Worship Keys Rig with Spencer Ratkovich

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Welcome to a new episode of The Worship Key Podcast featuring Spencer Ratkovich. Spencer takes us inside his worship keys rig at Christ Church of the Valley in Phoenix and breaks down how he builds consistent sounds across multiple campuses. He shares his full keyboard setup, how he uses software to stay dialed in week after week, his audio interface and computer workflow, and a walkthrough of his favorite patches and go-to sounds. If you are a church musician or worship keys player looking to level up your setup and create inspiring, flexible sounds for worship, this episode is for you.

Spencer Ratkovish

Transcript

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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. Hey everyone. My name is Spencer Ratkovich and I have the honor and privilege of serving as a drummer, keys player and music director at Christchurch of the Valley here in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm really excited to take a deep dive into the keys rig that I bring with me every time I play keys at church. We'll talk about keyboards and hardware interfaces, laptops, all of it. And we'll also talk about some of my favorite sounds as well. If you have any questions about what you see or what you hear today. Feel free to leave a comment here or to send me a DM on Instagram. Let's get into it. So first things first, I have to settle the score here. I am a software guy through and through. I know there's some great keyboard workstations out there that can give you great sounds and great results just from the sounds onboard the unit. I've just fallen in love with the workflow software and the versatility that it provides, and also just having the same sounds no matter where I go. Our church has 18 campuses and counting all of them have some version of the Nord piano ranging from the piano three all the way up now to the piano six. So even though they're all the same keyboard, they vary slightly in terms of their workflows, what sounds they have, even things like velocity layers and things like that. So it's just really helpful for me to know that no matter where I go, no matter what church or what campus, or what keyboard I'm using, I know that I'm gonna have the same sounds no matter what. This allows me to be able to practice at home exactly what I'm gonna play at church, including changing effects, including changing patches, all these things that are really helpful to be able to do ahead of time. That way I know exactly what I'm getting into at church. So on that note, starting with the keys rig at church, I'm typically using a Nord piano, and I'm only using it as a MIDI controller, however. I do have it rigged up to where if my software rig goes down, I can still kick the volume on on the Nord to be able to have a piano and and pad sound available while I get the software side back up and running. Thankfully, I haven't needed to do that recently, but it's always nice to have From time to time I'll use a second keyboard as well for things like synth leads or synth base or alternate sounds that I want to be separate from the main keyboard. Recently I've been bringing this guy around. This is the Novation launch Key 37. It's just a 37 key mid controller that I'll have sitting kind of on top of the main keyboard to be able to play with one hand while I play the other keyboard with the other. Controlling all the parameters of every sound that I use is this guy. This is the Novation Launch Control xl. As you can see, it's decked out in a bunch of colorful spike tape. Uh, this helps me see it when the, the stage is dark and it also helps me know what I'm controlling. These colors match up with the certain tracks that are color coded as well in my Ableton session. So now let's talk through computers, audio interfaces, and all of that stuff. The remainder of the keys rig sits in an SKB Studio Flyer two rack unit case, which houses my audio interface and my power supply, as well as my connections for MIDI and USB. My laptop sits on top of the case with one connection running from inside the case up to the laptop, which provides power and all of my USB connections, including to the interface. My computer is an M three MacBook Air with a 15 inch screen. It's got 24 gigs of ram. I was using an M1 MacBook Air with a 13 inch screen and 16 gigs of ram, which I still use from time to time, but I upgraded last year and I've loved this new computer and it does the job just fine. Apple really changed the game when they introduced the M Series chips. There was no longer this big gap between MacBook airs and MacBook Pros, so now MacBook airs are very, very viable and relatively affordable options when it comes to a computer for a keys rig, for a tracks rig, or even producing things with audio or video. My audio interface is a focus right Scarlet, 18 I 20, with eight analog inputs on board, as well as 10 analog outputs on board with the ability to be expanded with an additional preamp if needed. When I'm at church, I'm typically running with four outputs, two stereo pairs. The first stereo pair is where my pianos run down, and then pads, since everything else runs down the second pair at front of house, our front of house engineer has an individual channel strip for pianos and individual channel strip for everything else, that way they can mix them separately in terms of volume, but also in terms of effects and how they treat it in the room. The goal with this rig down the road is to be able to use it as a tracks rig, playback rig, or to be able to run keys and tracks from the same setup, as well as being able to record at home. I am a drummer, and so I record drums at home, and having eight inputs onboard the unit with the ability to expand for more is really, really ideal. On the front of this whole unit, on the bottom rack unit, you'll see this panel that has my connections for USB and for midi, in and out. Currently, that's all that's on there with the possibility of being able to expand down the road. Right now, it's really great just to have those connections visible and up front. That way, if I need to troubleshoot anything, it's right there and I can fix it. I usually connect my launch control into one of those USB ports as well as any additional keyboards, and I run five pin midi out the back of the Nord or whatever main keyboard I'm using. Into the MIDI input of the interface. That way I can save on some CPU and I can save on one of those USB ports in case I need all three for whatever reason. On the back of the unit, you can see just the open back of the audio interface on the top, and then on the bottom you can see my power conditioner, which is from middle Atlantic. It provides power for the laptop, provides power for any USB devices connected to it, and it provides power for anything that I plug into it with its one outlet on the back. This part of the rig has been so fun to put together. It came together really quickly in the last year or so, and I've been using it ever since and it's been so much fun. So now comes my favorite part, and that's the part where I get to share some of my favorite sounds with you. The first collection of sounds that we're gonna look at is a patch that I call bread and butter. It's basically just a go-to piano and pad sound that I have on standby at all times. There's a button on my midi controller that's mapped to this patch so that if I ever need just to get piano and pad going, I can have it at at the ready at all times. This is also where a lot of my main patches start in terms of if I'm building a patch for a new song, I'll throw this patch in there and then modify it further from there. Sometimes I don't need to change anything about it. The main piano sound in this patch is the grandeur from native instruments. Pretty typical stage grand piano. I also have layered in here the felt upright and the intimate grand, both from Spitfire audio in terms of pads, there's a lot of layers from labs, also from Spitfire Audio, which is free. If you've never seen it or used it before, go check out labs. It's amazing and incredible resource. Lots of really great sounds that are ready to go right outta the bag. There are also some pad layers from that worship sound who I've only recently discovered and they are awesome. Lots of sample-based instruments for Ableton and main stage, as well as different presets for other preexisting plugins. So if you haven't seen them yet, go check 'em out. Now let's hear a little bit of bread and butter. These next few patches don't really have names to them, but they are sort of home basis for me, depending on the vibe of the song that I'm trying to create a patch for. This next patch features an upright piano called The Gentleman also from Native Instruments. I have the same two other pianos, the intimate grand and the felt upright. Also layered in this more for low end and mids as opposed to actual volume. But this piano, the gentleman is actually a lot more tacky. It's a tangy upright that I like to use for kind of that I thank God, Maverick City kind of vibe. So let's take a listen to this patch, which has a gentleman plus the other two pianos and just some basic pad layers from Spitfire Labs. This next collection of sounds is one of my absolute favorites. I love anytime I get to use any combination of these sounds. The main piano sound in this patch is the soft piano, also from Spitfire Labs. Again free. So if you hear this and like it, go check, check it out. But there's also the grandeur of instance of the grandeur in here with it filtered a lot of the way down, so the soft piano has a chance to shine. Now, the soft piano has been modified pretty heavily. It's compressed a lot, and it's been gained up quite a bit. So there's actually some game noise in the sound if you listen closely, but it actually kind of gives it some cool character. So I like it a lot. As far as pads are concerned, there's a little bit more texture in this patch, which if you listen closely, it almost sounds like there's some ocean sounds happening or some wind and thunder sounds happening. It's intentional also from Spitfire Labs. This patch isn't one that I necessarily plug and play into a song, but it's one that I like to start with, that the song is a little bit more somber, a little bit darker, but also has the chance to grow if needed. This next patch is one that expands sort of beyond the piano and pad model, bringing in some other synth based sounds and other synthetic sounds, as well as incorporating the second keyboard with some lead lines and things like that. So this is a patch that has a lead line up top, the regular piano from bread and butter on the keyboard, but also some pretty deep synth layers. Listening with headphones is probably the best way to listen to this patch here. Check it out. As far as lead sounds are concerned from that second keyboard, that lead sound is a combination of a few things. There's a couple of sounds from the guys over at Sunday Sounds and Sunday Keys. There's a lot of free sounds that they have available for download, both for main stage and for Ableton. And a lot of the lead sounds that are in there are really, really neat. So those are layered in there. Layered in there, as well as a layer from the free synth table called Vital. This is another plugin where if you haven't checked it out, go check it out, especially if you're into creating Sounds from Scratch. This is one of those places where you can basically treat it as an analog synthesizer and create whatever sounds you want. There are presets involved, but it's just big open sandbox, which I think is really fun. And there are also some layers from that worship sound as well. They've got a lot of great leads. Sounds available too. And as a bonus here, there are just a couple of sounds that I wanna show you as well that are sort of unique and not in your typical worship set, but I use 'em quite often and I think they're pretty cool. This first sound is one that I used in an original tune from our church called Hollow. It doesn't have a ton of keys parts in it, so I sort of had to be creative as far as how I actually approached this song from the Keys position, and this is sort of what I came up with, it's a combination of big pads, synth base, kind of a big weirdo collection of sounds, but I like it a lot. And now it's pretty much on standby all the time. In my main keys rig, so check out this patch from Hollow. And this last sound is probably one of my favorites. It's one that I have on standby at all times. There's a knob on my mini controller that has this, basically just on command. I can bring, bring it in, bring it out, no matter what patch I'm in. And it's this. It's my version of a shimmer pad. Now, I was actually following a tutorial to make this from the guys over at Sunday sounds. This sound was built using their shimmer reverb to tutorial and basically sending a very loud sine wave through this big shimmer reverb. And it's meant to cause a little bit of chaos, a little bit of just edgy energy to a big chorus or to a big bridge or something like that. So check out this sound. This is my version of a shimmer pad following the tutorial