Preserving Tapes
How To Preserve You Ministry's Tapes - or Why You Should Pay Someone To Do It For You
Why is this an issue? Well, I had been receiving
tapes from a friend's church near Nashville. I love
the pastor. He says it like it is, and I like that.
I was getting cassette albums from years past. I
noticed that the quality was iffy. After talking to
my friend there, I called the pastor to offer my help.
I told him that I would transfer his library to CD
for him. The library would take up less space, and
would have an increased life span. CD-R copies would
cost less than cassette copies, and there would be
virtually no preventive maintenance expenses for CD
burners. So, that is another service that I will
offer now, I guess.
"What should a church record to?"
I would recommend an Alesis Masterlink ML-9600.
Retail is $1700, street price is $700. I will not
give a full review of one here. I will tell you that
I have one myself, and they are great for church
recording. The Masterlink appears to be a dedicated
audio master recorder, that prints to CD-R. Well, it
is in a way. Unlike any other device, it has a hard
drive. The new models come with a drive that allows
for 30+ hours of recording time to the hard drive.
After recording to the drive, a Red-Book CD's may be
burned. Red Book means that it has a Table of
Contents (TOC), and is the same standard as all
commercial music CD's. It will play in any CD player.
A CD-R does not have a Table of Contents, and relies
on a computer, or a player with software to access the
files. The Masterlink would allow the average pastor
to record 30 sermons on the drive before having to
burn a disc. Go to www.alesis.com to learn more, or
contact me and I'll give you more info.
The other options are a Digital Audio Workstation
(DAW) or a CD-R unit. A DAW would allow you to
maximize your resources and provide multitrack
recording and mixing functions. The DAW would allow
for editing, adding intros, outros, etc. A DAW can
also allow for time compression and expansion. If
your pastor is long winded by a 5 minutes, that 5
minutes can be compressed to fit in to the limits of
the CD, without affecting the pitch of his voice.
Boy, if only we could do that in our brains.
Should you decide not to begin recording onto a
Masterlink, DAW, CD-R, please consider how and where
your tape is stored. Tape has a life span of about 10
years. The cheaper the tape, the less life it will
have. If your tapes are playing fine after that
amount of time, that is great. I would recommend
playing it safe, and transferring the most important
tapes onto CD.
"But there's hundreds of tapes!"
I had a question asked of me. "Is it possible to play
a cassette tape at double speed, and record it
digitally at double speed, to save time?" The big
answer is, "NO!" Why not? It sounds logical.
In the cassette machine there are filters that operate
to ensure that there is fidelity at the normal speed.
There is also a phenomenon called "head bump." Head
bump is an physically induced EQ curve, which affects
the low end. By speeding the tape up, frequencies are
lost. All frequencies on the tape double, exceeding
the limits of the circuitry. The head bump also moves
up.
Continue >>>
Used by churches all over the world to help teach worship, the Experiencing Worship study can help your worship team too.
Your team will learn why we worship and gain a better understanding of how to worship.
One user said..."Your 5 week study course has made a tremendous impact on my life in the study of worship... I would like to express my thanks for a well written study course that leads into a higher realm of praise and worship."
This is the debut album by EXW friend Paul Langford. Paul is a Chicago based singer, arranger, keyboardist, producer and conductor. Paul has a career that spans 14 years. Paul's work includes arranging for groups like GLAD, Voices of Liberty, VoiceTrek, The Chicago based "Caroling Party" and Day of Discovery Singers. His arranging has appeared on recordings side by side with greats like Gene Puerling and David Maddux, and he has sung with Don Shelton, Bonnie Herman and Bob Bowker, among others.