Archives

Series: Tips for the Worship Band – Electric Guitarist


BLOG HAS MOVED!

Hey everybody!  I have officially migrated this blog to be a part of my newly redesigned website.  I will leave these blog posts here, but will no longer add anything new to this blogger site.

You can view all of these posts and upcoming posts here:

You can subscribe to the RSS feed here:




Electric Guitar Player

For each element in this series, we’re going to talk about technical points in not only gear, but also playing style/technique.  Electric guitar will focus more on the gear side of things.  Some of this is intro-level stuff, but some is all-level stuff.  If you feel like you’re reading something that is elementary to you, skip to the next topic and see if it’s of benefit to you.

Gear
A few notes first, and then we’ll get to the actual gear itself...  Depending on your level of guitar experience, you may or may not have a good grasp on what it takes to get a great guitar sound in a live setting or in a recording setting.  In this case, we’re focusing on live, but these tips can carry over to the studio.  You got to have a good sounding guitar, a preamp, often an amp, cables, guitar playing skills, and knowledge of how all of these elements work together.  Let’s look at each important element individually:

Guitar – Of course!  You need a guitar!  What kind of guitar you choose depends on your budget and what you’re looking for in a guitar.  If you’re not sure what you’re looking for, consider these things in choosing the right guitar for you.  A guitar is not unlike a friend.  Consider the style of music you play.  Are you Rock?  Are you Country?  Blues?  Jazz?  Just Worship Music?  If you’re into Blues or Rock, you’ll probably want to consider the Fender Stratocaster (Strat) as your weapon of choice.  If you’re Country, perhaps a Fender Telecaster.  If you’re real heavy rock, perhaps a Paul Reed Smith (PRS).  There are so many options to fit every budget.  Consider what your favorite popular guitarist play and do some research to find out why they play that particular guitar.  There’s no perfect right answer as to which guitar you choose.  I personally play a Fender Double Fat Strat with a Floyd-Rose bridge and Tex-Mex pickups.  I also have a Hohner St. Lynx with an active EMG pickup to really shred up on some heavy metal.  The important thing that goes across the board for which guitar you choose is the concept of TONE!  Tone is the most important thing in a guitar.  Yes you can get guitar pedals that simulate certain tones.  But NOTHING can beat a guitar that has a great tone!  It can’t be simulated.  The tone of your guitar is a result of a combination of the pickups used in the guitar, the wood, the heaviness of the wood, the construction of the guitar, the neck, the strings, and your playing style.  Way too much to think about!  Having a guitar that is perfect in all these areas and fits your budget is impossible for most of us.  But, you can get a great sounding guitar with great tone that’s affordable.  And you can always modify your guitar later with better pickups, strings, etc…  Usually the beginner guitars that you get in a package with an amp, strap, picks, and strings probably won’t sound very good.  If you can, budget yourself $300 or more for a good electric.  If you’re really not sure what you’re looking for, you can never go wrong with a Fender Strat.  Many of the greats use them in secular music and Christian music.  Even the cheaper Strats have great tone.  I believe I paid just over $500 for my Double Fat Strat and I love it!  It has awesome tone and feels really good to play.

Guitar Pickups – Pickups are the little things with 6 silver circles each that reside in the body of the guitar under the strings.  They are basically magnets.  They “pickup” the vibration of each string, and transfer it to electrical energy in its coil that you can’t see.  Not all pickups are equal!  Cheaper ones are noisy, lack sustain, lack gain, and just all around sound not-so-good compared to higher-quality pickups.  Ask someone in your local music store to show you some different ones.  Some great ones are the Fender Texas Specials, Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates, Noiseless, EMG-81 active, and there are so many more.  Look up each one online and see what type of tone they offer.  Most are passive pickups which means they operate without any alternative power.  Active pickups will usually have a compartment in the back of your guitar for a 9 volt battery.  They require a power source to operate and will usually give you some mega gain on your sound.  I put an EMG-81 (active) in my Hohner electric and it is definitely a rockin’ guitar!  I’d recommend that pickup to anyone who is doing really heavy rock.  Of course, my Strat with the Tex-Mex pickups (the Mexican-made version of the Texas Specials) is usually all I need.  In fact, I can’t remember the last time I played the Hohner.  So, check it out.

Guitar Strings – When you go to the store, unless you already have a go-to string, you’re probably overwhelmed with the buffet of guitar strings available.  My advice: ask others what they like.  You’re going to want to try some different gauges and brands.  I like Dean Markley Blue Steel (regular, LTHB, or medium).  I have played with those exclusively for years because they sound good, and last a really long time.
Guitar Picks – This could go more on the playing techniques side, but will also affect your tone.  There are heavy picks, light picks, medium picks, made out of different materials and coatings… it’s hard to choose.  Fortunately, they’re cheap enough to try a lot of different ones.  I exclusively use Dunlop Tortex because they sound good, feel good, and have a great coating that grips incredibly well.  I tend to use a heavier pick when playing electric (.80 or higher), and a lighter pick when playing acoustic (.50 ish).  The heavier allows me to having more control over my pick-work on individual strings, while the lighter project a more brilliant sound when strumming my acoustic, as well as supporting faster strumming.  This is purely preference on what you choose.  No right or wrong here.

Guitar Cables – All the ever popular question: “All guitar cables are basically the same, right?”  Not quite.  More expensive guitar cables are usually constructed in a way that allows the signal to be transferred with less resistance and less signal loss.  Monster Cable is probably the top-dog in high-quality cable.  Do you need to fork out $30 or more for a 10ft Monster Cable for your guitar?  No.  A decent quality cable will do fine.  Waves makes some great cables, Whirlwind, George L Cables… as long as you don’t get all your cables at the $1 bin at your local music shop, you should be fine.  George L Cables are pretty cool.  You can cut them to your desired length and pop on a new end with minimal effort.  Monster Cable does have a great life-time warranty though (if they still have it): if you break a cable for any reason or it stops working, return it to any Monster Cable dealer and they just hand you a new one.  Pretty awesome!  As a side note, I’ve had more Monster Cables stop working than any cheap cables I’ve owned.

Guitar Preamp/Pedals – This is the most overlooked pieces of the puzzle.  This section is for everyone, not just beginners.  Have you ever plugged in an electric guitar straight into a direct box into the sound system and wondered by it sounds so dull, weak, and cruddy?  That’s because you’re plugging in something that has no pre-amplification whatsoever (assuming you’re plugging into a standard passive direct box).  You need some sort of preamp in between your guitar and the sound system.  A preamp can be as simple as a single overdrive/preamp pedal, or as elaborate as a multi-fx floor pedal unit.  We’ll get into detail on those things on a later blog entry.  Plugging into your guitar amp is a way of amping your guitar signal, in which case you can use a preamp as well or just the amp if you’re mic’ing the amp or coming out of a direct output.  One of my favorite preamp pedals is the Tech21 Sansamp GT2 and Tri.A.C.  I LOVE these pedals!  They are analog and they have some MAJOR overdrive!  We can get into the differences between overdrive and distortion in a later post.  While we’re on the subject of analog and digital… there are digital fx units and analog.  Every pedal you buy these days is going to be digital when it comes to FX such as chorus, reverb, delay, etc... when it comes to overdrive/distortion, you’ll have to choose.  Most multi-fx pedals (guitar fx units that have multiple selectable FX to choose and mix) will have digital overdrives and distortions.  Some of the more expensive pedals will have good sounding digital overdrives and amp simulators, but analog overdrive pedals generally have a beautiful quality about them that just can’t be emulated.  Most amateur players will not realize the difference until they play through both.  Line 6’s POD series of FX units and Roland BOSS series of FX units is probably the best at emulating analog sounds and you can get a ton of effects and sounds in these pedals.  But in all my experience with these super-all-inclusive pedal boards, they are great but can’t beat the sound of an analog overdrive.  We can talk a lot more about this later, perhaps with some sound samples and such.

Gain Structure – Gain structure is possibly the most important part of giving the sound guy a good signal, and a great sound, and adding to the worship experience.  Simply put, gain structure is the relationship of gain/volume settings across each piece of gear that your guitar is running through. 
An example of bad gain structure: You’re playing the verse of a song in which you’re using a clean sound on your electric.  You have your chorus pedal and reverb pedal engaged.  The chorus comes up and you stomp on your overdrive pedal.  All of a sudden, the volume of your guitar increases drastically – too much!  Good gain structure is balancing all of your pedals so that no matter what pedal you press, the volume remains smooth and equal, so that all you hear is the added effect and not the volume of it.  If you’re stomping on your overdrive pedal, perhaps it should make the guitar just a little louder, but there’s a balance you have to find.  If your volume changes every time you stomp on a pedal, it’s a nightmare for the sound guy, embarrassing to you, and a distraction to the worship environment.  Go through each pedal as you play (or patch if you’re using a multiFX unit) and engage each pedal and see how the volume changes.  Adjust the volume/gain knobs accordingly so that it’s smooth as you engage and disengage stomp boxes.

Direct or Amp – There’s always the question of “Do I send a direct signal from my guitar rig to the house, or do I run through the amp and have the sound guy mic the amp?”  Sometimes, this may be up to the sound guy and not you.  If you’re using a pedal board that has built-in amp simulation such as the POD X3 Live, then it may be beneficial to go direct to the house.  You could even send one signal direct to the house, and send the other output to your amp just for your monitor.  Usually putting a mic at the amp will result in a better electric guitar sound, but it does affect the mix and any volume adjustments you make on your amp will affect the signal going to the house.  You may want to work with your sound guy on what would be best for each given situation.

Playing Style

There’s a certain style of guitar that people are accustomed to hearing in today’s worship songs, and that is DELAY!!  It’s derived from the sound of The Edge (the guitarist of U2).  Outside of a good drive/amp sound, your delay pedal will probably be your most important pedal.  That’s not to say that you have to conform to this sound for every song.  But if you’re playing popular worship songs in your church, you will undoubtedly play some Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall, Matt Redman, Hillsong, etc… that all use a lot of the delay sound in their electric guitar parts. Mentally, this is how your congregation will know these songs so it’s important for you to be able to recreate it accurately.  Your personal playing style may be hard rock, as is mine.  But that may not be a good style for the worship setting (depending on the congregation).  In most cases, you are probably going to have to change your playing style a bit to fit the unity of the band and the message you’re presenting for worshippers to meet with God.  I have had to do this.  My tendency is to kick in a heavy overdrive, some modulation, and a sweet delay and play a wailing solo.  That’s not always edifying to the Body, so I’ve had to explore some of the sounds on my favorite worship artists and try to mimic their sounds and experiment with that playing style.  It’s not always the most exciting thing to play, but it’s remarkably rewarding when it sounds just right and you know you’ve worshipped in humbleness and have added to the overall experience.  Technically, make sure you are playing your strings accurately, powerfully, and most importantly… with heart!

That’ll be all for now for the worship guitarist.  There’s plenty more we could discuss, but this is getting looooooong.  Up next:  acoustic guitar!

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google
  • Furl
  • Reddit
  • Spurl
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

Series: Tips for the Worship Band – Worship Team Member (In General)




BLOG HAS MOVED!

Hey everybody!  I have officially migrated this blog to be a part of my newly redesigned website.  I will leave these blog posts here, but will no longer add anything new to this blogger site.

You can view all of these posts and upcoming posts here:

You can subscribe to the RSS feed here:





Worship Team Member

You are the one who leads.  Yes, you may have one person such as a music minister who more pro-actively has a leadership position, but make no mistake about you as a leader.  The moment you decide to join the team… the moment you put yourself out there on the platform… the moment you speak words of praise to your Father in front of many, you have become a lead worshipper.  You bring attention to God, the Focal Point.  You lead the congregation in a lifestyle of worship.  You are talented and have been chosen to use that talent to bring glory to the One, and act as a vessel of Holy Spirit-movement to those you lead.  What an amazing responsibility He’s given to you!  And my, how amazingly we often mess it up.  It’s so easy to mess it up.  It’s so easy to misrepresent the call to worship Christ and the change He’s done in you.  I’m not talking about messing up a note, guitar solo, or singing off-key.  I’m talking about how you live your life off the platform.  It’s easy to show up on Sunday morning, to sing and to play well.  We love doing that anyway and it’s often easy for us.  But the problem comes when that worship doesn’t reflect in your everyday lives.  Oh what a horrible day in the life of your congregation when someone sees that you’re not reflecting the words you’re singing on Sunday morning.  It is such a burden to bear.  If you are not creating a reputation of worship… if you are not being beyond reproach (Colossians 1:22 )… if you’re praising the Lord with your lips on Sunday and exalt profanity in your normal life or behave in a way that is contrary to the standard that God has set forth in His Word when you’re not around church people (James 3:1-12 )… If you’re seen on the stage every Sunday but are nowhere to be found in any other part of church life (small group, Bible study, missing during the sermon, etc…), oh how devastating that can be when you’re found out to not be the person you’ve claimed to be.  If you’ve experienced this type of situation, you know what I’m talking about.  Let me say that no one… NO ONE… of sound Christian mind expects you to be perfect or sinless.  After all, that is why we are a part of church anyway, right?  We are all sinners, continue to sin, and rely on Christ’s blood and a repenting heart to be forgiven.  That is the exact reason why we worship.  The problem comes when it’s a lifestyle of sin being embraced.

There have been a couple of these types of situations within the worship team at my church in the recent past.  And perhaps, the worship team is the perfect place for living out a fallen lifestyle: there is plenty of opportunity to gain praise from those around you and those in the congregation, you’re seen as a leader and automatically of good repute, people are initially skeptical whenever some sort of rumor might pop up.  For those of you on the platform, you are leaders in the eyes of everyone in the church, young and old.  The responsibility to uphold a high standard in your daily life doesn’t come from them or your position, but from the Word of God:  1 Timothy 3 .  1 Timothy 3 talks about overseers and deacons of the church.  Indeed, we are ALL subject to this standard, in our ministries, and in our lives.  It just happens that EVERYONE knows about it when you’re a lead worshipper.  Are these unfair expectations?  Absolutely not.  After all, you are the one who made the choice to be a leader. In Numbers 32 , Moses warns the Israelites that if they fail to keep their promise to the Lord that they will be sinning against the Lord and that "you may be sure that your sin will find you out".  We have made a promise to the Lord when we accepted Him as our Savior and accepted the call to serve him in our churches as leaders.

Now the technical stuff… get to know your sound guy!  Hopefully, he’s probably not as hard to work with or as stubborn know-it-all as you might think (as long as he follows the advice from this blog J ).  He can be your best friend.  Just like musicians, sound guys can be at all different levels of skill.  Be mindful of that when offering criticism, advice, or suggestions.  But also be mindful that he has the possibility of getting his feelings hurt or to be offended if the criticism comes off un-lovingly.  In which case, he’ll probably trash your suggestion and the information will be useless at that point.  Know that his responsibility is unique from yours, in that he has a better picture of how the system works, what can actually be done, and what it sounds like in the house mix.  But also, if he’s not a musician and hasn’t been on stage, then he may not completely understand your viewpoint.  Try to make suggestions in a way that’s constructive and easy to understand.  In most cases, he’ll really want to help you have a better experience and will do everything he can to accommodate.  Sometimes, certain requests are not possible due to equipment limitations or even knowledge of the equipment limitations, so be understanding of that as well.  He’s probably only one or two guys, and he has to take care of the needs of every musician on the stage, the sound needs of the congregation, and often the sound needs of other “destinations” such as a recording mix, lobby/nursery audio feed, etc…  It’s not an easy job, and it takes years to get really good at it. One other thing to be mindful of when rehearsing, is the temptation to put down your mic or instrument, walk off the stage into the seating area, listen to the mix, and then giving mix advice to the sound guy.  I would suggest to any sound guy to NEVER consider the mix advice of someone who does this.  While it IS beneficial to have someone else listen to the mix and give suggestions on what they hear, it is NOT beneficial for someone who has been rehearsing on stage to be that critical house mix ear.  When you’re on that stage, you’re in a particular listening environment.  You have guitar amps, stage monitors, perhaps even in-ear monitors.  The mix is created for your stage listening environment and your ears have adjusted to that mix.  When you step off the stage and into the listening area, you have stepped into a completely different listening environment.  There are large walls that bounce certain frequencies around the room, there are usually different speakers, etc… It’s a completely different mix need than what you have on the stage.  You have taken your ears that are well adjusted to your stage mix, ripped them off, and placed them in a blender.  At this point, it is impossible to give accurate information on the house mix to the sound guy.  He should say “thank you for the suggestion” and then totally disregard it. 
That’s all for the general overviews for the sound guys and worship team members… now, with the coming entries, let’s get to the specific elements of the worship band!

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google
  • Furl
  • Reddit
  • Spurl
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati