Podcast Sixty-seven

You may not hear any familiar melodies as this podcast is mostly original. I’ve adopted a fairly new process to recording the podcast. Rather than attempting to record all 30+ minutes in one sitting, I’ve just sat at the piano and pressed “record” as the Holy Spirit has led throughout the past quarter. It has been working out okay so far. It also gives me an opportunity to select the best recordings out of many, and there was a really bad 15 minutes of recording I was happy not to have included in this podcast. You may notice that it may have a slightly different sound than previous podcasts. I’m still perfecting the audio recording and mixing aspect of the podcast even after almost 5 years. I pray this podcast encourages you to spend some quality time with our Maker.

A quick update – Yoko’s sister, Eiko is doing so well now that the hospice where she was sent to spend her remaining time here on earth is preparing to discharge her since her condition has improved so dramatically. This is truly an inspiring testimony in development! Our God is an Awesome God! Please keep her and her family in your prayers.

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Porta Fidei – Soundwave – DCYC 2013 Theme Song

The band site, www.soundwave.cc is still down for maintenance, but we wanted to get Porta Fidei, the theme song we recorded for DCYC 2013 available to everyone. We’ve worked tirelessly in the studio to get this recorded in time for the event and want to present it as our gift to everyone who is a part of this ministry that has done so much to impact the lives of youth in the Austin area for Jesus Christ! We hope you enjoy the song.

You can also play it in the browser here:

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Porta Fidei

 

Podcast Sixty-six

I think this might end up being my favorite podcast to date. What God has brought me through over the past 7 months is expressed in this music since even today I fail to grasp the words to properly convey what God has done in me.

Even the technical part of getting this recorded was met with enormous opposition. I had hoped to post this on Wednesday, but two completely separate devices in my studio  failed – one of them is still dead. Praise the LORD it is finally done as I silently hope my computer doesn’t crash before I  click “Publish”.  :-) The two familiar songs I used go way back. The titles are “Holy, Holy, Holy LORD”, and “I Love You LORD”. I also wrote song with the primary lyrics being, “I stay my mind on You God”. I hope to someday make it into a full blown song with verses and a bridge, but I’m not really a lyricist, nor was Moses a speaker so we’ll see where it goes. I pray this podcast blesses you as much as it has blessed me and thank you for your patience. I’ll post an update within the next couple of weeks regarding some of my future plans for this ministry and life in general though His Kingdom will I seek first.

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Podcast Sixty-five

In this podcast, I used songs Soundwave prepared for DCYC – they are “Strong Enough to Save”, “Your Name High”, “Forever Reign”, “Always”, “Your Great Name”, and “Our God”.  I think this is probably the first podcast ever to be original-free, although, it does contain some originality. Those who like consistently quite and peaceful podcasts may not enjoy this one as much since I get a bit loud in some parts. It may be a few months before the next podcast is posted, but I’ll try to make it softer. I thank all of you who continue to use this ministry to enhance your prayer time. I’m blown away at the number of downloads that happen on a daily basis.

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Podcast Sixty-four

What a crazy couple of weeks it has been! I won’t bore you with all the details, but the end result is I finally have a new podcast. You’d think after 3 years of doing this I’d have it down but I don’t. This podcast required a massive amount of editing, but I think it turned out okay. I did find some ways to improve the audio over the previous podcasts. The only issue is there’s too big of a dynamic range so had to go a little overboard on the compression and limiting.

I wish I could commit to doing these more frequently, but with work at AT&T consuming more and more of my time, family, Soundwave, and {hopefully} a Music To Pray By album by early 2013, I’m going to keep it at once a Month for now. God bless all y’all who are listening, and please keep me and my family in your prayers.

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Podcast update and Soundwave’s new album “The Start” preview

The past few weeks have been a bit chaotic for a number of reasons so instead of further neglecting the family and forcing out a podcast today, I decided to take it easy and hang out with the wife and kids. I’ve already got the next podcast recorded and a very small part of it edited so I should have enough time throughout next week to get it posted next Sunday.

However, the new Soundwave album, “The Start” is finished and I have the master. We’re just waiting on album art so we can send everything off for print. The official release date is set for February 4th, but I believe we’ll have the album available for purchase at the beginning of the year. Below is a 5 minute preview of the album, which really doesn’t do it justice – I basically took out parts of what are currently my five favorite songs:

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While you listen, here are a few things I’d like to share about the album:

- Soundwave started recording this album almost a year and a half ago
- It was tracked, edited, produced, and mixed from start to finish in my studio
- There was no “outside influence” on any part of it. Every part came out of the hearts and minds of the band and a few very close friends of the band
- I consider this one of the greatest musical achievements I’ve been a part of to date
- I know I speak for the whole band when I say to God be the Glory, and we pray the words and the music contained in this album open up the hearts and minds of all who listen to the wonderful salvation of Jesus Christ!

Podcast Sixty-three

I finished mixing the Soundwave album last week so I’m back at it – thanks for your patience. This podcast, I only used “Hosannah” for a brief period. The rest is original – some from previous podcasts and some that’s fresh and new. An interesting stat about this podcast is it’s the first to be exactly 30 minutes long! I admit, I stretched the end out a little, but it was already pretty close. I added a bit more gain both at the pre amp and in software using a little more compression and gain on the limiter to try to even out the level a bit. There is quite a bit more dynamics in this podcast compared to the previous two or three. This time, I wanted to keep the dynamics as original as possible, especially during the soft parts, and I didn’t change the level on some of the louder midi notes like I have in the past. I think it turned out better this way. I’m sure I’ll get better at holding back more as I record so please bear with me as I continue learn and grow in this ministry.

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Podcast Sixty-two

I used quite a few worship songs during this podcast – “Give Me Faith”, “Our God”, “I Lift My Hands”, and “Mighty To Save”. In a way, a lot of this podcast sounds repetitive to me compared to previous podcasts. It’s becoming a little challenging to keep things unique considering there is already over 30 hours of podcasts. :-) If this podcast inspires you to pray, mission accomplished.

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Podcast Sixty-one

Still searching for the best mic placement and mix, but I think its getting there. Most all the tunes are repeat or new originals. You may recognize one or two of them. I pray that every note played will encourage you to seek God’s Kingdom first. Peace.

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Podcast Sixty

This podcast does have familiar melodies from others, but I believe it has some uniqueness. One melody from the chorus of “Pour My Love on You” was used at the end. A couple technical notes – I used a new mic and mic positions, and there was definitely more dynamics than usual, but this was my heart of worship at the time – I hope it’s not too distracting. Happy 4th of July – thank God for the freedom we have. An estimate of 129 billion people have lived throughout the history of the world. Only 5 billion have experienced the freedom we enjoy, and 3 billion are alive today. How rare freedom is.

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Podcast Fifty-nine

This podcast, I used the songs, “Came to My Rescue” and “I Will Exalt”. Since I actually recorded this podcast over a month ago, I had to refer to planning center for the song names.

It is nice to be up on the new hosting provider. I was finally able to update quite a bit on the podcast so things look much better in the iTunes Music Store. If you have iTunes installed, feel free to check it out.

Interesting fact: this podcast contains 16,782 notes, and I probably touched 80-90% of them during the editing process. :-) I either need to learn how to play better or be less picky about timing issues.

I hope you enjoy the podcast. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

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Podcast Fifty-eight

It’s finally finished! The songs used are mostly original. I did play a familiar melody at the tail end. Most of it is a little more fast-paced than the norm. May you continue to be inspired to pray through my offering of worship to our wonderful Creator. To Him be the glory!

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Podcast Fifty-seven

This week we had Wednesday Night worship at The Connection Church so I used quite a few songs from that service – “Mighty To Save”, “Came To My Rescue”, and “Awakening”, a new worship song by Chris Tomlin that is pretty awesome. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t heard it yet. A couple originals are included as well. One was from a previous podcast. I’m still on a quest for the perfect piano mix. Mic placement and EQ has been changing every podcast. I really need to swap out my NT1000 with something else. It isn’t very balanced across the frequency spectrum. Maybe I’ll be able to afford the mic I’d like to replace it with in a couple months. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the rest will be added. I pray this podcast assists you in seeking!

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Podcast Fifty-six

I used only one song this podcast. It’s by Robbie Seay, and it’s called “Crazy Love”. The rest is original. This podcast is actually a second take since the first didn’t record properly. I always thought recording to MIDI would eliminate having to re-record podcasts, but not true. I did learn that the Disklavier does not like any kind of MIDI signal coming into it when recording so hopefully this will be the last time this happens. I do believe the second take turned out better than the first – thank you Holy Spirit. Draw near to Him and He WILL draw near to you. Not only is that in the Bible, but I have witnessed it first-hand.

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Podcast Fifty-five

I used two songs from last week’s service for today’s podcast – “Forever Reign”, and “God You Reign”. The rest is original. I used a different acoustic piano sample for editing the MIDI this week, and it actually disguised a lot of the small timing issues which is good and bad. The good is it took me half the time to edit (~4 hours instead of ~8). The bad is I notice them when playing back on the DC3, but I’m pretty sure most people won’t notice. For those who do, you’ll have the CD to look forward to. My plan is to make it as perfect as possible. Stay tuned! As you pray, please remember to pray for Japan.

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Podcast Fifty-four

We did a new song called “Our God” by Chris Tomlin in church last week, and it’s a beautiful song so that’s what I started this podcast with. The rest is somewhat original. A familiar melody came to mind towards the end, but I couldn’t pinpoint where it came from. Feel free to leave a comment if you recognize it.

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Podcast Fifty-three

This week I used a new song we played at church called “Came to My Rescue”. It is a wonderful worship song and it would be worthwhile to check out the lyrics if you haven’t heard them before. I also played “Amazing Love” and “You are My King”. The rest is original. Even though I didn’t spend as much time fixing timing issues as the last podcast, I did spend most of the weekend editing. I hope and pray one day this will be my full time job. God bless all of yall out there who are listening and may He continue to draw near to you as you draw near to Him!

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The story behind the $100 song – Terms of Endearment

Growing up, I didn’t have a choice when it came to taking piano lessons and practicing the piano. I remember like it was yesterday how my mom would sit me down at the piano and tell me I had to practice an hour or get a whipping. She would then set the stove timer for an hour and I would have to sit there and run through my practice routine before I could do anything else. She doesn’t know this, but I used to sneak over to the kitchen stove and knock 5-10 minutes off the timer every now and then when I could get away with it. I started taking lessons at the age of 7 and by the time high school came around, I had gotten pretty proficient at learning and playing classical music. I can just picture in my mind’s eye my dad thinking to himself, “this kid’s gettin’ pretty good” so one day, he offered to pay me $100 if I could learn and perform the piano solo, “Theme from Terms of Endearment”. The $100 was all the motivation I needed so I started practicing it every chance I got. I even remember my piano teacher, Mrs. Lum giving me pointers. I actually combined the standard and advanced arrangement into my own custom version. About a month or two later, I had it memorized and as I was running through it at home, my dad came over and gave me a $100 bill. That was the first money I had ever earned playing the piano and it was truly motivating. So, here we are two decades later and my dad asks me, “where’s my $100 song?”. Well, obviously, I had forgotten it long ago, but I found the sheet music for the standard arrangement online, and my mom actually found the advanced arrangement I used back in high school. It even has Mrs. Lum’s notes throughout so I spent the past month practicing almost every night and got it recorded for him. Here I am 20 years later still earning that $100! :-) Enjoy!

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Podcast Fifty-two

I used new mics and new mic placements for this podcast, and have to say, this may be the best podcast yet in my opinion. God is so good! It is such a huge blessing an honor to be serving Him in this way. Everything but the beginning of the last song is original. Pray without ceasing!

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Podcast Fifty-one

It seems like ages ago that the last podcast was posted even though it’s only been 4 weeks. The piano was recently tuned and is sounding wonderful. I’ve had this podcast ready for a while now. There were some issues with the sustain pedal after we got the technical problems resolved so I had to fine-tune the sustain MIDI data in a number of locations, which may be noticeable in some places. You’ll hear the melodies of “This Church”, and “God of this City” as well as an original. I pray this podcast is a blessing to all who listens – a great deal of time went into this one.

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