So we had our first attempt at recording on the last Tuesday in July. Zack, my dad, and I all packed up our gear and headed to church. When we arrived, we immediately headed into the sanctuary to begin.
I had already had a meeting with Gary Houk, our church's operations coordinator, a few weeks earlier to learn how to use the soundboard for recording. I was a little worried about it, because I don't always have the greatest memory, and soundboards look (and are) pretty overwhelming to someone who doesn't know how to use them. I started setting up the way Gary had shown me, and immediately ran into problems.
The first thing we did is try to determine some camera angles for the drums. This was difficult, because it didn't look very good if you looked through the cage around it, but there was very little room inside the cage for it. Finally, we brought a chair into the cage and put the tripod on top of it. However, we had another problem with this: Since Zack had to start the recording process, there wouldn't be a way to start the camera safely. We just decided we would figure that out when we got to the drums. So we moved on to set up the recording process. And just as I feared, I had forgotten a few steps.
While I WAS able to get the soundboard and the recording files set up, I still had to get the song to play through the stage monitors so we would be able to hear it while we were playing, but I couldn't remember how to do it. I tried and tried, and I sat there for over an hour trying to remember, and I just couldn't do it. So our first night ended in failure. We weren't able to record anything.
It was a really frustrating night for me. I had been thinking and planning and dreaming about that night for months, and it turned out to be a huge letdown. I didn't remember how to set it up. Frustration is something I'm very bad at dealing with, so for the next few days, I beat myself up about that night. I was upset with myself, upset that I couldn't do better, upset I had to wait even longer to start making music videos.
I'm still upset about that night, but I'm not as angry as I was. My dad had told me that the first night wasn't going to go well. I would mess up, I would do something wrong and have to start over. It would be a learning experience. I knew it was true, but I pushed that thought away and had expectations that were far too high for my first try. Gary has moved to Kentucky since our meeting, so I can't meet with him about it again.
I will be setting up another meeting with someone else from our tech team to review how to use the soundboard. Not only do I want to know HOW to do it, I want to know WHY I have to take each step, so I can remember it for next time. Instead of memorizing it for next time, I want to understand the different aspects of the board so I can take what I know and apply it to other situations as well. Hopefully, next time will go better. But either way, I have to go in with patience, and understand, sometimes, you just have to wait.
I had already had a meeting with Gary Houk, our church's operations coordinator, a few weeks earlier to learn how to use the soundboard for recording. I was a little worried about it, because I don't always have the greatest memory, and soundboards look (and are) pretty overwhelming to someone who doesn't know how to use them. I started setting up the way Gary had shown me, and immediately ran into problems.
The first thing we did is try to determine some camera angles for the drums. This was difficult, because it didn't look very good if you looked through the cage around it, but there was very little room inside the cage for it. Finally, we brought a chair into the cage and put the tripod on top of it. However, we had another problem with this: Since Zack had to start the recording process, there wouldn't be a way to start the camera safely. We just decided we would figure that out when we got to the drums. So we moved on to set up the recording process. And just as I feared, I had forgotten a few steps.
While I WAS able to get the soundboard and the recording files set up, I still had to get the song to play through the stage monitors so we would be able to hear it while we were playing, but I couldn't remember how to do it. I tried and tried, and I sat there for over an hour trying to remember, and I just couldn't do it. So our first night ended in failure. We weren't able to record anything.
It was a really frustrating night for me. I had been thinking and planning and dreaming about that night for months, and it turned out to be a huge letdown. I didn't remember how to set it up. Frustration is something I'm very bad at dealing with, so for the next few days, I beat myself up about that night. I was upset with myself, upset that I couldn't do better, upset I had to wait even longer to start making music videos.
I'm still upset about that night, but I'm not as angry as I was. My dad had told me that the first night wasn't going to go well. I would mess up, I would do something wrong and have to start over. It would be a learning experience. I knew it was true, but I pushed that thought away and had expectations that were far too high for my first try. Gary has moved to Kentucky since our meeting, so I can't meet with him about it again.
I will be setting up another meeting with someone else from our tech team to review how to use the soundboard. Not only do I want to know HOW to do it, I want to know WHY I have to take each step, so I can remember it for next time. Instead of memorizing it for next time, I want to understand the different aspects of the board so I can take what I know and apply it to other situations as well. Hopefully, next time will go better. But either way, I have to go in with patience, and understand, sometimes, you just have to wait.