Article by: Terry Wilhite

A reader in Michigan has asked a question via e-mail that many Christian communicators are asking these days. Here’s a portion of the letter, edited for brevity.

My passion is to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. I would like to start recording the messages I have prepared for various seminars. My goal is to work with a simple set up (like a mini-recording studio) of hardware and software. The criteria that I think are important for our ministry:
1.) Within a reasonable budget,
2.) Easy to use,
3.) Easy to interface with the computer,
4.) Digital format,
5.) Able to create files for the Internet,
6.) Simple editing, and
7.) Able to produce a master CD from which to make copies. The final format should be cassettes, CDs, MP3 files for the Internet, etc. Can you help?

Actually, developing an effective and efficient digital audio ministry is not as challenging as it may seem. You have several options, each of which could be explored at length. Since we have limited time, we’ll hit the high points.

If you have a computer and a soundcard, you’re inches away from reaching out to others with impressive audio. One way you can achieve your goals is by using your computer and software such as Cubase. If you go that route, you’ll need to check the software’s minimum requirements and have plenty of room on your hard drive. Audio recording software is easy to learn and use and so are stand alone audio recording devices like Yamaha’s AW-16G. These units are self-contained and consist of an audio mixer, dedicated hard drive and audio inputs that can handle traditional sources such as a microphone and guitar. Further, these units allow you to record onto individual tracks. Once you have all the tracks like you like, you can “bounce” them – that is, mix them down to stereo left and right. Then you can “burn”, that is, record them to CD, transfer the data to DAT (digital audio tape), a computer or any suitable audio recording medium. You can also record to your computer’s hard drive. For a worship service, I would personally choose a device such as one of Yamaha’s portable workstations over using a computer to record the master. Of course, anytime you use a hard drive to capture audio, you’ll want to “defrag” often. Audio will be written on available hard drive space, in and around other files. This will cause the sound to “sputter and spatter”. I can risk technical bugs perhaps when I record a short song or radio commercial in my studio. It would be terribly annoying to record a worship service or concert, only to find out that the middle is really botched and it’s impractical to record it again.

If you prefer not to use a stand alone recording device, you can always opt to use your computer. With the addition of a Yamaha O1X, you’ll have the best of both worlds. You can use the O1X as you would a traditional mixer, bringing in multiple audio sources such as microphones and musical instruments, then ship the signals via Firewire to your computer. Using your favorite audio software, you can mix using the O1X and see the changes you make reflected on your computer monitor and ultimately on your hard drive recording.

Unlike tape, when digital masters are duplicated, data is copied, not sound. As long as the data stays the same, so will the audio. Remember, always the highest quality settings (sampling rate) as you can. You can always later “distill” your audio to formats such as MP3. You cannot convert to a higher sampling rate, however.

It’s very easy to overdo DSP (digital signal processing). In fact, I usually record the audio “flat”. In your car, it would be the equivalent of having your radio’s treble and bass knobs in the center position. In other words, not too much treble and not too much bass, if any adjustment at all. Radio stations are notorious for over-processing. Plus, typically, your listeners will process their own sound. If you over process when you record and the listener has his or her system equalized when the recording is played, the double processing may result in unacceptable sound. Also, no matter what you record your master on, you will probably will eventually take that audio (or data) to your computer. (The ideal is to keep it all digital.) Once you have a .wav file on your computer, you can create an MP3 (compressed audio files), a CD or audio suitable for the Internet, such as a streaming audio file.

Don’t forget the cables. Make sure you use high-gauge cables with the right impedance. Don’t skimp on cables. They’re the weakest link in the chain and can be the most important. Also use the highest quality microphone you can afford, probably not the one available from the local electronics store. Price tracks quality, which is typically the case for every audio component you have.

Do your homework as you research your options. Our goal as people in ministry is to be transparent, so that our listeners look beyond the medium to hear the message. Keep your audio setup and efforts as simple as possible. Less is more.