Into the digital age

For years BMPCNC has been recording its 11AM worship service to cassette tape for distribution to our members not able to attend church. We kept a few copies on hand also for anyone who happened to be absent on a given Sunday and wanted to hear what went on. With the advent of new technology we began wondering some time ago about moving to digital recording. Finally when our recently dissolved Pastor Nominating Committee was doing its work they saved considerable time and expense by being able to hear potential candidates' sermons online in digital format. They got very excited about the possibilities of doing something similar with our worship. So these two streams merged into renewed interest in getting our services digitally recorded and online. Herewith: how we are doing it.

Some years ago the church placed two high-quality microphones on the rear wall of (west end) of the sanctuary for the express purpose of recording special music events. Concurrently they purchased a Tascam digital recording interface. This is the machine that takes the signal from the mics and converts it into digital signals that in turn are fed into a computer-based recording software. The church also had a pretty powerful laptop computer used for a variety of purposes including being the work station for the digital recording process. With the Tascam we got a piece of software known as Cubase, which is a fairly high-end and powerful recording and sound editing program. I don't know how the final product was used for those special music events. I haven't found any archived CDs nor files of music events recorded with this equipment. Once I arrived I was intrigued with the possibilities but didn't really take too much time to explore any of the components that much. Cubase has a pretty steep learning curve and I therefore let it slip off my radar most of the time.

However, with the arrival of our new pastor there was wide-spread interest and passion for getting on the digital wagon. We had almost all the equipment we needed. The only thing lacking was a speedy way to duplicate CDs for distribution as we envisioned it. So at the end of last summer I purchased a 3-CD duplicator along with a supply of CDs, labels and envelops. Now it was just a matter of stringing all the parts together and getting personnel in place to do the various chores.

First the computer crashed. Phil Cogbill built a new machine. It had a couple of kinks; he took care of them. The first install of the Cubase software was flawed, so we had to re-install that. In the midst of all that my dad died, Phil had H1N1 and we had the usual zaniness of church life during stewardship season. So everything took about a week longer than one might expect.

There are, of course, one-piece devices that do everything we wanted and were trying to do with 3-4 pieces of equipment. For $4000 you can get a digital recorder that will produce a master CD, make copies of that master and print a pretty label onto the CD. Sadly we didn't have that kind of money. And we did have these other components and a desire to be good stewards of what we had. We got the last piece of equipment and all the supplies for about $600. The desktop computer Phil assembled cost us nothing. (We did however, this week purchase a new laptop; we'll stick with the current set-up and keep the laptop free to move around the facility.)

So here's the process:

We turn on the recording computer and recording software

Sound is picked up by the mics and fed to the Tascam

The digital interface sends the sound to Cubase

With Cubase we create tracks of the service and edit the sound quality

Then we convert the tracks to WAV files

The WAV files are burned to a master CD

We duplicate the CD

We label the duplicate CDs and label them for distribution

We convert the sermon track to an MP3 file format and upload that to the church's website

A lot of folks remember the good old days of turning on a cassette recorder, hitting record and getting a tape of what you wanted. The digital format means superior sound quality but brings with it greater complexity in the recording process. These days its not a simple matter of recording a CD. That can be done; but we were tasked with doing this with no budget.

So while it sounds easy: "we have a CD recording of our worship service," it's been a long haul getting to this point. And there is a fair bit of work involved in producing the final product. This week I was especially grateful to Mark Banzhoff for helping get more familiar with Cubase. I still have plenty to learn but I think I have the basics.

Ultimately our goal is to spin this ministry off for interested lay folks. But we want first to be certain that everything works fluidly and that we can produce easily-to-follow and clearly-defined steps for the whole process. You can listen to sermons online at our website. Phil and Perry Sprawls added that functionality this week. That's where we are right now.