by Ron Johns | Nov 22, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
This week is completely original. I didn’t use any songs. I also used a different position for the mic. It still picked up some lower frequencies better than the mids and highs, but I was able to fix this with an EQ. I know that I’ve been bad about blogging even though the election is over. Quite a bit has been happening at work lately. We found out shortly after the election that AT&T decided to buy the company I work for – Wayport. Since then, our department has been preparing for when the deal closes likely in December. It’s pretty exciting, but it has also been quite a bit of a distraction. Please keep Yoko, SanBan, and I in your prayers. We truly appreciate it!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:56 — 30.6MB)
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by Ron Johns | Nov 16, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
The songs used this week are “You are my King (Amazing Love)”, “Enough”, and the rest isn’t really any particular song. I realize I’m a day late this week. It’s because there was a network outage yesterday at work and I ended up working from 11:00 AM till 1:00 AM this morning. Just a heads up – I may try something new this week. I think if I just sit down for 5 or 10 minutes every day this week and record a small portion of the podcast it may turn out a little more creative. I’m going to give it a shot and see what happens. I hope you all had a wonderful Sunday. I know I did! You can check it out here.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:23 — 31.6MB)
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by Ron Johns | Nov 8, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
Wow – another day of problems, but at least there is a podcast to post this time. I’ve never had anybody come to the door and ring the doorbell while I was recording, but that happened today. I hope I wasn’t too rude to the visitor dropping off cookie dough that Yoko bought from her for a fundraiser. Also, the batteries in my audio recorder died before I was done so this week is a little short again – a little less than 2 minutes shy of the 30 minutes I normally try to do. It would have been a little longer if the batteries would have lasted just a few more minutes. Because of this, the ending is cut short pretty abruptly – my appologies. From now on I won’t trust the battery indicator on that thing and just swap out the batteries every month. One day I will have thought of everything and will post a perfect podcast every week! Um… well… actually… probably not, but it’s worth a shot. God bless!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:14 — 27.7MB)
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by Ron Johns | Nov 2, 2008 | Blog, Non-music Posts
Here’s what happened:
It’s Saturday noonish, and I have a Soundwave gig in a few hours and need to get the podcast done before then. So, is the microphone positioned perfectly in the sweet spot with input levels properly adjusted on the R-09HR?
Check.
Music picked out to play in case a song is needed?
Check check…
Ice maker turned off?
Chiggidy check…
A/C turned off?
That would be a….. CHECK!
Cell phone on vibrate?
Big Phat Check!
Dogs outside?
Diggidy dog check!
Parrot upstairs in the study?
….that would be affirmative
Yoko and SanBan upstairs in the bedroom keeping quiet for the next 30-40 minutes?
ccchhhhheeeeeaaaaaakkkkkkk!
Everything is ready to go so, I hit record on the R-09HR remote and begin to worship with music. I just had the piano tuned and it’s sounding beautiful! I feel the Holy Spirit fill the room and find myself thinking, this is going to be the best podcast yet! I finish the last song thinking that has to be right at 30 minutes excited about mixing since this was going to be the first podcast right after a tuning, and I look at the R-09HR and see this:
I know it’s blurry, but it says “standby”, which means the entire time I was playing, the recorder was waiting for me to press “record” one more time! DOPE! In the past, I’ve always checked to make sure it was recording before starting. This time, I was so excited about getting started that this was the ONE thing I completely forgot to CHECK! As you can imagine, I hadn’t been that frustrated in a very long time. But after a few minutes of banging my head against the wall, I realized that it was by no means a waste since my LORD heard every note played, and that made all the time spent in preparation and playing totally worth it. I pray next week will be even better!
by Ron Johns | Oct 25, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
The songs used this week are “He Reigns” and “Hosanna”. I think I’ve done “Hosanna” before, but this should be a different variation. If you listen to the podcasts very much, all of it may start to sound similar. I hope this is okay, and if used as intended, prayer will be the focus rather than the music. I’m listening to it right now and it’s obvious especially in the octives that tuning is definitely needed. It must have something to do with this last cold front that came in. As soon as I’m done with this post, I’m going to call the tuner and make an appointment. Also, I apologize for not blogging more. I’m pretty wrapped up in the elections right now so that is pretty much eating up a majority of my spare time. I should be back to my old blogging and twitting self a week or so after November 4th hopefully. 🙂
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:06 — 27.1MB)
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by Ron Johns | Oct 18, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
Today I used the following songs: Great God, You are My King, and Day after day. I haven’t been blogging much the past few weeks, which should change in the next couple months. A quick note on the tuning – I checked it today and the grand seems to be holding tune okay. I think it has a lot to do with mic placement, which should be resolved since I took more time to work on this today, and I believe I’ve found the right spot.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:22 — 29.2MB)
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by Ron Johns | Oct 12, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
Sorry I’m a day late in getting the podcast posted this week. Yoko, SanBan, and I spent the entire day out visiting family in the Houston area on Saturday. This week I tried a different mic placement and I’m not sure if it came out as well as I thought it would. Plus, I think the piano is finally slipping a little out of tune. I’m going to try to get it tuned either this week or next. The songs I kind of used this week are: “When All is Said and Done”, and “How He Loves”. Pray continually!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:34 — 30.2MB)
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by Ron Johns | Oct 4, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
As promised, I played around a little with mic placement and believe I found a good spot. I actually used 4 songs for the first time. They are: I Can Only Imagine, From The Inside Out, Who am I, and Amazed. I really enjoyed playing this week. I normally have the lid of the grand piano closed, but I had it wide open this time, and the sound was wonderful. God is good!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:59 — 31.2MB)
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by Ron Johns | Sep 27, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
I’ve made it 10 weeks straight! That’s something to celebrate! Sorry this week’s podcast got posted a little later than usual. Thursday was Yoko and my 9th annversary so we’ve been sort of celebrating over the past few days. I used the following songs this week: God Of This City, You Said, and All for Love. The R-09HR seems to be picking up certain frequencies more so than the R-09 when I have it positioned on the piano music stand. I’m not sure what’s causing this – could just be the difference in the internal mics. I did EQ a bit so the end result isn’t too shabby. Next week I hope to spend some time finding the “sweet spot” for the R-09HR so hopefully Week 11 will sound better. Also, I think the cooler weather is starting to affect my piano. The lower register is beginning to sound out of tune. What do you think? It was tuned March of this year and I normally can go a year between tunings, but I figured this would probably change once I started this blog. I’ll see about having the tuner over sometime in October after we get a couple of more cold fronts.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:58 — 31.8MB)
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by Ron Johns | Sep 23, 2008 | Blog, Non-music Posts, Site Updates
Just wanted to shout out a big “Thank You” to all of you who have subscribed to the podcast or use the website regularly for prayer. There have been over 1,000 plays and downloads of the MTPB blog since it was started less than 2 months ago. Watching as people all over the world download and play the podcasts has been very encouraging, and I plan to continue providing music to pray by for as long as I’m able!
God bless!
by Ron Johns | Sep 20, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
The R-09HR still seems to be picking up a great deal of background noise. I’m not sure what the cause of this is, but I apologize in advance if it bothers you. I still need to play around with the sample rate and limiter functions. I hope to get to this before next week’s podcast. Also, from here out I’ll wait till after 9:00 or 10:00 PM to record since mornings and afternoons end up being too noisy. This week, instead of me mentioning the songs that influenced the MTPB music, I’m going to ask if anybody recognizes any of the songs that were used – just leave a comment if you’d like. I pray this week’s podcast is a blessing to you. Take care!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:21 — 28.8MB)
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by Ron Johns | Sep 19, 2008 | Blog, Non-music Posts, tech stuff
Last night at practice for church, there was a fellow keyboardist there who showed a bit of interest in my setup and was impressed with some of the sounds, so I thought a blog about the “gig rig” might be interesting to some of you.
The guts: I do something very few live keyboard performers do, but more and more are moving toward. I trust a standard computer to produce live, real time sounds as I play. I use a program called Main Stage by Apple. It is bundled with Logic Studio 8, and has literally changed the way I think about keyboards. It is fully customizable based on the controller hardware you have and comes with a huge selection of software synthesizers and samplers. You also have the ability to add 3rd party software synths for even more sounds. I was given IKMultimedia’s Philharmonik which has some beautiful orchestral sounds as well as some very real grand piano samples. The install is almost 50 Gig, but the sounds that are produced are the closest to the “real thing” I’ve ever heard to date.
The computer: A very solid Apple MacBook Pro with a 2.4 Ghz Intel Dual Core proc, 4 Gig of RAM, 160 GB 7200 RPM HD, and a high res 1920×1200 display. Even with this much power, Main Stage can still buckle if too many sounds or effect plugins are layered so there is still a balance to maintain. Part of the problem with processing power is the USB audio interface built into my VX8. If I were to move to firewire, this would help substancially, but so far I’ve been able to work within the constraints.
The Bottom Stack: My main controller is the CME VX8 88-key controller with a lot of nice features, but it weighs a ton! This doesn’t really make it ideal for a gig rig, but it does help me stay in shape. The weighted action has a good feel, but it makes a clicking metal-on-metal sound when certain black and white keys are played in sequence which can be annoying. I swapped this keyboard out 3 times and every one of them did the same thing so it appears to be a manufacturing defect. Another problem is the USB ports. I’ve only been using this keyboard for about 6 months and I can already tell that the USB ports are going to wear out eventually and I’ll be forced to move to another audio interface, which will likely be the Apogee Duet. Other than these flaws, this keyboard has served me well so far.
The top stack: A Korg Triton Extreme. Ever since Korg came out with the Triton over 7 years ago, I’ve owned one. It started with the standard Triton Pro x, then to the Trinity, then the Triton Studio Pro, and now the Triton Extreme. This keyboard makes up for the heaviness of the VX8 weighing much less, but only providing 61 keys – enough to play organ riffs all night long! My favorite thing about this product line is the synth pads you can create. This also can be used as a backup if my laptop decides to stop working, which has happened once or twice when I first made the move to this rig back in December of ’07. It also has a USB midi out so I have it configured it as a controller in Main Stage as well.
The Sound: I prefer to use my Westone ES2 in-ear monitors if the venue permits, but if not, I use some Yamaha MSR100’s. I run everything through a Mackie 802-VLZ3 mixer which opens up a number of options. One of the options is to restrict the output to only my keyboards if I have an overall mix being fed into the mixer or if I feed the output of my R-09HR to hear the “room” when I use the Westones. The mixer also has XLR outs which eliminate the need for direct boxes.
The stands: For the keyboards, I use the Ultimate V-Stand. I do have the laptop attachment, but the vibration was a bit much so I moved the MacBook Pro over to an insTand, which has worked out nicely. For the Yamahas, when I use them, I have some standard 45 degree angled guitar amp stands. They’ve held up pretty well so far. The one thing that hasn’t held up well is the second tier of the V-Stand. The adapter to attach the second tier stripped out after about 6 months of use.
Well, that about covers it. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them. I’d be happy to answer any questions or discuss any of the parts that make up the gig rig with you.
by Ron Johns | Sep 13, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
The first recording ended up being a mess for some reason. I figured it was a bug with the limiter so I upgraded the firmware on the new R-09HR and turned the limiter off. I recorded another 30 minutes which ended up being a mess as well due to all of the settings being restored to factory defaults. The third recording went okay, but I don’t think it sounds like it should partly because of all the background noise. At one point you can hear my iPhone get a text and it was upstairs in the theater room. When it went off, it sounded like it was sitting next to the recorder. I guess I still have some learning to do with this new recorder, but I made some good progress the past couple of days. Also, I think my piano is starting to get out of tune which doesn’t help matters any. All that aside, this podcast should definitely suffice for some good prayer time which is what this is all about anyway. This podcast is all original – I used some worship songs the first couple of passes, but ended up leaving them out the third time. God bless!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:49 — 28.4MB)
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by Ron Johns | Sep 12, 2008 | Blog, Non-music Posts, tech stuff
After waiting over 2 weeks, I finally received confirmation from (ISC)2 that I passed the CISSP exam! Thank you for your prayers and support.
The iPhone 2.1 update came out today. I’ve upgraded but haven’t had a chance to see if there’s an improvement in 3G performance. Apple said this update is supposed to fix the 3G signal problems as well as the following:
– decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
– significantly improve battery life for most users
– dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
– improve email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
– faster installation of 3rd party applications
– fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
– improved performance in text messaging
– faster loading and searching of contacts
– improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
– repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
– option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
– Genius playlist creation
I went ahead and got the Roland Edirol R-09HR for recording the Music To Pray By blog. I’ll also be using it as a stereo mic when I use in-ear monitors during live performance in order to hear the room since the Westones block out everything. I currently do this with the R-09’s and it works really well. I’ve already recorded some of this week’s posting with the R-09HR, but haven’t had a chance to compare yet. I hope it’s an improvement in sound quality over the R-09. According to Roland, the mic pre’s are supposed to be better, and it records at 24 bit 96k, which is double the sample over the older version. I’ll be listing the R-09 on eBay this Tuesday to recoup some of the costs. Why Tuesday you might ask? Ask me in a comment and I’ll elaborate…
Because of hurricane Ike, I decided to pull my antenna that was mounted on the side of my house and move it inside, and surprisingly enough, Windows Vista Media Center is reporting better signals inside at a lower altitude than what I was getting outside with it mounted much higher. It must have been the attenuation of the added cable and grounding required. On a side note, my family is in the path of this hurricane so please be in prayer for them as they ride it out.
Week 8’s podcast will be posted sometime tomorrow as long as we don’t loose power. Based on the current Ike forecast, that shouldn’t be an issue – just a bunch of much needed rain.
by Ron Johns | Sep 6, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
I tried to incorporate more of the requests from a while back, but things didn’t really work out as I had planned. I did play a “Ron” version of “Somebody” which Micah requested, but didn’t really get to any of the others. In fact, the request fulfillment process for me has been kind of a distraction so I’ll probably stick to playing what comes to heart from here out. I did also play “We Fall Down” and “Amazing Grace” – the Chris Tomlin version.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:57 — 30.5MB)
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by Ron Johns | Aug 30, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
I finally got to the song suggestions. Sorry it took so long. I only used 2 of them – one from each comment left in the blog posted a couple weeks back. The songs are “El Shaddai” and “You Raise Me Up”. It was fun working these two songs into this week’s podcast. Thank you Micah and Cindy for your suggestions – I will try to use the other songs you mentioned in future podcasts.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:39 — 30.3MB)
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by Ron Johns | Aug 24, 2008 | Blog, tech stuff
I have some tech stuff to blog about:
First, as some of you know, I’ve been studying very hard for the past few months for the CISSP examination, which turned out to be a big waste of time since most of what I studied was material NOT on the exam. I woke up early this morning, drove to San Antonio, sat down to take the test at 8:45 AM and didn’t leave till 2:30 PM. It is by far the hardest written exam I’ve ever taken. Also, they must have recently changed the structure of the exam because I was expecting to see a lot more technical questions, and there were around 5 out of 250. At least I know I got 5 of the questions right! I won’t find out what my score is for a while. They told me up to 6 weeks, but I’m sure I’ll blog or twit about it as soon as the results come in.
Secondly, I have to apologize for the most recent podcast. I forgot that my R-09 was set to record to MP3 instead of WAV. This got changed when I used it to record a practice for the upcoming Austin Jazz Music Festival gig next weekend and I needed extra recording time. Of course, an R-09HR with a 32GB SD Card would fix this. Okay, I pledge to use any donations minus 10% for tithe towards the purchase of one! 🙂 I’ve been listening to the podcast as I write this post and I’ve noticed that it has a darker sound than my previous podcasts. I had the R-09 positioned like I always do. It either had to be converting MP3 to WAV while importing the audio into Logic Pro, then back to MP3 for the post, or the way the R-09 handles recording to MP3. There may have been some stuff I could have done with EQ, but initially I didn’t really hear any difference on my studio monitors. I should have done a comparison with previous podcast audio prior to bouncing… Lesson learned.
Lastly, as you may have heard, the iPhone 3G signal problem has been narrowed down to the Infineon chipset used in the manufacturing of the new iPhone. Apple has been very quiet about this whole thing, but Steve Jobs wrote a letter to some complaining customers that this issue affects approximately 2% of iPhone 3G owners which comes out to around 60,000 iPhones. Personally, I believe it’s much more than that since I haven’t seen an iPhone 3G that didn’t have the same issue as mine, plus like I mentioned before, I’m on my 3rd one. On a positive note, Jobs assured the customers in the letter that this issue can be resolved with a firmware update. Unfortunately, the recent 2.0.2 update didn’t resolve it, although it did fix some problems I was having with software hanging and GPS seems to come up faster. I really want my 3G though! Come on Apple – help out a loyal fan!
by Ron Johns | Aug 23, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
This was another full week for me so I didn’t get to incorporate last week’s requests in this week’s podcast. This is just me playing a new song to the LORD. I feel that the past two weeks may have suffered a little bit due to my crazy schedule. Studying for the CISSP has consumed every ounce of free time I’ve had the past week or so. My test is in less than 48 hours and I still have a ways to go on my study. I wasn’t going to let this exam keep me from doing a podcast though. The tempo is a little faster than what I normally play which somewhat reflects what’s been happening in my life lately. I hope you enjoy it – if not, there’s the other podcasts and the old album 🙂 Till next week!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:11 — 33.9MB)
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by Ron Johns | Aug 16, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
I wasn’t able to incorporate any of the song suggestions from last week – I am very sorry. This week was one of the busiest for me so far this year. So much stuff is going on right now in my life. Lots of really big changes potentially. I’ll have to blog about it sometime after the dust has settled. Well, I didn’t really have time to select any songs to play. I just sat down and started playing, and aside from a few distractions here and there, it was really nice to slow down, relax, and offer up some worship to my LORD.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:57 — 31.5MB)
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by Ron Johns | Aug 9, 2008 | Blog, Music Posts
Once again, there were no song requests so I picked Mighty to Save, Beautiful the Blood, and Shine. I didn’t really play Shine – maybe the chord progression of the chorus, but I really feel that this podcast is the best so far. There were probably a few more mistakes than the past two weeks, but I really felt the Presence of God while I was playing, and I truly believe that you will experience God’s Presence as well while you listen to this week’s podcast and pray…
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:28 — 32.0MB)
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