This weekend, we did Wonderful Cross…..kind of a mix between the Matt Redman and Joel Engel version. But I sent out the Joel Engel version for the bass and the drums to listen to. Anyway, after we run through the songs Sunday morning, our drummer comes up to me and says, ‘Hey too bad you don’t have the effect that he has on his vocal for that song.’
Now, probably the most dangerous thing you can ever say to me is, ‘…too bad you don’t have the effect….’ Because immediately my brain goes into ‘Hmmm, how can I get that effect’ mode, not to mention the ‘There’s no way my tone and our music is going to be outdone by some professional musician’ mode. (Professional, come on! My sound is so better than him…..the only reason I’m not as famous as he is, is because I just haven’t met the right people yet. Or better yet, because I’d rather be serving here…..this is where God has me. Ah, the lies we tell ourselves. I really hope I’m not alone in this! ;) And God may definitely have us where we’re at…..but a lot of times I am so unreal with myself and just tell myself whatever makes me happy. Whereas in reality, there might, just might, be a tiny thing called talent, that is the reason I’m not where the professional musician is at. hehehe I hope you all are tracking with me right now…..and that the sarcasm and me making fun of myself are actually coming through the typed words! hehehe) So our drummer just laughs as he watches my head go through all these things. And then I realize that for whatever reason, I do have an extra delay in my bag that is going on e-bay tomorrow. Sweet mercy, we are going to have effects pedals on vocals today!
And as a rule, delay makes anything better. Anything. Bass, drums, keyboards, trumpet, cowbell (hehe, that’d be awesome!), your car’s stereo, absolutely anything. Of course I’m kidding right now, though……but only a little.
(Mmmm……effects on vocals. REM’s way might be just a tad distracting in church, though.)
And of course at any church, if you need to jerry-rig something together, you can find anything you need in some random drawer in the tech room. Found a way to go from XLR to quarter inch, and then back to XLR from the delay pedal. And the big surprise was that there was no hum…….very nice. And by the way, the pedal was an older version T-Rex Replica. Just killer pedals; very well-built.
So, time goes down to almost a slapback, level up to get just a bit of compression, mix down, brown mode off, and repeats up. Made a nice chorusy effect, and I (this is seriously amazing) resisted the urge to use it in every song and bend down between every song (or during every song) and change settings. Just used it on the verses of Wonderful Cross and it sounded very cool. Those of you who know how much I love delay…..(meaning, if I didn’t have a beautiful wife, the delay pedals would go to bed with me just like your toys as a kid) know that that took a lot of will-power.
(How can that not make everything it touches better? See that switch on the left? You can’t read what it says, so I’m going to tell you what it says. That’s the ‘Talent’ switch. Also known as ‘On/Off’ or ‘Bypass’. But for a delay, those words translate to ‘Talent.’ Every time you feel like you sound sucky, just hit your ‘Talent’ pedal. That’s what I do.)
Now, I don’t have the best voice; I mean, I can hold pitch fine, but I wouldn’t buy a cd where I was singing on it, if you follow. So now I’m thinking…..if I got another Damage Control Timeline with a Midi Mate so I can program in a different effect for each song…..and then another delay for strictly reverby settings….maybe a compressor……have to have tap tempo so you can Charlie Hall it for ‘Marvelous Light’….it’d make my voice sound way better! And now I have a whole new rig that I want to spend my non-existent money on. And just for the record, Diamond Pedals is working on something called the Altar Ego, which is like a bypass looper, but for vocals. It has XLR ins and outs, but all the loops are quarter inch ins and outs for pedals, and it’s supposed to be buffered and balanced. Oh, sweet, sweet mercy.
It never ends, people. Once you dive into the world of gear, you sink like Andre the Giant in the Sea of Shrieking Eels……”I only dog paddle.” (Sorry, there’s probably only like 2 people who actually get these movie references, and yet I just can’t seem to help myself.) And I am drowning, literally drowning in the ocean of gear………with the hugest smile on my face.
(Classic.)
Drowning splendidly,
Karl.
Guitar for Worship 