Since the album, I’ve been trying to come up with new ways of publishing Music To Pray By content and thought of recording run-throughs of some of the songs on our church set list so I got a hold of some video recording and editing gear and began work on it back in July. When I shared this idea with my good friend Micah, he suggested singing to it so that’s what we did and here are the results. Currently, it’s “unlisted” on YouTube till we can secure the rights to publish the song by Travis Ryan. Micah is also getting it listed on iTunes so the audio track should be available for purchase sometime this week. Please keep in mind this is my first shot at using Final Cut Pro and still have a ton to learn. Hope y’all like it:
This podcast is made up of the songs left out of the Music To Pray By album “My Father in Heaven”, which is coming very soon. This is the first podcast recorded on the new Yamaha DC7XE3 Grand Piano talked about here as well as all new mics and pre-amps. I believe it is the best sounding piano audio I’ve ever captured. I hope and pray it inspires you to spend time in the Presence of our Truly Amazing and Awesome God. Please forgive me for taking so long – almost 2 years to post new music. I hope it was worth the wait, and I am absolutely thrilled about the new album and excited to see what God is going to do through this. Please continue to pray for me and my family. God bless.
The last podcast to be recorded on my Yamaha DC3M4. It goes away tomorrow, and though it’s only been 4 years, I feel as though I have a tremendous amount of history with that wonderful piano. I actually had to pick and choose from about 2 hours worth of recordings since I’m not sure if the old format will be supported on the new piano. I’m truly excited about the capabilities and the sound of the new Yamaha DC7XE3Pro, but it’s also sad to see my old piano leave the studio. I’m sure it will end up in good hands!
About the podcast – it’s all original except the last song. I had to choose between two really good covers and ended up going with “Oceans” by Hillsong United. It is one of my favorite songs, and though I feel like I barely did the original justice, I hope to do another rendition in a future podcast. Â I did a lot of playing with this mix, which will likely change noticeably with the new piano. I wanted to make sure the last podcast from the DC3M4 was as good as it could possibly sound, and I think I accomplished that.
I have a number of things to share with you so I apologize in advance for all the non-music posts that are to come over the next week or so. I pray this podcast is a blessing to you.
Yet another all-original podcast. I did use some pretty familiar chord progressions, but I also tried out some new styles. I’m definitely looking forward to trying this podcast out tomorrow morning during my devotional.
Sorry this came a little late. I spent way more time editing than I have in the past largely due to Logic Pro X, the new version of pro audio software I use. Some of the editing techniques I use don’t work the same way unfortunately so I spent bit of time finding workarounds.
May the Joy and Peace of our LORD overwhelm you as you listen and stay your mind on Him!
Earlier this year, the band, Marked 4 Life asked if I would record them. Normally, I would say “no” to these types of requests due to the fact that I’m pretty over-committed as it is, but I made an exception since I’ve known most of the band members for a decade and most of them are still in High School, yet they’ve been together as a band for over 5 years I believe. They are also very important to my home church, TCC as they serve as the youth band, and do occasional gigs for the kids. Work and Soundwave have consumed most of my time over the past couple of months so I’m just now finishing up one of the three songs we recorded and I figured I would share it with you. This is the pre-master version, and won’t be downloadable, but the EP will hopefully be available sometime this year.
I did want to let you know I’m running a little behind on Podcast 68, but my goal is to have it posted by mid-June. I’ve got everything tracked and have begun editing so I may have it done sooner – stay tuned!
You may not hear any familiar melodies as this podcast is mostly original. I’ve adopted a fairly new process to recording the podcast. Rather than attempting to record all 30+ minutes in one sitting, I’ve just sat at the piano and pressed “record” as the Holy Spirit has led throughout the past quarter. It has been working out okay so far. It also gives me an opportunity to select the best recordings out of many, and there was a really bad 15 minutes of recording I was happy not to have included in this podcast. You may notice that it may have a slightly different sound than previous podcasts. I’m still perfecting the audio recording and mixing aspect of the podcast even after almost 5 years. I pray this podcast encourages you to spend some quality time with our Maker.
A quick update – Yoko’s sister, Eiko is doing so well now that the hospice where she was sent to spend her remaining time here on earth is preparing to discharge her since her condition has improved so dramatically. This is truly an inspiring testimony in development! Our God is an Awesome God! Please keep her and her family in your prayers.
The band site, www.soundwave.cc is still down for maintenance, but we wanted to get Porta Fidei, the theme song we recorded for DCYC 2013 available to everyone. We’ve worked tirelessly in the studio to get this recorded in time for the event and want to present it as our gift to everyone who is a part of this ministry that has done so much to impact the lives of youth in the Austin area for Jesus Christ! We hope you enjoy the song.
I think this might end up being my favorite podcast to date. What God has brought me through over the past 7 months is expressed in this music since even today I fail to grasp the words to properly convey what God has done in me.
Even the technical part of getting this recorded was met with enormous opposition. I had hoped to post this on Wednesday, but two completely separate devices in my studio  failed – one of them is still dead. Praise the LORD it is finally done as I silently hope my computer doesn’t crash before I  click “Publish”. 🙂 The two familiar songs I used go way back. The titles are “Holy, Holy, Holy LORD”, and “I Love You LORD”. I also wrote song with the primary lyrics being, “I stay my mind on You God”. I hope to someday make it into a full blown song with verses and a bridge, but I’m not really a lyricist, nor was Moses a speaker so we’ll see where it goes. I pray this podcast blesses you as much as it has blessed me and thank you for your patience. I’ll post an update within the next couple of weeks regarding some of my future plans for this ministry and life in general though His Kingdom will I seek first.
In this podcast, I used songs Soundwave prepared for DCYC – they are “Strong Enough to Save”, “Your Name High”, “Forever Reign”, “Always”, “Your Great Name”, and “Our God”. I think this is probably the first podcast ever to be original-free, although, it does contain some originality. Those who like consistently quite and peaceful podcasts may not enjoy this one as much since I get a bit loud in some parts. It may be a few months before the next podcast is posted, but I’ll try to make it softer. I thank all of you who continue to use this ministry to enhance your prayer time. I’m blown away at the number of downloads that happen on a daily basis.
What a crazy couple of weeks it has been! I won’t bore you with all the details, but the end result is I finally have a new podcast. You’d think after 3 years of doing this I’d have it down but I don’t. This podcast required a massive amount of editing, but I think it turned out okay. I did find some ways to improve the audio over the previous podcasts. The only issue is there’s too big of a dynamic range so had to go a little overboard on the compression and limiting.
I wish I could commit to doing these more frequently, but with work at AT&T consuming more and more of my time, family, Soundwave, and {hopefully} a Music To Pray By album by early 2013, I’m going to keep it at once a Month for now. God bless all y’all who are listening, and please keep me and my family in your prayers.
I finished mixing the Soundwave album last week so I’m back at it – thanks for your patience. This podcast, I only used “Hosannah” for a brief period. The rest is original – some from previous podcasts and some that’s fresh and new. An interesting stat about this podcast is it’s the first to be exactly 30 minutes long! I admit, I stretched the end out a little, but it was already pretty close. I added a bit more gain both at the pre amp and in software using a little more compression and gain on the limiter to try to even out the level a bit. There is quite a bit more dynamics in this podcast compared to the previous two or three. This time, I wanted to keep the dynamics as original as possible, especially during the soft parts, and I didn’t change the level on some of the louder midi notes like I have in the past. I think it turned out better this way. I’m sure I’ll get better at holding back more as I record so please bear with me as I continue learn and grow in this ministry.
I used quite a few worship songs during this podcast – “Give Me Faith”, “Our God”, “I Lift My Hands”, and “Mighty To Save”. In a way, a lot of this podcast sounds repetitive to me compared to previous podcasts. It’s becoming a little challenging to keep things unique considering there is already over 30 hours of podcasts. 🙂 If this podcast inspires you to pray, mission accomplished.
Still searching for the best mic placement and mix, but I think its getting there. Most all the tunes are repeat or new originals. You may recognize one or two of them. I pray that every note played will encourage you to seek God’s Kingdom first. Peace.
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:
This podcast does have familiar melodies from others, but I believe it has some uniqueness. One melody from the chorus of “Pour My Love on You” was used at the end. A couple technical notes – I used a new mic and mic positions, and there was definitely more dynamics than usual, but this was my heart of worship at the time – I hope it’s not too distracting. Happy 4th of July – thank God for the freedom we have. An estimate of 129 billion people have lived throughout the history of the world. Only 5 billion have experienced the freedom we enjoy, and 3 billion are alive today. How rare freedom is.
This podcast, I used the songs, “Came to My Rescue” and “I Will Exalt”. Since I actually recorded this podcast over a month ago, I had to refer to planning center for the song names.
It is nice to be up on the new hosting provider. I was finally able to update quite a bit on the podcast so things look much better in the iTunes Music Store. If you have iTunes installed, feel free to check it out.
Interesting fact: this podcast contains 16,782 notes, and I probably touched 80-90% of them during the editing process. 🙂 I either need to learn how to play better or be less picky about timing issues.
I hope you enjoy the podcast. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
It’s finally finished! The songs used are mostly original. I did play a familiar melody at the tail end. Most of it is a little more fast-paced than the norm. May you continue to be inspired to pray through my offering of worship to our wonderful Creator. To Him be the glory!
This week we had Wednesday Night worship at The Connection Church so I used quite a few songs from that service – “Mighty To Save”, “Came To My Rescue”, and “Awakening”, a new worship song by Chris Tomlin that is pretty awesome. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t heard it yet. A couple originals are included as well. One was from a previous podcast. I’m still on a quest for the perfect piano mix. Mic placement and EQ has been changing every podcast. I really need to swap out my NT1000 with something else. It isn’t very balanced across the frequency spectrum. Maybe I’ll be able to afford the mic I’d like to replace it with in a couple months. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the rest will be added. I pray this podcast assists you in seeking!
I used only one song this podcast. It’s by Robbie Seay, and it’s called “Crazy Love”. The rest is original. This podcast is actually a second take since the first didn’t record properly. I always thought recording to MIDI would eliminate having to re-record podcasts, but not true. I did learn that the Disklavier does not like any kind of MIDI signal coming into it when recording so hopefully this will be the last time this happens. I do believe the second take turned out better than the first – thank you Holy Spirit. Draw near to Him and He WILL draw near to you. Not only is that in the Bible, but I have witnessed it first-hand.
I used two songs from last week’s service for today’s podcast – “Forever Reign”, and “God You Reign”. The rest is original. I used a different acoustic piano sample for editing the MIDI this week, and it actually disguised a lot of the small timing issues which is good and bad. The good is it took me half the time to edit (~4 hours instead of ~8). The bad is I notice them when playing back on the DC3, but I’m pretty sure most people won’t notice. For those who do, you’ll have the CD to look forward to. My plan is to make it as perfect as possible. Stay tuned! As you pray, please remember to pray for Japan.
