Well, we ended up finding a mix engineer who met the requirements that I put in my last entry: We’re seeking to find someone who has mixed records where we like the way it sounds, also having worked with secular bands that we respect, so that the record doesn’t have a specifically “Christian’ sound to it.

We landed on Jacquire King. He’s a guy from Nashville (funny enough) that I’ve heard is a Christian, but has mixed a great combo of Christian and secular bands: No Doubt, Modest Mouse, Tom Waits, Third Eye Blind, Kings of Leon yet also Mute Math, Toby Mac, David Crowder Band, and Chris Tomlin!

We’ve been very satisfied with the mixes, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel that we will soon be done! This has indeed turned out to be the best thing we’ve done at Mars Hill by far and it feels good to listen to the mixes (though it’s been exhausting to hear the songs so many times!) and feel as though our prayer has been answered, that God would be glorified and our level of excellence (for the sake of Him being made much of) would increase.

We’ve also landed a sweet mastering engineer Emily Lazar. Her credit list is too long to mention here, but she has done records that you own and love, trust me. Mastering is the very last step of the recording process and is essentially like the icing on the cake. The engineer balances volume levels from song to song as well as giving it the last bit of sonic character. While it may not make or break a record, it is still a crucial piece of the equation that can have a drastic effect on the overall sound. I’ve never had such a high profile mastering engineer work on a record that I have, so I’m curiously excited to see how that turns out!

Pastor Tim’s new band (someday they will be named, but for now they are non-committal) is wrapping up some various overdubs this week mostly doing guitars and vocals.an interesting track we did a few weeks ago was some stomps and claps on “What Wondrous Love is This?’ harkening back to Radiohead’s “We suck young blood’ and Queen’s “We will rock you’. We had about 10 people in a small studio with a tube U47 micing the floor. Everyone would sway back and step forward at the same time. We must have tracked this group 4 or 5 times, giving the illusion of 50 people slamming their feet on the floor it had a killer low end thump a la hip hop records.

We had a wicked string recording sesh last week. A group of Mars Hill string players came in 3 violins and 2 cellos (does anyone actually play the viola? Come talk to me if you do.). Brian Eichelberger (E-Pop) put together some outstanding string arrangements, which really took the songs to the next level. We sat the players up in a semi-circle with 2 AKG 414s (through GML mic pre’s) doing a close stereo pair thing. They sounded great and we ended up dumping the Coles 4038 ribbons which we had hoped to use as well, but were far too mid-rangy. I also put up a FET Sony C-37 (a mic which has grown on me a ton during the making of this record) in an omni-pattern in the middle of the group. I threw it into a Summit EQF-100 for some mid-sweeping goodness and slammed the Urei 1176 as well. This created a very full string sound with only 1 mic. Most songs we tracked either the Sony or the AKGs for 4 to 5 takes, again giving the illusion of many more players than were actually present.

On a more geeky level, I’m going to touch on some actual recording techniques and general nerd talk on how we’re getting those sweet sounds to tape.

For the drums on “Solid Rock’ (which is being done by Epop), Brian wanted to get a very pulse-y sound. The drums play only on Bass Drum and cymbals, and build throughout the song to a loud 8th-note crescendo at the end. Brian said he wanted to hear the compressor “breathing’, which is essentially where something is being compressed in such a way as to be very noticeable for effect. It makes you feel like the drums are slamming against a brick wall on every hit. To achieve this effect, we pulled out an old omni-directional EV microphone similar to what would have been used on an on-site news report in the 70’s. This was run through a Shure level-loc (popularized in modern recording by an amazing recording engineer - Tchad Blake), which is an insane compressor originally designed to be used for announcements on a P.A. in a bowling alley or something of the like. Lots of fun!

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written about our studio project, (which is a hymns compilation of several Mars Hill bands) largely because I’ve been really busy working on it. We are now knee-deep in production, and we’ve finished 4 of the 5 bands’ basic tracks. Pastor Tim’s new band will be going in to do their basic tracks at the end of the month.

We are seeking to capture Mars Hill Church’s missional perspective on corporate worship in a way that shows our diversity and inspires other churches and musicians not only to worship Jesus, but to do so in a way that is in tune with their local culture Christian or not.

I’m really excited about the way things are turning out we’ve been able to hone in the already great existing arrangements, which has been great for Brian and I (the producers) as well as a nice time for the bands to be able to step back and get new perspective on songs that many of them have been playing for a long time.

This is something that we as bands at Mars Hill wrestle with and as music director, I am trying to address (forgive the bad analogy) the need to keep the “wheels turning’, but never getting a chance to really work on the engine. We’ve grown at a very fast pace and have just barely been able to create enough new bands for new campuses as they crop up, so stopping to re-group or record has rarely been a luxury we’ve had. Though Projects like this one are a nice “break’, we’ve opted to do this one while keeping most of the bands in current Sunday rotation because of necessity. While this has been difficult and a lot of work, I feel it has gone well so far and we haven’t burned out any of our volunteers.

For the next blog, I’ll geek out a little on some tech-y stuff and discuss how we got good sounds in the studio…

I grew up in the church with folks that had a very narrow working definition of the word “worship”. Generally, in the evangelical world I was entrenched in, “worship” is essentially translated into Christian-talk to mean “praise and worship music”. Now that I’m a deacon in charge of the sound at Mars Hill church, I’m privy to the ins and outs of service production. So that common, yet narrow definition of “worship” just won’t do anymore.

Worship in the context of the church service doesn’t simply include singing songs of praise, but the technology needed to make that happen. This would include the technology associated with the whole production and the people that operate all the “stuff”.

The tech gear used in our services include-but is not limited to-the use of mixing consoles, video switchers, projectors, microphones, and lighting fixtures. Each is a tool that we believe helps to create texture to draw people into an environment that’s most conducive for worship. (more…)

By Pastor Tim Smith and Deacon Joel Brown

Many people at Mars Hill have recently expressed curiosity as to why the audio levels in our services are mixed at such high volumes. Is it because we want to push the limits of being as loud as possible? Is it because we want to be cool?

This document is an effort to clarify the reasoning behind what we do and why we do it. For a technically detailed explanation of the steps we have taken to ensure safe noise levels please refer to our “Noise Safety” document, which includes data collected by a certified audiologist who is a Mars Hill member. (more…)