I was asked to serve at this year's youth camp, which led to the building of this Pedaltrain Junior board to ensure maximum compatibility with any sound system I was going to plug into. I gladly took it up considering my dosage of vitamin M (for music) has been quite low for the year. I know, what with my worship leading commitments, I should have a healthy dosage of vitamin M since I serve twice a month at Contemporary Service.
It's different. As a musician, I get to focus on my guitar parts, the tone from the effects, and the expression of emotion as I play. My task as a worship leader forces me to push all that musical awareness to the back. I have to worry about how the songs gel with the rest of the service, liturgically and musically. I have to make sure I'm directing the band to play in a certain way, that my vocals aren't distracting (as I'm not much of a singer), and that the scripture I read and prayers I lead point the congregation in a particular direction.
That aside, this post is primarily about adapting to various sound environments. Specifically, let's address the issue of serving in a school hall.
I served with Jeremy and his worship team for their first morning session, and I was immediately greeted with a technical problem: the sound system made everything sound muffled, especially when amplified through a school hall. A school hall, with tall ceilings, sonorous floors and glass doors, will have some crazy long reverberation that will colour your guitar tone. The goal is to make everything crips, clear, and clean, allowing the hall environment to accentuate your tone, rather than muffle it.
I did a few things on the board to try and be as clear and articulate as possible:
- Cut out all short reverb effects, including long background delays. I usually have a mild reverb coupled with a long delay with a low mix to cushion my tone in the background. In our usual worship space, which is a cinema hall, instruments tend to sound too dry (think of a studio environment).
- Tweak the EQ on pedals to cut out the low end and boost the mids. I did this on my "pre-drive" pedal, a CMATmods Signa Drive, and the tone controls on the Hotone Komp compressor, which has a sparkle switch and a tone knob.
- Use digital delays instead of analog-style delays. I have a DD-7 which has a crispy clean digital mode, a much more desirable sound over the rest of my analog delays on the board (a Strymon Brigadier, and an Earthquaker Devices Dispatch Master). The natural reverb of the hall will colour the repeats of my digital delay anyway.
In the end, I was only using at most 5 of the 15 pedals on my board, but that is precisely the point--I designed the board to have maximum compatibility with any sound situation I was placed in. If I only had 5 pedals, I'd have to make do with the tone that I have, and won't have any leeway to tweak.
