Episode 96:How Praise and Worship Music Drives the Gear Industry

Episode Transcript

Note: a machine made this, so it’s not perfect, but if you’re hearing impaired and have any questions about what we said, please feel free to ask us in the comments or send us an email with the form below. 

8-18-2020

Andrew: [00:00:00] welcome to the get offset podcast. My name is Andrew

Emily: [00:00:15] and I’m Emily.

Andrew: [00:00:17] And today we are going to talk about all of the things.

Emily: [00:00:21] That’s what we talk about every week.

Andrew: [00:00:23] We literally cover every single possible. Piece of content that we could in the guitar industry. Every episode, every time it makes it a little redundant.

If you listen to, when you look now, I’m kidding. Totally. We got a little bit of a special treat for you today. Emily’s going to get to grill me on my knowledge base and we’ll see how far that goes.

Emily: [00:00:44] Well, it’s not so much that it’s just, I’m going to be serving as a proxy for the listener. As is a good format.

So you’re going to be explaining something to me, basically.

Andrew: [00:00:57] I am, but we’ll get there. Oh, can you hear that?

Emily: [00:01:02] Yeah. What is that?

Andrew: [00:01:03] That’s my AC. It just kicked up a notch on its own.

Emily: [00:01:07] That’s because it’s hot in Seattle.

Andrew: [00:01:09] It’s not super hot. Okay. Well, yeah, so it’s super hot in Seattle. It’s supposed to be like 100 degrees to get today,

Emily: [00:01:15] uh, 95 where I am, but it’s likely warmer than other places.

Andrew: [00:01:20] I think I’ve got 98. My forecast, which really means, and forecast in this little area is always a couple of degrees short of what it actually is. Yeah. Uh, on my front porch. So

Emily: [00:01:31] especially when you take into account, like. The temperature in the sun versus the temperature in the shade.

Andrew: [00:01:39] Yep. I’m planning on barbecuing later today.

Not even going to need charter.

Emily: [00:01:43] Well, Hey, don’t do that. Rick. And I just going to hang out upstairs where the AC, where we have a window unit and got a TV set up in there, I’m going to work on some, um, Mitty stuff I’m doing. Rick told Rick Matthews told me, I’m talk about this. I’m doing just a little beta testing for the futurists.

They’re new. Um, yeah, I didn’t tell you.

Andrew: [00:02:06] No, you did. And that’s awesome.

Emily: [00:02:08] I just confirmed yesterday that I’m allowed to talk about it, but, uh, the software is really cool. Um, so basically it’s, it’s very small. It’s like, it’s barely bigger than a deck of cards. I think it’s as long as, uh, as long as a playing card and a little bit wider,

Andrew: [00:02:28] you know, I got to see that I got to see the enclosure at Nam.

I didn’t really play around with it, but I got to check it out. Look snazzy.

Emily: [00:02:34] It’s like two credit cards side by side it’s um, yeah, it’s really neat. Play soft switches. You can hear them a lot of output. So there’s a utility out of control, a nine volt and, um, the little Mitty, uh, eight inch adapter, uh, ins and outs, and then the mini five pen.

And then the USB that you plug into the computer to use their software. And, uh, you don’t even have to input all of the, um, The CC commands because there’s something called the smart uploader. So you can, you can add your own and add them to their data. It looks like, and then you can download from the cloud, like specifically, I like the mini commands.

So I feel like I’m a, such an aggressively new, I’m an aggressive mini newb, I guess is maybe one way to say that. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously. But I ha we’ll be messing with that a lot more, a lot more throughout the day, maybe with the, um, I have the, the dusk from dr. Scientist, nitty five. So I, that might be like, I might just take this, the guitar upstairs.

Um, do a little itty bitty mini pedal board thing with the Iridium. And get this, get this figured out. Like, I think that that’d be a good project for a day where it’s very hot.

Andrew: [00:04:04] That sounds like it. Wow.

Emily: [00:04:07] Yes, I, yeah, I can’t, I, I realized like pretty like about five minutes ago. I haven’t told anybody that I’m playing with

Andrew: [00:04:16] Chris.

That’s awesome.

Emily: [00:04:18] Yeah, so the I’m excited cause I have increasingly more middy pedals on my actual pedal board, the automaton, and I have, um, the Maris, uh, in Zelle and the chase bliss noodle. Those, all of those are middy enabled. So that’ll be fun. I really want to figure out, I seen some people do with the automaton, like have the mids go.

Like the mid frequency kind of moving throughout, I guess that’s on like a mini clock. Is that how that works?

Andrew: [00:04:51] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Emily: [00:04:53] So, um, so I guess I would set, do you know how I would do that? Just out of curiosity while I have you on the whole line,

Andrew: [00:05:01] also many new, but a mini clock sounds like the correct solution where it would just off of a tap tempo clock through the, through the step sequence.

Yeah, that’s what I imagine that would be, but I’m also, I’m grasping loosely at my understanding of the terminology. So you would think for a guy that works in tech, I shouldn’t know this, but I don’t.

Emily: [00:05:20] I mean, many is one of the things that we learned about and, um, music, business college, and my studio classes.

But I never really understood. I never really understood it passed like a mini controller going through different, different sounds like I’ve seen muddy get edited in pro tools. So I’ve seen how, how, like how that’s different than

Andrew: [00:05:43] no, I learned it in university. Gosh.

Emily: [00:05:47] Well, let’s see. Wow. I’m just saying it’s been a while.

Andrew: [00:05:54] I’m just giving you this needy vibe. That’s all

Emily: [00:05:56] vibe.

Andrew: [00:05:58] Let’s snip

Emily: [00:05:59] it. I’m not like clipping am I?

Andrew: [00:06:01] I don’t think so. Okay, cool. I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like it on this end.

Emily: [00:06:06] Sweet, sweet, sweet. I always worry about that. Cause I got a new, um, a lav mic for some of the demos on Amazon and it’s just, it’s very loud.

So I feel like I’m not supposed to be wearing it. Like as close to my mouth as I wear it, which is like on, on my collar. So it feels like maybe it’s just too loud. Like there’s like the mic shouldn’t be that loud.

Andrew: [00:06:34] Yeah.

Emily: [00:06:34] You know, so there, there was some clipping. I did my, I did a little Zoia, um, a little run through a building, my first soya patch.

Andrew: [00:06:42] Now is that triggering right?

Emily: [00:06:44] It does. It does.

Andrew: [00:06:46] Yeah. You’re about to have like a full mini board.

Emily: [00:06:49] Oh God, I hope not. Oh my God. I hope not.

Andrew: [00:06:52] I’m pretty sure that’s a prerequisite to be a worship guitar player

Emily: [00:06:56] that will tie in nicely. So, um, that’s enough about me. What’s a .

Andrew: [00:07:02] So fun little story from the Fox Cairo world.

I had a customer I’ll admit their name, uh, but I had a customer, uh, really, really friendly individual order. They went through an order, a custom topper. So they went and picked one of the artists and pay the artist to design something unique for them. Uh, and the artist for this round was a Michael Eberhardt.

He did a really great job on this, so. Did the order for Ernie ball VP jr. Uh, I got the, the artwork submitted and I got the payment and got it all together. Uh, may the topper shifted out? Woo. We’re all good to go. And then this was right before I went on vacation for the long weekend and I came back, um, and thankfully the message had been waiting for very long about a message with a picture of the topper on the, on the pedal.

And he’s like, Hey, uh, is this, does this look right? I was like, I’m looking at, I’m going, why does it look like it’s half an inch too small and every side? Oh no. Did I? And I’m sitting here thinking, going, it didn’t look small when I made it and I don’t think I screwed up the formatting. Wait, did I? And I immediately went into panic mode.

I’m like, I must have screwed this up. And so we went back and forth a couple of times, like, I’m going to make this right for you. Let’s sort of get let’s sort out what happened here. And I was like, I went back and I was checking the print logs and going through everything. And I’m like, literally, like, I’ve got my list of like what the measurements are for each of my pedals.

And I’m literally like going to grab my, my VP jr. Because somehow my, my list could have changed. And I like, honey, I shrunk the kids. I don’t know, just complete freaking out. And he’s, he’s like, hang on a second. Hang on a second. This, my pedal just says, Ernie ball VP. It doesn’t say,

Emily: [00:08:51] Oh, I forgot that there is a bigger one

Andrew: [00:08:55] time.

I don’t know. They’ve, it’s been discontinued for a while, but once upon a time, Ernie ball made a full size Ernie ball volume pedal,

Emily: [00:09:03] which is wild because they’re already quite big. Cause like the juniors are quite.

Andrew: [00:09:08] Yeah. Yeah. So it’s like 11 by four, like 11 inches long, four inches wide. So that’s huge.

Emily: [00:09:14] Yeah.

Andrew: [00:09:16] So good news. Happy ending to the story. I just, I got the proper dimensions for the new size and you’re sending another one all sorted out and I think it got delivered yesterday. So I’m hoping that I’ve got picture soon, a very happy customer.

Emily: [00:09:32] And if he ever gets a VP junior, he’ll have the exact.

The exact same lab pedal topper.

Andrew: [00:09:40] Yeah. I was like, did you use that? If you want to ever swap out your pedal or just give it away to a friend or do whatever you want with it? It’s yours. Keith,

Emily: [00:09:49] I need to fill my, um, Ernie ball volume pedal tuner demo. So you can make a topper

Andrew: [00:09:53] for it. Funny you say that. Uh, that’s also on my bench right now.

Emily: [00:09:59] Nice.

Andrew: [00:10:00] I’ve got, so I’ve got,

Emily: [00:10:02] did you buy it from somebody?

Andrew: [00:10:03] I did. Yeah. So shout out to cam from Gibbs Sunday in tone throne, he lent me his Ernie ball volume pedal tuner, uh, as well as three expression series pedals. And I’m going to be, I think, a little bit of fun with the designs on those. All I know. So all he handed them to me and said, Hey, uh, Have fun with it, knock yourself out, do it everyone.

But when you return them, like, I would really like to see, uh, something like, I want something really fun and specifically here’s what you need to know about me is I love Jesus and I love the office. So that’s my, that’s my design guidelines that I’m going to have to try and sort out without any sort of, uh, IP infringement.

So we’ll see how that goes. Uh, but no, it’s gonna be a lot of fun and I should have. Uh, if I can get through specifically, I want to get the template knocked out for the volume pedal tuner this week,

Emily: [00:11:01] because I thought you had, I thought you had a templates for the expression series already.

Andrew: [00:11:07] Um, I, I might sitting around somewhere.

I just, I know I haven’t physically built one and put one on a pedal and put it in the Porter booth yet. So.

Emily: [00:11:17] Well, I liked, I liked the expression, the series tremolo. I’m a whole hell of a lot.

Andrew: [00:11:23] Yeah.

Emily: [00:11:24] Yeah. Right now, um, Nevada Elliot has my, uh, expression series, overdrive pedal, and I think Sean Crawford has my, um, my old delay.

Andrew: [00:11:39] Nice, nice, nice. Yeah. So I’ve never actually like wired up all of them in a row and I’m thinking. I’m thinking once I’m done doing the toppers on all this, I might do like a quick, like, Hey, what can I get out of using only the expression series, pedals

Emily: [00:11:56] a lot on a

Andrew: [00:11:57] soundwise. So I’m going to give it a, go, give it a whirl, see what I can do with it.

Emily: [00:12:03] I like, I liked the overdrive. I wish it went. I wish I wish it was a fuzz. Honestly. I think it would be like the coolest. I think that would be the coolest of the pedals if there was a fuzz, because it’s really, it’s really kind of amazing how they’re able to, um, let you blend in the dirt without increasing the overly increasing the volume, like at all on the,

Andrew: [00:12:26] yeah.

You just get it set to unity.

Emily: [00:12:28] Gannon. Yeah, that’s neat. Oh, I like it a lot. Um, I just think, I just know people are picky about their overdrives, but I think the tremolo is a winner.

Andrew: [00:12:39] Yeah, no, I’ve really liked the trend. The one time I got to play with it before, and I thinking it’s going to be a lot of fun to play around with once I get this all wired up and all dapper with some, some toppers.

Emily: [00:12:51] I’ll totally for sure. For sure. Yeah. I’m trying to think if there’s anything else I want to say about those, but. I’m just excited to see what they come up with next. I do need to film that. Um, well, I, I originally just asked them for the volume pedal tuner to demo and they’re like, well, that’s not really a very fun one to demo.

So let’s just send you our, our expression series lines. So I wasn’t going to say no to

Andrew: [00:13:16] that. Right, right.

Emily: [00:13:19] Uh, but I still want, I still want to film D a demo with the tuner because it is like, it’s simple, but it’s neat. And I really enjoyed having it at the one show I’ve been able to, uh, To play with it,

Andrew: [00:13:34] for sure.

So a announcement from the gear world, uh, as of, um, in the last week or so it’s been officially announced that winter Nam is canceled and we’ll be moving it to a virtual event of sorts. They’re, re-imagining what they can do from the online world. So

Emily: [00:13:55] I wonder, I wonder if that will pull it back into like the original purpose of, of the event, which was to connect manufacturers with dealers and not necessarily this big consumer actual consumer open facing kind of event.

Not that it’s like supposed to be just open to anyone who wants to go in, but that does seem to be like, if you really want to get in, you’ll have to get in. Yeah. That kind of thing. Does it mean Shannon, if they’d let us in on our first tries with our pre P PR credential, sell it anybody yet?

Andrew: [00:14:33] Um, I mean, that’s one way to look at it.

So. Yeah, I don’t know what they’re going to do. As far as the change. I’m a little bit I’ve seen so far, I’m intrigued by, uh, and post pandemic. I think it, I think it’s fair to say that given a year or, um, that’s two names and a Rosso full year of Nam off in assuming that let’s say we, we assume that they come back for summer Nam.

If not the following winter Nam of 2022. Uh, I imagine that much time off is going to give them a chance to really reimagine, reevaluate their priorities. And also the other end of that is I think post pandemic world work can be a lot more paranoid in general about large crowds. And I can’t, it was fun to go in January, but now after like the, the collective trauma we’ve been put through in terms of like, Oh my God, the virus.

Uh, I’m not sure I’d be ready to go jump into a facility with like 30,000 people in it or however many there were, I mean,

Emily: [00:15:33] I, yeah, I mean, I think it was probably a bad idea to have it in 2020 at all. Like in January,

Andrew: [00:15:40] we didn’t know. Yeah. Yeah. Seattle times is reporting this week that coronavirus in the Seattle area was spreading undetected and widely.

So is early as like December, January.

Emily: [00:15:52] Yeah. I’m I I’m sure I don’t still have antibodies for it, but I am, uh, rather rather positive. I had all the symptoms. I know. I can tell you. I had every, almost every symptom and, and mid February.

Andrew: [00:16:07] Oh yeah, Melissa. Um, actually right before I went to Nam was. Super sick.

And while, while I was at Nam, she actually went to go stay with her parents. Um, and she basically just slept for three days and drink soup.

Emily: [00:16:19] Yeah.

Andrew: [00:16:20] I had,

Emily: [00:16:21] I had a cough that wouldn’t quit for weeks. I had a fever. That’s very unusual for me, you know, I always have allergies. So my sense of smell is always kind of a little wackadoodle, but, um, this was not allergies and it wasn’t like, it wasn’t like anything I’d ever had before.

Andrew: [00:16:37] Right. And because of like the, the range of the way that coronavirus presents itself in patients, they’re like, now look thinking back through, like every time I had like a slight sniffle or a slight cough, I’m like, Oh, that could have been COVID I had it. Yeah. But I’m trying, I’m trying to hold myself back and like, no, no, it’s not necessarily how that works.

Andrew chill. You can’t know for sure. And it’s not time to go. Just release yourself into the world. Hoping you have antibodies.

Emily: [00:17:04] Yeah, no, it’s about it. That would be a bad idea. And especially since like now, like this is not a COVID podcast,

Andrew: [00:17:11] pull it back. No, no. So anyways, Nam, uh, names canceled, be aware of that.

Uh, I will, I will admittedly be sad. There’s a lot of people. I got to see this last name. I’m really glad I went for my first time, right before all of this, but we’ll be missing all of you. And, uh, we already started a discussion in the Facebook group about, uh, whether or not. Wow. We think that’s positive for the future.

Feel free to join the Facebook group, join in on that conversation. And, yeah.

Emily: [00:17:37] And if you liked this podcast, please rate review on iTunes and check out our patriotic patrion.com/get offset. We also have merge on our website, get all set podcast.com.

Andrew: [00:17:52] Yeah. Uh, patronize us. I think that’s that’s the, the kids are saying these days.

Emily: [00:17:57] Please pay it patronize us. It helps. It helps. It’s nice.

Andrew: [00:18:04] So I, yeah, sponsors

Emily: [00:18:08] this week’s episode of the get off set, spotted the citizen with the bar  I have had, whoops, that was maybe the worst thing.

Andrew: [00:18:19] Sorry.

Emily: [00:18:21] Sperm artifacts based out of Seattle, Washington. Makers of the blister and peel version to a pedal that I have loaned to Andrew.

And I hope that he understands it’s about his forever, even though it’s orange. I knows that. I know that he wants it to be his forever.

Andrew: [00:18:41] Oh no, it got lost in shipping. I’m so sorry. Okay.

Emily: [00:18:43] No, no.

Andrew: [00:18:48] Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know how I’m ever gonna, I can’t return it to you if I don’t have it. I’m definitely not holding it in my hands right now, or definitely not feeling the immediate regret of knowing I’m going to have to give this back.

Emily: [00:19:03] Hi. How do you link that enclosure

Andrew: [00:19:05] to this enclosures suite? We have, um, Oh, uh, what’s that? It’s um, Oh my goodness. What’s the candy called worth? The, although Candy’s looked like fruit. Like you get like in the vending machines of best buy or whatever, it’s not nerds or shoot.

Emily: [00:19:23] Uh, that’s like some, that’s the nursing home candy.

I don’t, that’s all I associate it

Andrew: [00:19:28] with. Um, anyways, no, to like the, the way that the edges are beveled, it just reminds you of like candy in the most positive way.

Emily: [00:19:38] Get runs. No. I agreed. Now that I’m looking at them, like, yeah, there’s something very, Renty about it.

Andrew: [00:19:47] Yeah. The bomb. Um, they feel like diabetes, uh, which I’m not opposed to, at this point in my life I’ve come to terms.

Uh, no, but yeah, no, the, the way the edges are beveled just has this like super delicious runt candy. Especially with that color. Like this is just so, so freaking rad.

Emily: [00:20:10] Yeah. I wish I had done a demo with it on base. I haven’t actually plugged this. That was before I started doing base demos. So shoot, that would have been a good one to do.

Andrew: [00:20:23] Well, maybe if y’all ask nicely, I’ll do a live stream to the group with my bass plugged in and just give it a, give it a run through. See what happened.

Emily: [00:20:33] See what happens? Adventure is excitement, but those Gorbel enclosures. I think that’s what spruce affects is using. Um, if not on their Americano series there they’re more classic series,

Andrew: [00:20:47] right?

Yeah, yeah. All the hand wired stuff that Brian’s doing.

Emily: [00:20:51] Yeah. Those are cool.

Andrew: [00:20:54] He’s working on an FYI too right now. I think.

Emily: [00:20:58] I don’t even know what

Andrew: [00:20:58] that is. Super nasty FYS. Oh yeah. You said it was a plastic bottles. This blister and peel is super cool. And I, uh, I probably will give it back, but not, not because I want to.

All right. Let’s just be clear about this. I want to keep this for forever. Well, you

Emily: [00:21:18] can have a conversation with Dan about that.

Andrew: [00:21:21] I will, I will.

Emily: [00:21:25] Can I have blister appeal discount, please. Damn,

Andrew: [00:21:29] baby. I want to for free. No, I’m kidding. I’m kidding. All right. So before I, before I started having very aggressive conversations with small builders, just do, do yourself and do me a favor.

Go, just make this sold out, make these disappear off the internet, make, make this small builders dream and go back.

Emily: [00:21:49] But Andrew, so that Andrew will be tempted by them. You can’t be tempted if they’re always selling out before you could get one,

Andrew: [00:21:56] ah, dang it. They sold out again.

Emily: [00:22:00] Speaking of the things I’ve learned you, you’re why this podcast is literally powered by something a little bit different this week.

Andrew: [00:22:08] It is. So for the first time in the history of the podcast, Um, I’m doing something a little bit. No, I take that back. I did do something different once out of necessity. Um, but by and large, I’ve used the same microphone just plugged directly into my interface and I’m still using that microphone and I’m still using the interface, but.

Plot twist. There’s something a little bit funny in between. It’s called a, so you so uses the brand and this is their analog launcher, which is a kind of like a cloud lifter, but with a preamp in it. So it’s giving me a lot more of a clean boost input to it.

Emily: [00:22:48] It’s not it’s, it’s, it’s clean boosters. They say it’s not transparent.

Andrew: [00:22:54] Right, right. It’s supposed to have like a preamp, uh, forget what they’re modeling it out. I’m sure it’s probably something like a Neve, but

Emily: [00:23:02] probably

Andrew: [00:23:03] that’s a good sound

Emily: [00:23:05] Neve consoles. I’ve worked on nave councils. Mundane. I’ve worked on Neve consoles.

I learned what a mixing board is on a Neve console. Sorry.

Andrew: [00:23:23] Yeah. Uh, anyways, so that’s what I’m using right now. And if you think my voice, uh, I do actually have a little bit of a snuff right now. It’s probably COVID. Uh, but aside from that, if you think my voice sounds smoother and sweeter and more akin to honey or a Gavin, then that would be.

That would be the, uh, that’s the situation. It’s not actually my voice. You’ll be disappointed when you meet me, but this, this is pretty cool.

Emily: [00:23:47] I mean, just even looking at your wave forms versus what they normally look like on sand caster, you’re, if there’s a lot more presence and I think it’ll be a lot easier to a mix, cause I usually have to do some compression and eat Hugh on your

Andrew: [00:24:03] voice.

Sure, sure. But so, and I’m trying, I mean, I even turned on the input Ganymede thing a little bit. Here just to smudge. Cause I’ve, I keep clipping just a little, I’m looking at my, my input, uh, Ellie, and it’s starting to go low orange red when I start to get a little animated. And the wild thing to me is, is with this microphone.

I mean, there’s microphones. So this is a sure  so it’s really meant for like guitar amps, crazy loud inputs. Not really meant for vocals. And, but it just happens to be the microphone that I have, and it’s fine enough for this. And so I’ve never been able, like I have a really hard time, like I have to get really loud to get it, to clip on the front end of my interface.

And that’s even with the input on the interface almost timed out right now. I’ve got the input is like 1130. And if I talk just a little bit, there it goes. It’s starting to clip just a little bit. Um,

Emily: [00:25:01] well, it didn’t sound like it was clipping on my end to be fair.

Andrew: [00:25:04] Yeah, no, I’m just keeping an eye on the visual indicators and I’m just blown away by how much more inputs going into the sucker, um, with the, with the launcher in it.

So I’m actually pretty happy about that. And I’m curious to listen to the RA after the fact, because, um, The one of the other downsides to the way I run the mic set up. Normally I’ve got a pic. I can tell that it picks up a lot of the background noise because I’m listening to my, my input live. Cause I’ve got, um, it’s feeding back into my headphones.

So I. You know, when you talk with headphones on it, like, you don’t know how loud you are, at least with this setup, I can hear myself. So it feels a little bit more natural, but I’m not hearing near as much of the background noise that I typically do.

Emily: [00:25:47] Yeah, it does.

Andrew: [00:25:47] Just to cut on back,

Emily: [00:25:49] I’ve seen, I’ve seen other demos with it where like it’s used to record a guitar.

And then you don’t hear the street noise the second time. Like the fingers on the strings. What am I enormous puppies. I don’t know who taught these people to Mike, the fingerboard of the guitar. I don’t know why people do that on electric guitars. Please stop doing that.

Andrew: [00:26:09] No, no. Always go between the 12th and the 14th fret.

That’s normal. No, I hate it though.

Emily: [00:26:14] It’s stupid.

Andrew: [00:26:15] I disagree. . I disagree. I really, really like, like right around the 12th, 14th fret with a slightly off access angle. That sounds so good. Especially if you’re doing finger style, but sure. Yeah, sure. Mics are great. Not my

Emily: [00:26:36] favorite.

Andrew: [00:26:37] Anyways,

Emily: [00:26:38] every time I hear an acoustic guitar on a recording, I’m like, that’s cool.

Andrew: [00:26:44] I am happy so far with this launcher and I’m excited for the theoretical will not believe. Uh, and I’m also really curious to, to me. I don’t have a DEI right now. Um, if I borrow a DEI, trying to compare the difference on my guitar rig and see how much difference that is running in,

Emily: [00:27:08] you don’t have a DEI.

Yes, you do.

Andrew: [00:27:14] Yeah

Emily: [00:27:15] on your amp.

Andrew: [00:27:17] You’ll know. So that’s just a TSN balance. Oh, my aunt has it,

Emily: [00:27:23] like, what are you talking about? My guy,

Andrew: [00:27:25] I have a GI my amp. Oh my goodness.

Emily: [00:27:28] Yeah. Your fender amp. That’s how, that’s how I recorded. I recorded the whole demo doing like toggling between the DDI and my family. Remember video.

Andrew: [00:27:44] I’m a cabinet in any Muggins.

I feel so ashamed of myself right now.

Emily: [00:27:50] I shouldn’t know your aunt that I had for two days better as a

Andrew: [00:27:54] teacher. I’m I’m just going to go sit in the corner and drink coffee and shame.

Emily: [00:28:02] Just blame. Not having the coffee, coursing through your veins. Yeah.

Andrew: [00:28:06] Oh yeah. I’m a white man. I need to redirect my blame to something other than myself.

Emily: [00:28:12] That was that’s. That’s that, that statement alone. All of us made up for the devil’s advocate of the last episode.

Andrew: [00:28:18] I didn’t like doing that.

Emily: [00:28:20] No, I could tell. I could tell.

Andrew: [00:28:24] Yes,

Emily: [00:28:24] because it’s not a very easily defensible position.

Andrew: [00:28:28] No, I really didn’t like it. I like, I was queasy my seat and that’s why I broke it at the end of the episode.

Like now I’m now a no in the funny thing is, so I haven’t done that in a while. And, uh, I heard a, saw a little something about, uh, one of the new members of the Facebook group when answering their question, uh, which what’s your favorite host, uh, which. I think it’s a fun question and cause it’s always Emily, but this time, this time.

Like 10% of the time come on anyways. So the person said, uh, Emily comma devil’s advocate sucks or something like that. It was like, I never dealt with that.

Yeah. But I, I, there wasn’t really these docking,

Emily: [00:29:17] nobody likes the devil doesn’t need the net because that’s literally why like, It’s whatever. But, um, there was one where I said, Emily, because she doesn’t make bad puns or something

Andrew: [00:29:27] like that. Ah, that’s just a bad luck. That’s a lack of taste. And I can live with that.

Emily: [00:29:35] I think that was funny.

Andrew: [00:29:37] So

Emily: [00:29:38] should we get to the, uh, the fruit of the episode?

Andrew: [00:29:42] The fruit? I like fruit. I made a, I made a fig and peach crumble yesterday. Oh, yeah.

Emily: [00:29:50] I saw pictures.

Andrew: [00:29:52] I’m going to have to eat more of that, uh, after the episodes then. So yeah, let’s get to it. Let’s get to the topics so I can go eat my diabetic coma.

Sure.

Emily: [00:30:03] Um, so this kind of is, um, hold up

Andrew: [00:30:09] and that sounded like someone with a small penis and a mid sized motor making a water sound.

Emily: [00:30:15] That wasn’t even a motorcycle dude. That was just

Andrew: [00:30:19] Peter.

Emily: [00:30:23] So this is kind of a topic that stems from, um, we, you and I briefly kind of chatted about it. Uh, when we, when you came by to a socially distance pickup, your, your pedals that I had been demoing and tomorrow all the things for me, but. So I’m not, I’m not a religious person. Surprise, surprise. I am. I’ve been, I went to church a couple of times in college with a boyfriend.

I went to a youth group thing once with was a friend from the neighborhood and

Andrew: [00:30:51] never.

Emily: [00:30:52] I wouldn’t want, wait, wait, is that a thing?

Andrew: [00:30:56] No, it’s not a thing I just wanted to, we’re going to talk church stuff. I want to take a brief moment to pretend like I’m the super judgmental Christian site and then move on from it.

Emily: [00:31:05] Cool. Uh, yeah, so I went to church to try to for, with a terrible boyfriend and, um, Uh, yeah. That’s and I remember once my thing is, is funny. Uh there’s like they do the songs, it was like an Episcopalian church. So it wasn’t like any of the. Modern kind of stuff, but it was, you know, I don’t know. I have no idea how to describe the on set and know them and he’s looking at, and he’s just like sitting next to me and I have like the lyrics in front.

I’m kind of like looking over at him and he’s like, do you really not know any of these songs? I’m like, Oh, why would I know any of these songs? It’s like, I don’t, it’s like taking someone to a kid like a, um, K-pop concert and then being like, you don’t know any of these songs, like I don’t listen to K-pop.

Why would I tell him great that you do, but I do. Why would I,

Andrew: [00:31:55] well, and especially it’s like a Pisco paleon would be like a high church setting is the, uh, uh, that’s the academic term for a more liturgical scenario where they’ve got the, the, the internals and the, yeah. Recitations of the same prayers and the call and responses and more of that sort of more akin to what you think of the Catholic church, but

Emily: [00:32:17] yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that’s what it was, but, um, we were talking about worship music and music and the church and that it really is an enormous industry. And I know I’ve talked to builders about this, some builders who are like, yeah, we could make a lot more money if we tried to cater to the worship. Worship community or the praise and worship.

Um, so you might hear that called like Pete of praise and worship, but that’s really, that’s really, I don’t know a lot about it. Do you want to hear what I know? Like what if there’s anything else that I know. I know that there are like rock stars. Like there are these people who just do worship music and it’s not Christian rock.

It’s just worship music. And they are like real deal. People know who they are and try to emulate them. I know y’all love, uh, gain stages and try men’s and, uh, soundless stages. And what else do y’all like lots of new and shiny things. And it just seems like, uh, a lot, like I just, when I think of like a worship guitar sounds pedalboard I think of like an extra like exorbitantly expensive pedal board.

Andrew: [00:33:32] Sure. Four to five grand is not abnormal for cash sunk into a, pedalboard not including guitar and amp.

Emily: [00:33:39] Yeah. So that’s basically, all I know is that there are people who are rock stars, the worship guitar community, and their pedal boards are very expensive and they ha and they like gain stacking and they like, um, The stream in big sky.

Andrew: [00:33:58] Sure, sure, sure. So there’s, there’s reasons for that, but before I even get into the gear of it, I really need to contextualize this for you and the listener, because without that context, it seems a lot more strange than it already is. So let’s take a big step back and, you know, 50, 60 years ago, and basically everyone’s singing out of the hymnals.

That’s sort of the deal. Moving forward a little bit and people start, um, you know, where do I even begin? How far back do I want to go with this? Um, goodness.

Emily: [00:34:38] Well, we don’t want to start at the beginning, the beginning, like, please don’t talk about the reformation.

Andrew: [00:34:44] I was thinking about going there. I’m not going to, uh, Well, it’s just a post reformation.

Uh, you, before the reformation, you had the Catholic church post reformation, you’ve got the Catholic and the, and the Protestant church, and we’re going to completely leave out the Orthodox church because that stayed more or less over on the Eastern side of the world. And that doesn’t have as much bearing into this conversation.

So you got the Protestant church specifically has then splintered into hundreds of denominations in the last three or 400 years. Uh, which has been wild, uh, and you’re constantly Nick new denominations, a denomination is like a, well, like what Catholic or Protestant would be considered. So we’re talking Baptist Methodist.

And even like under the term Methodist, you’ve got free Methodist. You got the United Methodist. I mean, so all kinds of like different small factions of. Of Christianity, which seems really, really strange from the outside. I fully grant that. And that’s why you, uh, for, if you’ve got a number of Christian friends, they might argue over any number of things and not agree on a whole lot of stuff.

So it’s actually really surprising how the, uh, the book, the Leafs are across just, just Protestant, Protestant churches in American. Now, under that umbrella, you’ve got kind of like the evangelical world and kind of more, uh, your mainstream, uh, your, your mainstream Protestantism and in the U S it’s kind of just been assigned the term evangelical, uh, which gets overused, I think by definition, but we all know what that means.

So, uh, in that world is where we start to see the, uh, the praise and worship phenomenon start to appear. Uh, going back a couple, three decades. Um, and there’s,

Emily: [00:36:31] it’s not to be confused with like gospel music. Cause I feel like church churches, churches have always had music

Andrew: [00:36:37] from,

Emily: [00:36:38] from the beginning, basically.

Andrew: [00:36:41] 100% and gospel definitely plays into this a little bit, but not nearly as much as like a gospel blues would have played into rock and roll. Um, worship is kind of more derivative out of the rock and roll.

Emily: [00:36:54] I was about to say it does feel more inspired by, by

Andrew: [00:36:58] that. Sure. And we’re looking at, um, kind of the last 10 years of contemporary tones, you’re looking at, uh, one of the you’re looking at Coldplay or YouTue and those are kind of the sounds that have really inspired.

Um, a lot of what you hear in praise and worship music. So fast forward a little bit, and you’ve got all the old hymns and you’ve got some bands that are coming out with some new stuff, um, and trying to break out and you’ve got like,

Emily: [00:37:25] wait, wait, what bands are coming out? So there are old hymns bands, like church bands are coming out with their own stuff.

Andrew: [00:37:33] Well, no, not necessarily. So. Up until this point, like your, your average church band, they’re just falling, they’re playing the piano and there may be expanding upon the hymns, uh, with your little local church band. Uh, and then some point in time, we’ve got the larger churches, uh, start to go, Hey, we should start writing your own music.

And there’s a couple of reasons for that. Um, and one of the big reasons why contemporarily, we’re just going to jump straight into the contemporary here. So you’ve got. Modern church. If you’ve got a really big church, uh, an example of this would be Mars Hill, which is a church that was in the Seattle area is

Emily: [00:38:10] Lebanon.

You don’t talk about Maurice Hill anymore in these parts.

Andrew: [00:38:13] I know. Mark.

Emily: [00:38:17] You

Andrew: [00:38:18] had a falling out and left a really bitter taste for Christianity and the entire Seattle Tacoma area. And the number of people I’ve met since I’ve lived here in the last three years, I’m like, Oh yeah. I used to go to church with her.

She’d go to Mars Hill.

Emily: [00:38:33] Oh, that’s right. Yeah. It was a phenomenon. Like it was, it had music. It was like an all ages venue. It was also a very terrifying cult, a personality.

Andrew: [00:38:43] Oh, absolutely. Mark Driscoll had this whole thing going on and then that’s a completely different conversation. But when they were kind of kick kick-starting, they, they made a point of creating their own band.

And for the specific reason, you’re about you’re going to hear a lot for the next few minutes is CCLI licensing. Now in the secular music world, if I want to play, if I’m hosting a rally or something like that, and I want to be able to play a band’s music, I have to have the licensing for that for, I want to play

Emily: [00:39:13] well.

Okay. No. Well kind of, you have to get a blanket license with C-SAT, so, okay. Can I explain secular licensing really quickly?

Andrew: [00:39:24] What the thing, and then I’ll explain the differences with CCLI

Emily: [00:39:27] in broad, who pays for, who pays for license. So, okay. You want music played in your restaurant and your venue and your concert hall, et cetera, any place that has music played even over the speakers needs to get what’s called a Blake blanket license with the three.

Um, P R O C United States, uh, C SAC B as cap. You need all three, otherwise you can, you can get hefty fines. Um, and the cost of these, um, licenses depends mainly on size slash capacity of the room of the venue. So a small restaurant, if they’re paying their licenses are going to see a much smaller annual fee, then a great American concert hall or whatever.

So that’s, it’s it’s and completely based on capacity. If you’re putting on an event, it’s the onus of the venue owner to have that license. My understanding is it’s attached to the venue, not the individual events, which can, I guess, make it tricky. If you’re like have an atypical venue, you’re probably not going to get fine for an atypical venue.

But, you know, that’s, if you’re willing to gamble with your money, that’s on you, but what you’re doing is illegal. Understand that. So that’s how it works in the secular world. You need three Blake at licenses for ASCAP Susac and BMI.

Andrew: [00:40:54] Sure. Sure. So, in flip over to the Christian world, you’ve got CCLI. And that’s more of a, that’s slightly different.

So it’s re you really only need the one license. There’s a couple of different licenses available, but by and large, all churches, UCLA licensing and the what you charge per hang on a second.

Um, so you pay for the num uh, per event and you have to report the number of attendees for each event, and they have sort of a sliding price structure based on how large your events are. So that event would be a Sunday morning worship service and. Uh, if you’ve got 50, if you count your, your attendees in the service, you got 50 people and you’re paying, and you’ve only got one service.

You’re probably paying a really small. Now. Now, if you’re a large church, like Mars Hill was past tense. Thank goodness. Uh, you’re looking at more along the lines of. A lot. I mean, you figure, if you, if you’ve got several services a day, you’ve got 5,000 person seating capacity. Um, and then you’ve got services throughout the week.

Suddenly the amount that you’re paying in licensing gets to be ridiculous. And Mars Hill and principle said, no, we don’t want to pay for the licensing

Emily: [00:42:09] on principle. We don’t want to pay for other people’s music to get played.

Andrew: [00:42:12] Okay. Sure. And, and that’s not necessarily, well, it’s not necessarily like that.

The first ones to do this. I’m just cherry picking an example here where they were very vocal about, Hey, this is why we’re doing this. And so they created their own bands. They, uh, they, instead of pumping that money into, uh, licensing, they’re pumping that money into hiring full time musicians, which I think is actually pretty cool.

Uh, and so you’ve got full time musicians. Their whole job is to lead worship on Sunday mornings and to create music for the church to worship sail.

Emily: [00:42:46] It’s always, it’s always nice to, you know, be a benefactor

Andrew: [00:42:49] of the arts, right? So you’ve got that. And a number of churches have, have kind of gone this route in terms of realizing that it’s more financially stable for a larger church.

To just hire out their own staff to create their own music. Because now you got, as you’ve got older, a little ecosystem where you, you’re not paying for the fees, so you’re able to pay for everyone’s salaries. And then you’re able to, to that, to guide more of your church specific theology, which is really important.

As I mentioned before that the Protestant church has splintered off into literally hundreds of denominations that all differ on different. W arguably mundane theological points. Uh, so when you’ve got churches, like, Hey, we can write our songs around our own theology. That’s really important for a lot of people.

So you’ve got that. And then on top of that, suddenly you’ve got a band that can go on tour. You can sell records, you can sell merch, you can sell tickets. And now you’ve got, you’ve got a money making machine.

Emily: [00:43:50] Okay, so, but how are they getting away the seat? Are they not having their songwriters register with this performance rights organization?

Andrew: [00:44:00] No, they are, but they’re, they’re singing their own music, so they don’t have to pay the licensing for it.

Emily: [00:44:05] Wait, that doesn’t sound right. That doesn’t sound right at all.

Andrew: [00:44:09] Do you know, if they, if you write this, if your church wrote the song and you’re singing your own individual music, you own that you don’t have to pay someone else to sing your own, your own music.

Emily: [00:44:18] But so they’re just literally never doing covers. I don’t, that doesn’t sound right. Because like, if I’m. Touring and my band plays we’ll uncover, we’re not the ones who pay for that. Cover the venues, just paying generally to use all of the music, even our music.

Andrew: [00:44:34] Right, right. So, but the, the venues not paying for it anymore.

So if you’re so Hillsong church on a Sunday morning is only gonna play Hillsong songs. Therefore venue doesn’t pay that. Uh, so in on top of that, now you’ve got, if you’re going on tour and you’re selling merge, and now all of the other small, so that, and we’re talking like these big churches, or maybe like one per 2% of the churches across America, the other 98% of churches across America, all your small 50, a hundred person, maybe 500 person churches.

And they’re, they’re now playing the songs. Um, From the big that the big churches are creating because previously it was like, you’ve got a, you’ve got your hymns, you’ve got some of your earlier artists that try to make it any like a Christian label and create some of your music and kind of back in what we would call the happy clappy days.

And now we’ve got a whole bunch of big churches that are pumping out contemporary music that is relatively hip. To use the term that the kids are using these days. Uh it’s the production value is actually pretty decent. It’s gotten a lot better over the last decade and now we’ve, Oh, we actually want to use this.

And so now they’re paying CCLI licensing fees to be able to play the songs of. Hillsong and Jesus culture and elevation worship and all of that. So like,

Emily: [00:45:57] hold on one second. Yeah, this doesn’t sound okay. I’m I’m confused. Cause this is not what a performance license is. So I looked it up and apparently churches do not need to pay a license to play or perform copyrighted music within the context of our church service.

But any, um, music that’s like the sounds. So it sounds like the license is more like. A broadcasting license.

Andrew: [00:46:22] That’s a separate license. So I, let me send you

Emily: [00:46:25] this. Doesn’t make any, this as someone who’s actually worked in publishing this doesn’t make this.

Andrew: [00:46:30] Literally doesn’t make it. It’s a completely different, it’s a completely different framework.

Emily: [00:46:36] It’s not a, it’s not a performance. It’s not a performing rights light. It’s not a performing rights organization.

Andrew: [00:46:42] CCLI,

Emily: [00:46:44] it’s not a pro.

Andrew: [00:46:49] So

Emily: [00:46:51] I see streaming licenses. I see. Um, what’s the church copyright license

Andrew: [00:46:57] there. You

Emily: [00:46:58] okay. Understanding that that’s a duh. Storing lyrics.

Andrew: [00:47:05] Okay. Yeah. To put, you have to broadcast your CCR. So when you go to a church service, what you should see is usually on the title slide or as a footnote on every slide that they have is the CCLI license number that has to be displayed on the screen.

Every service for every song.

Emily: [00:47:23] This is really weird.

Andrew: [00:47:25] Yeah, so licensing is behind all of it.

Emily: [00:47:28] Okay. I can’t imagine. I can literally not imagine this for secular music.  it seems like it’s largely streaming. It seems largely like it’s streaming and just like covering your butt for sharing, like recordings during rehearsals is like, why do you need this?

Andrew: [00:47:47] Well, you have to have Reverend Sunday morning. And, uh, so I used to have to input the numbers for attendance at the, when I was interning at a church,

Emily: [00:47:55] what’d you do this? If you weren’t broadcasting your church, like if you were

Andrew: [00:47:59] never broadcast it, you,

Emily: [00:48:01] you needed this, even if you weren’t broadcasting.

Andrew: [00:48:03] Yes.

Yes.

Emily: [00:48:05] But that doesn’t make any sense.

Andrew: [00:48:07] You have every single service, every single church is supposed to have this. So anyways, the reason why I bring this up is kind of just as set up this world, this ecosystem where now you’ve got an select handful of really large churches, right?

Emily: [00:48:22] I’m sorry. Can I, can I just ask some more follow up questions because I’m sorry.

I’m like, this is blowing my mind a little bit in a weird way. So where are you printing the lyrics to share with

Andrew: [00:48:32] people? No, you, you, you put them up on the, you put them up on the

Emily: [00:48:36] screen. Okay. So that must be it. That must be what it is.

Andrew: [00:48:41] Nick has. Everybody’s got to sing along and, uh, at this point, the nature of the worship world is there’s new songs every few months.

And so you don’t always know not everyone in the church knows the lyrics to every song. So there’s always the sing along slides. That’s normal. This is

Emily: [00:48:55] very weird.

Andrew: [00:48:56] So the church that I was at back in California had a couple of hundred inch planar screens, and we would just put the lyrics up on there, the church I’m going to right now, uh, we would just throw it up on a projector screen.

Um, and you just sing along to the lyrics.

Emily: [00:49:11] Okay. This is not a pro, this is, this is different kind of licensing. All right. I was talking about PRS. This is very different. This is like a publisher.

Andrew: [00:49:20] Yeah. So it’s a different world in that, in a different ecosystem. So the ecosystem that we’ve got now, the reason, the whole reason why I’ve built this up is to explain that we’ve now got a number of bands, everyone that the one, 2% or whatever of churches across the world, Uh, in, in this particular branding of evangelicalism, kind of this, this overarching umbrella of the Protestant church.

So I just named off some of the larger churches that provide some of this music, um, in off shoots. That would be like a Mars Hills. I want to say it was Mars Hills. Old band was King’s kaleidoscope. They’re still performing

and. And so these churches now making money off of that licensing from all the small churches and CCLI as an organization is also taking a cut, uh, or the point is everyone’s using their songs. They’re looking up to them. They’re trying to emulate their sounds cause you’re like, Hey, well now we’re, we’re you’re Sunday morning for your average small town church is I to use the term cover band loosely here.

Because I don’t think that’s exactly what it is, but for the sake of a starting point for understanding, and you now got 98% of bands are cover bands. So it intentionally oversimplified that. And if you’re going to cover someone, you want to sound like them. And so all of your guitar players, all of your drummers, like all of your musicians are now looking up to the, the top tier of these worship musicians and saying, Hey, what is the equipment that you’re using?

What are the sounds that you’re using? So like is chorus. One of the things you hear is like, Oh, chorus, hasn’t been cool for a few years. Like, Oh, well, but Jeffrey Coons or. Like any of the other worst guitar players you’re looking at are like, Oh, they’re using chorus now. So it’s cool for us to use it. And you’ve got this weird, like, we look up to you and we emulate you kind of an ecosystem that’s followed through as a result of this weird world of licensing that’s created this ecosystem.

Does that make sense?

Emily: [00:51:25] Yeah, so they, so they are the rock stars, but like almost more influential then. Like sure. Cause it’s cause it’s like a wider range and it sounds like there are fewer people doing it on like creating this music on a large level. Like a, I think I’ve heard of Bethel church.

Andrew: [00:51:43] Yep. That’s another one Bethel’s done a whole lot of really good music.

Emily: [00:51:49] Yeah. So, um, so, so these, since there are a few people doing it, it’s almost like an entire genre except widely attended. It’s like, it’s like, they’re awake. You, you are rock stars. So by nature of those rock stars are more. Famous and influential

Andrew: [00:52:08] of having like a top 100 year, it’s the amount of music that’s getting pumped out in this community.

And you’re looking at more like a top 10, like what’s cool in any given month. Yeah. So it’s a smaller ecosystem, but, and so as a smaller ecosystem in terms of the music, however, each of those groups is then there, they’ve got a captive audience. That’s and there’s only so many albums that get put out in this genre every year.

And you know, you’re going to go and listen through all of them. It’s it’s a lot easier to listen through the entirety of the genre in the world world than it is for literally any other genre.

Emily: [00:52:39] And that’s wild

Andrew: [00:52:41] and that’s part, part of those because it’s relatively new. I mean, the style has evolved and really picked up a lot in the last, uh, in the 21st century in terms of how this model is built out and created this, this genre and ecosystem.

And I think there’s been a lot of really good things that come out of that. Uh, something that the Christian world is long been accused of is being cheesy or not. I mean, just kind of being a, uh, a fake rip off of the secular world of music and in a lot of instances, that was probably really true. I mean, if you look at it, Um, so to pick on rat for a second, if you look at the early two thousands where you’ve got Christian rappers versus the secular rap world, the hip hop world, and you’re comparing the quality of production and the music that’s coming out, and you listen to some of the Christian tracks.

You’re like, dude, this is cheesy. This is not easy to listen to versus any of the other hip hop stuff that’s coming out. I was like, no, this, this, this is a banger. This is awesome. Uh, and even now that’s come a long way, um, in the Christian rap world, which is like a slight variation of that. But one of the Christian rapper Lecrae managed to get like a top.

I’d like top rap album for like a month or something, like forget what he charted out, but he’s actually charting it some pretty decent levels now. So the Christian music world has come a long way in praise and worship specifically is kind of, sort of find its own voice. And, and that’s why you. And so now we’re looking at this and we’re gonna take a step back and look at the gear.

If you’ve ever wondered why every worshiped guitar players pedalboard looks the same. You got a JHS morning glory, you’ve got your streaming pedals and a VPG junior, or now things have moved a lot over, more to Dunlop. And Laylay some chase bliss stuff. Chase has done really well in this world. And the reason for that is because you’ve got.

Maybe a list of 10 folks in the praise and worship world that have relatively similar sounds and boards, because the genre genres kind of found this has found its voice and you get that voice through using a certain set of gear. And now you’ve got thousands, tens of thousands of churches across America with a couple of guitar players going, Hey, I want that sound.

And suddenly you’re driving a ton of sales for a pedal builder or a guitar builder or, uh, yeah, I mean, you can look at like for guitars, very task a is a guitar builder that’s done really, really well in the praise and worship community. Be surprised if it, I haven’t heard of it really much outside of the worship world, but

Emily: [00:55:17] I’ve never heard of this V V very

Andrew: [00:55:20] toss.

Veritas. Yeah. Um, and in my personal opinion, I think they’re, I think they’re cheesy guitars. I don’t think they look that great. I don’t like the way that they’ve got the medallion in the, in the headstock. And I, I think a couple of times I’ve played a couple of them on different occasions and I’ve just, I haven’t really liked how they feel, but that doesn’t matter.

What matters is David Hislop out of, uh, he plays for want to play, say he plays for Bethel. And I’m blanking really hard. Yeah. I’m not, I’m not as super deep into this as a lot of worship players are. Uh, but he, so he plays a lot of very toss guitars and that’s part of he’s, he’s part of what I seen her last few years create this very toss Bonanza.

Now everyone wants one and for a little bit there, they, the business model was, Hey, we were only able to make so many of these a year and you start getting a waitlist. And so then, then they said, Hey, we’ve got a lot of customers that want. Want one of these. And so they outsourced to an external builder overseas and started selling some cheaper models that look the exact same.

Emily: [00:56:21] They’re very task is running a contest to give away a guitar right now. And I’m not entirely sure this is, would be considered illegal contest

Andrew: [00:56:29] and that’s not really my business. So I don’t, I don’t know. I’m just going to say I don’t like their stuff, but a lot of people do. And the reason why a lot of those people do is honestly has very little to do.

With the quality of the instrument, a lot of people are willing to pay for stuff that they pay for a $3,000 guitar. They’ve never held in their hands before. From a small builder, that’s got a volatile resell value because in six months they could go out of business and so on and so forth. The reason why they’re buying this stuff is because one of the people, they look up to plays it and that’s the sound that they want to emulate.

And so they’re going to go pay for it. They’re going to, that’s part of why streaming has done so well as they got, they got into the market and you’ve got guys like Nigel Hendrock that have really just leaned on streaming so hard over the last decade and their sound and go back to the, uh, the two thousands, uh, Some, some of the earlier Hillsong albums, you see a lot of use of the Nova delay from TC electronic and that sold and you see that used to be super popular and then they transitioned over.

So the DD 20. And so you’re looking at these trends of what year is popular over a certain set of years. And you start to see worship players, boards, morph to follow that  middy is another one of those things that’s done really well in. From a touring perspective, you got your guitar player and you’ve got a lot of, instead of doing the live tap dancing, if you could just have mini control and a really popular Mitty controller for a long time as the mastermind PVC, and basically that once you’ve got it all programmed, you’re just clicking next, next, next through your playlist and just swapping all of your sounds, which if you’re playing the same set list for every, for every part of your tour, and you’re just able to click through like that.

Cool that makes, instead of doing the tap dancing, when you’ve got so much going on. Yeah. So yeah, and it’s not just guitar players either. I mean, I, I’m also drummer and getting to talk to drummers when like something that you might’ve heard talking to worship drummer was like, Oh, I want that devil snare sound because on Bethel records, the snare sounds monstrous in the way that they’re in this year.

Start digging into the way that the way that they’re accomplishing that is through 30 strand snares. Um, 30 snare strand on the bottom of their snare, they’re using a deep snare and they’re tuning it relatively low. They’re not tuning your snare super tight. So it’s, that’s kind of how they’re getting that fat sound.

And people start obsessing about this because you’ve got this group of, you know, 10 bands that they all look up to. And so it’s a very different ecosystem than the secular world. Now I want to backtrack what I said about. Uh, come back to what I said about, uh, being a cover band. Cause I don’t think that’s fair.

Emily: [00:59:18] Kind of sounds fair. Can I, can I just quickly say that what I think because was wrong about the various tasks guitar contest is it seems to be a buyer merge to enter, to win. And I think that legally, for some sort of sweepstakes like that, you need to have a way for people to enter without paying anything.

So that’s, I just want to clarify my comments about that. Cause that was a little vague and I don’t want to sound like I was talking out of my ass or something. I just like, that’s how I understand sweepstakes.

Andrew: [00:59:42] Well, I mean, call them out on you. If that’s what they’re doing, then I’d like to, I don’t have a problem with saying, Hey, maybe you should consult with your lawyer.

Emily: [00:59:51] Maybe there’s a, maybe there is a, an entry without purchase that I just didn’t see, but just to be clear, that’s what I mean. That’s what that sentence that I just said meant. Okay.

Andrew: [01:00:02] So the reason why I’m going to walk that back just a little bit, and I, I, it’s an accessible way to explain it to people who aren’t involved in the world, but.

And the worship world, but there’s a little bit more going on. Cause you’re not just simply playing the songs. You’re actually leading your congregation of worship. A worship pastor is going to be here, writing the subtlest based on the sermon and what the church has been talking about. It it’s, it becomes less of a, Hey, we’re just playing a show for you guys and a more interactive, holistic experience.

And, and then you’re looking at different arrangement depending on how qualified or how. Decent of a musician, your worship director is, and you know, you’re the person who’s leading worship could be a worship leader, worship director worship, pastor. It really just, there’s a number of reasons why you would hold it one of those titles.

So, yeah, I mean, I, I don’t want to leave off with Hayden. That’s just a cover. It’s a cover band Bonanza. I really don’t think that’s fair. And I think Christian musicians do get a really bad rap for that. And some cases it, I don’t know, mixed bag there. So anyways, that’s my, that’s my very long explanation of kind of how we’ve got there.

I’d like to point out very briefly just as an addendum, that it’s, there’s also influences that come from outside of strictly this church world. And there are a few bands that have done really well as. A standalone, not attached to a church on a music label that have had a lot of influence in the, in the gear world.

So Chris Tomlin would be an example of a Christian musician who is on label. He’s not attached to a church and it was very prolific as a, as a writer, as a songwriter and performer. And, uh, in any given Sunday morning is actually relatively well-represented compared a lot of the other churches. And then outside of the worship world and example where.

Um, an adjacent, uh, influence. It would be like from the Christian rock world we’re looking at Switchfoot. So you’re looking at drew, Shirley of switch weight has been a big part of why GHS has done so well. Um, and because he’s worked the GHS on a number of different things, and most recently he’s been working with Jackson audio on.

I want to say his new signature pedal with them is, Oh, I’m blinking on it so hard, but it’s meant to emulate AI, a small, a small speaker amplifier that’s timed out. Oh, I’m so thinking like, like a small champion, you, if you crank a small speaker out to, uh, to, to the gills, it’s got this specific throaty sound to it and that’s what they were trying to emulate.

And I grew up listening a switch, but I grew up listening to reliant. K uh, you guys might remember that we interviewed Matt hoops on the podcast a year and a half ago. Great guy. And I grew up listening to his music and listening to his guitar sound saying, wow. I think that’s awesome. I want, I want, I want my rig to sound like that as well as the author to be able to emulate the worship sounds so it’s a little bit more nuance in there.

Emily: [01:03:01] Well, I’m never gonna, I’m never going to crap on Christian rock because I know that for a lot of kids, that’s the only access they ever get to rock rock music as a teenager under their parents’ house, at least because, um, I know Julian Baker has said this before that that was the only kind of music that she was allowed to listen to.

So, I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m happy that Christian rock exists for that reason, if nothing else.

Andrew: [01:03:27] Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s definitely got its place. I listened to a lot of it when I was growing up and, uh, I think there’s some specific standout examples of excellence in that world that stand up on its own. I mean, switch roots album, the beautiful letdowns charted really well in secular charts as well, and also managed.

It ended up on a lot of soundtracks for movies. And it did really well as a soundtrack. I think it stands up on its own whether or not you contextualize it just to the, to the Christian world, but. So anyways, that’s an ecosystem. That’s kind of a, how I best explain from it outsider’s perspective. What are you looking at with a worship world?

And some of, some of it’s a little cynical, some of it’s a little generous, but that’s kind of my. My intro to the worship world and hit me with your questions. I know you’ve got them.

Emily: [01:04:17] Well. I mean, I think I was trying, I was trying to ask them as they were going, but I’m like, I do kind of wonder how, um, how much marketing is being done.

Like to try to get these relationships with these high ranking Christian. Worship band, uh, for formers versus, you know, other kinds of marketing. I mean, it’s I, so I don’t know why, or I don’t remember who added me to the gear talk, praise and worship group, but that’s always such a weird little, little ecosystem of mostly men kind of saying the same thing over and over and down until like the fashion.

It really does remind me of like, Seeing kids. And I think that right now with the age, I think it is a lot of former seeing kids as adults going into church. And what does it say? Like the boots, the boots are

Andrew: [01:05:09] kind of hi filler for a little bit there. Um, and yeah, I mean, a lot of aspects of the culture surrounding worship music in the church world have kind of homogenized to a strange degree in fashion is absolutely part of that.

Emily: [01:05:26] Yeah. So that’s interesting. Um, I, I didn’t, I guess it makes sense how much goes in. Like again, I, I didn’t really go to church ever, so I’ve never seen like the words on the screen or anything. I feel like there’s probably a band at wherever I was, you know, going with boyfriend to church a couple of times I went and, uh, I guess I do remember they had the lyrics publish.

So I guess that, that just kind of surprises me how, um, There’s his own specific licensing. Like I, that’s still, it’s just a very, very weird to me that there’s not separate licensing, but I mean, in second or music, if you want to cover a song, you typically go through the same place. So it makes sense. You always go to the Harry Fox agency basically to get the rights and the accounting to cover a song on a record.

It’s just, it’s weird that there is its own little ecosystem because churches shouldn’t have to pay PRS just for the performance. Everything else associated with performing, including printing the lyric sheets, including broadcasting or streaming, including like buying the sheet music and making copies of that.

Um, to, to, to distribute to the van. There, there is a lot of stuff that goes on and even being, even being a cover band, um, there are still, there are lots of rights that you have to like, keep in mind if you’re, if you’re doing it in specific ways.

Andrew: [01:06:56] Sure. And it also along with like distributing sheets and whatnot, you can pay an extra fee to have the core sheets already pre built out.

So when you’re in band practice and you’re like, Hey, you’re a volunteer guitar player for this church. Instead of asking you to learn how to play it by ear. I’m just going to hand you the sheet and here it’s going to be E and then D and then, you know, here’s your chord sheet with, along with the lyrics you can play along and that you could either build that out yourself.

If you’re, if you want to spend time as a worship director creating your own chord charts, or you can just pay for song selects, which is an additional, additional deal. Um, That gives you access to all of the chord sheets for the, like a court sheet database,

Emily: [01:07:44] I guess it depends on how busy you are and how much work you like to do on things like that.

Andrew: [01:07:50] Um, yeah. Uh, and I know, like with a pandemic, something that’s been really difficult for a lot of smaller churches to try and work through is trying to sort out the broadcasting licensing, uh, because you’re suddenly, we’re all trying to broadcast on Facebook or YouTube or whatever may have you. And that’s a different, that’s a different set of licensing that they had to navigate, that they weren’t planning on.

Uh, so yeah, anyways, as far as it pertains to the gear world, uh, I think. Looking at the general ecosystem, that’s partly why, or I think that’s entirely why looking at the gear worldwide, the praise and worship community has such a strong presence because it’s very gear centric and a lot of ways, and it drives a ton of business.

I mean, and it gets

Emily: [01:08:37] there and it gets very homogenized too. Like it gets people really like the 1981 inventions DRV. Like, I mean, it’s a great pedal, but like, Probably worthy of the hype and I have one, I think it’s great, but like that and like the quiet theory, prelude those for like the hype behind those was unreal.

Well,

Andrew: [01:09:03] and I think part of why 1981 did so well is to be honest, as Matt is someone that everyone in the community really looked up to, um, especially like the kids around my age, we grew up listening to mats music. And so we, and we grew up to learn how to play guitar. And now we’re seeing one of her favorite childhood icons is creating.

A pedal to emulate a certain sound. Of course, I’m going to jump on that, but yeah, no, but like, look at streaming, I mean, streaming sells ridiculous numbers of petals only in the phrase and worship community. I’d be

Emily: [01:09:37] willing to

Andrew: [01:09:38] not only, you mean,

Emily: [01:09:40] you mean taking out the secular world. And, and, and this place of worship community alone, they sell a lot of things.

Andrew: [01:09:47] Look at JHS. There’s an argument to be made that JHS as a company has only survived because of the praise and worship community behind it driving so much sales.

Emily: [01:09:57] Uh, I think there’s a, uh, maybe I think there’s, that’s the only reason they’ve gotten at that. Help them get so big for sure. But lot of, lot of secular musicians played DHS puddles because

Andrew: [01:10:09] JHS, I’m just saying it’s an important factor, contributing factor to their success and taking a step back and going if I were to, I mean, I am a small business owner, but if I was trying to create like a large business.

A model. So in the gear world right now, the reality is, is whether you like it or not. There’s a huge market in the praise of worship world, and there’s a lot of money to be made if you’re willing to dig in a little bit and get on good terms with them. I think there’s a lot of money to be made. There’s a lot of, uh, and once you break in, you’re kind of just set.

Emily: [01:10:46] Yeah. So what, so I know we’ve talked about Straumann’s big in that realm. Uh, JHS has big in that realm. Who else is really, do you feel like their sales have really been driven in those small part by this community?

Andrew: [01:11:02] Um, those would be

Emily: [01:11:05] the dr. The DRV and the prelude are too. Um, gosh, what’s,

Andrew: [01:11:09] um, Well, those are those haven’t taken off in the praise and worship community nearly as much as you think,

Emily: [01:11:14] really, but then who’s, who’s selling drives to the praise and worship community.

Andrew: [01:11:20] Uh, these days, Jackson, audio, I mentioned before that drew Shirley is now, uh, one of their artists has a signature pedal. That’s driven a whole lot of business for them. Um, they were already really, really popular a few years ago, uh, with their, the Jackson audio prison, which was featured, uh, on a lot of Hillsong players boards specifically.

Uh, the one that stands out in my mind particular is Nigel Hendra. I think at one point was running two of them, one pre cop and one post comp. So. Before you’re even getting to any like clipping stages. You’ve got a boost or like a preamp boost, a compressor, and then another print boost. And now we’re looking at your first age overdrive and just really layering in the gain state is, uh, so Jackson.

Yeah, he has been doing really well lately. There’s even, yeah, there’s a smaller company. I think I want to say jet something, chat pedals. Oh, I’m like, uh, but they’ve got the, the pedal I’m thinking of is the revelation reverb.

Emily: [01:12:21] Yeah. Jet pedals is correct.  all caps

Andrew: [01:12:28] marketed specifically as a worship site. So it does specifically a worship style reverb.

That’s what it’s built for. That’s what it’s marketed for. They’ve been doing really, really well

Emily: [01:12:40] heavenly pads.

Andrew: [01:12:42] Um, I would say not a company that’s done really surprisingly well in the worship world, uh, but not exclusively, uh, would be, would be boss. Boss, Roland has done, uh, is a huge staple in that world.

TC electronic did really, really, really well for several years. I mentioned before the Nova repeater. Uh, was really popular back in the two thousands. And then the flashback in the hall of fame have both been really popular sellers in this world because yeah. They kind of, they give you access to a number of sounds for relatively cheap price.

And it’s really accessible because it’s something you’ve got to keep in mind is a lot, your average, Joe, your mid right West small church guitar doesn’t necessarily have four grand to throw into them. A lot of people do. And so, but not everyone can reach that same level of homogenous nation. So you’re looking at budget ways to accomplish those sounds.

Those two pedals in particular sold a lot specifically for that reason. Interesting. Uh, so, and some of these things like streaming has been on a kick for like a decade. Other brands have been on shorter kicks for shorter periods of time. Um, really just depends,

Emily: [01:13:59] huh?

Andrew: [01:14:00] Fender in general has done pretty well as a, as a staple guitar manufacturer.

That’s somewhere in the worship world Gibson. Right.

Emily: [01:14:07] I feel like, I feel like everybody has, like, I think that like the blue Schunior was like the thing for a minute.

Andrew: [01:14:13] Oh yeah. Blue’s jr. Is a, is a entry-level accessible amp that a lot of newer players in the worship world tend to go for. They’ll go for that.

Or like an AC 10 or AC 15. Your budget go to amps. Other ones you’re looking at are like a bootcamp, but I think the AMS side of things, I think more isn’t as worship specific as the secular world is, um, is just kind of your entry point. Here’s what your entry-level amps are. Uh, if you’re looking to get serious and buy something that tubes in it,

Emily: [01:14:44] no.

And then they, they like the whole silent stage thing. That’s that’s its own kind of

Andrew: [01:14:51] sure. In a, in a world driven by in a world, driven by a lot of volunteers, most churches on a Sunday morning, your audio engineers volunteer, not being paid, which means a lot of churches have relatively low levels of experience, uh, sitting behind the soundboard.

And so one of the ways to create a friendlier environment for a new guy to try and mix a live show, is it removed? All of the stage noise possible. That’s why you’re saving drummers and cages. That’s why you’re seeing all the amps are being run in the, in the back. Uh, you’re running like a radial SGI or a wireless system.

So like the app or you’re, or you’re literally putting your amp under the stage. A lot of mid-sized churches. I just create like a insert in the stage. You just kind of pull up the floorboard, drop your amp in, and there’s already a mic down there

Emily: [01:15:39] and I’m sure that’s why they that’s why the HX stomp. I’m sure it does well, because that has the amp and capsule.

Andrew: [01:15:45] Well, and that’s partly, yeah. I mean the HX stomp in a radium and Kemper and ax and he looks, I mean, those have all done relatively well in that world because silent stages are a really, really important part. You take away all the wedges on stage, and that is one less thing for your sound guy to dial in on a Sunday morning when you’ve got volunteers.

That are cycling in and out. Most churches don’t have the same group of people up there where this is even the same number of instruments. Every Sunday, the church I go to has a different group of people every week with a different set of instruments. It varies a lot because it’s volunteer driven. So you get sound guy, you take that out of the.

Literally take that out of the mix. It’s a lot easier just to mix front of house. If you don’t have to worry about sound on stage, you don’t have to, you don’t have to worry about the bleed into the, into the audience. You don’t have to worry about it. Hey, can I get more of a, my vocals in my monitor? You don’t want, I have to deal with that.

And. I mean,

Emily: [01:16:41] I’m sure. I’m sure you still have to deal with a little bit of more of a mixing mixing out to two monitors.

Andrew: [01:16:49] No. Cause the interior, the interiors are all controlled. Mo most churches will have like a personal monitor mix. So a church I played for a couple of years ago, I just had my Abby, um, system, literally on a mic stand sitting right behind me.

I could turn around and adjust levels in the middle of the set. We, we autonomy. Uh, completely autonomously. I just had my shirt and you’re sitting in my ears and I would pan a Metro to the left and I had panned vocals to the right. Uh, and I really, I would only do Metro vocals drums. I was playing bass with that church.

Uh, and that was about it. I pretty much left everything else out of the mix. Cause that’s all I needed to know where I was at, uh, in the song. So

Emily: [01:17:28] yeah, that’s fascinating.

Andrew: [01:17:31] Yes.

Emily: [01:17:32] Very different than any world that I’m a, I’m used to that dirty dingy

Andrew: [01:17:37] clubs. Yeah. I mean, you’re not going to see like a silent stage at your average Joe club, which is fine, and there’s a reason for it.

And I don’t think it’s a bad reason and it’s just, it’s a different world. There’s different things that are being considered going into this. So, yeah, that’s a full little, a little window.

Emily: [01:17:58] That’s really interesting. Really? That’s that’s the world that I have, like absolutely no understanding of. So thanks for explaining that to me.

I mean, it all, it all makes sense. Like w when, when I hear you say it, like things sort of start to click into place, not the whole, the whole CCLI thing is still like what the world. But, um, we did not, that that was not part of the curriculum. That, which is kind of funny because Nashville’s all con con known for country and Christian music.

So I feel like they maybe should have maybe I, maybe I skipped that day.

Andrew: [01:18:39] That’s possible. Um,

Emily: [01:18:41] well actually that might’ve been a different color. I might’ve been at some class that I just didn’t have to take, so I didn’t.

Andrew: [01:18:48] So I’m going to throw in a quick blanket statement. This is Mo. Not a definitive explanation of the worship world.

This is my understanding of how I’ve experienced it and how I it’s been explained to me over the years in a couple of different contexts. And as I mentioned before, there’s a lot of denominations and there’s, whereas this is kind of the mainstream of how it’s played out. There’s going to be smaller variations of how this plays out in different particular churches.

Um, so keep that in mind that there is still some variety in a relatively modernized world. And there’s also some people who have been around longer than me that have seen different things and might have different explanations for how we got to where we’re at. That’s just my explanation,

Emily: [01:19:30] seeing some stuff.

Yeah. You haven’t done that. Jessica Dobson from deep sea diver. I own, I don’t think she was like super affiliated with a Mars Hill, but I mean, I think she definitely went again, Seattle in 2003, you know,

Andrew: [01:19:44] Right. So, all right, so let’s talk Marcel for just a second. Cause I think that deserves a brief explanation.

Mars Hill was started back in the two thousands. I want to say by a guy named Mark Driscoll, Mark Driscoll is known as, or was known. I guess he still is. Now he’s a pastor, uh, is a very charismatic, a term that you’ll hear from a lot of conservative people, whether it be politics or religion is a tele, as it is tells it like it is kind of a person.

Um, very animated, uh, definitely would say some, uh, inflammatory things on stage because he’s like, well, I believe this. I’m not going to back down from it. And like, well, it’s sexist, but

Emily: [01:20:26] everything in your brain, that’s fine.

Andrew: [01:20:28] So he held a certain set of beliefs, but this character of personality or cult of personality, I would argue.

Really gathered a lot of steam in Marcel, built up to several campuses, um, and really built something freely massive. And it suddenly crumbled, um, after grumbles and mumbles, uh, over the course of a few years, like, Hey, this dude is actually kind of an asshole

and the there’s a para church organization that they were associated with by the name of acts 29. Uh, And, uh, which is, uh, I’ll. I don’t want to explain the name behind that. So March her school was on the board of that and they dropped him saying he had this cute. We don’t want you on our board anymore.

And here’s our open letter as to why. And. Um, and then every is like, Whoa, what’s going on? And then Mars Hill dropped Mark Driscoll. Now the problem is you’ve got this entire church ecosystem. That’s a cult of personality. So you take away the, the personality and you don’t have the cult anymore. And within like a couple of months, the whole thing fell apart.

They started selling, they sold off the campuses for dirt cheap, with all of the equipment and everything loaded into it. Got to know a guy who’s, uh, hired on, uh, at quest church is one of the churches that bought out campus. Uh, and yeah, they left behind all the audio equipment that they had a recording studio.

Like all of that stuff just got sold off wholesale for pennies on the dollar, um, and left a huge gaping hole in the Seattle community. A lot of people who had, you know, were. A cult of the personality of Mark school had no idea. Uh, a lot of people felt very betrayed and left a really sour taste in the mouth for this entire area.

I think it’s done an incredible amount of damage for Christianity in the Seattle area, and really makes me very sad as a Christian who cares a lot about, uh, The church being represented well and not sucking like Mark Driscoll, sect a March. Your school is now a pastor again, out in Arizona, uh, which I have very negative feelings about.

I’m all about redemption and whatnot, but there’s the other part of me is like, sometimes you just gotta find a different career sometimes it’s just not worth hurting people again. It’s so,

Emily: [01:22:51] yeah, it’s funny when you think about like, Cancel culture or the supposed to cancel culture. And then you see things like that.

Like maybe we aren’t ruining people’s lives by pointing out the bad things they do, and maybe getting them fired for a while. Cause it seems like most people recover and some of them make their lives better. And some just keep doing the same thing they were doing before. Maybe it’s not a thing. Maybe it’s a new satanic panic.

That’s a different episode.

Andrew: [01:23:20] That is a different episode. So that’s my brief synopsis, an explanation of why I got a little weird around the saying the word Mars Hill and why a lot of folks in the Seattle area might remember that name. Uh, not with happy thoughts attached. No, not

Emily: [01:23:33] really. All right. Well, uh, I think that was a really great explainer.

I thought we were going to do a short episode, but there’s lots of, lots of talk about generally speaking. So, uh, thanks. Thanks Andrew. For, for taking some time to kind of break it, break that down. It was, it was really interesting.

Andrew: [01:23:51] And join the Facebook group. Ask me any questions I’m active on Facebook. Uh, seriously throw whatever questions you have my way.

I’m happy to answer them. Uh, before this episode, I already had a good conversation with Layla from 200 tone, uh, kind of explaining some of what’s behind all of this and yeah. Always happy to talk about it. It’s very unlike me to say no, I don’t want to talk about church today.

Emily: [01:24:12] Yeah.

Andrew: [01:24:14] Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening.

Emily: [01:24:16] Thanks for understanding

Andrew: [01:24:18] my name’s Andrew

Emily: [01:24:19] I’m Emily.

Andrew: [01:24:21] Goodbye.

Emily: [01:24:22] Byeeeeee.