It has been too long since the last podcast. For this I apologize. Podcast 65 is almost ready to track. My goal is to have it posted by the end of the week. I’ve also scheduled a week off from work this month to spend time on the album. I haven’t made much traction on either front the past few months, but I do believe one day there will be much more time to devote to this ministry. Great things are coming – I will trust in You oh LORD!
Soundwave had the CD release concert last month, and some friends of the band put together a really nice “official” video of one of my favorite songs. Here it is:
DCYC 2012 was the best yet. Over 2,200 young people came out to sing and worship with Soundwave and it was an awesome time of ministry. Jeremy talked about some new arrangements of songs used in the Catholic mass by Matt Maher and mentioned the music and charts would be posted on my website so you can download them here:
I’m not catholic, but I have grown to deeply respect the catholic church especially after attending events like DCYC and being a part of the lives of some of my best friends in Soundwave who are devout catholics. Like Jesus said in Matthew 7:16, …”You will know them by their fruit…” Here’s one of my favorite songs from Mass of Communion:
We had a great time the past few days and we’re even more excited about the CD Release Concert on February 4th, 7:00 PM at The First Assembly of God Church of Lockhart off 183 before you get into Lockhart. If you’re in the area, please come and check us out. It’s going to be awesome!
I had to work overtime to get it done, but after listening to the recorded tracks, I’ve noticed distortion throughout the podcast. I was determined to get this out tonight / this morning as you can see by the timestamp of this post, but I’m out of time and I really need to re-record the audio so I will get it done tonight after work. Thanks for your patience, prayers, and understanding.
The past few weeks have been a bit chaotic for a number of reasons so instead of further neglecting the family and forcing out a podcast today, I decided to take it easy and hang out with the wife and kids. I’ve already got the next podcast recorded and a very small part of it edited so I should have enough time throughout next week to get it posted next Sunday.
However, the new Soundwave album, “The Start” is finished and I have the master. We’re just waiting on album art so we can send everything off for print. The official release date is set for February 4th, but I believe we’ll have the album available for purchase at the beginning of the year. Below is a 5 minute preview of the album, which really doesn’t do it justice – I basically took out parts of what are currently my five favorite songs:
While you listen, here are a few things I’d like to share about the album:
– Soundwave started recording this album almost a year and a half ago
– It was tracked, edited, produced, and mixed from start to finish in my studio
– There was no “outside influence” on any part of it. Every part came out of the hearts and minds of the band and a few very close friends of the band
– I consider this one of the greatest musical achievements I’ve been a part of to date
– I know I speak for the whole band when I say to God be the Glory, and we pray the words and the music contained in this album open up the hearts and minds of all who listen to the wonderful salvation of Jesus Christ!
It’s actually been up for a while now so most of you have probably already noticed. There were quite a few issues when it was deployed by the developers almost a month ago, but they are all fixed! The site is now available in over 50 languages which is also a huge improvement. This ministry reaches believers all over the world! Alex Anze is testament of that, and he has been a huge blessing to this ministry. Not only did he design the new album art as mentioned in this post, but he’s also responsible for this website. Below is the original graphic design he provided for the developers to use in building it. They did an outstanding job translating the graphic into what you see now and I’m truly thankful all this has come together. God is good! Feel free to comment on the design if you like. In the meantime, Podcast 63 is in the works and should be posted this Sunday evening.
Over the past few months, people throughout Texas have been praying for rain. We have had the worst drought in my lifetime this year. I took the family to Burnett for a “Day out with Thomas” and on the way saw some amazing damage this drought has caused. Here are some images:
These are very small examples of some of the damage. There have been hundreds of fires all over Texas, and as a result of this horrible drought, there has been a surge of prayer at church, schools, rallies, and in homes all across Texas for rain. There was the prayer event in Houston inspired by the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, and now I believe we are truly witnessing an answer to prayer. The Bible has many examples of God’s people praying for rain and it’s very clear in Zechariah 10:1 Who sends rain. We’ve had modest amounts of rain over the past month but are in desperate need for more and theres some promising chances of rain in the forecast so please pray with me for Texas – that God sends thunder clouds full of rain! Thank You LORD for Your Grace!
Unfortunately, there has been no progress made on the new website. I am still working with the developers to correct issues with the “contact” form, translation, and the e-mail subscription so those of you who are subscribed have probably noticed you’re not receiving e-mails when I post. I hope to have all these issues resolved soon.
Secondly, I’ve been hard at work the past year on the new Soundwave album, and it’s crunch time. We’ve committed release the album by early January at the latest which means I need to have all the songs ready for mastering by early to mid-October. Soundwave is a ministry near and dear to my heart, and the commitment I’ve made to the group is taking priority over the podcast at this moment in time. I will post updates on the website, album, and podcast as they come. Thank you in advance for your understanding and prayers.
UPDATE: The contact form, translation, subscription, and some other issues have been resolved but there are still a few things outstanding. Hopefully they’ll be resolved within the next few days. I plan to send out an official announcement as soon is everything’s 100%.
My apologies to everyone as I migrate to the new website. There are a number of things that are broken right now. I’m working with the web developers to get them fixed. I should hopefully have everything working in a few days, at which time I’ll shoot out an official announcement about the new website. In the meantime, the podcast should be working now, and if you happen to browse here before the announcement goes out, feel free to comment and let me know what you think. More details to come on how all this came about.
For those who are curious, here’s an update on the grand piano mic placement along with the types of microphones and hardware used to record the Music To Pray By podcast.
This has changed quite a bit since the R09HR days. At the low end of the piano, an EV RE320 mic is angled in parallel with the strings. At the high end, an AudioTechnica AT4033a is aimed almost perpendicular to the strings. Completing the 3 foot triangle is an XY pair of Neuman KM184’s. These mics run into a Focusrite ISA428 pre amp, which has an ADAT connection into a Motu 896HD firewire audio interface. Logic Studio 9 running on a MacBook Pro completes the DAW solution. Here’s a quick video of it as well:
I distinctly remember the times Joy Clayton spoke briefly during Sunday service at The Ark Family Church. The messages have always been inspiring, encouraging, and uplifting. Earlier this year, Kyle Kutter called me and asked if I would put together a piano intro and outro for “Moments of Joy“, a short podcast of these messages, and I considered it an honor. I thought to check this evening, and quite a few have accumulated over the past few months. They can be found here. What a blessing it is to be a blessing.
Pastor Alan and The Ark Family Church are largely responsible for the early beginnings of Music To Pray By. The church would have men’s prayer on Friday mornings, and the first few times I went, John Fernandez was at the grand piano playing music similar to what you hear in this podcast. Eventually, John asked me to sit in for him. I was nervous at the thought of playing live during prayer at first, but those were times I truly felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. That eventually led to the original album, which led to this podcast. Pastor Alan has sent me encouraging e-mails in the past regarding his use of this ministry, which have truly inspired me to continue doing this even when I’ve felt like quitting. If you’re reading this pastor, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am living proof of Isaiah 55:10-11. Though I see dimly what God has done through this ministry (1Corinthians 13:12), I am truly excited about what He has planned (Jeremiah 29:11). To God be the glory.
I left out all the boring technical stuff for the most part. The event was an unbelievably amazing experience! Hope you enjoy the video – all of it was taken from my iPhone except for the last bit. I chose the song “Hey, Soul Sister” by Train mostly because they performed a concert at the Cisco Customer Appreciation Party towards the end. It was outstanding!
Every year since 2008, Cisco has spammed me constantly the months leading up to the event, and every year I have asked to go and have been denied the privilege. I was certain the same would happen this year. In fact, my manager told me last Wednesday he was unable to make it happen, which was no surprise, but the following day, a reservation within our company became available! God is good!
For those of you who don’t know, Cisco Live! is one of the largest technical conferences out there, and is by far the largest in regards to the technologies I work with on a daily basis as a Network Engineer for AT&T WiFi Services. Not only will I have the opportunity to learn from some of the best in the industry, I will get to see and possibly play with some of the latest and greatest network technologies out there. The conference will be held at one of the hottest tourist destinations in the U.S. – Las Vegas, NV. With that in mind, I think of Psalm 119:11 – “Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee…” might I add, “…while in the heart of Sin City for the first time” 😕
Please keep me and the family in your prayers this week – it breaks my heart to leave them for 5 days straight. It also breaks my heart to miss Sunday Morning service at TCC – especially with Jeremy, lead singer of Soundwave, leading worship.
For the techies, here are some of the seminars I’ll have the opportunity to attend:
– Enterprise Network Virtualization using IP and MPLS Technologies – Advanced Enterprise Campus Design: VSS, Routed Access, and Resilient Campus Networks – Advanced Scaling for Core and Edge Networks – CCIE Service Provider Operations – Data Center Town Hall: Enabling Cloud Adoption – Cisco NX-OS Software Architecture
For the non-techies – I also get to hear William Shatner give the closing keynote, and Train will be performing one evening as well. Another huge bonus is I’ll have the opportunity to attend an AT&T VIP event as well as a CCIE-only VIP party.
* On a side note, as the audience for Music to Pray By grows, I have considered moving these personal posts to a different blog. If any of you subscribers are annoyed by them, please send me a message using the contact form and I’ll make this a priority.
God bless, and stay tuned for Podcast 61 coming early August. It was recorded over a month ago, but I remember it being special with a new original starting it off.
About 5 days ago, Alex Anze, a podcast subscriber and graphics designer contacted me and said that he felt led by LORD to help the MTPB ministry by designing new album art for the podcasts “…in hopes that a better album cover might be more inviting to more people and so increase the number of praying people.” Today, I received the following image from him and all I can say is, …wow!
When I asked if it was okay to mention him in a blog post, he asked that it be made clear that he did this for the glory of God and not for self publicity – that this was a way of advancing the Kingdom of God and he’s glad and proud to have achieved something that may just do that. There may be some improvements to the website as well thanks to Alex’s generosity. GOD IS GOOD! Thank you LORD for Alex and for the work You’ve accomplished through him, and I pray you bless him in a very huge way!
I worked tirelessly last night well into this morning in efforts to move the website to a different hosting provider, and when I woke up today, discovered a pretty bad DNS issue which has basically taken the website down over the past 12 hours. Everything should be good to go now – it’s just a matter of DNS proprogation across the Internet which can take up to 48 hours. The good news is it should be completely fixed in time for podcast 59. I’m a little behind in the editing – still have about 23 minutes to go, but have no other plans with the exception of church stuff tomorrow and Sunday. Stay tuned!
Happy Mothers Day to all of you mothers! I have somewhat failed at showing my true appreciation to Yoko today for all she does as a mother – likely the most difficult job in the world. I spent most of yesterday and today editing the podcast – a total of about 15 hours so far, and I’m at around 19 minutes. Still have about 12-13 minutes to go, but I really need to spend the rest of the evening with Yoko. My plan is to work on it after Yoko goes to bed and hopefully finish before the sun rises. Regardless, I will get Podcast 58 posted within the next 24 hours – my apologies for the delay. When I committed to May 8th, it completely slipped my mind that was Mother’s Day. I pray Yoko finds it in her heart to forgive me, and I had hoped the Mother’s Day gift pictured below would have helped in that area. Turns out my time with her is more valuable so here I go!
With the commitments I have to family, church, Soundwave, and work, I have come to the conclusion that the amount of time required to edit, record, mix, and post bi-weekly podcasts is throwing my life out of balance. I’ve thought and prayed about this for a while now and I know this is the right decision. I pray someday I will be able to do music ministry for a living, but just as Paul temporarily built tents to provide for his needs, I temporarily build internetworks to provide for my family. I still intend to sit down at the piano on a bi-weekly basis and record podcasts with hopes that in the future I will be able to catch up or employ help for the editing and mixing. At any rate, expect the next podcast to be posted on the 8th of May. I hope you had a blessed Easter.
Once again, Soundwave was blessed with the honor of participating in the largest Austin DCYC event in it’s 53 year history! It was an awesome experience to say the least, and wanted to post some media from the event. Here is a Youtube video of something the Youth Animators put together. This looked much more amazing live. Unfortunately, my iPhone is limited in it’s video capabilities:
Here’s a picture I took of these motivated young people Sunday morning:
…and last but not least, Limitless – the Soundwave Original written specifically for this event and recorded in my studio. It’ll be available for download on iTunes soon:
Yesterday, I was able to work with a technician over the phone and he walked me through some calibration steps that resolved the sustain pedal issue I was having. I’ve also got a tuning appointment scheduled for Monday of next week so I will be posting the next podcast on the 16th. Thank you for listening and God bless!
Podcast 51 is recorded, edited, and ready to go. Unfortunately, the new piano isn’t cooperating. There’s some kind of technical issue with the sustain pedal – it stops listening to MIDI signals 5-6 minutes into playback. There were signs of this last week, but Yamaha Support was unavailable so I’ll be calling them first thing in the morning and hope to have it resolved as soon as possible. Once it’s fixed, I’ll be able to get podcast 51 dumped to audio and posted. Hopefully, this will happen sooner rather than later. I’ll be sure to post updates as they come. God bless, and happy new year!
It could actually be more than 89 countries since the site was just recently moved to a new podcasting service that allows to see this detail, but it is truly motivating to see people all over the world downloading the podcast. Here are some screenshots of the tracking:
The podcast has also been downloaded in all 50 states:
Thanks again to all of you who are subscribed to the podcast! I pray it continues to inspire you to spend more time in prayer.
Every year since 2008, Cisco has spammed me constantly the months leading up to the event, and every year I have asked to go and have been denied the privilege. I was certain the same would happen this year. In fact, my manager told me last Wednesday he was unable to make it happen, which was no surprise, but the following day, a reservation within our company became available! God is good!
