My back pain and issues continue to roll on. It’s been about 3 to 4 weeks now of non-stop back pain. I’ve tried resting my back, wearing a back brace, ice, heat, muscle relaxers, pain pills, 3 sessions of acupuncture and went to Genesis Spine Associates yesterday to try spinal decompression therapy. I have to speak at a conference next week in Chicago and am going to need a miracle just to be able to go. I’d really appreciate your prayers.
This just in from Jake Ludington:
Wavosaur is a lightweight audio editing application with VST support. All the basics are covered here, including support for multitrack audio files, trimming, adding effects, making loops, and normalization. Most processing settings are also available for batch conversions, making Wavosaur a handy tool for applying the same settings to a bunch of files. I like are the option to remove silence in a batch, which is a convenient way to speed up spoken word audio without altering pitch. A vocal removal preset also scrubs music files of vocals, so you can make your own karaoke tracks in a batch. The vocal removal doesn’t always get chorus sections perfectly scrubbed, but it shouldn’t hurt your ability to sing over the top of the file. The application runs as a completely standalone executable, meaning you could put it on a thumb drive and use Wavosaur anywhere. The user interface is generally more intuitive than the popular freeware app Audacity, but the two make nice companions rather than being replacements for each other. While Wavosaur doesn’t bundle all the features of things like Sound Forge and Audition, it does most of the common audio tasks well at a price neither of those two apps can touch. [Windows 2k/XP/Vista $0.00]
BONUS:
Jake also thinks Mixcraft is the Windows equivalent to GarageBand. He has searched at length to be able to say that. If you use a PC, I think it’s worth checking out.
It’s good to be back in Dallas. Today is going to be a day of rest and family time for me. I haven’t seen my kids since last Saturday. HERE is a link to a FREE soundpack that you can use on your podcast.
The above is the title of an article that I wrote over a year ago. It first appeared on SermonCentral.com, then in REV magazine. Now you can read it on Monday Morning Insight HERE. It’s an article not only for pastors, but for all who are involved in planning worship.
My personal website (MultisensoryWorship) is being redesigned and should be looking very different soon. I hope to totally redo the article section to make it more accessible and user-friendly.
PERSONAL:
Today I fly back to good ‘ol Dallas. Can’t wait to see my family.
This Sunday many of you will be honoring mothers in your worship service. There are a number of Mother’s Day media resources available to you and your church. Here are some highlights:
After months of saying, “It’s coming soon…” – our latest podcast episode is finally LIVE. Episode 5: “Copyright and the Church” is our best episode to date. Anthony and I interviewed 3 copyright professionals and had a great discussion. This is a must-listen-to episode for your whole church staff. Download it today!
EXTRA:
Today I fly to Atlanta for the Orange Conference. I’m looking forward to getting to know some fellow church staffers better. If you’re going to be at the Orange Conference, give me a shout.
Free DVD authoring software is hard to come by. Many of the FREE apps are buggy. SoThink Movie DVD Maker is among the best of the free solutions available for DVD authoring. The app converts most formats, including AVI, MPEG, WMV, MP4, RMVB, MOV, and 3GP to DVD. Basic video editing features like trimming clips and combining smaller clips into a larger movie are also supported. When your video is ready for DVD you can burn straight to disk. The default video format is PAL, so if you are authoring home movies created in the US, you’ll need to change the defaults for NTSC support. This is especially useful in combination with something like Windows Movie Maker for Windows XP, which includes no DVD burning support. While the app will work with Vista, the Vista DVD Maker application has a better burning engine and far more features for authoring DVDs. Check it out!
BONUS:
SermonSpice is offering FREE illustrations and video clips from Spider-Man 3 (which I’m going to see this afternoon).
In our upcoming podcast, we interviewed Susan Fontaine Godwin and discussed the resources of the Church Copyright Association. The CCA is now offering online courses. You may want to check out their upcoming course. Here’s the info:
Worship Leader Training Center’s Exclusive Netcourse on Church Copyright Compliance
Date: Wednesday, May 9
Time: 4pm (Pacific Daylight Time)
The Worship Leader Training Center is proud to offer the Netcourse in “The Business of Music: Copyright Compliance for the Church.” Worship Leader’s newest way to offer the best tools, ideas and resources through a series of online Netcourses (interactive classes via the Internet). Sign up for the most accessible high-quality training available in the skills worship leaders need to lead their congregations. Only $39! Each course has a limited attendance, so make sure you sign up today to reserve your spot.
EXTRA:
Speaking of Susan Fontaine Godwin – after 5 hours of editing last night (and missing the Mavs game), Brian Davis and I finished the final edits to our podcast interview with Susan and 2 copyright attorneys. Look for podcast episode 5 VERY soon!
It never fails – each conference I teach at, people love the videos produced by Igniter Media Group. At each conference their videos are the favorite of the people in each class. I’ve blogged about them several times. If you don’t have all their resources in your media library, I encourage you to go on an Igniter shopping spree.
For my blog readers (you), you can use the promo code (cviblog07) to receive 20% off anything in the Igniter store (through May 31st). Some of you may not have purchased their latest video volume – Igniter Videos Volume 5. This would be a good time to use the promo code. You could also use it to purchase their brand new Mother’s Day collection. I would suggest purchasing both if you don’t have them.
