Schedule Correction

I got my dates mixed up. Apparently we are going to be a Beulah Baptist on Oct 13th. (NOT the 6th).

Also didnt realize brandon was out of town this week. I thought that was last week, I’ve just had my dates all mixed up.

I’ll see you all this Thursday night, provided I remember what day of the week it is when Thursday rolls around.

Equipment for a mobile ministry

Ok, you may have heard me mention on a few occasions the equipment we need to take our ministry “on the road”. We are talking about a fundraiser and I thought I would provide some more information on this equipment just for curious minds while I come up with a rough estimate of how much money we need to raise.

I have been talking to a guy named Mike, with a company called frequency city sound out of Ohio. www.freqcitysound.com  He has provided me with some information and pricing for what we need.

The big boy is the Alen and Heath WZ3 12M monitor mixing console. There are few consoles out there that would meet our needs when it comes to the In-Ear-Monitor mixing. This console has isolated passthroughs for each channel. All of our mics and instruments would run into this and then provide a “split” for each channel to the “Front of House”. This is by far the least expensive dedicated monitor mixing console out there but perfectly adequate for our needs at about $2,000.00.

We would also need a rack to put this mixer in along with all our existing gear for our monitors.
This will allow us to roll our entire rig into a church, plug our instruments into it, plug it into that churches PA system, and be ready to go in roughly 15 minutes.  The case would run roughly $500.

Then there is a couple of “Snakes” (essentially a big fat bundle of cables that would connect our monitor console to a  PA system, in one tidy package), an effects unit, power conditioner, etc.. roughly $500 for all that.

Mike Provided me with a picture of one of these setups he has built in the past. Ideally, this is something like what we are after…

The picture to the left also shows wireless recievers for wireless microphones mounted. That is a luxury we dont have right now, but would be great in the future for streamlining our setup and would be very convienent to be mounted in this rack as well. Thats about $1000 more.

Now for all of us to go wireless with our monitors to completely take advantage of this system we would need at least 1 aditional wireless monitor system and 1 extra reciever. ($400 and $200 respectively) But for everyone to have thier own mix (Our ultimate goal) we would need 2 more full systems and 2 additional Transmitters ($400 and $250 respectively) So that would be anywhere from $600 to $1300 for us to all go wireless. Realistcally Brandon and I can share a mix and save $250 here, so $1050 for the full works.

Ok, so we got about $3000 for the console with the rack, snake, etc.
About $1050 to get everyone’s monitor systems wireless.
About $1000 for wireless microphones.

So 3k would get us goin… 5k or more would get us the “whole shabang”.

We just gotta get started on the fundraiser ideas.
If anyone has any ideas or is willing to help feel free to comment or shoot me an email.

Event Update

We had a good time tonight. Played Third Day’s “Call my name” for the first time and it went really well. Aside from some of us forgetting some chords on the other songs (me included) there were no major catastrophes (unlike last week, when we had to bail out of a song in the middle LMOL)

We are going to be playing at Beulah Baptist Church on October 13th.  Im excited about getting the opportunity to get “out and about” again. Unfortunately with our current equipment setup we have to get there REALLY early to setup and do soundcheck. They days of “on the fly” setups are pretty much over, until we can find a way to get the money for the portable rig we need.

Apparently there are some people who are disappointed about us not participating in the CR Jamboree this year. Unfortunately, Its not really something we can help. Going back to the equipment situation, because there are multiple performers at this event it is truly an “on the fly” scenario which we are not equiped for any longer.

We are talking about planning a large scale fundraising campaign possibly next year. We need about 3-5k to give us the mobility to take our ministry anywhere with virtually instant setup and tear down time. Right now our system doesnt play well with other PA systems. Its by no stretch of the imagination a “typical setup” and would require completely reworking the monitor system in must churches. However, God will bless us with the necessary equipment when the time is right.

A new way to get updates

You can now find us on twitter at www.twitter.com/visionmusic
If you want up to the minute info on what the band is up to you can sign up for a twitter account and follow us. Most of us also have our own personal twitter accounts which you can find on the “About Us” page of the website.

Dont forget, you can also register your cell phone with twitter to recieve updates as text messages.

So go ahead… sign up for twitter and get “Plugged-in” with Vision Music Ministires.

If you want more information about what twitter is, check out this excelent video at: http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter

Let us know what you think by posting a comment on this post.

Blog Comments & Stuff

Noticed today that the interface for the Blog seems to get really bogged down and slow at times. Not sure what thats about but I’m gonna have to check into it.

 Had a question about posting on the blogs last night… Let me explain this a little better.

The Blog is a place for US to connect to YOU.  It is not a “discussion forum”. If I find that a discussion forum would get traffic and usage I will definately add one to the site. I just havent found that there is enough traffic to the site to make this worthwhile.

With that being said, you CAN, however, leave comments on posts that we create. (”We” seems to be “Me” most of the time). Discussions can spawn off of posts that are created by us.

You can get to the comments section a couple of different ways. You can scroll down to the bottom of a blog post and click on the little orange link that usually says “No Comments” which will bring you to a place where you can leave your comment. Also, You can click on the title of the Blog post, then scroll down to the bottom of that page and there is a box to leave a comment.

Keep in mind that comments are moderated (To prevent spam) so any comment you leave will not show up immediately, I am alerted when a comment is left and I have to approve it before it shows up. This usually happens fairly quickly though.