Thank you for this video. As a worship leader, I needed to hear what you said starting at minute 4:36. I have one volunteer who has voiced his concerns/opinion about tracks and I didn't know how to approach it. But the way you broke it down has helped me understand where he is coming from.
Can’t say this enough... take your time to introduce it to your team. Was my great mistake. Came one practice and told the team filled with Nigerian musicians that we were going multitrack. I faced the greatest push back ever on my team with my pianist and sometimes drummer removing his earpiece and sometimes I get so mad I just mute them and use the track. Had to learn subtly my introducing it them every 3rd Sunday of the month and on special services. Now my team is getting to that point of using them more frequently than before and enjoying them. Still a long road! 🙌🏾
Man... I felt it. The pushback was real for us too, until our older musicians were unable to play and it was just me (fortunately I play drums well) a bass player, and the tracks. That was when they got over it.
This is absolutely awesome and within the past 4 years of serving on my team we've progressed gradually by doing almost everything you spoke on. From replacing wedges with IEMs, and the whole team getting convenient with them. To including metronomes, pads and moving to ableton. It's been a slow and intentional process which involves learning and single mindedness of a team as well as our pastor constantly meeting us and making sure we're on course spiritually.
Yes yes yes, I’ve personally experienced everything mentioned in this video, and it is 100% accurate. Kudos dudes, great explanation for those of us who are delving into tracks for the first time.
Good tips. There are some use cases that validate using only Multitracks for your worship team. Mine is that I also play outside the church at external events. This is what I am referring to. The team I used to have was spread out, and getting people together to practice was challenging. Eventually people lost interest, moved away, or had other commitments and could not continue. So rather than going through a lot of work finding new people and getting them onboard, I started using tracks for these parts. At the end of last year there were only three of us left. I made the decision to go 100% tracks for this year. Now, the only live player is myself on guitar. It was difficult to dissolve the remaining team, but in the long run was a good decision. For my use case, if I didn't switch to 100% tracks for the band, I may have had to step away and the team would have dissolved anyway. I was the only tech savvy person in the group and 90% of all prep and execution was my responsibility. So using tracks (Playback) has given me back a lot of time. Also, I received a lot of positive feedback from the external events where I have led worship. Some of the lessons learned you mentioned have also been my experience as well. I had a guy that did not want to use tracks-- period. He felt that click tracks restricted him. I also had the challenge of some not wanting to use in-ear monitoring. However, we worked through each objection and found solutions that worked.
Great advice!! Unfortunately my church is doing everything you said not to, but I’m just the drummer and have zero authority. Our leaders don’t ask for my advice or value my opinion and it’s sad, but I’m the professional musician not them lol Thus, it makes my job incredibly hard
Well. My Wednesday is alright haha. I got let go at work this morning but, I’ve started an Worship Leadership internship at my church recently so, it kinda works out. I know God has me in the palm of his hand
Awesome video! Some thoughts for future videos on multitracks: How to avoid people removing their in-ears during worship; How to decide which parts to play (say you only have one guitar player and the song has 4 guitars), and how to still use the tracks (maybe some custom volume change automation on the tracks);
On an scenario like that, worship or band leader can assigns parts to players to avoid confusion or overlaps. Sound person must be informed of those changes or person running in ear mix on stage as well.. It's a teamwork brother. I do it all the time and it works. At least 5-7 day in advance notice so when rehearsal day comes everyone is ready to go.
Everything that is involved in this process is expensive - its VERY difficult just to get decent musicians/singers. Having this obstacle is so much more difficult on top of that. Kudos to anyone who pulls it off basically! Reminds me of trying to play golf but without spending any money, or very little. You cant really! You have to invest the money and time and resources needed to get it to work correctly! Good luck everyone...
The devaluing of volunteers by replacing them with tracks hit home. Happened to me once. It feels horrible, felt like my time was wasted and more importantly it feels like your leader doesn't trust you enough to play the parts well. Even though I'm more then capable it's not like any parts are hard. I don't play there anymore.
In my church, Multitracks are used. I could play the additional parts... but the Multitracks are used in some songs and these add sometimes additional vocals.
About your case, it is pretty different, to be replaced by another musician. The better way would be, to get more worship bands this way, not to get rid a musician.
@ 4:00 "too many musics" I'm gonna take that one and use it haha! But seriously great discussion guys thanks so much for sharing your experiences and wisdom.
For POD GO I find Worship Tutorials patches the best even over Line 6 website. Okay, I am off the topic but I had to throw in my 2 cents. I wont be spending money on any one else's Patches from now on.
I am maybe too reliant on multi tracks at times just because it helps keep my parts in sequence. I memorize my guitar parts (no music stands haha) but the cues help a ton. We actually did a track last week without click and it went very smooth which made me feel good about not using them as a crutch.
"Too many musics" The worst part of using multitracks is when you have a mostly empty stage yet sound like a complete orchestra. It feels artificial, and it makes the few people on stage appear amateurish.
Awesome vid. So if you could be any worship leader who would you be? Chris Tomlin, Stanfill, Hillsong, or Michael W Smith? Leave comments below... Aight, LET'S GOOOO!
I have just recently made the mistake of replacing a piano while the volunteer was there I just suggested doing pads instead of the piano . Unfortunately this person doesn't seem to think practicing is important so there in lies my dilemma.
Maybe I'm an outlier in all of this, but I flat out hate multitracks, or whatever else you want to call piped in music and clicks or whatever. I was at church two weeks ago and the worship was led by one dude on an electric guitar and that's all we needed to worship the Lord in spirit and truth. I've been on a team (as a volunteer) where the use of multitracks was so common as to be abused. I mean, we'd use tracks on songs where all you actually needed was a piano and brushes on the percussion. But here we were with an orchestra in my ears, and all this other nonsense and I was like, "why am I here?" Honestly, to me, multitracks represent fake music and fake worship. If you feel you need them to spice up a "performance" you are no longer doing "worship". Like I said, one guy on an electric guitar singing was always better than a bunch of recorded crap in the background just to make it sound rich and full. Putting it another way - I will NEVER participate on a worship team EVER again if they introduce multitracks. If you can't do it live with the people in the room, then you have lost your focus on what true worship is all about.
I have a question. How would you deal with person on the worship team who can't be replaced (pastor's son) and he doesn't want to practice or take any advice or help? This person barely plays the drums (just hits the snare and the floor tom).I encouraged him to practice some technique at home. I want to use prerecorded drums and have him play along with the recording, so I can have a solid rhythm. Presently, we have two singers, keyboard (me), and the pastors son. Any advice would be helpful.
Technologically, what would be the best way to run track through an iPad (the playback app) to my system? We are currently running a stereo TRS cable out of iPad splitting into LR 1/4” into DI boxes. Is there a better way for our sound guy for us to run this?
I haven’t found anything on TH-cam but is there a way to use multitrack stuff with spontaneous worship? Or do you just have to go straight through the track?
@@davidhenning2236 Thats good to here I don't mind programming I actually enjoy that part of the process. So you can program it to be more spontaneous and kind of loop back and forth? The only time I've been exposed to multitrack is with churches who go straight through he song. Our church we always wanna leave space for the Spirit so I was never really interested but this changes things.
One word of advice, preparation on song selection and most important, don't let Multitracks get on the way that belongs to the move of the holy spirit. MT can be an effective tool for performance as part of your worship, but make no mistake about it, the move of God's spirit is not on a 4/4 time signature, nor requires a BPM or click because bible says The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." GB
You can loop parts real time during the service. just have to coordinate with a talk back mic. Whomever has control of the tracks can loop a section of the tracks if you want to hang on a certain area, you can play to that section until you want to move on then go right through the rest of the track once you stop looping it.
You guitar player is given the task of figuring out which part is the most important per section. Or if you have no guitar, you could come up with a different arrangement that doesn't rely on guitar as much. Ideally before Sunday.
I’d say it all depends on the guitarist’s skill level. If they do lead well, it make the most sense to keep all the rhythm and let them do the lead. The same can work vice versa, work smarter not harder!
most likely one of the electrics is the dominant part and then the other parts layer sounds to make it sound full. I would listen through all the parts and find the one that adds the most and use 1 if you have no electric guitarist. If you have an electric player then add a couple of the supporting parts.
Call me old school, but I think if you're using tracks you might as well just hire a DJ to run the set. The songs don't need to replicate the album exactly and at what point does it become a performance? It's a no for me.
I think that tracks can add a lot. And "performance" takes place when someone worships anything other than God on the platform so even a solo worship leader could technically "perform". Tracks are not for everyone so you don't have to use them.
I made this exact argument for years when faced with the idea of playing or leading with tracks. My thought was that all it was doing was just causing the worship leader to be lazy and not writing a correct arrangement for the team. During a gap in ministry I attended and served at a ministry that utilized tracks. What I found was not that it took anything away but it allowed myself to be much more creative with my parts.I also didn't feel like I had to carry the music the whole time. This actually allowed it to be LESS of a performance as I was able to find places where I didn't have to play and could just simply engage. Having gone back into ministry and started the process of using tracks at the church I currently work at I have grown to realize all of the tuition benefits that using tracks gives my team. Many times my team members aren't familiar with listening for a specific part but with using multitracks (we actually are using loop community) they can hear that part and practice better. It also helps as I work very part time and live a decent ways away from the church. This means we don't have the luxury of a weekly practice. Using tracks is going to help my vocalists and musicians be able to practice better throughout the week so that when our Sunday rehearsal comes around we can jump in and all be on the same page. I totally get where you are coming from because I have been there before but I hope this helps see it from a bit of a different perspective.
@bueller8278, I totally agree! I’m old fashioned too. Click tracks & stems just make musicians and singers lazy. I play for 3 churches and I take the time to actually learn the songs and sing. This technology may have a place, but it’s too mechanical for me. Like you said, just cut out the middle man and hire a DJ….
![Worship Leader Training | Reading and Leading the Room [Gateway Worship Training]](/img/n.gif)
Thank you for this video. As a worship leader, I needed to hear what you said starting at minute 4:36. I have one volunteer who has voiced his concerns/opinion about tracks and I didn't know how to approach it. But the way you broke it down has helped me understand where he is coming from.
Can’t say this enough... take your time to introduce it to your team. Was my great mistake. Came one practice and told the team filled with Nigerian musicians that we were going multitrack. I faced the greatest push back ever on my team with my pianist and sometimes drummer removing his earpiece and sometimes I get so mad I just mute them and use the track. Had to learn subtly my introducing it them every 3rd Sunday of the month and on special services. Now my team is getting to that point of using them more frequently than before and enjoying them. Still a long road! 🙌🏾
Man... I felt it. The pushback was real for us too, until our older musicians were unable to play and it was just me (fortunately I play drums well) a bass player, and the tracks. That was when they got over it.
Been using multi tracks for years. Came on staff at a church 3 years ago that was already using them. Still found this video super helpful!
This is absolutely awesome and within the past 4 years of serving on my team we've progressed gradually by doing almost everything you spoke on.
From replacing wedges with IEMs, and the whole team getting convenient with them.
To including metronomes, pads and moving to ableton. It's been a slow and intentional process which involves learning and single mindedness of a team as well as our pastor constantly meeting us and making sure we're on course spiritually.
Thanks for the video. We are currently using pads and are working toward using in ears and a click. The growing pains are definitely real!
Yes yes yes, I’ve personally experienced everything mentioned in this video, and it is 100% accurate. Kudos dudes, great explanation for those of us who are delving into tracks for the first time.
Good tips. There are some use cases that validate using only Multitracks for your worship team. Mine is that I also play outside the church at external events. This is what I am referring to. The team I used to have was spread out, and getting people together to practice was challenging. Eventually people lost interest, moved away, or had other commitments and could not continue. So rather than going through a lot of work finding new people and getting them onboard, I started using tracks for these parts. At the end of last year there were only three of us left. I made the decision to go 100% tracks for this year. Now, the only live player is myself on guitar. It was difficult to dissolve the remaining team, but in the long run was a good decision. For my use case, if I didn't switch to 100% tracks for the band, I may have had to step away and the team would have dissolved anyway. I was the only tech savvy person in the group and 90% of all prep and execution was my responsibility. So using tracks (Playback) has given me back a lot of time. Also, I received a lot of positive feedback from the external events where I have led worship. Some of the lessons learned you mentioned have also been my experience as well. I had a guy that did not want to use tracks-- period. He felt that click tracks restricted him. I also had the challenge of some not wanting to use in-ear monitoring. However, we worked through each objection and found solutions that worked.
Great advice!! Unfortunately my church is doing everything you said not to, but I’m just the drummer and have zero authority. Our leaders don’t ask for my advice or value my opinion and it’s sad, but I’m the professional musician not them lol
Thus, it makes my job incredibly hard
Well. My Wednesday is alright haha. I got let go at work this morning but, I’ve started an Worship Leadership internship at my church recently so, it kinda works out. I know God has me in the palm of his hand
Awesome video! Some thoughts for future videos on multitracks: How to avoid people removing their in-ears during worship; How to decide which parts to play (say you only have one guitar player and the song has 4 guitars), and how to still use the tracks (maybe some custom volume change automation on the tracks);
On an scenario like that, worship or band leader can assigns parts to players to avoid confusion or overlaps. Sound person must be informed of those changes or person running in ear mix on stage as well.. It's a teamwork brother. I do it all the time and it works. At least 5-7 day in advance notice so when rehearsal day comes everyone is ready to go.
Thank you for hitting on these points. I think it’s a fine line between relying on tracks too much vs using them properly. Great convo!
Everything that is involved in this process is expensive - its VERY difficult just to get decent musicians/singers. Having this obstacle is so much more difficult on top of that. Kudos to anyone who pulls it off basically! Reminds me of trying to play golf but without spending any money, or very little. You cant really! You have to invest the money and time and resources needed to get it to work correctly! Good luck everyone...
Wow you guys are amazing so much information you guys give for free in this video is amazing.
The devaluing of volunteers by replacing them with tracks hit home. Happened to me once. It feels horrible, felt like my time was wasted and more importantly it feels like your leader doesn't trust you enough to play the parts well. Even though I'm more then capable it's not like any parts are hard. I don't play there anymore.
In my church, Multitracks are used. I could play the additional parts... but the Multitracks are used in some songs and these add sometimes additional vocals.
About your case, it is pretty different, to be replaced by another musician.
The better way would be, to get more worship bands this way, not to get rid a musician.
@@robfriedrich2822 I think there's something profoundly weird about hearing extra voices and not seeing people singing on stage.
Amen on muting the tracks not needed.
@ 4:00 "too many musics"
I'm gonna take that one and use it haha!
But seriously great discussion guys thanks so much for sharing your experiences and wisdom.
For POD GO I find Worship Tutorials patches the best even over Line 6 website. Okay, I am off the topic but I had to throw in my 2 cents. I wont be spending money on any one else's Patches from now on.
Love you guys - thanks for the content
Lots of winsdom you guys 🤯🤯
I am maybe too reliant on multi tracks at times just because it helps keep my parts in sequence. I memorize my guitar parts (no music stands haha) but the cues help a ton. We actually did a track last week without click and it went very smooth which made me feel good about not using them as a crutch.
A track without a click? Man, you’re braver than me haha!
Thanks
"Too many musics"
The worst part of using multitracks is when you have a mostly empty stage yet sound like a complete orchestra. It feels artificial, and it makes the few people on stage appear amateurish.
MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that everyone has the click/cues/MD in your ears PROMINENTLY 😂😂😂
Awesome vid. So if you could be any worship leader who would you be? Chris Tomlin, Stanfill, Hillsong, or Michael W Smith? Leave comments below... Aight, LET'S GOOOO!
I have just recently made the mistake of replacing a piano while the volunteer was there I just suggested doing pads instead of the piano . Unfortunately this person doesn't seem to think practicing is important so there in lies my dilemma.
Maybe I'm an outlier in all of this, but I flat out hate multitracks, or whatever else you want to call piped in music and clicks or whatever. I was at church two weeks ago and the worship was led by one dude on an electric guitar and that's all we needed to worship the Lord in spirit and truth. I've been on a team (as a volunteer) where the use of multitracks was so common as to be abused. I mean, we'd use tracks on songs where all you actually needed was a piano and brushes on the percussion. But here we were with an orchestra in my ears, and all this other nonsense and I was like, "why am I here?"
Honestly, to me, multitracks represent fake music and fake worship. If you feel you need them to spice up a "performance" you are no longer doing "worship". Like I said, one guy on an electric guitar singing was always better than a bunch of recorded crap in the background just to make it sound rich and full.
Putting it another way - I will NEVER participate on a worship team EVER again if they introduce multitracks. If you can't do it live with the people in the room, then you have lost your focus on what true worship is all about.
What kind of the most affordable or medium in-ears you recommend?
I have a question. How would you deal with person on the worship team who can't be replaced (pastor's son) and he doesn't want to practice or take any advice or help? This person barely plays the drums (just hits the snare and the floor tom).I encouraged him to practice some technique at home. I want to use prerecorded drums and have him play along with the recording, so I can have a solid rhythm. Presently, we have two singers, keyboard (me), and the pastors son. Any advice would be helpful.
Technologically, what would be the best way to run track through an iPad (the playback app) to my system? We are currently running a stereo TRS cable out of iPad splitting into LR 1/4” into DI boxes. Is there a better way for our sound guy for us to run this?
The Playback app. The wiring you mentioned sounds correct.
Mistake #1 using Multitracks
Oh and one mistake is to fire the wrong song
I haven’t found anything on TH-cam but is there a way to use multitrack stuff with spontaneous worship? Or do you just have to go straight through the track?
Isaac Fanai you can customize a track for your needs, there are different options to set it up in Ableton, but it needs some preparation.
@@davidhenning2236 Thats good to here I don't mind programming I actually enjoy that part of the process. So you can program it to be more spontaneous and kind of loop back and forth? The only time I've been exposed to multitrack is with churches who go straight through he song. Our church we always wanna leave space for the Spirit so I was never really interested but this changes things.
One word of advice, preparation on song selection and most important, don't let Multitracks get on the way that belongs to the move of the holy spirit. MT can be an effective tool for performance as part of your worship, but make no mistake about it, the move of God's spirit is not on a 4/4 time signature, nor requires a BPM or click because bible says The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." GB
You can loop parts real time during the service. just have to coordinate with a talk back mic. Whomever has control of the tracks can loop a section of the tracks if you want to hang on a certain area, you can play to that section until you want to move on then go right through the rest of the track once you stop looping it.
How does it work if the tracks has like 5 electric guitars but you only have one or no electric guitar players in your band?
You guitar player is given the task of figuring out which part is the most important per section. Or if you have no guitar, you could come up with a different arrangement that doesn't rely on guitar as much. Ideally before Sunday.
I’d say it all depends on the guitarist’s skill level. If they do lead well, it make the most sense to keep all the rhythm and let them do the lead. The same can work vice versa, work smarter not harder!
choose a different song
most likely one of the electrics is the dominant part and then the other parts layer sounds to make it sound full. I would listen through all the parts and find the one that adds the most and use 1 if you have no electric guitarist. If you have an electric player then add a couple of the supporting parts.
Call me old school, but I think if you're using tracks you might as well just hire a DJ to run the set. The songs don't need to replicate the album exactly and at what point does it become a performance? It's a no for me.
I think that tracks can add a lot. And "performance" takes place when someone worships anything other than God on the platform so even a solo worship leader could technically "perform". Tracks are not for everyone so you don't have to use them.
I made this exact argument for years when faced with the idea of playing or leading with tracks. My thought was that all it was doing was just causing the worship leader to be lazy and not writing a correct arrangement for the team. During a gap in ministry I attended and served at a ministry that utilized tracks. What I found was not that it took anything away but it allowed myself to be much more creative with my parts.I also didn't feel like I had to carry the music the whole time. This actually allowed it to be LESS of a performance as I was able to find places where I didn't have to play and could just simply engage.
Having gone back into ministry and started the process of using tracks at the church I currently work at I have grown to realize all of the tuition benefits that using tracks gives my team. Many times my team members aren't familiar with listening for a specific part but with using multitracks (we actually are using loop community) they can hear that part and practice better. It also helps as I work very part time and live a decent ways away from the church. This means we don't have the luxury of a weekly practice. Using tracks is going to help my vocalists and musicians be able to practice better throughout the week so that when our Sunday rehearsal comes around we can jump in and all be on the same page. I totally get where you are coming from because I have been there before but I hope this helps see it from a bit of a different perspective.
@bueller8278, I totally agree! I’m old fashioned too. Click tracks & stems just make musicians and singers lazy. I play for 3 churches and I take the time to actually learn the songs and sing. This technology may have a place, but it’s too mechanical for me. Like you said, just cut out the middle man and hire a DJ….