Playing Keys for the Choir Room & Tips for Church MDs with Marcus Perry

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Join us on The Worship Keys Podcast. A special guest, Marcus Perry! He shares his journey from piano beginnings to becoming Music Director at Mt. Zion Church, one of the largest congregations in the U.S. Marcus talks about leading with excellence and humility, building community through music, and keeping the choir alive in today’s church culture.
Hear behind-the-scenes stories from the Choir Room, lessons from playing behind Fred Hammond, and practical advice for worship keys players and aspiring MDs. Plus, Marcus gives a sneak peek at his upcoming projects and a full Logic Pro breakdown coming soon.

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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. Guys, I'm so excited to welcome Marcus Perry to the Worship Keys Podcast, man. Thanks for welcoming me into your beautiful studio. Oh, thanks man. Thank you. Great space here. Marcus Perry is actually really the one to thank for the organ specific episodes that we had earlier this year, Mount Zion Church here in Nashville, Tennessee allowed us to come in and record. Organ specific episodes. We had curt Buell. We had dwan Hill, we had Virgil straford we had Ralph Lofton, the La Ralph Lofton, the Ralph Lofton, and this man right here. Marcus, thank you so much for allowing us to come into your space, to your church. Thank you. And record all day. It was all, it's basically a day and a half actually. It was all, but it went by so fast 'cause it was like such great information. Hey man, it was awesome. Time flies when you're having fun, right? Yes. Yes. But this episode's all about Marcus Perry, his musical career so far. And you're still very much young and have a lot ahead of you here in Nashville, Tennessee. Yes. A lot to look forward to on this episode, but also standby for next week too, because next week's episode is where it's at. It'll be fun. It's gonna be really fun because, so we're at your studio right now, and we're also gonna be filming a full blown episode where he's going to build some multi-tracks, some stems that he normally does. Hey, say there's a song for church that you need some stems tracks for. He's gonna walk you through step by step how he does it with his workflow. He's, he uses splice omnisphere, keys, scape, so many other sounds, and you're just gonna see him. At work. So it's gonna be like an hour long episode to see how he works within Logic Pro X and prepare stems and tracks for church. But Marcus, you've been on staff in Mount Zion for how many years now? So I've been there since 2009. 2009? Yeah. So 16 years. 16 years. I got there as an organist outta a college from Belmont University. Awesome. I was a sophomore in college and then I remember the call, I got it on my birthday saying, Hey Marcus, are you available to kind la Yes, I'm available. Yeah. Started there as an organist. Then 2016 I transitioned to being a campus md. Awesome. And then from there, my time there just continued to go on a trajectory going up. That's, and I've served in many different roles and just, now I'm serving as a music director. That's amazing. Yeah. Wow. So 15, 16 years total. Yes. But like maybe nine or ten nine. Yeah. Being full time. Congratulations. Almost on a full decade of being Thank you. Like basically full time at Mount Zion in Nashville, Tennessee. Yes. Incredible church. And you said there's 33,000 people Yes. That go there. Yes. That's incredible. It's amazing. You guys have great music there. Bishop Joseph Walker. And it's just, church continues to grow 'cause you know the vision that God has given him. Amazing. So you're an md. You're a keys player. Yeah. You're an organist. You're a producer. And you're a composer, arranger. Yeah. So you have two degrees from Belmont, is that right? Tell us what those degrees were in, man. So my bachelor's undergrad degrees and commercial music piano music, technology. And then my master's degree is in composition and arranging. Incredible. And you've been an adjunct professor before at Belmont? Yep. Teaching music technology. Music technology. Yep. Incredible. Yes, sir. And we're gonna kinda see a little bit of his workflow next week, like we've mentioned which that's what you did in the classroom, I'm assuming. Kinda like in logic and teaching production. Yeah. Pre-production. How to follow through on some demos and getting things absolutely. Ready to go for church. Absolutely. Tell us about what you do day in and day out for. Church work. Yeah. I know obviously we, people see you on Sundays, right? When you're playing, you're m emptying. Butt talk us through about the prep that goes into m emptying. Yeah. So one of the. Amazing things about our music team. We plan ahead. As of like Monday, we've already planned our entire worship set for October. Wow. So we get that ahead. And then, so for me, my process is once we know the songs, the arrangements and everything, I'll go ahead and just really pray and think Lord, like what do you want to hear in this song? Things like that. 'cause it's for me it's very spiritual on whatever I arrange, whatever, I wanna make sure that, one of it honors and pleases him and then it reaches the people. So I'll think through that. And then, our rehearsals at Mount Zion are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so about, Monday or Tuesday I'll start thinking like, okay, what do I want to do? What do I wanna arrange for the song? Start thinking through that. I'll put everything in logic. Monday is a tracking day. Tuesday's typically like meetings. Wednesdays, I'm rehearsing, I'm getting into the songs. I'm like really diving in, shedding, making sure I got the stems together, then after I get the stems, I'm like practicing and shedding Thursday all day rehearsal. Like for me, like personal rehearsal. So I'll, wake up, go to the gym, come home, and just really lock in on all the songs. Make sure that I know them, know everybody's parts, know the drum's part, know the bass player part, know the guitar, know the vocals part 'cause I'm having to direct a lot of places, so I'm having to make sure the drummer knows when to come in, guitar player knows when to come in the vocalists know when to come in the, worship leader. So I'm always making sure that I, at least am knowledgeable of everybody's part. We keep the train moving. Amazing. Yeah. What would you say is your best advice to music directors? Know your team. Know their strengths, know their weaknesses and be able to work with them on that. Every situation, you're not going to have the top studio guys or the top session guys. Sometimes you're gonna have people that you know, I don't wanna say that they're less than because I just don't like to call people that, but they may not be at the level that you want them to be at. Yeah. So you just really have to know where they are and then be able to once you assess that, be able to work to help them get to the level that they are. And sometimes it may take having difficult conversations and saying, Hey, I see that you're struggling in this area. How can I come and walk alongside you in this area? But it's really knowing your team, having patience and when it comes to me, a music director, it's more than just, playing and things like that. A lot of it's leading on and off stage. Yeah. It's the off stage conversation. This is the relationships, build relationships with your team get to know who they are on and off the stage, and things like that. Awesome, man. Yeah. I wanna talk about a few things here in this episode today with you, Marcus. Yeah. There's a lot to cover. A few different things. First of all, shout out to Mr. Roger Ryan for Yes. Connecting us and, he called you up because I was needing a place where we had a good organ and he's Mount Zion has a good organ. Let me call it Marcus. So would like to thank Roger Ryan for connecting us. Absolutely. And it was great to meet you when we did the organ specific episode and it's great hanging out with you now, man. Yes. Anyway, we love Roger and we just had an episode with Roger a few weeks ago about how to make take from a demo perspective to multi-tracks as well. And he's very creative. He's amazing. A great and also amazing, clinician with, through Berkeley in the Abu Dhabi campus. And Yes. So we love Roger Ryan and thank, and he's funny too. He's hilarious. Yes, he is. He is everywhere. He's hilarious. He know. He knows Roger. You love him and he loves you too. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Such a great guy. Good people. So I wanna talk about the choir room because Yes, absolutely. My goodness. Just Dawn Hill in the choir room. They have done so much for the music industry, the Christian music industry. Yeah. And the church and to unify people. Has been. Absolutely amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So for those of you who do not know of the choir room, you need to know the choir room for one thing. But Marcus here is oftentimes on the road m ding and playing keys. Is that right? Yeah. With the choir room. Yeah. It's the situation. I won't say like m ding, but I'm just helping the situation whenever, when we have 'em. And yeah, I've been there since day one and it's been. Incredible. It's been amazing. It's amazing. Yeah. Tell us for those that don't know the choir room what is the choir room and I'm, I could try to describe it. Yeah. But I think you'd do a better job. What is the choir room and what all do you do with them? So the choir room is basically a choir rehearsal. It is an amazing choir rehearsal where you have your Sopranos, your altos, your tenors, and the people who don't know what they're singing. A lot of times you have Sopranos who think they're sopranos, but they're altos and vice versa. So he'll get everybody, and then we get the, the room centered and say, this is what we're doing. And then we have musicians that come in and we just, come in and play. Do you guys rehearse before this or We have a sound check. And that's it. How long is the sound check? Like maybe 30 minutes and we maybe, and then y'all just jam out, just practice, rehearse, just jam out. But it's an, so it's an event a lot of times now ticketed and people pay and are a part of this experience that's basically a choir rehearsal. It's a choir rehearsal. Yeah. That is awesome. Like it started off the first one we had was on Music Row, and we expected like maybe a hundred people. It was packed out. Amazing. And it kept growing. Kept growing. And then we were at the Fisher Center that was packed out, like over 700 people were there. My goodness. And it's just, God's hand has been on it. And yes, we were actually earlier this year we went on tour. And just seeing, like we went to Atlanta, I think we went to dallas, Austin, Houston, and just seeing the hunger that people have for, the choir. Because a lot of time during the pandemic, the choir was forgotten. Yeah. Like a lot of people, instead of the choir, they had praise teams or they just had a worship leader and the choir was forgotten. So now, post pandemic, a lot of churches haven't gone back to having the choir. So now, there's a lot of different iterations of people. Choir room is just one vehicle. But I'm just grateful to be a part of the choir room because the saying is everyone has a voice. Yeah. Yeah. And in this culture where the choir is being forgotten, it's very important that we remind that everyone does have a voice. It's not, not the person with the microphone, not the person. Even the keyboardist all of us, everybody has a voice and it's been amazing. I love that. There was one clip that really made me emotional. Yeah. And you probably know what I'm about to say, but that one concert somewhere. I saw the reel about it, but where went off stage and put a mic to someone and someone who did not have a voice really, but it was whatever the device is. Yeah. And it was basically, like a voice box. A voice box. I'm, and there was no like, variation of the pitch. It was just No, because their voice was gone. It was this device and she or he was singing. Yeah. Was it some, it was a hymn of some sort. What was it? It was, yeah, it was, I Love You Lord, and I Lift my Voice. Yes. That song, that was so powerful, man. It like. This individual did not actually have a voice left. It had a voice box. But was still praising the Lord. But she used to be a choir. She was a choir director. She was a choir director. No way. Yeah. And I I'm not, I need to go back and, familiarize myself with it. But, something happened, she lost her voice. And she came that night and just. Us all. And what was wild is, I'm not sure how we did this. When she started singing, she was singing in the same key that we were in. Wow. That's crazy, man. So we were playing in the key and I was like, yo, how do we, how did we do that? And none of the, none of that was planned. Wow. Like it was all on the spot. God is good, man. Yeah, he's good. He's good. Tell us about having Fred Hammond show up. Dude, that right there. So in Dallas on the part of the tour, Dallas was one of the stops. So as we were getting ready for the tour we knew that we had a song with Fred Hammond. It was one of the, I think love never fails. And it was like, yeah, Fred is gonna sing on this. I'm like, what? Fred Hammond really? Now we did rehearse for the tour. 'cause we're going out. We wanna make sure that we're right? We rehearsed for that. So when we got to Dallas we rehearsed it maybe once with him, but bro, we, when we sung the song, it went crazy like the song. How we recorded was over 15 minutes long, like it was a jam session. Wow. And literally we could have released what we recorded that night. Because it was just great musicianship like the room. Like you felt the love. You felt the energy in the room. Fred was great. Everything was great. He was pleased. It was funny when we got finished with the song or when we got finished at night, Fred called, while we were on the road going to the hotel nephews like. Y'all were locked, y'all was in and we were just like, is Fred Hammond really calling to talk about this? Wow, man. Like it blew all of our minds. Talk a little bit more about dwan Hill. He was on a past episode with us, the organ specific episodes. Yeah. And I know you're very close with dwan. He worked with him a lot of times, the choir room and whatnot. And you guys both went to Belmont. Both great composers, arrangers, keys players. Man, you gonna make me cry? Dwan Hill, man. Yeah, we met at Belmont University and I came in as a freshman. I think he was like a junior, and I saw him and his brother Marcus. And they were just like, they was guys on campus. They were playing for everybody. They were, just, and you would think guys this good would be like arrogant and rude. But they were very welcoming. And literally as dwan was like getting ready to graduate, he would like, like mentor and like the people that he was playing for. He was like, Hey Marcus, you should play for this person. I should do this. So basically he was passing the baton to me, as on campus as just helping me learn the campus, helping me learn the people helping me feel, welcome on the campus. And it's just, and from there, it's just our relationship continued. Of course he went on the road with Johnny Lang and things like that. And then, Cece win and she started playing and MD for her. And he actually called me to be on the road with her. Amazing. So I played organ with him, with Cece Winans. And then now we're doing the choir room. Incredible man. Yeah. Incredible. When you decided you were picking a song was like, I want to choose a song Yeah. That I can build some stems for next week's episode. Yeah. You chose one of CC Winans song Yeah. Called Fire. And many of you guys might know that song. And when you were talking about this, I didn't realize that dwan Hill. Had any type of role in this? Tell me about the song. Yeah, tell me about dwan Hill's play in this song. Yeah, so I chose Fire by Cece Winans and that was from the Believe for Album that he actually produced. Oh, he produced that whole album. That whole album. Yeah. That's awesome. It was a MD and. Yeah, just, of course he played keys on it and just when I was listening, when I first heard it, I was like, that's dwan. That's dwan. And it's just, it's a great song. It's one of my favorites. That's awesome, man. Yeah. I want you to take us back a little bit to your beginner days. Yeah. Talk about it's great to look at you now and see you've been playing with the choir room and you've been on staff at Mount Zion working with incredible musicians there, by the way. And it's really cool that you're leading that caliber of musicians there. That caliber of church yeah. Production. It's really great. Talk about your early years when you were younger. At what point did you start playing piano? How'd you learn piano? You continued to take lessons, you said even in undergrad and college. Yeah. Tell us about your piano journey. My piano journey is really interesting. So at age three I was in church with my mom. Okay. Now I was very active. I don't wanna say I was a bad kid, but I was Okay. I'm not chill like I was, I am now. And you're born and raised here in Nashville? Born and raised in Nashville. So I was sitting with my mom and whatever happened, I ran away from her in the middle of church and ran up there where the piano player was okay. And my mom was coming to get me and the piano player like no, just let him sit here. So I stayed there, sat there, I think I was two or three. So I stayed there with him every single Sunday. I sat there and watched him play. Wow. So from there, we also had an organist. So there was piano, organ, and drums. The organist was a piano teacher. Okay. So my mom was like, Hey, I would like to get 'em in piano lessons. So I think I was three. He was like, nah, give him another year. So at age four, I started taking piano lessons. Four years old. Four years old, which is wild to me to even think about. Absolutely. So I took piano, started formal piano lessons, like reading music, doing classical, like really formal lessons at four. So from there to like age eight I continued piano lessons, but then I started playing drums at church. Which, there's this saying in gospel music, most keyboards or organists started on drums. I did that and then at the age of 12 our minister music passed. So he was a piano player, so our organist, which was also my piano teacher, he. They elevated him to be the minister of music. Okay. So mind you, I'm still taking piano lessons with him. All classical no, like we weren't playing gospel or anything. It was just all just classical. Yeah, things like that. He said, Marcus, you're next. So I want you to come play organ. I didn't know anything about the hammond b3 I didn't know what a drawbar was. I didn't know what the Leslie, I didn't know what the pedals were for. He just said, you're next. So he said, I'm gonna play piano, you're gonna play organ. I want you to just sit there. Wow. Every single Sunday. Just sit there and you'll learn. From there, I just sat there and I learned it. So he's taught me how to play by ear. My first song was it was a song called Order My Steps. I played that. And just every Sunday I just, sat there and eventually learned what draw bars were, how to the different registers worked and things like that. And from there, middle school, I started playing a little, I don't wanna say professionally, I went to a performing arts school here in Nashville at the time, it was called Wharton. And I joined with a friend of mine and I played in his gospel group. Did that, and then when I went to high school, I went to this school called nashville School of the Arts. That's where I really got a lot of my professional training with music, with jazz theory. That's where I really, jazz theory really helped me a lot in my understanding of chord structures of how music works, soloing, all those different things. It was very formative for me. And then I also, learned how to be a music director there. I was able to music di be a music director for a pop ensemble. Wow. So n of the Arts was a very enriching time for me because I was able to exercise multiple gifts that I didn't even know that I had. And there was a lot of great musicians. One of my closest friends, his name is Jeremy Nixon, probably one of the best piano players here in the state here in Nashville. And he, just watching him and growing and watching him, man, has really helped me a lot. That's amazing. And then from there, I went to belmont studied classical, did commercial music and just doing what I'm doing now. You get your master's degree in composition? Yeah. Composition and arranging. And arranging. Congrat. Yeah. Which leads me to ask you about you got some new music coming up this Christmas. Yes. You said you have a single that's coming. Outm excited. Tell us about that. I'm excited. I'm excited. As I said, Ja, I really, I didn't really say this, but I love jazz. Yeah. I'm a jazz head. I love it. Nice. I started, like I said, in high school the yellow jackets are. One of my favorite groups ever. So think you were playing them when I was coming in and we were setting up today, right? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. My favorite group. So I arranged a song and I was like, all right, how would this sound like a yellow? How would this sound in the style of yellow jackets? I arranged it that way. I have strings, horns, I got a lot of great friends on it. It's gonna be fun. I can't wait to see what you continue to produce, compose and range in the future too. Thank you. Thank you. It's really cool. Maybe we should do some more composition stuff and Yeah. We could do another episode on composition, what you've learned there, but I would love to man that just, there's a lot to dive into that for sure. It is a lot. It was a lot. It was a lot. So the school you went to, you said Nashville School of the Arts? Yeah. That's what it's called. What grades is that? Ninth to 12th. Ninth and 12th. So it's, specifically for high school? High school. Yeah. Do you audition for that? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Full audition. Is it pretty, pretty rigorous, pretty hard to get into, or? It's high school, so they don't, I don't think they're gonna be too rigorous, but you at least have to be able to know something. If you don't know where a middle C is, you probably won't be accepted. Yeah. Okay. What advice would you give to your younger self when it comes to music? Knowing what you know now. What would you tell your 14, 15-year-old self going into high school? I would say practice. Practice. Practice. Stay focused. It's easy to get distracted. Yes. Don't be hard on yourself. You're still a kid. Enjoy life, but stay focused and practice. Love it, man. Short and sweet. Short and sweet. I love it. Next week we're getting into a full production Yeah. Of fire by CC Winans. Yes. But what other advice would you give to other keys players who are arranging, whether they're making tracks for their band, whether they're directing. What advice would you give to them, man, I would say one, overall for musicians. I, I really encourage them to study their craft and know their craft. Some people have their feelings about college. One, yes, it's very expensive, but the experience you get there, for me, when you go to the right school is invaluable. Just, and not even just the knowledge you get from the school, it's the relationships you build. Like I, spoke about dwan, people like that. You learn from them and then you get connected with them and they follow you your entire life. So I, I'm a huge advocate for, learning. Yes, there's YouTube, there's books, there's things like that, but there's people who have lived experiences like these professors. Yes. Is, I think it's worth the investment. Absolutely. Learn your craft. Listen do all the listening. You can listen outside of Christian and gospel music. True. Because, there's a lot of, there's more genres for one, when I was growing up, you had CDs, you had vinyl, more CDs. When I was growing up, you were able to go to these places, like Tower Records and get a CD and look at who the producer was. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of my time growing up was looking at who the producer were, who produced this, and then following their journey. So they're, different producers like Daniel Witherspoon in the gospel industry where I followed, he started, where he started, and then just followed his entire journey. And so for me, I think it's just, listening and finding these musicians and seeing what they're doing, the producers and just. Taking in that information. When I was, when I, bill stems next week, one of the assignments I had in school was to take a song and basically recreate it. So I would have to recreate every single sound, drum sound, synth sounds piano, sound as close as I could. Oh, that was a good exercise for me. So it's like getting in your do and explore, explore, do that, build those stems from scratch and it'll just help you, get to know what's going on. And really what it's doing is helping you understand the sound choices that they did. Totally. And to understand the arrangement, like how are these different arrangements, are being built. Totally. One of the things that I did in our master's program. There's a EDM producer called z Oh yeah. Yeah. Like one of my favorites, like I love z Crazy Man. Just from studying his music, I learned that he has a formula on how he produces his music. Okay. Okay. It's, combined from the EDM and pop song formula. And I did a whole project on just his whole formula, how he produces music. Wow. And that's from me just listening, looking at, okay. When he goes to the chorus, he likes to build this way. When he comes out of the chorus, he likes to put a riser here, he likes to put a sweep here, like things like that. And just really studying. So it's just the biggest thing. I think your ears and listening is that's the biggest thing that'll help you. So good. Yes. So behind us, we have Michael Jackson here. Yes. It's his thriller title. You have lots of records over here. Yes. You seem to really like Michael Jackson. Prince. Talk about some of these influences that you've had over your life and why you love the, and I love Quincy Jones now. He's passed away now, but yeah, man. Hi. All of, hi. Everything he's touched has been, yeah. Incredible. I love Quincy Jones, the way he's produced, but he's amazing. Talk a little bit about why you love Michael Jackson, prince and others like that. I know I'm talking a lot about Belmont, but yeah. Go for it, man. My, my Master's degree program, I actually wrote a thesis on Michael Jackson. Okay. Prince and Madonna. Oh, okay. Yeah, so I studied everything about them. Amazing. I know, I studied their music. I studied like I, I really love the eighties decade because it was really the technologies, like the DX seven, the drum machines, like all of that. That was the era all of these things came into, that was really an era of just. Exploration, like people exploring how to do different sounds and things like that. And Michael Jackson, prince and Madonna, they were at the top of doing this. Absolutely. Michael Jackson, just, the thriller album is my all time favorite, like all that. And he's just. Everything in that album, just from the production using the Lin Drum, like all of these different things, it was just, it was a great album. And then Prince, his work ethic is close to none. Yeah, nobody even to this day, can match it. He wasn't saying he was like a, a. Just energize your bunny in the studio. Absolutely. Just never stopping, absolutely. And Madonna, of course she was brought a lot of controversy. But for me, her first album, which was a self-titled album called Madonna it was. That's one of my favorite albums. Like it has like holiday, borderline, things like that. I love that album. Incredible man. Yeah. Let's talk a bit, a little bit about gear here. So yeah, next week we're gonna see you inside Logic, but it's not, you're not just all in the box. You have some some racks over there. So tell us about, we're in your studio right now. What gear do you use? I wanna, we wanna know Yeah. Your keyboards, your mini controller. Yeah. Your interfaces. The core, the rolling, every little thing. What do you use? Why do you use it, man? So my main keyboard is a Yamaha CP 88. That's my all time favorite keyboard. Yeah, like I love that keyboard. It's amazing. And it's very minimalistic. Do you play with that on the road? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's either that or the Montage m8x. Okay. One of those I'll use. So I have a Yamaha XS six, which was my first pro level keyboard. Have a korg triton rack Yamaha Motif Classic. rolland integra rolland XP 30 80. A rolland P three 30. And then I have a complete controller. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Tell us about the world of the racks here, because I did not, I have never really worked with keyboard racks. Yeah. And we haven't really talked about them much on the podcast. Enlighten us, man. Why do you use these with the world of. We have endless sounds in the box. Yeah. Yeah. You could have logic, you have so many sounds within. You're gonna show us next week key scape and omnisphere and all these other yeah. VSDs. Why still have the racks and yeah. Why keep them around? Tell us all about this man. For me it's one, it's a few different things. One is nostalgia for me. Okay. 'cause I used to have my first keyboard which is basically, bottom level Triton. Okay. So a lot, I was very familiar with a lot of the sounds, all of the, like the bells, which I'm gonna use next week basses everything. And then also another thing is just the sounds themselves are a lot, and this is subjective. A lot of people are like no it's not. I feel like they're warmer. I feel like it's just, there's a sonically, it's just different for me. And it just, it really fills up what I'm trying to do and fills a mix. A lot of software instruments, depending on what you use, could be thin. And you gotta do a lot of EQing with these keyboards and these modules. I don't have to do any EQing. So it's, for me it's just, it's nostalgia and then it's just the sounds himself. Are you using racks at church too in Mel Zion? I have the role Integra, but mainly it's just the M eight X. Cool. Yeah. Which is a great keyboard. Dude, that, and I have that keyboard loaded with sounds. Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah. It's so cool. And if there's an inter it has an interface within itself. Yeah. Correct. Powerful keyboard. We actually had an episode with Tyler Wester at Church of the Highlands. Yeah. And they have switched over to a lot of those keyboards. They had nods at a lot of their campuses. They have 26 campuses in Alabama, church of the Highlands, and they had a lot of nods, and I think they still have a good bit of nods, but they've been experimenting about switching over to that montage and a few people that came in to play and lead worship and do some things Yeah. Have requested, Hey, do y'all have this? And they ended up buying a few because some people kept requesting them, they didn't wanna keep renting 'em out. Okay. And it's a powerful keyboard, man. Dude, it's great. I I love that keyboard, but a lot of times I've noticed musicians will use maybe 4% of the keyboard. Like the m8x is so powerful, but we'll only use five or six sounds. Yeah. But if you're like a synth head and yeah, you maybe used more, but for church, you know it, but it works for church. The sounds just work. But I'll always if I'm on the, when I get a call for the road, it's gonna be the cp 88. There you go. Because it's just, it's everything you need. Love it, dude. Love it. We'll wrap up this episode. Yeah. And Marcus Perry on the Worship Keys podcast today. Thanks for being apart. Thank you for taking the time just to talk, share some advice. Thank you. Talk about some church world stuff. Talk about some music. Next week we're getting down to the nitty gritty of music production. It's gonna be fine. Logic Pro. Full in the box. We've had a few episodes, on logic and about stacking and stems and making multitracks, taking a demo, that kind of thing, and we're getting more into that. I feel as a keys player. You can morph into that or eventually because Yeah. There's so much you can do with the keyboard and a mini controller. So much production you can do. It's endless, right? Logic Pro for a keyboard is, I think is, of course ableton is amazing. Yeah. I think logic is great for keyboards because you have all the sounds Totally. It's very user friendly. And it's just, it sounds for days and it's just. Everything is there. Absolutely. In the world of ai and synthesis it's so easy to almost make a song now. Yeah. With ai and we're about to show next week of how you can actually build something out, but it actually takes hours and days. Yes. And we're gonna try to show it in about one hour. Yes. It's really, yeah. We can only do so much in one hour. But where AI can do something like, boom. Yeah. What do you think about. I guess I'll ask you this before I talk about ai. Yeah. The stems splitter in logic. Talk about that. Man. Man, it, that is a blessing because, so you can bring in a song Yeah. And then it just splits out the stems. Is that not crazy? Split out all the stems, like there's different program, but logic like I, is it buggy or does it always work like pretty amazingly? I would say 90% of the time it works. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, logic and Logic has its own STEM sweater. There used to just be Moises. But now Logic has its own and it's pretty good. That's amazing. It's pretty good. So on the line of of ai, how do you see that affecting composition and arranging and producing in the future? How what's your take on this? I for Christian and gospel music. Music in general, I don't think it's going to, we're good. We're good because it's still all about the humans, right? Yeah. It's about the humans. There's nothing you can't replace, Phil. You can't replace that. As you'll see next week, I there'll be sections where I'll just change the field of something. And of course you can go into whatever II program. On verse on the chorus, I want you to flip the groove, but hey, I doesn't know what flip means. Yeah. And things, so you'll have to be very didactic. But no, I we're gonna be good. Okay. I think it's just, I look at ai, it's a tool. Yeah. But it's not the tool that's gonna replace you. But it is definitely important though to learn about it because that's where our industry is growing. Like chat, pt, like because I talk to her every day. Every day I'm always asking questions and it is really good, but it's just a tool. Absolutely. And you can't replace human feel, you can't replace that. It's, we're gonna be good, but you just have to, for me, it's just always, learn the technology, learn what AI is, and then also make sure that you as a musician continue to grow. That's good. Yeah. We talked a little bit about ai a few episodes back with a re u Singleton. Yeah. And re u kind of goes deep into Omnisphere world and how to build a full live set just using Omnisphere. Yeah. We talked a little bit about AI and I wanna get your perspective on this too. But obviously with songwriting and production composing, it's very much human. Yeah. But the actual mixing components and mastering components are more of a scientific. It's yeah, in simple terms, it's science. Yeah. And it's not as much creativity that's debatable. The producer, I feel like the producer has a lot of pull on. Yeah. That creativity. But the mix engineer is there to really polish up what the producer and everyone else has already done. So what would you say on those lines, on those more. Not subjective, but more objective. Let me polish this or let me master this. Unfortunately, AI's already replacing mix engineers and mastering engineers, yeah. Yeah. Is what do you think of all that? Once again, I'm not worried about it because, our, the way I look at, trends and things is cyclical. So right now it'll be ai. But then, however many years from there, people gonna be like AI isn't good anymore. And then we want human people to do this. I just think it's all cyclical and I think we're gonna be good. It's just really it is scientific, a lot of people, but, I'll leave my personal opinions about, if it's, if I feel like it's, I don't think it's cheating. But I said that, so it sounded like, I think it should you even mentioned Z has a formula. Yeah. Because if you have a formula. It can be replicated easily. Yeah. Yeah. That's just, that's true what it is. That's very true. That's very true. Is that he's done what he's done, but it's a formula and a lot of pop music is absolutely, there's a lot of ear candy, there's a lot of creativity there. Even within pop music. But it's just interesting. It just, just wanna know your thoughts. Okay. On the VST world, obviously we've talked a lot about keys, scape and omnisphere. Yeah. If you don't have those two as a keys player, what are you doing? Get it. But beyond that, tell me some other what are some other go-tos of your favorite vsts? I think you have gospel, some gospel producer, vsts and things that you use. Tell us a little bit about your favorite vsts. So my favorite Arturia V collection. Okay. Yeah. That has all of like analog, analog sense, analog of digital sense. Yes. That have native instruments. I think it's complete. The complete collection. Nice. So I have all of those Alicia Keys piano, as we talked about. Yes. There's a company called Yui. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yui. So I use Diva. Yeah. Yui Diva. Which is amazing. Marcus Wiles mentioned that. Yeah, he loves those scents. It's incredible. It's incredible, bro. Really. X per serum which is used for a lot of pop stuff. I have a lot of string libraries cinematic strings. Cinematic strings. Section, I think it's the section, screen, whatever it's called, something like that. I use Native Instruments battery. That's where I do a lot of my drum programming with that, of course, spectrosonics, stylists, RMX what else? I have ton of vsts. When you make your cues, what do you do when you make your little cues? Like verse 2, 3, 4? Yeah, so I use a mix of gospel producers guide track, and then I also use some multi-tracks. If you've downloaded, they also have their cues. Yeah. Yeah. So I have in battery, I have a battery, I have the multi-track cues. 'cause there's some things that, I wanna make sure that I use that they have. That's different from both of them. Absolutely. Yeah. I've seen some guys in Ableton, they'll drag in some samples. Onto the grid. Yeah. And just, verse 2, 3, 4. Copy that. Same measure, go to the chorus and then replace the word verse with chorus. That kind of thing. Yep. Or you can literally load up all those samples into a sampler and just play it on your keyboard as the song's going. Yep. And that's what I do. That's what you do. That's what I do. Yeah. Very cool. Because it saves time. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So you're saying the gospel producers has. VST. Where you can just play it on the keyboard and it has it ready to go. That's pretty cool. So it's pretty intuitive. So they have you can drag the click track. Like it has like the metro on the click and everything. But also within it, you can also add the cues in there too. That's neat. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Do you like their peculiar sounds? Plug in. I haven't, that's, I need to get that. I haven't got it yet. You need to get that. It's really good. Yeah, man. It's awesome. Okay. I've seen a few people use it and I always like it. It's a really fresh sound to it, oh, that's awesome. Yeah. They have a version one and they have a version two. Okay. Okay. And Roger Ryan talked about, I talked about it on his episode too. Roger has it. Yeah, Roger has it. Oh, wow. Are you surprised at that? I'm surprised. I'm surprised. Okay. I need to get in now. Black Friday. Black Friday. Black Friday, yes. Yes. Yes. It's coming out. Yes. Oh, cool, man. Anything else you'd like to share with us about what's coming up in the future? Got some music coming out next year. Yeah. Any projects you got working on? Anything you'd like to share with us more? Yeah, Christmas, I'm dropping a single next year I'll be dropping several singles in probably an album. Oh, see. And are you just, is it Marcus Perry? Is that your artist names? On gender, on Spotify, Marcus. Okay. I already have a single on Spotify. It's a Brazilian jazz song called Libra Do. Oh, cool man. So really, I'm just. Experimenting in different things. Experiment, experimenting with the music that I like. Thank you. So other than that, if I'm not doing music hanging out with my wife and my dog and just living life and, God has been good to us. So I'm just excited continuing to serve a church, produce music outside and just. Serve God the best way I can love it, Marcus. Thank you for coming on the podcast, man. Thank you. Marcus Perry, ladies and