How to Create a Great Sound Design & Tone on Keys for Worship with Evan Fernald of TBCO

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Carson Bruce is joined by Evan Fernald, music director and keys player at The Belonging Co. In this episode, Evan opens up about his spiritual journey and gives an in-depth look at his worship keys setup from how he blends hardware and software to create seamless worship moments, to his personal approach to sound design, layering, and dynamic control. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting out, you’ll walk away with practical tips, creative insights, and inspiring stories to fuel your worship journey.

Evan Fernald

Ableton Session Templates & Touch OSC Files

Transcript

Speaker: 0:08

Welcome to the Worship Keys YouTube channel. My name is Carson Bruce, so glad you're here. We talk all things music theory, gear, industry and ministry for your worship keys playing. If this episode is beneficial for you or you have any questions as you continue to watch, feel free to comment below and I'd love to hear any feedback that you have along the way. So let's get into today's episode. I'm with EvanFernald. Evan, welcome to the podcast, man. Dude, thank you for having me. I'm so honored to be here. Many of you know him, recognize him, and you know, you look like a Christian artist. Have you gotten this before? , depends on the artist you about to say, but possibly, yeah. Um, Jeremy Camp. Yep. Okay. I could have said it. Yeah, no, I definitely, I've gotten that a few times. Okay. Okay. Well, well, man, you're styling. You look great. Jeremy Camp's awesome too, man. What a great guy. Uh, Evan Fernald, he plays keys at the Belonging Co. But you don't just play keys at Belong Co. You're the md Yeah. And you've been on staff for some years, so tell us that story. How'd you get connected with the Belonging Co? Yeah, man, it's a, uh, uh, quite a long story that I won't go into all the details my wife and I had been in full-time ministry for a number of years really just kind of felt drawn into a new season, a season of rest. Very much did not feel like we were done with ministry, but just kind of felt like we needed to kind of hit pause. We actually heard about the belonging through a family that we knew from one of our previous churches. They had moved to Nashville and had started coming. And, uh, so we, we stepped out of a season of, of ministry living in Northern California and got a chance to come and visit and just very much felt drawn to what God was doing at the belonging. And so we just. Felt the green light from God to come out. So sold a bunch of stuff off, moved out in, summer of 2017 and uh, really that kicked off about a three year season of God doing so much, uh, in our hearts and, specifically in me. I know. I didn't realize, and I think that this can be very common in ministry, how much my identity had been wrapped up in what I was doing for God. Mm. That I really had lost sight of what it meant to just be a son of God. Yeah. And for him to be my father and not my. Just my boss. Right, right, right. Ministry is like Yeah. God's who I work for. Right. Yeah. And uh, that was such, an important thing for me to have to realize. And I think that I probably would not have realized it if it wouldn't have been for the space of stepping out. Mm-hmm. And God go, it was kind of a come away with me season of God going, listen, you don't even see that you need this, but you need this. Right. And because I love you and I know it's best for you, I'm actually gonna pull you into a community that's passionate for my presence. Mm-hmm. That prioritizes what, you know, what, what that looks like to actually find your identity in me and not in what you're doing for me. So it was such a, um. A challenging season, uh, an incredible season. I've never, uh, felt God's presence, so rich and close than I did in those seasons. Mm-hmm. And, um, uh, I started driving Lyft and, and around town and, uh, man, talk about, uh, a confronting thing when you're driving and you're used to having all of these things that you can attach to your name, um, that gives you some sort of perceived value. Oh, yeah. No, I'm, I'm leading worship over here. I'm playing over here, I'm doing this. Look at all these great things I'm a part of, and then all that kind of gets stripped away. And you're like, right now I'm, I'm a Lyft driver. Mm-hmm. And you know, every passenger that gets in your car, very typical. You know, is this your main thing? Is this your side gig? What are you doing? You know, and I just remember having to kind of get to that place of being like. I'm not a Lyft driver is not who I am, it's what, it's what I'm doing right now. Right. But I'm a son of God and that's enough. And that's really, uh, the substance of how I wanna live the rest of my life from that identity, from that perspective. Yeah. And so, um, after, after being at church, we just attended for the first year. And I think those are sometimes important seasons. You know, as much as we absolutely believe in getting invested in a church community and serving and, you know, being a part of, if it's, you know, small groups, whatever that looks like, you know, that's all very, very important. But there was this very unique season where God was like, I actually need your full attention. And I know that if, if you step right into doing all of that. You're not gonna get a chance to see what needs to be worked on. Right? Right. And so that first year was definitely a year of experiencing that and reconnecting that identity as being, uh, son of God first and foremost. And that being it, you know, getting to the point of going, Hey, you know, 'cause nobody knew us at, the belonging and outside of this one family, we didn't know anybody. Wow. And so, you know, we didn't come with any kind of expectation to. Serve on the worship team or be on staff. In fact, we, we told a lot of our family and friends specifically those two things. I'm like, no, that will probably never happen in the belonging, but that's okay. That's not why we're here. We're here because we, we wanna be part of a community that's hungry for the presence of God. Right. I'll set up chairs, I'll go park cars. I, I'd like sincerely getting to the place of going, if I never step foot behind an instrument or behind a microphone or on a platform that I'm good with it. I'm fine. I don't need that anymore for my own value or identity. All that is found in, in my, my father. Wow. And so whenever I did get the opportunity. Started serving first in, in youth. They, they had just made the, the swap to doing like, uh, home group kind of youth ministry to the Wednesday night youth service. Let's get worship rolling. Yeah. And, um, somehow my name kind of came up with the, the youth pastor at the time and so reached out and said, Hey, would you be interested in being a part of this? Started playing for youth very soon after that. They wanted to start worship for the, the elementary kids service on Sunday mornings. And, um, got to step into doing that and was having a blast. Like genuinely. Um, I, the fact that I was even getting to serve in worship I felt like was such a, a, a gift from God. 'cause I didn't expect to get, to step back into doing that. So then probably beginning of 2019, um, started serving on, the worship team for the adult services on Sundays and Tuesdays. Yeah, just really got to lean into serving on the team in that way. And it's been, yeah. It's been beautiful. Yeah. That's awesome to hear. I didn't expect that. I didn't expect that. When you see now, you just never know people's stories, and it's incredible. You're a great keys player. This episode's gonna be awesome. It's actually gonna be two part series, so today and next week, and depending on when you watch this video or hear this podcast, maybe both of them will already be out. But today's episode's all about, your sound design and your whole rig. Man, it's impressive. I mean, we were setting up today and I, I was like, that was the quickest I've ever set up for a guest so far. Yeah, because your, your rack was just ready to go plug and play. Talk a little bit about your, your rack over there, what you got going on, and how you, when you go travel, what you do. Yeah, just real quick. Yeah. So it's, it's not super elaborate. There's just, you know, uh, audio interface and right now I'm using the UA Volt four, for my keys interface. Uh, I have an iConnect MIDI four for, for MIDI routing on my, uh, iPad and uh, fader controller. I'll do a quick little blurb on the, on the MIDI four. It's discontinued. They don't make it anymore, but it is so packed full of features. Specifically the fact that you have multiple USB ports on it. It is such a hub for my workflow. So if that ever went down, I've literally been on reverb and have bought, like any used ones that pop up, people getting rid of them. I'm like, I'll snag 'em and have backups. Wow. Because it's so, integral to my workflow, , because it allows me with my iPad and Fader controller to control both my keys computer and tracks. When we're playing on Sunday in Nashville, we have a playback team that runs tracks from side stage. But anytime we travel, if we do anything at the other locations, I'm usually running tracks from keys. And so having that built into my workflow without having to have a bunch of extra devices or having to like, turn and, and interact with the tracks computer on the side table is a really, really. Helpful. So iConnect Mini four, they're amazing. for tracks when we travel. It is in my rack, only used for tracks, when we kind of take trips. So, , it's the iConnect Play Audio 12. Awesome. Really popular and great playback interface. Yes. And that's essentially what's happening in the rack. Very cool. The iPad, I'm using, touch OSC, which is virtual MIDI controller software. So you can kind of build whatever template, super cool buttons, knobs, anything that you need, you can kind of custom build your layout. , and then I have a fader controller, , that can kind of controls all my levels and effects and all the things that would manipulate my sounds. Yeah. And also kind of control. Tracks world. So, so good. And you we're about to see that here. And if you're listening on podcasts, you're on the road and just enjoying the conversation, enjoying some of the sound design. I hope you enjoy it. Definitely don't, don't watch if you're driving or anything, but, , this is probably, these few episodes are gonna be something you're probably gonna wanna watch on YouTube, so feel free to cross on over to, to YouTube and check this out. Evan on staff at the Belonging Co here in Nashville, Tennessee, um, tell us your role. So you are doing tracks. A lot of tracks. A lot of keys, but you're m ding on stage too. And we've had a few episodes about MD and MD tips. Talk a little bit about MD world and your role specifically at, the Belonging. Go. And you're full-time there, right? I am, yes. So just about four years now, I've been full-time on staff as a music director. Such a, a privilege to get to work with all of our worship teams and bands and, so lots of, you know, if you've been in that role on staff at a church before, you know, there's lots of just, you know, backend details, scheduling things that take up quite a bit of time. , yeah, when it comes to our services, definitely partner very much with our worship leaders. We actually have, our worship leaders, most all of them are all volunteer. There's only a couple that are, also on staff. But they build their own set lists. And so it's a little bit of a unique dynamic in my case, where I could be working with two volunteer worship leaders that have built their set list. But I'm also the staff represented representation for the worship department. So kind of a little bit of a dual hat, you know, making sure that everything comes together well for the service. But I view kind of the MD role as definitely a support role to the worship leaders. Like you're the ones that have built the set. You're, you know, the expectation is to come with vision and to, you know, to have a sense of, of how you want this to go. And so I wanna be able to support that and understand even when it comes to just transitions, flow moments, how can I help set this up? You know, do we want to just do this song and then move right into this next moment? Do we want to hang out a little bit after this first song to kind of see where it lands? I'm working a lot with our worship leaders asking the questions, what are you thinking? What are you feeling? And then I'm ultimately responsible to make sure all the musical elements are coming together to support kind of that vision. Absolutely. So yeah, they're really, really cool. Talk a little bit about the culture at your church. Talk about your pastor, uh, the pastors and kind of their vision for the church. And if you know about Belonging Co. You've never been to Belonging Co. You know, you might know that they have incredible production, audio, visuals, lighting and it's prioritized. But at the same time, they do love the Lord. Sometimes you think if you have great production, maybe you're idolizing that and maybe a smaller church with no production just means they really love the Lord. But that's not the ca always the case. Yeah. Talk a bit a little bit about, um, the church culture and Yeah. Your pastor and, uh, why the production is such a high standard. Yes. Um, our pastor is an incredible creative. Yeah. Musician, worship leader, producer, audio engineer, um, I mean visual from visual side photographer, like all the things. He's just embodies a creative individual. Yeah. Yeah. And carries very deeply about those things. But the thing that I love most about our pastors is, um, and you even said it, is keeping the priorities in the right place. Mm-hmm. You know, um, I think sometimes in conversations around church, these things can get, um, elevated or even thrown out, uh, when they're not in the right order. You know, we see production getting, you know, the predominant place in the service and you go, well, that just feels outta whack. Let's throw it all away. Or other churches that don't utilize it at all. And, um, I just love that our, our approach really is those things can be useful as long as they don't take the front seat, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, we have, uh, kind of a manifesto around a church. We, uh, it's a presence over presentation. Intimacy over industry, people over position, encounter over entertainment and Jesus over everything. And the, the, the presence over presentation is really where that conversation kind of comes down to is, is it's not present instead of like, we don't, we don't, you know, pull all of that out of the equation. Sure, sure. We just make sure it doesn't become the main thing. Yeah. And uh, honestly, it's the first place that I've heard, um, production being talked about, um, from the standpoint of it being a part of our creative expression of worship. Mm-hmm. Right? Like I've, I've come from different church environments where everything that's done is done with, uh, is it gonna connect with the people? Mm-hmm. Right, and, and, and, and, and not that that conversation is bad or that framework is bad, but I had never heard about lighting being talked about as a creative expression of worship. Yeah, yeah. Like God created light where using elements that he created. To create a space that's worshipful and inviting. Yeah. And like that's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you're, if you're coming from that standpoint and that's the way you're utilizing it, that alone, that value, I think, gives you that threshold of not turning it into concert or show or flashy or so overdone that it's now distracting. Now our, our attention is on the production elements, not on being invited into an experience of worship. Absolutely. So, um, I think it's, it's really cool. Um, uh, I, I had, what's interesting is before I came to the belonging, I had some stronger opinions about things. Honestly, tracks was, was one of them. Hmm. Where I felt very strongly that I didn't want to hear anything in tracks that was so prevalent that wasn't, but, but it wasn't being played by a live person on stage. Got you. Yeah. Which honestly even ties into when I first started getting into like the world of keys and sound design. I, I, I was trying to copy and, and produce so much of the parts live, right? So the only thing I left in tracks was really, you know, supplementary. It was kind of, you know, you couldn't really hear it predominantly. And, uh, when we first came to the belonging, I remember being in services and it was, I, I couldn't even tell you how long it was before I found myself going, I don't even care. Like out on the side of the person being in the room worshiping. It was so much more about entering into this atmosphere of worship and participating. I'm like, I don't care if the hook that I'm hearing right now is coming from a laptop or from the person that's like, play it live, put it on the track. Like I don't care. It doesn't, it doesn't change my engagement in this moment. Mm-hmm. And so some things shifted for me in that time of going, yeah, utilize production elements. Don't use them. If the heart is in the right place, you can use it and it's not out of place. Yeah. If your heart's not in the right place, I. You can be using it and it's a distraction. So like Right, right. It's, it's, we, we focus so much on the thing as opposed to our heart posture and how we're approaching it and letting that be the most important part. So, um, yeah, I think that that's one thing that I really appreciate about our house is we, we utilize the, all of the things. Mm-hmm. But everything is kept in the right order. Everything is subject to what, um, what's happening in the moment. What, what God is speaking in the moment. If he wants to, you know, interrupt the, the set list we've put together and go a different direction that we are ready. All the systems that we have, all the technology, the musical elements. Everything is ready to follow that. Amazing. So we're never handcuffed by the technology. All the technology and production elements supports the moment. I love that. I want people to hear that too. 'cause it is always starts with the heart of it, you know? And this platform's called the worship keys, we're not just about keys, it's worship first. And that's what it's all about. So we're gonna hear some very technical things, this episode and the next episode with you, Evan. But I want people to hear, I wanted people to hear your heart Yeah. In that and hear the heart of the Belonging Co as well, and how they approach production that, hey, these lighting techs, these camera techs, um, all of these people are doing, doing it unto the Lord. Maybe not every single one, every single time. There could be some, you can't, can't quality control everyone. But for the most part, you know, that's their vision and that's what you guys wanna do. Yeah. Which is, which is awesome. I do wanna ask, you do so at Belonging Code, there's a lot of. Quote unquote high profile Christian artists leading, at the Belonging Co. Yeah. Does that affect anything? Because it, it really shouldn't, you know, it's their church. Yeah. It's, they, they wanna be apart. I've heard from a few buddies, hey, like, they're just here to have church. They're not here to sign autographs. And it's not, we're not doing that whole thing. They're here with their family. With their spouses. Does that affect you individually or the staff or the perception? I'll comment first on just the overall kind of culture and environment of the church. Nobody is on the platform because of their name. There's nobody that's just given a microphone and a place on the worship team because they are so and so. Right, right. That's good. Um, every single one of them is there because like you said, it's their church. They're there to serve. They get a planning center request just like anybody else on the team. They're not paid. There's kind of this saying too, where it's like everybody checks their, their, their name at the door when, when they walk in. 'cause we're all about Jesus, so nobody is there. Honestly, they don't, they don't need more platforms now, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's like if you, if you think about an artist that's actually like doing well in their career, they don't need another platform to sing on. Like they've, they've got plenty of opportunities, so none of them are there for that reason. And. It's a honestly a delight that I, I get to say that having interacted , and know many of them, I know that's their heart. In fact, I literally, I remember when we first started coming, Danny started, his first place serving was parking cars. I remember, I, I pulled into the, the parking lot one time, and as I was driving past, I was like, I'm, I'm pretty sure that was Danny Gokey out there with a vest. Parking cars. It just shows the heart of why they're there. Like, nobody's there to hold a microphone, no one's there to get stage time. They're there because they value what our house is about. It's their community, it's their home. And speaking for myself, just on the personal side, I had never been in close proximity to anybody in that category when I first started serving on the team. Even though you look like Jeremy can, even though, even though, yeah. Um, so, uh. It was, it was something I had to kind of figure out for myself, not, and I don't want, I wanna say this, it wasn't because of anything they said or did, I think in ourselves, sometimes we put people right into a category, right? Of like, I can't, I can't talk to them because they're so and so, I don't wanna bother. They've never said anything to make anybody feel that way, but like doing it to yourself of going like, ah, let's do, is it okay to go talk? And, um, I, I think for me it was just like, I'm, I'm here. I'm not here because of them. I'm not here to try and get close with them. Right? So like I just navigate this like any, literally anybody else. If I was getting to know anybody else and wanted to develop friendship with anybody else. How would that go? Mm-hmm. And don't get in my own head and, and, and put them into a place that they're not even putting themselves, they're not asking to be put. So I think in a lot of those cases, it actually comes down more to us and how we're thinking of people. You know, we, we put people in the celebrity status and it's like, these are people that love Jesus. You said they're here with their families, they're attending church, they're part of the community and don't want to be treated differently. So, um, love that. So yeah, that was just kind of something I had to internally figure out. I love that man. No, thanks for sharing that. Thanks for sharing. Yeah. So before we jump into this first episode right here with EvanFernald from Belonging Co. Tell us a little bit of the why and kind of intro us into this world of sound design. Like I mentioned before, when I first was kind of getting into this world, I kind of took it as a sense of pride to like tackle as much as I could. I wanted to play all the parts and do all the things, and have all the sounds. And when I first started serving at the belonging is when a lot of that changed as , literally standing on stage, setting up for its sound check and getting a text message that, Hey, we're actually gotta change song one, we're doing this one instead. And just, you know, we're sound checking in 15 minutes and you just gotta be ready to pivot. Right? And I was like, well, I don't have those patches pulled in, you know, whatever the case may be. realizing just the time that you had to work with pivots and changes and everything, I was kind of like, I don't really know that I've got, you know, enough time to really dig into having so much song specific. You know, patches and sounds right. And then the second component of that was I had come from many years of leading worship teams, running rehearsals, directing bands. So I was comfortable in that world, but I had never actually done kind of that Live MD role where you've got the talkback mic, you're, you're, you're calling changes to the band, you're following, you know, worship leader cues and you're counting everything in and kind of, kind of being that, that hub of, of information. Yes. And so realizing that there's an element of focus and concentration that has to be allocated for doing that well. Mm-hmm. And when I was able to do that, well, the, the, the impact on the whole team and the whole moments like that had a, a stronger payoff than whether or not I had all the tones. That's good. And then that paired with my, you know, new found realization that like, we can leave a hook in tracks and it's. Great. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, it was all of those elements coming together that I was like, you know what? I, I think I need to simplify what I'm doing here. Um, just be intentional on having a few things that work for 90% of the time. Solid piano sounds, maybe one or two solid pad sound, maybe a center or two. Um, and then a ways to kind of manipulate that as we're kind of flowing dynamically. I needed ways that I could with one button push or one fader knob with very minimal interaction. I. Um, you know, make the changes I needed to make. Because when you're m ding, it's so important that you can stay attentive to what's happening. And I think we can miss a lot if we start getting into places where we're having to like, literally physically look at our keyboard, look at our gear, right? Look side stage to the laptops. You're changing this. There could have been three cues that happened that I completely missed because my head was down. Mm-hmm. So just the idea of being able to play and lead with your head up has influenced so much of what's gone into this. A lot of my on the fly changes is a button, one fader move. Right? One knob move. It's very minimal, but intentional to mm-hmm. To be able to support my role, not just as a player, but also as an md. Man. That's great. Well, let's get into it, man. You take it away, Evan. Take it away. All right. So let's take a look at what this looks like. so let's start up here. This is kind of the main hub for, uh, controlling everything really. The iPad here. I've got a lot of my notes for the songs, chord structures, um, dynamic notes, band notes, things like that that just kind of help me, uh, remember arrangements and any kinda little nuances there. , this is my keys session. So this only has keys control. I have another one, that also controls tracks if I'm doing that, if I'm, running tracks while I'm playing. But this gives me a few extra buttons that are key specific. So starting with the topper up here, this is the, uh, kind of the drone ambient pad I can turn on or off. And each song has its own page and the button is pre-programmed to whatever key we're doing that song in. It's also just a quick visual reminder of what key we're gonna play in. So that's really, really helpful. The rest of these, across all pages are the same. And it's just my go-to piano, sound, and pad sound, so I can quickly turn those on or off. So starting with off, we'll kind of turn the piano on here, kind of hear that, and then I can turn the pad on and bring that in, add the piano to it. So those are the main two sounds that I would use. And then we can add the, the drone in here too, and we can kind of bring this in together. So that's kind of all three, all three combined together. I'm always, uh, really, really super aware. And this is something that's really helpful for. Like front house, your audio guys, as they're mixing in the room. Sometimes we'll actually split out the drone pad separate from the pad that I'm playing so that they can mix those independently in the house. Because sometimes it's a little bit tricky to tell in our ears if we're using in ears how the balance of those two is, is, sounding out in the house. So it kind of helps front of house guys be able to mix that in a way that's, that's, uh, pleasing. In this case, I, I'm running an interface right now that doesn't have enough outputs to do that, so I'm actually combining the pad that I'm playing with the drone. So I am always very aware of the blend between those two. And I'll give you an example of what it might feel like if it was out of balance. So we've got the drone really raging. I am playing the pad, but you really can't. Tell what I'm playing, you can't hear what I'm playing. And so this might be very aggressive in the room. It's like overpowering with the drone and we can't really hear any definition of chord changes. So I'm gonna want to kind of be aware of that, bring my pad in a little more, take the drone down a little bit. So now you can hear the, the cord changes that are happening underneath that drone. If you are, in a similar situation where you're using an interface that doesn't allow you to separate those two, , just having a way to be able to balance those quickly and be aware is, is, really helpful for our audio teams and out in the room. , let's, take a look at a couple other little sounds here. Um, we'll look a little more in detail about some of the things that are happening in my session over here. Really my, I, I don't have a ton of sounds, that I want to kind of cycle between. I usually have like a go-to upright based. Sound and then something that's, a little more of kind of a grand vibe, which is a little, little brighter, maybe a little bit, a little more aggressive. So if we're doing something that kind of needs that kind of a energy, I don't use the grand a ton, but it's there. I'd like to have it and not need it, then kn it and not have it, so it stays in my session. And then the other pad that I'll go to occasionally is, it's got a little bit more energy to it. The more you open up the filter, it's kind of got almost like this piercing lead. We'll add the piano into that. So that's, you can kind of hear that, that top note really kind of cutting through. So I'm really aware when I'm pulling this sound out, , the cord voicings, not adding too many notes, um, that pad can really, walk over itself quite a bit if I start adding too many voices without, letting up on that sustain pedal. So I gotta really be careful, um, whenever I bring that one in. But it really adds a lot of, cool energy, , really big moments. Um, so I'll play a lot simpler, uh, chord voicings, but very intentional, uh, specifically with the right hand, what, uh, lead notes, um, kind of bringing out in that. So. Those are really kind of my main go-to sounds that just live in my session that I'll pull in and out on a, on a given Sunday. Um, let's look over here at what's happening in the session a little bit. Um, so I have, uh, I have two main, uh, if you're familiar with Ableton, these are called instrument racks. So it's a mid channel that hosts multiple, , plugins or piano, instruments. And then we'll look at this one in a little more detail in a second. Uh, this handles all of the Nord Midian audio, but we'll come back to that. so this year my main piano I love, a couple years ago I started getting into, , layering piano layering. It can be really fun. It takes digging a little bit. 'cause not all pianos will layer, very well. You have to find a couple that compliment each other, that sit well together. But it gives you a chance to kind of come up with something a little bit unique. And so my main piano sound right now is a combination of, native instruments nor, and I'll be honest, I don't know how to say that properly. I might be mispronouncing it, but, uh, it's that piano and, we'll kind of hear what that sounds like just by itself. Let me solo that dude up. Turn the piano on. There we go. So it's, it's actually a grand Okay. Pretty great sounding grand. And then this wood Chester. Upright, which has been really fun to play around with. It's a real kind of vibey, uh, upright and by itself. I probably wouldn't necessarily run this by itself most times. But it's sitting on top of, the grand, you kind of get that, that felty felty attack a little bit of the warmth from that upright. So it just kind of landed in a cool space. And that's kind of been what I've been rolling with, lately. , that grand, is also kind of over here. I have two different kind of versions of this. The one that's kind of loaded up right now. Is it incorporates a Nord piano, which again, we'll look at a little bit more in detail here in a second. But, if I'm in a situation where maybe I don't have a Nord and, I'm just fully dependent on my, um, my laptop, then I've got an additional layer here that's a, um, actually that's a keys scape. We'll add the no on top of it. So it's both of those kind of layered together. Reason why layering can be kind of cool is, you can kind of, uh, you can kind of customize each layer with what you want it to do. So what I'll do a lot of times with my, , like a keys scape, the C seven, which is a great sounding piano, um, but I will actually, limit the velocity a bit. I wanna look at this in a little more detail. 'cause this is really cool. Limit the velocity, which keeps it from really getting, super, super bright and lets it kind of live in this kind of warm, foundational space. If you have a, a piano that's maybe a brighter more vibe, but it doesn't really carry a lot of warmth or sustain, you can kind of use one piano to give you that warmth and the other one to give you the character similar to what we're doing with like the no and the, the, the Winchester. That's kind of what this is doing with the, the keys scape C seven and the Nora Grand, the Nora is gonna be brighter, a little more bity, but not as warm as the, as the C seven. So the C seven has given us a little bit of warmth. That's kind of a look at piano layering, which can be a lot of fun. So play around with that. I'm gonna come back to the Nord. Let's look at the pads really quick. There's a couple, couple things that we're doing here. Um, the main pad sound is a combination of, it's kind of a similar principle you'll notice here. So I'm using this, uh, Juno pad sample that I made that is kind of a warmer, a warmer sound. And then I have this Omnisphere pad. It's got a little more kind of mid range top into it. So to together they kind of gimme this nice full sound that's still got some nice top in. If I really open this up, um, the one thing I wanna look at here is this, this particular knob right here. Um, one thing that I, I used to kind of struggle with a little bit was finding the right, um, like attack and release settings on the, on the, the pads to where if we were doing a, a song with a faster tempo and I wanted the chord changes to be a little more like defined. Um. Not as much of a, of a release tail, so you didn't have like the, the pad building up on itself. And, but then when we got really, you know, slowed things down, I just wanted it to kind of be a little more smooth, kind of wanted it to be a slower attack and a longer release. And so what I ended up doing is, um, I have a output chain for my pads here and, uh, in that chain I have a, an additional plugin that's mapped to this knob. And so as I twist this knob, I can, I can run any, any pad that's coming from any of my pad channel will run through this same reverb and it increases the decay of the reverb. And there's a little bit of low end that's cut out of this as well. And so that's gonna actually soften the, the attack and extend the release in the form of a reverb trail. And that actually is really helpful because, um, as, as piano players, a lot of times we love to kind of, you know, embellish, maybe play some melodic stuff. But if our pad is really defined underneath those piano notes, it can also start to build up in, uh, in a way that's not super great. Like you feel that out in the house, it gets really muddy. So by softening that pad. Um, it lets me actually be a little more melodic on the keys. I still kind of have this warm, this warm foundation on the pads, but it's not building up in a, in a crazy way. It's not super, um, overwhelming on like the low end. And so I'll, I'll play with that a lot as the, if we start to kind of build up and get really big and I want that to kind of become bigger and more defined, the pad, then I can roll that back and we can hear those core definition really come out. Then we can kind of add the, the drone in. Really such a, a goal for me and all of this was to have all of the changes be very fluid and nothing dramatic. Um, 'cause that can be a thing too. If we're dramatically changing sounds and you feel this pad drop out, um, it can kind of be distracting. So I wanted all of those changes to be really kind of subtle and almost to where you, you didn't notice that it was happening. So at this point. We haven't really heard anything super dramatic change, but I've completely pulled my pad out and I'm just playing with a drone. Now I can start to bring it back in slowly. So that's kind of a, a little bit of an overlook on what's happening with my. Pads and pianos. Uh, I've got a couple synth sounds that I'll, that I'll pull out on. Uh, maybe some of our, our faster songs. Uh, kind of this ob based kind of brighter synth. It's kind of fun to play around with. Um, only use that on a handful of songs. Again, there's not like this huge library of sounds. Um, we do use tracks on a lot of our songs, and so there's a lot of kind of synth programming that will just kind of let tracks world cover. And my main focus is when, when all of that goes away, what I'm, what the, the sounds I'm using are still full. They can still kind of fill out a moment and, and, and carry, um, what's happening without it feeling like, you know, all the fullness is gone. So, uh, so that's kind of what that looks like. Um, I wanna look at, um, something that, um, I call. Live piano dynamics, for lack of a better, better phrase. So, um, uh, as piano players, we love, um, we love for our pianos to be dynamic, right? We love it. The, the, the soft parts to be soft and the loud parts to really come alive. And, uh, the challenge that that can provide sometimes is if we're too dynamic, then when we get really soft, our front of house audio guys completely lose us. And, um, let's be fair for our audio guys, there's a lot happening back there and we can't expect them to always be like listening for me, right? I can't hear myself in the house. Well, you got really quiet and he's also mixing, you know, six other vocals and, and the whole drum kit and like, you know, a whole band of, of, of music. So. Um, we kind of want to help out as much as we can. So, um, there's, there's a couple ways that you would typically maybe do that. Uh, to keep a piano from getting super, super loud. Um, you could throw it through a compressor. Um, the problem with that is some pianos, in order to really control it, it gets really squashed sounding and kind of compresses the life out of it. Um, and so we don't really wanna do that. Um, so a, a, a trick that I picked up from an engineer friend, um, a couple years back was the idea of using velocity control to limit how big our pianos are getting. So, um, all pianos, whether it's a, a hardware piano or a software piano, uh, it's all getting its information from, you know, the midi notes that are being transmitted by the key bed, right? And so some keyboards have like a velocity curve that you can customize or you can play around with to kind of affect, you know, how loud that internal piano is getting. Um, in software world, it's, it's really cool because most any program that you're gonna use to host your keys, whether it's main stage or Ableton, uh, or anything else, is gonna have something built in that lets you kind of control the velocity. Um, so what I have is for each of my piano plugins, uh, as I'm kind of building the sound and putting it all together, uh, I've gone through and inserted a kind of a velocity utility that says you're not gonna go any louder than. Whatever I set it at. So for the Winchester, for instance, I'm, I'm maxed out at one 14, so even if I play louder than the velocity of 114, this plugin is never gonna generate anything louder than a velocity of, of one 14. So I'm not compressing the sound, I'm just keeping it from triggering those ultra loud samples, uh, in, its in its own library. So for each instrument, I'll go through and do that and find the sweet spot to where, um, no matter how hard I play here, it feels controlled. It still feels punchy, it feels good to me as a player. Like when I dig in, it still gives me something back. Um, but it's, it's helpful to not overpower it front of house. Um, there's a additional com there is some compression that it goes through just for some smoothing and some glue. Um, but the, the starting point for me is always the, the velocity. So. Um, that's kind of what I do at the, the plugin level. But then in addition to that, right here at the very beginning of the, the whole chain of any, any piano that's, that's inserted in this rack, um, has to run through this velocity plugin first. And this velocity plugin is mapped to this knob right here. And you can see as I dial this back, it's going to limit the max velocity even further. I can go completely off and it's just not barely gonna trigger anything, right? It's technically two is all the way you can hear just real, real, real, real faint. So we go from full on as I dial back, you can feel it softening. That's really helpful. 'cause there's sometimes, uh, like ministry times where I want it to feel soft and delicate, but you know how hard it is. Sometimes to try and I gotta try and play really, really soft. And if I accidentally cut too loud, especially with a wrong note, it's just bad. And so this lets me not have to be as, um, sensitive here with how hard I'm hitting the keys. Like I'm actually hitting that pretty hard and it's still staying pretty soft so I can actually play, you know, hitting the keys decently hard and it's keeping it from really getting, um, to overpowering. So that's really, really helpful. Um. Let's look at, uh, another thing that's been really cool, um, not super revolutionary. Obviously we've all probably heard on so many different things. Um, a piano playing an octave lead line, right? Like that's all over the place. Um, kind of my approach to that, to keep it simple and to keep me from having to stare down to the key bed. And I'm honestly not a hyper-technical player, so I will mess up notes if I try to get over ambitious and play an octave lead line, um, that's either too fast to be able to play it fluidly or super accurately. So, um, I wanted to be able to keep, you know, my, you know, my, my head focus forward, you know, making calls, m emptying. Um, and so I wanted to also be able to like, have some extra punch if I am playing a lead line. So, um, I have these two channels over here. I. That, um, receive the incoming committee from the, the Nord and then forward it over to, uh, these two, uh, piano racks. And I have these clips that, that basically say where that, uh, where that split point is gonna be, where the, what first note is going to be octave. I don't want to put an octave on the entire keyboard because then everything I'm playing chords base notes are all gonna have an octave to 'em, and that's just gonna be way too much. So, um, let's look at what this is so I can figure out for, um, you know, each song. What lead line am I gonna be playing? What's the lowest note that I'm gonna need to play that I want an octave on? And I can set it at that point. So when I recall that patch, it's gonna go straight to, uh, that preset point. So let's look at, um, so mighty name of Jesus. Um, we might be playing this lead line. The, so that note right there, that B flat two is gonna be the lowest note that I'm gonna play a lead on. So then I have this button here, this toggle button that turns those two channels on or off, which allows the, the octave midi to then pass through to the piano wrap. So now we have that octave coming in. Notice these are not, so I still have normal, normal chord voicings down here. Okay. So that's really, really helpful to be able to kind of bring in some, some, um. Some solid leads, uh, intro lead lines, um, like intro for more of you. Same thing. Without the lead, without the octave, like still sounds great, but that extra pop of that octave coming in just really helps it stand out in a way. And I don't have to try and do, um, because it actually even, uh, allows me to kind of keep more of my right hand available for cord voicings underneath that. It's really, really helpful when we're playing with a pad too. Right, because if we try and do, do octaves in our pads on, like that, all that octave information is going to our pad too. And so it can start to poke out in a really weird way versus I can actually be holding a, a, a, a cord voice down for my pad. So it just kind of opens up, uh, a little bit. Lets us be able to kind of join in on leads, bring those voices forward without, um, muddying up our, our pads or, um, the other chord voicings that we're trying to play. So that's been really, really helpful. Very usable, um, in a lot of, uh, a lot of worship music. So, um. On the effect side, nothing super crazy. I do have a, um, uh, a delay available for my piano that I can bring in a little bit of verb. I don't do a ton of delay unless it's like a, a, a lead line that really needs something. So might do a little bit just for a little bit of atmosphere. More felt than heard. Um, but that's really the extent of the effects. Nothing really crazy beyond that. Um, one thing I wanna look at, 'cause it's really been, um, a cool thing that, um, has kind of even opened up the world. When we first got, uh, Nords at church, it was my first time ever getting to play around with a Nord. And, um, I know a lot of people love nodes. There's people out there that really don't care for Nords. That's great. This can actually kind of work, um, with whatever keyboard you're working with. And, um, that's kind the idea of going, okay, I've established this, this workflow. I've got my iPad recalling my patches so I don't have to be messing with my i my laptop or be overthinking anything over here. I've got my faders controlling my volumes and my, my filters, my dynamics. What if I want to use hardware pianos too? Um, well normally we might just go, well, I've gotta run those into, into a different channel. They're gonna be independent of the software. Or I've, or maybe I might have a little subm mixer up here where I've got my laptop going into channel one, Nord going into channel two, and I've gotta blend them myself. And the Nord is just gonna sound like whatever the Nord sounds like. And, uh, that's great. Um, for me, I wanted to incorporate the Nord into my workflow, um, to where if I wanted the Nord piano on, I press a button on the iPad. I don't have to try and bring the volume up or, um, recall a patch of a lot of hardware keyboards, um, including the Nord stage two, which is what we're using here, uh, does not do seamless patch changes. So if I needed to like change to a different piano or change to a different thing, you'd have to change patches and then all the sound drops out, then your new sound is there. So it's not as fluid, not as smooth. So I was like, how can I incorporate the Nord, specifically the pianos, but still maintain the same workflow and not have to have more things to remember? Is my Nord up, is my nod down? A lot of those patch changes, at least for me, are happening in like song transitions. So it's not the only thing I'm doing, I am, I'm calling transition reminders for the band New key. Here's the song we're headed into band energy, up top fire tracks. So I'm like, I can't be thinking of five more things to do to recall my own sound. That was kind of the, the thing that influenced, uh, incorporating it this way. , most all keyboards have a setting, um, called local control, and you might be familiar with that if you're not Local Control basically is the built-in key bed, whether or not it's triggering its own internal sounds directly. If it's only sending midi information out your midi outputs, if local control is on, then it's triggering its own sounds internally. It's the default setting on all keyboards. When you turn it on, you hit the key bed, it makes sound. I can turn that off though. I can tell it don't trigger your own sounds. You're just gonna send midi information. So now you can see the Nord piano volume is up. I've got my patch on, but you're not hearing anything. It's 'cause it's not triggering its own sounds. So what we want to do is we want to take the midi from the Nord, we wanna run it through our Ableton session, and then Ableton or whatever program you're using can then send the MIDI back into the Nord when we tell it to. So I have clips set up, , that basically turn , send a MIDI signal back into the Nord. And the thing that's cool about the stage twos and I think on the new stage fours, is that you can route. Over here you have your, your different, uh, your different sections, right? You got the, the, the organ section, piano section, and synth section. And I'm kind of covering this up with my iPad, but you can specify different MIDI channels to, to trigger those sounds. So I am sending MIDI into Ableton, on, so there's the, global MIDI on USB channel one. So that's the channel that's being sent to my session. I am sending it back over here. So this is, , Nord panel A. So whatever piano I have loaded up on this patch for panel A or slot A, it is sending it out. MIDI channel two. So over here I can go. I want piano A for slot A to receive on mid channel two and the piano on slot B to receive on MIDI channel three. So then over here I have Nord B sending on MIDI channel three. So if I recall this clip, it's going to send out to slot A, and this is again, we have local control off. So it doesn't matter that I'm actually looking at slot A or B over here. It all comes down to what Ableton is sending back. So then if we want to recall B, now that's sending to slot B, which is a grand, the white grand. So here's the upright, just the pearl upright is what I'm using there. And then the white green. So then if I do piano off here, it turns the piano off. So I can maintain the same workflow with patch recall on my iPad. I can just program into my song patches, whether I want it to use the Nord piano or all software, or a combination of the two. And the thing that's even cool as we kind of go back in our conversation about piano layering, if I didn't run it this way, if I just ran the Nord, straight into Ableton. With local control on, you would actually, if you, if I tried to layer a software piano with the Nord piano, you would actually hear it kind of flaming. It wouldn't be aligned properly because with any software instrument, there's gonna be a certain amount of latency versus a hardware. Piano has basically no latency. So you're taking a piano with no latency and you're trying to layer it with a piano that does have latency, so it's never gonna hit at the exact same time. So you really couldn't layer the Nord piano with any software piano, but by running it through this way, I'm actually able to do that if I want to. , And then the other thing is I'm actually bringing the audio from the Nord back into this session. So this first slot up here, it's, it's receiving the incoming, sound from the Nord. It's combining that out to my piano output along with all of my software pianos. So it's going through the same output processing chain. I have access to run it through the same effects, the same octave. That's what this channel is over here. It's receiving, uh, the Nord, midi and the sending it over here to the Nord pianos. So then that octave information is being sent out on these channels along with everything else I'm playing. So it glues, the Nord sounds in with your software sounds and makes it feel cohesive and part of the same, same space. And it's also, you can see over here on, on these, I have the ability to limit that maximum velocity That's going back to the Nord, just like I can with the software instruments and with Nords, specifically the grand pianos, that can really be a thing. Some of their grand pianos are beautiful, but they're very dynamic and so you can really dig in and like we talked about, we can really, make it difficult for our front of house engineer by those volume spikes being, , too aggressive. I have all of the same controls over the Nord pianos and the Nord sounds as I would my software sounds. So that became really, really helpful for me to incorporate, the Nord sounds, in with my software stuff. , I didn't have to kind of separate those out and remember. To control all of it separately. That's kind of an overview of how I'm running the keys all my main sounds and, , hopefully that's helpful guys. Thanks again for being a part of this whole episode. If you made it to the end, congratulations. 'cause most people do not make it to the end.