pastor mike weblog

Hey, check out Julian’s website if you want to watch a new video of him in the studio featuring 5 seconds of our guest bassist TOM SNIDER!

Or you could just see it below…

Last Sunday at church I gave the message and now it’s available on the Vineyard CS website to listen to. Giving the message was a ton of fun. As always I had too much material but that’s what you get when you only speak once in a while, I’m such a preaching noob. I had two sermons packed into one, but with a title like “Free to Worship” there’s a lot of territory to cover.

Below is the Freedom Grid I discuss in the message if you want to follow along but you can also access it on the Vineyard site. Enjoy!

Click here to listen to the message posted on the Vineyard website (will open a new window).

image (c) 2009 Destinysong, Inc. used by permission all rights reserved

By the way, the video referenced in the sermon can be seen here. It’s pretty much amazing.

Okay, obviously Delirious? is amazing. Read this testimony someone wrote in to the band on their History Makers blog. It will show you how much God really cares for each and every one of us, and also what an act of obedience (on the band’s part and on this friend’s part) can do. It can save a life. Literally:

“A few years ago I went to the delirious? gig in Liverpool on the World Service Tour. During Every Little Thing, Martin asked us to ring a friend and let them listen to the song. A friend of mine had been unable to make the gig, I rung him, let him listen to the chorus a couple of times and hung up – didn’t want to waste my credit! That Sunday at church he gave the following testimony: A couple of months back he had started to slip away from God. He had been having problems at home and these were getting him down. He started to hang around with the wrong crowd and get involved in drink and drugs. Things got so bad that he decided to end his own life. He went into the bathroom and picked up some razor blades ready to slash his wrists and kill himself. Just then his phone rang and it was me saying “Mate,we are at a delirious concert, listen to this …”Every Little things, Gonna Be Alright”". Thesong and more importantly the timing of it, gave him hope for the future. He obviously didn’t take his own life and still alive and well today! When I heard this testimony I just went numb. What I did, as a fun thing at a d: gig, saved someones life.I just want to thank God, for working the whole timing out – it was amazing how they played the song, just at the right time. I also want to honour Martin and delirious for being faithful, for listening to God and for making a difference. – Andrew”

This photo is Martin reading scripture at the show we went to Saturday night. Their last show in America.

Hey, Julian’s website is now live and we’re stoked about that. He’s setup with song samples, photos, videos, etc. Check it out and support his indie release of “Time to Move On.” Album pre-order and such is going to be updated on the site very soon.

www.julianmichaelmusic.com

Yes Ted, the CD will be less than $15.

Okay, here we go, another brand new short of Julian in the studio.

And yes, we have the CD mastered and it might be released as soon as a month from now!!! Enjoy the vid:

These guys came up with this song after girls from Mayfield Dorm at JBU no-showed on a movie night. I think you’ll recognize one of the players in the vid. Enjoy.

1. Editing a new video of recording in the studio – to be posted soon
2. Creating the content pages for website – October launch?
3. Deciding if spending the $ on mastering is worth it unless you go with someone who costs $$$$
4. Waiting on final artwork for the CD jacket…
5. Having a guest musician (Tom Snider!) come in and record bass tonight on “These Idols” as the last tracking on the CD
6. Final mixing to be done tomorrow and Thursday – whoopee!
7. Deciding should we go with CD Baby or TuneCore…hmmmm
8. Happy when it’s finally out there and done!

Hey, it’s been awhile since I updated on Julian’s upcoming CD so I figured I post real quick with where we are at. Tracking was a fun process and for the past few weeks I’ve been in post-production, essentially doing the final mixing for the CD. Last night I completed a “final” version of the CD and will ship it off to Julian at JBU for him to listen to and give a green light on. Here’s the album order:

1. Perfect Day
2. These Idols
3. Here With Me
4. Between Us
5. So Long My Friend
6. Rescue You
7. How Long
8. Must This all Last?
9. Lost it All
10. 1000
11. Time to Move On

Plus there is an intro track on the CD and a coda. Anyway, the album title is “Time to Move On” and Julian played everything on the CD, drums, bass, guitar, keys, piano, voice, etc. We are working on album artwork and developing a website for him. Both should be done soon. Final steps are mastering and duplication. This part costs money so we are praying in some funds so that there is no delay in releasing the album. If you want to help us out please give on our PayPal account by clicking here.

I would love to shoot for a mid-October release. Gosh it’s crazy launching a studio! For fun you can check out these videos of Julian in the studio from prior posts:

http://michaelburwell.com/2009/07/09/julian-in-the-studio/
http://michaelburwell.com/2009/07/14/julian-in-the-studio-–-part-2-we-roll-tonight-to-the-guitar-bite/
http://michaelburwell.com/2009/07/22/julian-in-the-studio-part-3-victory-salute/

I have a 4th video to post, but haven’t had a chance to edit it so hopefully I’ll get that out here soon!

While recording vocals in the studio I found that trying the vocalist way up on the mic and taking advantage of what is called the ‘proximity effect’ was really useful to capture a great performance. The ‘proximity effect’ is something that happens when you get all up on a mic and it seems to the listener that the bass, or low end, gets louder. (If you want to read more about it, check this article out on Wikipedia.) The advantage of this is two-fold to my ears 1) your vocalists voice sounds fuller and 2) you get a recording that sits in the mix better.

The interesting thing is that this also seemed to free up the performer a bit. They backed off and relaxed knowing they were getting a super positive sound on the mic.

The only challenge I had was a) I needed to really control the input gain especially on stronger/louder passages and b) the vocalist sometimes wanted to get *too* close. Rather than creating an intimate sound, I ended up needing to re-take the passage since we ended up with some muffling, etc.

I should point out that I am using large diaphragm condenser mics such as the Studio Projects C1, CAD Trion series, Octava 314, Shure KSM27, MXL V63, etc. Usually mics like these will be noted in instructional books and videos as properly being recorded at roughly 12″ (1 foot) away. I was trying some things as close as 3″ with the vocalist’s nose almost touching the pop filter! And yes, this was recording a very dynamic vocalist. (No compression used.)

Side note: I will be getting my hands on a cool dynamic mic (think Shure SM58 like what you would use in a live situation) called a Shure SM7B which has proven to produce some great close up vocal recordings.