Hella Solutions blog: "Document. Share. Inspire."

Yesterday (12/24/06) I went to the Christmas Eve service of the Rock of Ages Church in Witbank. I met earlier in the week with the Pastor of the church and got permission to bring in some mics and record his service. Unfortunately, I forgot the cable to transfer audio from my MZ-M100 or I’d post some clips. Anyway, the church is located in an old building that looks like it might have been a car garage. It is one large space that holds around 250 seated and about 50 standing comfortably. There is a stage to one side of the space where the pastor, choir and band are. The congregation is seated in three large groups on the front and two sides of the stage. The floor is a black, hard rubber/plastic substance of some sort. The church sits along a dirt road with a few houses around it and all are next to a fairly large township mainly that is made up largely of shanty houses and a few small sections of average, small, brick houses.

I placed a Sony MB-M100 Mini-Disc recorder connected to a PZM mic at the back of the room near the churches sound board. I didn’t have any time to test out locations for setting this mic up so my hope was to try and get the best overall sound from the service.

I had with me my Sony MZ-M100 connected with the Sennheiser “shotgun” mic with pistol style grip. I walked around the church and recorded from about every angle possible. The main problem I ran into was that it was sooo loud that I couldn’t tell what I was getting. The only time I could tell was if I stepped outside and stood a few feet from the entrance. I ran on hope for most of this job – hope that I’d get something usable between the two recorders.

After waking up around noon, I got to listening to the discs and found that I got some very usable audio. I think the strongest sections are of the songs that were performed, some sections of the Pastor preaching (in a truly Southern Baptist style and with great shout outs from the congregation). The Pastor only mentions HIV/AIDS briefly during one section where he is telling people that to stay strong no matter what ails you (something like that…I have only listened briefly for quality not content). So, I’m trying to figure out how I can mix this audio into the project. Spirituality, g-d and the church are not major players in this piece although they are brought up so I don’t think it’ll be too difficult to incorporate. It’s just that, well…this is a strongly “g-d” church service and everything is about g-d and my project isn’t necessarily taking the angle of a “g-d” paradigm. Spirituality does have a role; anyway I didn’t expect anything different and I’m very thankful for the opportunity to record there and the audio will be used in some shape or form. One idea I am thinking about is to insert some of the preaching and songs and then bleed into a mix of them with some beats and use them to connect sections of the project (I’ll have to get the help from the legendary KGB – a local DJ friend – for assistance on doing this).

I give many thanks to Pastor Zulu and his congregation for giving me the opportunity to record the service. It was an honor!

audio equipment, concert recording