The 13", 15" and 17" MacBook Pros

First some common themes. All the batteries are now non-removable. This was done to make them larger and thus last longer. They are now a lithium-polymer chemistry and rated for 1000 charge cycles. They also boast excellent life; 7-8 hours of rated capacity. All models are now of the unibody, aluminum design. The screens are all LED backlit, which enhances brightness and contrast; offers a 60% greater color gamut and improves battery life.

The line has been extended to include the 13″ unibody Macbook Pro. The old 13″ was considered a MacBook, and thus lacked FireWire. The new one, being a Pro and all, now has FW800. This is good. A big (and interesting) addition is the SD card slot. If you’re a digital photographer who uses SD cards, this is a big bonus for you. No more cables, just pop in the SD card and go. The 13″ is a perfect size for travelers or students, and at the base price of $1199 for a 2 Gig RAM/160 Gig HD/2.26 GHz configuration, it’s a great general purpose laptop for almost anyone working at a church.

Side view of the MacBook Pro 15" and the new Mini-Display Port

The 15″ line has been speed bumped again and all models come with 4 Gigs of RAM standard. Processor speeds are now 2.53, 2.66, and 2.8 GHz. Hard drives range from 250-500 along with two solid state options. The 15″ has FW800, but gone is the ExpressCard/34 slot. In reality, about 6 people will miss this. On the other hand, it makes it hard for people to add things like eSATA expansion to the MacBook Pro. If you really want to edit video on the go, this is a bummer. The new SD slot is there, however, and I for one am excited about that. I’m forever forgetting my camera cable, and look forward to going direct with the card.

Remarkably, prices have actually decreased across the whole line. The base 15″ is now just $1699–and that’s with 4 Gigs of RAM and a 250 Gig HD! Spending a little more gives you the better dual graphics mode (both the nVidia 9400 & 9600 cards), a bigger HD and a faster processor. That’s the one I’m excited about ($1999). Since I have 3 virtual machines on my laptop, the larger HD is a must, and while the 9400 provides better battery life, the 9600 is a lot faster for more intensive tasks (which I do a lot).

The Mac-Daddy (if you will) of the line is the 17″. Offering a 2.8 or 3.06 GHz processor (I know, can’t we just call it 3.0?), it’s the fastest of the bunch. The 17″ display is gorgeous and huge, and this one retains the ExpressCard/34 slot. If eSATA is your life, this is your laptop. Because the platform is bigger, the larger battery is rated for an astonishing 8 hours. This is a serious mobile platform for people who create media on the go. The video card can also support a 30″ Cinema Display so you won’t be squinting back at the office. And the prices have been adjusted; the base model is now $2499.

Overall, there is a lot to love about the new lineup. Personally, I’m looking forward to having a new 15″ in my hands (which should happen pretty soon if all goes as planned). Some complain about the glossy screens (I don’t mind them), and others complain they’re too expensive. Having worked at churches with both Macs and PC laptops around, I’ll say this–you get what you pay for. And since Macs run Windows better than a PC does (and at the same time), it’s like getting two computers in one. The bump in base RAM makes running dual OS’s easy and fast, right out of the box.

When Upper Room moved into our new space, we ended up with Shure ULX-P microphones. They’re decent mics, and require 9V batteries. This didn’t thrill me as I was hoping to go with AAs as their energy density is a lot higher. But 9Vs it is, so I looked to find the best ones I could. I like the Ansmann rack mount chargers, but at $450+, they were out of the budget. And I don’t like their little 10 bay desktop one. I’ve used it before and it’s not well made. My search ended when I found the Maha MH-C1090F at Thomas Distributing. At just under $50, it fit the miniscule budget. Thankfully, it does not disappoint. One of the problems with the Ansmann desktop unit is the contacts are made of cheap metal, deform easily and then don’t properly contact the battery. The Maha seems much better made in this regard. The batteries snap in place well, and charge quickly. So our charger needs were met, what about batteries?

Maha MH-C1090 10 Bay 9V charger

Again, Maha’s 300 mAH Powerex battery was the choice. It’s 50 mAH more capacity than the Ansmann’s we were using, and so far, they rock. Our speakers are good about turning on and off their packs and we easily make it through 2 sermons. In fact, the batteries have never dipped below 1/2 on the scale. I can’t see an instance where we would run out of juice, even running for 2 solid services. Your mileage may vary, but I’m happy with them.

Maha 300 mAH 9V Batteries

I’ve not been using AA batteries at church for a while, but for my own tests, I’ve tried several at home in my digital camera. I shoot a Pentax K-100, which as it turns out, is pretty energy inefficient. It has a high current draw, and the Ansmann AAs can’t supply enough juice. They die quickly and decisively. Plus, if I left them in the camera for a week, they’d be dead on their own. Not what I wanted.

So I tried some Ray-O-Vac hybrid rechargeables. They are billed as a low discharge battery that comes fully charged. I found them to work OK. Better than the other ones, but nothing spectacular. So I tried Sanyo’s Eneloops. To say these blow me away is an understatement. I bought a set, dropped them in the camera in February and only took them out to recharge before going to California a few weeks ago. Now, I probably only shot a hundred photos in that time, but still–no self-discharge to speak of. When I pulled them to charge, they still read 1/2 on the camera meter. Not bad.

Sanyo Eneloop. Amazing.

Last week, I was in South Dakota. I shot almost 400 pictures in 2 days. Again, no perceptible drop in performance with the Eneloops. I started carrying a few sets of Li-On batteries as backup, but have yet to use them.Though I’ve not used them in wireless mics, I can’t imagine they would be anything less than spectacular. And since they don’t really self-discharge, they wouldn’t need to sit in the charger all week long keeping topped off. [It should be noted that they do self-discharge, they just do it really slowly. If you're in a good rotation, you'd never notice it.]

You can get Eneloops at a variety of places, but I got mine at Thomas Distributing. I also picked up a La Crosse BC-900 4 bay AA charger. It was highly recommended on photography forums, and I am also very pleased. It has a variety of charging modes and will charge 4 batteries in under 2 hours and 2 in under an hour normally. And at $35 (with a set each of AA and AAA batteries and a case!) it’s a steal.

La Crosse BC-900 4-Bay AA & AAA charger.

Note: My apologies if the links don’t work, Thomas Distributing runs sales all the time and the links may change. If you find a broken link, just visit their website and search for the item.

Over the last few months, I’ve been traveling to a bunch of different churches. Every time, someone asks me, “How did it sound?” I have a hard time answering. Not because I don’t know, but because I am trying to discern if it was the mix or the PA or the room that’s at fault (yeah, most times it doesn’t sound that great…).

As an example, I recently visited a fairly new church. As soon as I walked in, I suspected there was going to be trouble. The PA hang was, uh, interesting. The room was a rather odd shape, and the walls had a lot of acoustic treatment. As soon as the band started up, I started hearing strange things. The bottom end was really boomy and loud, yet not at all defined. The room was actually too dead, at least for the way the PA was tuned. There was no sparkle, no air. The system had little clarity and while it was loud, there was no energy. As the worship set went on, it was clear the mix was not fantastic, but the room wasn’t helping at all.

Here’s the point of all this: If you’re having consistent trouble getting good sound, rather than being frustrated or mad at the sound guys, why not bring someone in and re-tune the room. This is harder than it might appear, since there are a lot of people out there purporting to be audio “experts,” who have no idea how to really tune a room. They might have a laptop with SMAART  on it, but no clue how to use it the right way. Or they may be old school and just do the whole thing by ear. In any case, you need to shop around. Find out what other rooms they’ve worked on and go listen to them. Get recommendations from other churches. As them what their approach to room tuning is (hint, if they answer, “Pop in a CD and tweak it until it sounds good,” keep looking).

Your prospective tuner should be asking you questions. “What don’t you like about the existing sound?” “How would you like it to sound?” “What is your musical style?” “How loud do you like it?” If you’re not hearing these questions, you need to keep looking.

The bottom line is this: Your sound volunteers (and staff people) have way too much to do every weekend without fighting the room. Make their jobs easier and give them a decent sounding PA to work with. Even if the system is old and needs to be replaced, you can often extend it’s life (while saving for the right one) with a good tuning.

A properly tuned PA won’t magically correct a bad mix, but it sure goes a long way toward making a good one sound better.

As a refresher, the goal of living a sustainable life is that we don’t burn out but are able to keep on doing what God has called us to for the long haul. That’s often easier said than done when most of us A) really love what we do and notice that B) the work is never really done. Here are some suggestions.

Take Time Off Regularly
Most tech guys (and gals) I know tend to take time off in the summer only. Maybe they’ll take a few days off between Christmas and New Year’s, but that’s about it. That’s really hard on you. One thing I’m going to start doing as I get ready to start a new position (before too long, that is–no announcement yet!) is actually blocking out days off during the year at regular intervals. The last part is important. We need some extra time off during the business of life to recharge. Even if it’s only a day or two, it makes a difference. Once church I’m talking to gives it’s people 25 paid days off a year. If I wait until summer, there is no way I can take all those days off. I need to take one or two a month regularly.

Find an Encourager
One of the healthiest things we can do is to find someone with whom we can meet regularly for support and encouragement. It’s best if that person (or persons) doesn’t go to your church. You need someone with whom you can share frustrations and be encouraged. I have several people like this in my life, and I’m thankful for all of them. I “meet” with two guys pretty regularly using TokBox as they are in another state. However, our times together are really refreshing for me.

Right-Size Expectations
This is something my most recent boss taught me. Sometimes we place such high expectations on ourselves (or they are placed on us), that it’s impossible to live up to them. For example; one church I talked to wanted their new tech director to start mid-July so they could recruit and train all new volunteer teams for the start of the ministry year in September. I suggested it might take a little longer than that. I’ve written a two-year volunteer development and recruitment plan instead, because that’s how long it really takes. I might be able to do it in less time, but I want to still be there in year two, not burn out in year one trying to get it going.
Remember the rule that projects always take about double the time you think they’re going to. Make sure you not only tell church leadership the right timeline, but give yourself grace as well. I’ve been at churches that have incredibly messed up tech systems and I want to get it all fixed now. That’s a recipe for disaster. Take the right amount of time to do it and you’ll be there to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Head on over to Apple.com/store and scroll all the way down and take a peak at the left sidebar. Near the bottom, in small type is a link to “Refurbished Mac.” This is your gateway to savings. I’ve saved several thousand dollars just in the last few months there.

For example, our new server was going to be an XServe. But then as I researched how much that was going to cost to get set up (everything is expensive for the XServe due the small form factor), I came across a 8-Core MacPro running at 2.8 GHz for $2,400. I made that my editor and used our older MacPro Quad-core for the server.

I bought both our new iMacs from the Refurb store, saving $300-400 each. In both cases I got more machine than I would have otherwise and saved money. What’s not to like?

The only downside is that you have to do a little extra work to get the tax removed from the sale. Since Apple has retail operations just about everywhere, they charge sales tax. However, by e-mailing them your state’s tax exemption form (with appropriate numbers), they will promptly remove the sales tax. I actually have the form saved as a PDF and just change the description to make it go faster.

Some people are leery about buying “refurbished” equipment. And with some manufacturers, that could be an issue. With Apple however, I’ve yet to have a problem. In fact, since they QC every item before selling in the refurb store, it’s actually been through the QC process twice. Most items come with a new-item 1 year warranty, and you can always buy AppleCare for them if you wish.

At the end of the day, it’s a good way to stretch your IT budget a little farther. Just do me a favor, OK? Don’t tell too many people. The more people that know about this means the supplies will become limited. And that means fewer Macs for me…

These tips were written by one of our veteran ProPresenter operators, and I thought they would be helpful to pass along.

• Have one hand on the mouse and one hand on the spacebar for songs (enables you to skip around quickly, while maintaining a good rhythm).

• Write down notes or changes if you can’t edit them now. Don’t say you’ll remember–you probably wont!

• Use spare time to go over song lyrics or troublesome spots.

• Pay attention during music rehearsal. Changes the worship leader makes might affect you, too.

• If you mess up, don’t freak out! Find the spot and jump back in.

• If you get into the song too much, you’re probably not cuing early enough. Think of people who don’t know the song.

• If you’re mind gets distracted, you’ll mess up unless you’re really lucky. Focus!

• Don’t let your eyes dart around the screen too much. If you miss something, it will take an extra second to find the problem.

• Follow the sermon notes! Winging it might seem impressive, but it has “mess up” written all over it.

• Keep your area clean. So much easier to find stuff.

As I said, these were written by one of our veteran presentation techs. She’s fluent in both MediaShout and ProPresenter as well as Keynote. And while I might be a little biased, I think she’s one of our best assets. She’s almost 13–and she’s my daughter. Yes, it’s a proud father moment. Good tips though, eh?

As an introvert, the interview process is draining, though I’m really enjoying it. I see God doing a great work in these churches and am excited to see where He calls us next. I’ve also decided to take a short hiatus writing blog posts for a bit while we sort this out.

I know many of you have been praying for me and my family in this transition and I just want to say a heartfelt “Thank You!” and keep it up. We’re in a good place and are confident God will make His will known shortly. The last few days have given me a lot to think about and I’ll be back soon with more posts. In the meantime, dig back through the archives or check out the other blogs in the blogroll.

As Bartles and Jaymes used to say, “We thank you again for your support!”

While I’ve gotten annoyed by cords in all kinds of applications, the one that wins the prize for most annoying is doing handheld camera work on a crowded stage. Not only are you in constant danger of whiplash and a black eye (when the cable snags and tries to pull the camera off your shoulder), it’s not that hard to pull over a cymbal stand or guitar cab as you’re repositioning. I’ve never do the latter (though I did accidentally kick a 1/4″ out of a DI during a Petra show once–sorry guys!), I have come home with a black circle around my right eye. Yup, camera cables are evil.

And I’ve used them all. By my best, and most recent count, I’ve been stage camera operator for over 200 concerts. I’ve shot with 2 BNCs and a mic cable taped together, 26 pin multi-core and even triax. And even though I had a grip for many of those shows (though only 1 of the grips was any good–I really missed you on the last Alive, Zach!) the cable was always a problem.

There have been wireless video systems around for a while, but they’ve either been of such poor quality that they’re unusable in the real world, or expensive microwave systems that require a crew just to keep them running well. Thanks to advances in wireless data transmission, IDX has recently introduced a product that just might work; the CW-5HD Cam Wave wireless video system.

The IDX Cam-Wave

I’ll warn you, it’s not cheap (a shade over $5,000). However, it does transmit up to 1080i HD-SDI video with 2 channels of embedded audio 150 feet, line of sight. It operates in the 2.4 and 5 GHz range, so it shouldn’t interfere with wireless audio, and requires no FCC license. It mounts to the back of a camera via either a V-mount or Anton-Bauer mount and weighs about 2 pounds. Since it only draws 12 watts when running at high power, it shouldn’t be too detrimental to battery life. Latency is rated at 1 ms, so the signal should cut right in with other hard-wired cameras just fine.

The transmitter fits right between the camera and battery.

Now is a tough time to justify spending $5K on a wireless camera system; I get that. And not every church even has a handheld camera on stage, let alone one that’s capable of sending HD- (or SD-) SDI. But this is good news, folks. Ten years ago, I looked into renting a system like this for a shoot. I was going to cost us over $5K for the week. Now we can buy the system for that. In few years, they’ll be down to $3,000 or less, and it’s going to be an easy sell. After all, can you really put a price on not pulling over the lead guitar amp while your cameraman is repositioning during the prayer? I think not.

You may have read the post a few months ago on our new stage platforms. I built them out of 1x material so they’d be easier to carry in and out of the sanctuary each week. And they are. However, since we use 5 platforms each week, that’s 5 trips (10 if you count in and out, which I guess you should), and after a long day, the last thing anyone enjoys is schlepping stage platforms down the hall.

There had to be a better way, I though. After a bit of study, here’s what I came up with. The first step was to put four wheels on the back side of the two larger (4′x6′x16″) platforms. After the service is over and we clear the sound and band gear off, we simply stand the platforms up and they’re ready to roll.

Well, they’re almost ready to roll. Since the smaller platforms are 3′x5′x8″, it occurred to me that they wold fit right inside the larger ones. In fact, that’s how we’ve been storing them for the last few months. The small ones sit inside the larger ones. I attached a few screw eyes to the large platforms and procured a few bungee cords. Now we’re ready to roll.

The smaller stages fit right inside, with the help of bungees. click to enlarge

The nice thing about the smaller ones living inside the larger is that it balances them out almost perfectly. I intentionally made the larger platform lean back slightly when up on the wheels so the small platform wouldn’t fall out while being strapped in. With the extra weight of the small one, it’s possible to move them by yourself. Now we’re down to 3 trips to move 5 platforms, and they store in less space than they used to.

Easy to move, easy to store. What's not to like?click to enlarge

The set up and take down teams are quite happy with these adaptions. And the wheels on the back force them to set the platforms just off the wall so we have a place to run our cables when we set audio.

That’s it for this edition. I’m off to look for something else to put wheels on…

A few weeks ago I did a few examples of when to to change slides on fast songs and slow songs. While I tried to provide some guidance for when the changes should take place, the truth is that it’s quite dependent on how the song is played. Really good presentation techs will drop changes between phrases so naturally people don’t even notice that the words change–they just keep right on singing. Doing that requires a great familiarity with the music.

I had to run ProPresenter few months ago because the guy who was scheduled didn’t show up. This was back in our old building and I was also TD’ing the service and switching video. However, because I knew the songs really well I was able to grab my Apple Remote and cue the slides, often without looking at the iMac’s screen. I say that not to brag, but to point out that when you know the songs, and you know the presentation, you can get really good at presenting.

So how do you get to know the songs? A great way is to listen to them in advance. One thing I was looking forward to at Upper Room was being able to include the tech team in on the worship song distribution list. With our new church management software, we can post MP3 files for the band and tech team to listen to. Spending some time during the week with the music will help you listen for natural breaks and cueing points for slide changes. While we have to be careful with copyright issues (and there are ways to accomplish this legally), giving the tech team the ability to listen in advance is a great idea.

Another way is to really pay attention during the band rehearsal. We have tried to schedule our presentation tech’s time in such a way that they can follow along in ProPresenter during the band’s rehearsal time. The impetus for this schedule is to catch variations in our slides that need correcting. However, it’s another great opportunity to learn the music and fine tune your cuing. A lot of techs I know will just follow along, only double checking lyrics. I suggest it’s a better use of your time to practice your cuing.

Also, if you get copies of the charts (and you should) it doesn’t hurt to look over them and make note of the phrasing and breaks that the songs contain. Again, we’re looking for ways to make the song more singable by the congregation. The more familiar you are as a presentation operator, the more you can do that.

So there’s commandment 4 (or 5). Now I need to work on the other 9…