Greg Atkinson

We recently made a great purchase at my church. One of our electric guitar players had played at another church and used a product called Axe Trak. He’s a very good musician and picky about gear, so he was skeptical at first, but after playing through it, he had to admit he thought it worked great. He came back and told me about it. We bought one the next week, loved it and bought a second one this week (we often have 2 electric guitars).

What does an Axe Trak do? It allows your electric guitar player to have their amp beside them on the stage, but via the Axe Trak, there is no stage volume. We had been putting our electric guitar player’s amps in holes we built into our stage. The holes (with the lids on them) reduced the stage volume, but were a pain to set up, mic and needed a fan constantly blowing on the amp, which means we had to crack the lid open and caused a danger on our stage (one of our vocalist fell in one of the holes while walking backstage and hurt her leg pretty bad). We’ve had several other people (including myself) that almost fell in the hole, when the lid was left open or not fully closed. With the Axe Trak, we have closed the lids for good.

Here’s some more info from the Axe Trak website: “The warm sound desired by most guitarists can only be created by the speaker of a good sounding guitar amp being mic’d in the right environment. Direct amplifier outputs sound fake, fuzzy and extremely harsh. The AxeTrak® alleviates this problem by allowing the user to connect directly from the speaker jack of their guitar amp to the input jack of the AxeTrak®. The output of the AxeTrak® is then plugged into a recording console, mixing board or computer soundcard using a standard low impedance microphone cable. This method of recording allows you to get a direct signal that includes the preamp tubes as well as the power tubes if using a tube amp. This is very important if you are a tone freak like most guitarists.” Check it out HERE.

That is the question and the topic of my weekly column on Monday Morning Insight. Go HERE to read this week’s article.

I was recently contacted by Albert Martin, a tech staff member at Granger Community Church. He told me that they used to use another presentation software at GCC for their lyric presentation, but between the quirky behavior and crashing, it became really frustrating for both he and the volunteers that run the program most of the time.

As a result, Albert has been developing a brand new piece of worship software from the ground up that “has proved to be both extremely stable and incredibly easy for our volunteers to learn and use” (he said he has trained volunteers in 15 minutes for what used to take at least twice as long). GCC has been using this every week since early this year.

The software is just wrapping up development and he’s released a FREE public beta for other churches to use and test. He currently has a very brief website up during the public beta period that gives a brief overview of iWorship along with several screenshots. A more thorough website is being prepared for the final release. Check it out HERE.

I created some still backgrounds that are good for Thanksgiving and the Fall season in general. They are called “Thanks Backs” and are available in standard size, as well as for widescreen. If you’re looking for some seasonal backgrounds, I hope these can help.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I can’t wait to see my kids dress up tonight. I might just sneak some candy, too!

My friend, Don Chapman, of WorshipIdeas.com has partnered with my friends from WorshipFilms on a new Christmas project called “Complete Christmas“. WorshipFilms made videos for of Don’s HymnCharts Christmas carol arrangements. This is a product similar to the Integrity iWorship series that you may be familiar with, but these are actually in normal keys that congregations can sing and use in church.

Chris Sligh, the Seacoast worship leader that was on American Idol, sang on “The First Noel”, “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”.

Here is the description of the product from WorshipFilm’s website:

• “Complete Christmas” is a unique collection of great music and great media for Christmas worship services. Included in this collection are:

- 6 Christmas songs (5 traditional carols in contemporary arrangements, plus an original Christmas worship song) - all accompanied by original videos! For each song, there is a demonstration version, a split/click track version with lyrics, a split track version without lyrics, and a chord chart.

- 6 Long Plays, taken from the accompanying song videos

- 7+ Looping Backgrounds

- 2 Five Minute Countdowns

- A video Sermon Illustration

SPECIAL NOTE: The downloadable individual song packages each contain: MPEG-1 demonstration version, MPEG-1 split/click track version with lyrics, MPEG-1 split/click track version without lyrics, MPEG-1 version of corresponding Long Play loop, and a chord chart. - which I think is pretty cool. Also note that this collection is available in both SD and HD versions!

Okay, let’s hear it. How many of you have already purchased Apple’s new Leopard? I’m also curious as to how many of you (like some of my friends) were standing in a long line waiting Friday afternoon to get one of the first copies?

EXTRA:

Don’t forget: You’ve got just a few more days to get all of Highway Video’s DVDs for 50% off. Click HERE to stock up your media library!

BONUS:

For all of you “The Office” fans - Did you see Dwight on Second Life? It reminded me of LifeChurch.tv’s Second Life campus, which you can check out HERE. What did you think of Dwight flying around?

This just in from SermonSpice: 25% Off Organic Videos: Organic is your source for distinctive backgrounds and one of my favorite producers of motion backgrounds. If you are looking to create a worship environment that communicates the power of the cross in a unique way, check out the Organic Collection. The new Liquid Distressed Collection features textured backgrounds with subtle water motions that will add a touch of motion without distracting worshipers. Right now, the entire Organic Collection of over 800 motion backgrounds is 25% off. Use the coupon code: 25ORG and stock up today. Offer ends November 12th.

EXTRA:

Did anyone catch MuteMath rock Conan O’Brian’s show Wednesday night?

PERSONAL:

I just got back from taking my 2 youngest kids to play Putt-Putt. My middle child is a 5 year old boy and my youngest is a 3 year old girl. My boy got 4 holes-in-one. Watch out Tiger!

TechMission has just launched www.UrbanMinistry.org as a Web portal for the Urban Ministry world. Some of the sections you may be interested in include:

* UrbanMinistry Blogs: including some of the top syndicated Blogs of Urban Ministry leaders.
* Sermon Videos & MP3s including John Perkins, Jim Wallis, Noel Castellanos, Wayne Gordon, Ray Backke, Effrim Smith and Martin Luther King Jr.
* Gospelpedia: similar to Wikipedia but covering youth ministry, addiction recovery, technology and ministry and volunteer management.
* Conference Materials: including over 100 keynote talks and workshops from CCDA, Kingdomworks and Compassionworks/YouthPartnersNet (coming soon).
* Local Volunteer Opportunities: including over 1,500 volunteer opportunities from nearly 900 organizations. National partners on this site include: CCDA, UYWI, YouthPartnersNet, HLIC, Salvation Army and AGRM.
* Online Courses
* Account Registration (FREE)

EXTRA:

Cory Miller (from Church Communications Pro - and is also a part of my book) is offering people a coupon code to get Granger’s Church Communications Form Bundle for FREE. I have it and it’s great! You can get it HERE.

BONUS:

Yesterday, WorshipHouse Media launched their Thanksgiving and Christmas seasonal stores. Check them out for the best in seasonal media (new for this year and good stuff from earlier years).

Yesterday I referred to SermonSpice’s release of their new, free worship presentation software: SpiceRack. I did my homework on this, including speaking with several “pro’s” in the industry and getting their feedback, too. I, honestly, don’t know where to begin. To call this product premature is an understatement. I don’t know if they were just concerned with getting it out to Catalyst attendees or what. Let me also say that calling it “Alpha” or “Beta” doesn’t excuse what I saw either. As one computer developer I talked with said, “Beta versions should have most bugs worked out and be MUCH further along before releasing.”

I downloaded the software and tried using it and was not able to. All it did was flicker. I couldn’t press any buttons or tabs. I couldn’t add an image or a video - nothing. The other thing that I and my investigative team discovered is that the software is heavily dependent upon the Web - meaning it doesn’t like it if you’re not connected to the Web (Obviously, the creators of SpiceRack want you to be able to connect straight to their mother company, SermonSpice).

I ask: Who is it that is going to be interested in a free presentation software (knowing you get what you pay for)? The answer: The startup church that meets in a school auditorium or a movie theater. Think you can connect to the web there? Nope. For the church that is portable and in setup and tear down mode every week, they probably are not going to have web access, which makes a lot of this product useless.

My 2 cents… This is a one-time purchase. Prayerfully consider how you can come up with the money to INVEST in a solid product (like the Top 3 in my software poll - EasyWorship, MediaShout and ProPresenter). If you really don’t have that much to invest, then consider MediaShout Express, which I reviewed earlier and is half the cost of the leaders in this field.

If you absolutely need to go FREE, go with a proven product like Easislide or Open Song that has been around for a while.

EXTRA:

On a more positive note, my friends at SermonVideos.com have come out with 2 cool new things that I’d love to tell you about:

1. HD widescreen motion backgrounds! As you know, I’ve stated before that I’m looking all over for these since we’re getting ready to go into a new worship center with widescreens. SermonVideos.com now joins the ranks of Igniter Media and Worship Films as pioneers in offering HD backgrounds to churches. Praise God. Many of their newest motions are now available in full widescreen 1280 X 720 HD in BOTH Windows Media AND Quicktime MP4 format. NOTE: Subscribers have full access to these files. I’m a subscriber. To subscribe go HERE.
2. SermonVideos.com is happy to announce the new Countdown Creator software. If you would like to quickly and easily be able to create your own countdowns, this software is for you! Simply put your stills and videos into the creator, arrange the countdown clock and export.

PERSONAL:

I’ve received several “Thank yous” from people that read my article in Collide Magazine. It seems there are a lot of people who appreciate honest reviews of companies and products. Thanks for your encouragement!