace and their knowledge. Some other people might just don't need the sound. And also under the husband, when he's ministering, he likes sound, he likes the noise. And if it's the wife ministering, she doesn't like this thing. So it depends on different people, have different graces that helps them. Like the prophet said, I need a mistral. So it means for the prophetical at that time, he needed a mistral. The Bible says David was skillful. He was handsome and rude, but he was skillful on behalf. So for different things. But I just learned invariably that most times, in the place you're going for excellence, you should know how to get the core of worship, even from a place of our heart. Right. Thank you, sir. Right. Yeah, thanks, Louis. Yeah, thanks for explaining that so much and so well in detail. Yeah. Okay, Susan shares, lyrics should be clear what they're singing. If it's a large congregation, whole church should be involved in worship. Yep. Yeah, that helps. What is this? Yeah, please talk to me. Why do you think the sound and technology is important for a ministry, for a church ministry and in our context, worship ministry? Feel free to unmute and speak. Christopher, would you like to add anything as in just respond to that? What are your thoughts on sound and technology? Sir, a small thought. Yes, go ahead, Rupa. Sound and technology is also made by God and we are using it to enhance and worship Him with it. And it makes it so beautiful, this sound when it is in harmony and in symphony. It really brings alive our spirits in His presence. It's very useful, this one, for all the whole congregation. All right, yeah, thanks. Yeah, so anybody else? Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead, Christopher. Yeah, sorry. No, I just wanted to add that, I think any industry that has to keep up with the times and digital technology has also evolved so much over the years. So I think it's important to have worship ministry also keep in line with other music industries that are using the latest technology. So I mean, for example, if worship ministry has not kept up to the current times and the technology that is used, then people who hear it may feel that it's not sounding as good as it should. So why not use the best and the latest technology for worship ministry also. That's why I think it's most important. Yeah, thank you. Just keeping up with times, keeping ourselves updated. But also, I mean, I think, if anything, in the last two and a half years, the church has understood the importance of technology in general, overall because of the pandemic, isn't it? This whole online e-learning courses and online classes for Bible college was initiated because we were pushed to a corner and we had to improvise and thank God for technology. It's made it possible for us to connect with so many beautiful people from all the different parts of the world, isn't it? So there's technology involved, so many things that goes into it, and then there's sound is also involved, isn't it? The clarity. So for us to understand each other, it's one thing to connect and it's another thing to just being able to be very clear and what you want to convey, isn't it? So that in general, I think, I would say it's very important. And so another important, it's very important for churches to understand the importance of it, especially most of our churches in India, I mean, we don't seem to have a budget set aside for sound and technology. Investing in sound and technology has seemed like investing in a liability and not as an asset. Is it worth the investment? Should we have a budget to invest in a good sound equipment and whatnot, right? So there's that kind of a mentality, at least from the churches that I've come and grown up or seen as well. So we'll have to wait for a while before we could get a gadget because it seemed that it was not worth it. So that's the whole point of this chapter, at least, is the importance of the sound equipments, the technology and why we need to keep ourselves updated, right? So here are some of the things that, see, if you absolutely have no idea about sound and technology, you're not technically savvy when it comes to all of these equipments and some of the gears that we will be talking, it's absolutely fine. Okay, so don't get too overwhelmed by some of the technical words that might be used in this session. But these are some of the basic things that you will have to keep in mind if you're leading a worship ministry or if you're leading a ministry and you have a worship pastor under your supervision, right? So just so you understand the language that is being used, right? So some of the terminologies that will be used so you need to be aware of certain things. That's very important. So there are many things to consider, but first thing that we talk about or that comes to mind at least when we talk about sound is the microphone. Microphones, right? So what it does is when you speak, the volume is amplified, isn't it? So this is one of the examples of the microphone that you are seeing in the picture. It's from a brand called Shure, S-H-U-R-E, and the model number is SM58. So before I continue, go ahead, I want to also do something a little different in this class or this for this chapter is I also have my colleague, Rohit, who we worked together at APC. He's a sound head, so to speak. So he's in charge of all the sound and technology that goes behind it. And if you are able to hear the live streaming of our online services clearly, it's because of this dude. So I thought I would have him over for the session as well. He can add some of his insights, his thoughts, and if you have any questions, you can also post it in the chat section. So we'll have like a Q&A kind of a session and something kind of an impromptu kind of a class today. Yeah, I hope that's all right. So we have microphones. So very quickly, Rohit, what are some of the different kinds of microphones that one should be aware of? Basic idea. So what you see as SM58, that comes under what kind of category. I know there are different categories of mics. So for the most part, I think the most common is a dynamic mic and a condenser mic. So dynamic microphones are mostly used for vocals and condenser mic is used for instruments. Instruments or if you're going to record vocals, it'll have to be in a very controlled environment like a studio setting. So you get very clear vocals. So the main difference, a condenser mic is more sensitive. But those are the two broad categories that you will see anywhere you go. So one is the dynamic mic and the other is the condenser mic. Yeah. Okay, so condenser mic, I mean, you see it cap, it's more easy for it to capture all the other sound that's happening in the environment. Is that what it does? It's more sensitive. It picks up a lot more. There's a lot less rejection. A dynamic mic only picks up something that's close range. Like a condenser would be, you would use it for like a choir. Use it like you would have seen mics used for symbols. So it picks up everything in that range. But a dynamic mic, anything further than like a foot and you'll probably lose it. So the mic in the image is that's a dynamic mic. It's very directional. So you have to point it at the right direction so it picks up the sound. Is that it? Okay. The condenser is the one that, okay. All right, cool. Right. So that's what a microphone is. We've all seen one. We've all used one. Okay. And the other thing, after the microphone to add to the sound arsenal, so to speak, is this mixer board or mixer, you know, also known as, they come in all different shapes and sizes. You would have seen these huge ones in big studios and concerts and whatnot. Right. Christopher, I see that you raised your hand. Oh, yes. No, I just want to, just from the mic, I just want to, I just confirm that, you know, the mic that is used by, for example, the pastor, you know, when he's doing the sermon, the one that's on his, you know, connected to his face, that would be a dynamic one. Is that correct? That's actually a condenser. That's a condenser with a unidirectional pickup pattern. So it doesn't pick up too much. Okay. What's the reason why, why, I mean, we just know you mentioned that a dynamic one is very focused on the voice, because it's very close to his mouth. Wouldn't it be, wouldn't it need to be a dynamic one? I'm just curious. Okay. So condensers give you better clarity. So as you go further advanced in the chain, there are people who have made directional condensers as well, because why not benefit from the extra clarity, right? So that's one variant of a condenser. Okay. But as a baseline, that's why I said dynamics as a baseline are very unidirectional and close range more importantly. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks, Christopher. Yeah. So the mixer board is where, you know, all, I mean, you see a lot of instruments on the stage. For example, you see at least three microphones, three vocalists and drums, then the bass guitarist, electric guitarist, acoustic guitarist keyboards. And so there are at least say, let's say 10 of them on the stage, right? And you see all wires going through their instruments and all these cables running on the stage. And they all need to go somewhere and get connected, isn't it? So it's not just cables on the stage going behind the stage endlessly. And so all of those cables are routed to this device, a thing called a mixer. And this is where all your, your mics are connected, the instruments are connected and whatnot, right? So, and they come in different shapes and sizes, as mentioned, you know, it could, and they have different channels, channel numbers. So for example, the one that you see here, it's I think 16 channel mixer. That means you can go up to, you can connect up to 16, say, it could either be a mixer of microphones and instruments. Is that right, Rohit? Yeah. So either instruments or microphones, depending on what the source is going to be. Yeah. Right. Okay. And yeah, you're also seeing the image, another smaller mixer there. So again, it depends on the size of your congregation also, right? And, and the budget that, that the church is willing to invest in a mixer board. So this is very crucial, very essential. What, so what this does is not just, all the instruments are connected, are getting connected to this device. But if you see all these knobs over here, okay, Rohit, do you want to explain to, you know, this, what these knobs do, from the small one, so like a basic mixer that has. Yeah. Okay. So primarily you will have your inputs. So either, either a microphone or an instrument goes in there. Then you, the next level would be you setting your signal strength. So setting up, setting up enough, enough so it's heard, because that'll be like first stage of amplifying the signal that you get from the microphone. So you have enough for the mixer to manipulate. Okay. Then, you have the equalizer, which is used for tone shaping whatever source you have. So a good reference of how, how you wanted, how do you want to tweak those knobs is, how would it naturally sound? Like we know what our own voice sounds like, or what an acoustic guitar would sound like. So if through your speakers, it does not sound like that. Then you use the equalizer, you'll have maybe two or three knobs in a small, small format mixer. You'll have multiple, I mean, more complex ways to manipulate as you scale up. But on a very basic level, your low frequencies, mid frequencies and high frequencies. So you tweak them based on how, how you know it should sound. Basically that's, that's the very base reference of how you manipulate that. Then, and then the volume down. So that's, that's very bare bones of power mixer. Every mixer that has these things. Yeah. Yeah, thanks Rohit. So, okay, just for clarity sake, I mean, I'm not sure some of you have, I said, I'm not sure if you got a little freaked out with the words, terms like a frequency and all of that. It's nothing guys. So how many of you have, what is it, a music player at home? I'm sure most of you have like a music system at home. I mean, basically the days when I used to go up, it looked, you have these, the highs, the mids and the lows. I mean, the treble, the mid and the bass in other words, right? The treble. So, and that's what basically what the mixer also does is, and you can control the treble like how, you know, treble should be wanted to sound and how bassy you want the sound, the song to sound and that's what the mixer does. And in the image that you see all these things here, those are called as faders, that you can increase the volume or decrease the volume by pushing it up and down. Right. And then you, in this small mixer that you see over here, these three blue color ones, knobs, the top one is that is, which increases or decreases the treble, the high frequencies that sounds very, like screechy kind of thing. It controls that frequencies and then you have the mids and the lows, the bass. You can increase or decrease the bass. It depends on how much you want because these are all just FYI. Okay. And then this is basically what this mixing console does. Okay. That's what a mixer is. Say I saw that you raised your hand. Did you have a question? Yeah, you've clarified it. I just wanted to ask as basically in summary, you're saying this controls the outputs of whatever sound you want to hear. Okay. Thank you. Correct. Yes. And it does a lot more as well. Like it has effects, like in this, in this bigger mixer, mixing console that you see, you see there are additional knobs over here. It has all these effects such as reverb and delay. Like for example, if you want delay, delay is one of the effects that says, how do I demonstrate? When you say hello, and then hello is repeated, like hello, hello, hello. That's a delay effect. You hear in all these, at least in India, Bangalore orchestras that plays in the, you know, on the roads. And it's their favorite effects. But anyway, so that's what a mixing console is. Abraham, I see, are we going to need another device attached to the mixer? Or we can, or we can just connect directly from the mixer and get the best sound. I'll let Rohit respond to that. Rohit. The airborne's a basic setup. Microphone to mixer, mixer to speaker. That's about it. But I think as you scale up, let's say you want to use multiple speakers, you'd have, let's say a splitter of sorts. So there'll be one more device between your mixer and speaker so that it splits to multiple speakers. Let's say you have a speaker outside your hall, one on this side, one on the balcony. So that's one more thing that could come between, before it reaches the speaker. So mixer to a splitter or a speaker processor and then the speaker. Yeah. Okay, alright. Thanks Rohit. Everyone, what do you mean, please to those online? Yes. Yes, I did confirm that is it okay to connect from the mixer directly to a laptop to those online or you need a device so that you could at least get a correct sign for those online? You can, you can connect directly also but the recommended route would be to get an audio interface. Yeah, like a two channel audio interface. I think just later in the presentation there's something about that as well. It's for recordings and stuff. So you take an output from this, go into that. It's basically it'll look something like your set up box for your TVs or like a router, internet router goes into that, a USB cable comes out and plugs into your computer and that goes to zoom or YouTube depending on what you're doing. Okay, so I just want to confirm that that is better than connecting directly from the mixer to the PC. Yes, yes. Okay please, what's the name of the device again please? Audio interface. Just if you Google audio interface you'll get a lot of options. A popular option is the Scarlett 2 input interface. Okay, so this is what an interface looks like especially using for the online one, right? So for the most part in last semester for all our Supernatural Hour Supernatural Hour just to have a clear sound so I had to have wait let me see if I can bring this mic also. So you see this mic over here this is this is not a it's like a condenser but a less powerful condenser mic so this mic and my keyboard would be connected to this and from here it will go to my laptop. So at the moment we are still not talking about the online thing so we'll get to that in just a second alright. Okay, so thank you. You're welcome. Christopher, sorry you have a question. The person who's looking after this whose hand in the mixer would obviously be on headphones and listen to the music coming in and that would be one indication of how the sound is coming across and that would then trigger whether that person needs to start playing around with the knobs but I also wanted to understand in this age of computerization one can it be done automatically you know the computer is automatically going and doing tweaking the treble and the mid and the bass and also is there any indication on this mixer which tells you at what level it's coming what level is the treble are there some lights that are shown or whatever I just wanted to understand that besides just hearing the sound is there any visual kind of representation of how the sound is coming across So I'll just respond and then let Rohit add to it anything. So basically in the basic mixer mixing console that you see in the images these are what are known as analog mixers so there are two kinds of mixers one is the analog mixer and digital mixer right so you guys need to know these things and these will not have any kind of a signal I mean that says okay this is what it is at it's just you controlling how much you want increase or decrease and also the person who's controlling this will not always be on the headphones because if you're actually if I'm controlling this mixer for our church if you've seen an APC he'll be standing in the middle of the congregation and so he's his input is also the main speakers like how is it sounding in the entire room what kind of sound is coming off the speakers and the person who's actually mixing this for online streaming he sometimes will be listening for references on the headphones but then Rohit is there a device that automatically increases and decreases the travel stuff okay so the call that we are on right now is the best example of automated mixing yeah so Google Meet has an algorithm that does a little bit of volume control it doesn't allow things to distort it doesn't allow your voice to break you know things like that it has some AI doing that but audio mixers don't do that the best case scenario I mean as far as automation has come let's say you have 20 microphones and it's a play so you can put it all through this one software processor and it controls levels so you don't have to do the on off and push levels so but that's the best case scenario so far yeah multiple mics you do the tweaking but the volume levels and making sure they're audible it does by itself and as well as visual representation I don't know if you guys can see this but let's see if you can see this so that's like a real time it's called an RTA analyzer yeah so on digital mixers you have that across basically let's dump this one so you have your treble and your bass and the in-betweens are the mids so you have like a waveform showing you spikes so to address the question let's say if there's too much of treble you'll see more spikes in that region yeah so that's that's a visual representation of what could be wrong or what you could tweak what is more what you don't want you can visually look at it and cut it then this is something that's available only on a digital console yeah okay so that's that can be visibly seen only on a digital mixer right? it has like an easy screen yeah so I think Christopher so the digital mixer, from what I've seen is just like a line like a spectrum and if there's a frequency going way above you know that you know that it should not be at that certain frequency and so you'll bring that frequency down closer to that line or below the line and if you know if talking about the bass or the low frequency it will usually be below that line right Rohit? and you could not necessarily go so that's a visual signal so just on the volume one so for example on a guitar you have another guitarist will be able to manage the sound on that but rather bring it up and down so how does that kind of sync with the mixer in the sense will it sort of balance each other? yeah so a bass line would be so even a guitar like you said would have bass, treble and mid so your starting point would be keep everything straight so the 12 o'clock position is basically no changes so you ask the guitarist to keep it at that position, keep your volume at maybe 12 or 2 o'clock and you start tweaking if for some reason the instrument still doesn't sound good then it's a combination of what he can help you out with and what you can do so sometimes it helps if you make some changes as you get to know your instrument you know that this knob helps you get a little better this knob makes it sound fuller this knob makes it sound brighter so as you get an idea of your instrument you know if you cut this the sound guy is going to get a better quality signal from you so it's a trade off yeah who in a sense just an academic question who's in control when it's in a kind of real professional kind of environment the guitarist wants to basically lower the volume to a very very low level and the mixer guy is now sensing there's maybe too low for the audience but the guitarist is he has purposely kept it at that level so that you know it will slowly build up so I guess it should be the guitarist right who's controlling it not really so that's a battle that's been going on for decades but I was going to say that but ideally you would want to get an understanding so here's one more thing it's important to get build relationship with the worship team so they understand what you're trying to get at yeah so if it's only their agenda or only your agenda then confusing questions like this will have to be addressed and often go and address and you don't exactly know what happened that day so it's a mix but primarily it's the audio guy who takes the call of what's heard outside yeah as far as what he can hear like we have monitor speakers for them to hear themselves now that he can be the judge of how much he wants but as far as what the audience hears whoever's at the mixing desk takes the call thank you yeah thanks Rohit I think you mentioned a very important point that the relationship build a grapple between the musicians and the sound person so I think I've seen a lot of friction in the past between these two isn't it so one the musicians complaining about the person at the sound mixing console and the person at the mixing console saying hey you're not singing loud enough I can't give you more than this because you're not singing into the mic extra stuff like that right so there's always been this battle for the decades but yeah next up a mixing console guys and Louis see your question is it general principle for sound engineers to drive their sound so loud in small spaces or is it just bad mixing it's just bad mixing I guess it's yeah cool so let's move on so this is what the back side of a mixing console looks like right so this is the mixing console you see a lot of channels where the cables will be plugged in for input right all you see one of the important things here is the input that means for example a mic one say pastors mic will go into one of these channels that's the input right and where's the output here it's a yeah there's a major output group output stereo output so output is where another cable goes from this section into the speakers so everything is connected over here so this is the real deal guys mixing console if you don't have a mixing console and have all the microphones and instruments really no use so in addition there are some more gadgets or gear to make your sound a little bit once again this is what is known as the equalizer that once you have a mixer and again if you have the budget to add to your gear what an equalizer does is it refines the sound like it's that's basically what it is isn't that what it does it's refining tweaking and making it more crystal clear kind of thing isn't it you get more detailed about the frequencies than it was isn't it depending on the source you tweak so that the tone sounds natural, fuller clarity okay right that's an equalizer so guys just a couple of minutes ago we spoke about the frequencies and also the visual thing and I mentioned a line that goes so do you mind just very in simple words just explaining what the 32 is and all the 16K is so which is the high frequency and the low frequency I mean yeah so sound that you can hear is from 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz so that's basically what they've given here and to simplify to a mixer with just three knobs the comparison would be let's say the knob that says 32 64 125 would be the lows 250 to 2K would be the mids and 4K to 16K would be the highs so yeah okay so 32 hertz 64 hertz and 125 hertz are your base frequencies basically isn't it so dB stands for decibels guys I'm sure you have heard somewhere in the science class frequencies and waves so you push it up and down it increases or decreases that particular frequency between 250 and 2K is your mid frequencies and then from the 4K to 16K is your high frequencies that's the treble and so the sound person the technician will understand all of this how to control which works best for a certain hall or certain room and cut out those frequencies so that's what an equalizer is all about and and I think another important gear is the amplifier basically now what an amplifier does is in simple terms it just amplifies you know the sound in this context because we're talking in terms of the sound it takes say a weak signal a wave thing and then it just makes it big but so this is important isn't it I mean if you have an amplifier before it goes into the mixer isn't that right you need an amplifier before it goes to the speaker it's between mixer to speaker has to go through an amplifier so yeah either the amplifier is a separate unit or it's built into the speaker so those are the two kinds of speakers you'll come up with and they're called active and passive speakers has the amplifier baked into the speaker itself and a passive speaker has the amplifier as a separate unit and the speaker is a separate unit and it amplifies the sound into the speaker so again so just like there are two kinds of mics one is the dynamic mic and the condenser mic there are two kinds of speakers basically I mean for us to understand so that is the active speakers and passive speakers isn't that right Rohan and so it's the active speakers that has an amplifier in built yes in built in the speaker the speaker in the amplifier is one module yeah so you don't need to invest yeah it's just one module yeah okay and if you're having passive speakers I'm assuming the passive speakers are more budget friendly yeah so one amplifier and you can with one amplifier let's say initially you buy just two speakers you can use the same amplifier and buy two more and it would take care of that as well two more speakers you mean yeah two more speakers just two more speakers alone so since the two modules are separate now let's say be a third of the price cheaper or something like that right okay so let's just pause here as in do a quick recap of what we've just spoken about so one is all of us need to know what a microphone is like we all know what a microphone is and what it does and then we just spoke about the mixing console and then the amplifier I think is is it in your opinion do you think these three are like the main gadgets important gadgets you know like the building blocks or the fundamental things that we need to invest in first like speakers amplifiers and mixing console speakers amplifier mixer microphone yeah that's it you can call it four things yeah okay all right okay so I mean if you just start talking about this this topic I don't want to continue and know that we have only four minutes to the break I think we'll just kind of take a pause here and then we'll take a quick ten minutes break and we'll resume is that okay is this helping you all first of all everybody the non-tech guys is it helpful good to know information what do you all think okay all right all right hey you're a techie isn't it you can also add your inputs bro I didn't see you so awesome anyways we'll take a quick we'll take a ten minute break and resume from where we left off right thanks