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This site serves as a one-stop landing pad for all Heath’s Photography, Music,Worship, and Outdoors endeavors. On this page you will find all of his various posts listed from Heath’s other sites for immediate dissemination.
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For all you Mac users out there, here is the simplest way to download videos from YouTube. All you need is Safari, a YouTube video and a double click of the mouse. Lets check it out.
Open YouTube and pick a video. Once your video has started playing,
open the Activity window (Command-Option-A, which shows the Activity window), it is under “Window” in the pull down menus.
Now look for the YouTube website listed. When you find it you may need to expand it by clicking the flyout triangle next to it.
Look through the listings under the YouTube website and find the largest file size. The file size should be larger than 5MB.
Double click that link and Safari will download the file, probably called Video.flv.
Now you can play it with VLC or with QuickTime (only if you have Perian installed).
Have you heard of Spotify? You have had to of by now if you listen to music at all and aren’t an oldster. Spotify is the bomb! Have you ever wanted to listen to a song by an artist you never heard? how about listening to an entire album? How about listening to over 6 million songs in there entirety? Spotify rocks! Continue reading Spotify
Apple has just updated Logic Pro to version 9.1 and Mainstage to version 2.1. There are a number of numerous fixes and updates to the programs. Finally Apple has added 64-bit support. Not only has it fixed and updated, but there are also a number of things that are no longer working due to the 64-bit.
According to user “shivermetimbers”, at the Logic Pro Help forum, the following features are not currently available when using Logic Pro 9.1 in 64-bit mode.
Firewire streaming of video
Digital Cinema Desktop
AAF import and export
EuCon control surface support
Automap of parameters with control surfaces
OMF import and export
Conversion to MP3
Recycle (REX) file support
ReWire support
Vienna Symphonic Library Tool
Logic Node processing
AKAI format sample import
Interesting, to say the least.
Not sure how this is going to work for me, since Mainstage 2 had already doubled the resource usage on my Macbook Pro. Hopefully all goes well. I will keep you up to date in the comment section on what I find in my use of the new release.
Well, as you may know from recent posts, I had a hard drive crash. The hard drive circuit board fried and it caused some damage to the physical disc. I sent the drive to DriveSavers because I get a discount for being a Professional Photographers of America member and they offered free shipping both ways as well as a free estimate.
Once DriveSavers had gone over the drive, they called and gave me a quote. My oh my, I could not afford the cost they quoted me…$1700. That is a lot of clams for me. So, how important is the data on the drive? That data was irreplaceable. The hard drive was full (320GB) of images and audio. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the money, so I told them to send it back. Some one from DriveSavers called me back later and said they will not ship it back until I call PPA. The guy said that PPA may have a program for me. So, I called PPA.
It turns out that as part of your membership to PPA you are covered for hard drive failure. You are allowed a certain amount per year (contact PPA for details). All you have to do is come up with the $200 deductible and they cover the rest, up to PPA’s specified amount. I had no idea I had this coverage. My data was saved! I was instructed to call PPA’s lawyers, who told me this was an indemnification case, and they dealt with all the issues.
I finally received my hard drive, as well as the backup drive I sent. Everything all intact. If there is ever a lesson to be learned, it is backup, backup, backup. With Apples Time Machine, there is absolutely no excuse for loss of data. You can seamlessly and effortlessly backup your main drive and any connected drive without even having to think about anything. I have found nothing like it anywhere.
The only challenge is finding a large enough reliable storage configuration. That is a topic all its own, however, I am eyeing the Drobo product line.
Friday night I met with 2 other worship leaders, (Jon Green and Michelle Lind) and one wacked out drummer (Josh Heidrick), for what may be the beginnings of a new band. Josh had suggested we all get together to see what happens. After a little conversation via Facebook, we all agreed on Friday night.
The practice was interesting considering there were a lot of things I wasn’t used to, and I am sure they were thinking the same thing. We went over a few songs and there were some nice harmonies spicing up the dish every here and again… I love harmonies. Practice went well, but it was obvious we all tried very hard to be polite and not step on any toes. Now that the FIRST practice is out of the way maybe our next practice will involve a potluck and the 14 kids we have between all of us so they can get acquainted.
This has all generated some questions… or should I say, this has amplified some questions I have about this band thing that I really want to work. I can see potential if we will focus and aim at a target as soon as possible. What do I mean by, “…aim at a target…”? Just like the others, I want to see this thing succeed. Not only do I want to see it succeed, but I would like it to be more than a hobby. It is to late in life to be dividing my time between family and ANOTHER hobby. To avoid that I can only participate in things that are focussed on two disciplines within my life goals, music and photography, which are my two arenas of gifting and anointing. Anything outside of these two areas is aiming at a chicken when I am hunting elk, or trying to make three baskets with one basketball and one shot, or trying to be an airline pilot while trying to be involved in your 3 YOUNG kids lives. I have to focus, but this is a rabbit trail from what I REALLY mean about, “aim at a target”. To answer that question, I need to know if this new band thing is desired to be a…hobby or profession?
What WILL it be? It is never to early to decide and the sooner the better. To find the answer to that we have got to think about the future, where we plan to go, where we want to go, and how we will get there. Without such thought I think we will fizzle out like every other band that hasn’t realized it is a business first and art second. I know when I say that word “business’, it can generate all kinds of thoughts like, “I don’t want a business, I want to jam and have fun”, or how about, “I already have a profession and I don’t want to switch”. I want both (For me I do not want to give up my photography business, but I want the music/band business. I believe I can balance both)! These kind of thoughts are heading off on a rabbit trail from the reality of success though. It is about it being a hobby or a profession.
I could say simalar things of myself as a photographer. I just want to take pictures and create art. But you know, if I don’t force myself to realize I am actually running a “business”, I will never go anywhere. I have to determine what type of photography I want to focus on, what niche. I have to figure out how to let people even know I exist (marketing plan). I have to have a business account and think of taxes (whether I like it or not). I have to look at competitors and make sure my pricing is appropriate for my skill set, products offered and my “target”. I don’t want to do any of this, however, photography will just be a hobby if I do not deal with the business side of things. You can never support a family on a hobby! So why would it be any different for a band, especially where you have four or more “owners” involved? There has got to be a road map so that it is definitely NOT a hobby.
Like I said about my photography, I want to just have fun and see where it goes, but I know it will not go as far as I dream unless there is a certain business “understanding” of what the goals are, short and long-term, and a million other things like that. I tend to be a “fly by the seat of my pants” kind of guy so this advice is mostly for me, because I know it is true and will make for a solid foundation and a target to aim for. It is simply smart. Will we think or discuss this? I have no idea, but one thing is for sure… it will determine my involvement/commitment level. I will say once again that I want this to work because, for me, it is the other half of my goals to balance the scales.
UPDATE (1-11-2010 10:02pm): What about a worship band? Now you have a whole new set of thought processes and we get deeper into a web of thoughts on what is right and wrong, etc. After pondering all I rambled here, reading some input from my wife, and carefully weighing things out, I think for now I would like to relax a bit, feel things out, make some new friends, worship my God the way I worship and see what happens.
Anyone out there have any comments to this? We are open for discussion.
Tomorrow is the new year and I wanted to wish every one a Happy New Year. May your year be blessed and full of increase.
I have many things to do this new year. I need to redesign some of our website, design a few Album layouts for the purpose of offering wedding albums, offer a more focused Senior Portraits package, find a space for studio work, utilize social media more efficiently and more.
by Heath McConnell
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You have given so much!
You have given life
You have given breath
You have given Love
We are consumed by you!
You have given shelter
You have given food
You have given healing
We are consumed by you!
You have given freedom
You have given power
You have given grace
I am consumed by you.
I have set my heart apart
All my desires I surrender to your name
I reach to you with my face on the ground
I am consumed by you
You have given me your life
you have given me your heart
you have given me your love
I am consumed by you!
Language flows, a language from deep inside
Words I do not know, feelings I cannot find words to
you are glorious, so glorious
you are my king and I am in love with you!
all you have given to me…
Here is my heart…
you can have it all…
Because…
I am Undone by you
I thought I would offer an update on the situation since I just received word on my drive situation.
Well, I just got word back from DriveSavers. The hard drive had electrical failures and damaged some of the disk. They said they were confident that they could retrieve all of the data for $1500-$2160. Unfortunately I am an artist and can’t afford such a price at the moment.
I guess my only option is to RE-record everything I have ever done…Every track, every EQ, every plugin setting, every crossfade, every automation, every master, every spontaneous song, everything. It really changes the importance of data management and backups in particular.
Looks like I will NOT have the album out by December 31st.
I am now thinking of recording this album live if I can find some “work for pizza and liner note attribution” musicians… any takers?
Today I set up the gear as usual to begin recording the last couple songs. I plugged in the external drive to the power supply but didn’t hear any startup noises. I thought it was strange. I tried a few thing and decided to investigate. I unplugged the eSATA wire and tried it… nothing. I then tried a different power supply… nothing.
I was beginning to worry now. You see, that was everything I had ever done. It had live sessions… it even had Pro Tools sessions-I stopped using Pro Tools years ago. The drive was basically my backup of all musical data. I had been feeling the need to back up lately, however, I am an artist, I have no money for things like that-or so the thoughts went. I then popped open various other external drives and put this drive in…dead! nothing. There is no sound, nothing. As you can imagine, I just about crapped soiled my pants.
I called DriveSavers ( being a PPA member gets me a 20% discount). They were nice enough until I got the quote… $700-$2700. Yikes! The fella said that the evaluation is free. He said they would send a box via Fedex Next day. He informed me that they pay for shipping to and from, even if the free estimate is rejected by you. All you do is put the drive in the box, add a drive to have them put the data on in the box as well, and send it off.
I really can’t pay the kind of money they quoted me. My prayer is that it will be something simple enough in the inspection that there is no charge. It really sucks, but basically you need two spare drives for every main drive. the two drives should be rotated and one kept off the premises. That is expensive, especially considering the rate I fill up hard drives with data.
I have learned enough to have my main Mac (Macbook Pro) set up with Time Machine. It is so simple! The problem is every time I dig into either of my MacBook Pro’s and change the hard drives to a bigger size, I have to change the Time machine drives to a bigger size. It is a crazy thing… data.
It was suggested I take donations to help ease the pain of the repair. Should you choose to donate to the recovery, an account has been set up for “Hard Drive Recovery”, you can do so here:
I thought I would post an update on the status of my Eponymous album. I have been working really hard on getting this project done before the end of the year – completing at least one song per day. With this schedule I have recorded 10 songs so far and have three or four more to go. The album will be available worldwide in stores like iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, LaLa, etc. I am trying to find a reputable disk maker and am wavering between Oasis and Diskmakers (any other suggestions?) for the disks which will be available at my website, CD Baby and a few select stores.
For those that have asked for more details on my workflow I will give a quick numbered list of what’s up with that.
I use Logic Studio 9 (Logic Pro) as my DAW of choice. I absolutely love it!
I create a new session and name it. I also make sure that it stores absolutely everything, from impulse responses to sample files to notes in the project folder.
Next comes the tracks…
I set up a drum track with Ultrabeat as a metronome.
I setup three tracks for the acoustic guitar
I take a split stereo signal from both of my guitar pickups, using a stereo-to-dual-mono cable and record them on two separate tracks
I create two VOX tracks… one for melody and one for the BV if any.
I set the bit rate and tempo
Everything in items 1-4 are set up in a template so all I have to do is open the template, arm the tracks and record.
I then will setup my marker text so that the lyrics are on screen and change as per verse, chorus, bridge, etc. I really like this feature.
The mic plugs straight into a MOTU Traveler – I don’t have the funds for the Universal Audio mic pre I want, so, unfortunately, I must plug straight into the Traveler.
The acoustic guitar is recorded by a AKG c1000s and fed straight into the Traveler.
I also have a sweet stereo pickup system on my acoustic that I record at the same time. I use an L.R. BaggsiMix internal mixer that mixes an M1 and a iBeam.
This signal is split at the stereo end pin jack, where I plug in a stereo-to-dual-mono cable. The cable is then plugged from the guitar into the LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI, which is fed to the Traveler.
as a side note… this custom pickup system cannot be beat for live playing. It far surpasses Taylor’s Expression System or any other system I have tried.
The MOTU Traveler is connected to an Alesis HD24XR for track backup ( I use it as main recording media for all my live playing) and to a MacBook Pro via Firewire.
The sessions are recorded to an external hard drive via an eSATA Expresscard.
I lay down the tracks
comp the best takes if needed
create a rough balance/mix
Send an MP3 to iTunes with all the ID3 tags set and title it [Title]-[mix#]-[date] so that I can check it out on different listening devices.
For those that don’t know, there is a huge difference between mixes and listening environments. What sounds good in your headphones will not sound the same in the computer speakers, which will sound way different than the home theatre or car stereo. This is important. Not every one listens to music solely on an iPod through earbuds.
Use the “Notes” window in the project, for the project (not the track notes), to enter the date recorded and what needs to be done next, which is mixing.
This has been my basic workflow/setup for the last 10 songs. The next step, once I feel I have all the tracks that are candidates for the album recorded and roughed mixed. I will begin the mix down process, which is another topic all together.
In an attempt to actually get my material out, I have opted to offer an album that the songs are not so much stripped down versions as they are the beginnings of each song… How they started… Each song has began with an acoustic guitar and an Idea (or spontaneity). I tried to capture that feel of “beginnings” on this album.
on October 9, 2009, I joined with Carla McQuillan to play Irish Drinking songs one evening during the convention. To tell you the truth, I did not know what to expect. I didn’t know if there would be 1,00 people or 10 or anything else for that matter. It turns out that we were playing at a dinner auction. The guests would eat and we would play. They would then auction off a few things and we would play again and so on. It turned out to be a great evening. Carla and I sang a few of our favorite Irish tunes separately while both of us played guitar and then we both sang on a few.
All and all it was a very fun and high-spirited evening. The people were awesome and I look forward to the opportunity to do it again next year.
Thanks NFB Oregon!
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I got the opportunity to shoot some friends of mine during a BBQ we had this month. They just had a baby not to long ago and wanted to get something to send to family. It for the kickin’ it at home” look and Things went pretty well. We had a great time. We grilled some shrimp and fish and had the most amazing fish tacos. Oh man… these were the best fish tacos I had ever had, thanks to Erin’s special sauce. Mmmmm!
At one point in the evening one of us asked if I could shoot his art. He is a very talented artist and is worth looking up should you like ANYTHING artistic. Anyway, he had some new project he was working on that was wire guys (that is some of his paintings in the back). I began shooting, seeing how things began to flow, getting inspired, when all of a sudden it was time to get everyone home to bed. Here are some of the images from that night. We also discussed a couple band portrait ideas. I’ll keep you posted on that.
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As you may or may not know, Apple will be making Snow Leopard OSX available on friday. The upgrade operating system is only $29 bucks. What does Windows cost for an upgrade… once you figure out what version you need? The family pack runs $49 bones which includes, I believe, 5 licenses.
This piece is a spontaneous song that came under an incredible atmosphere of His presence in the room. There was a long stretch of silence after this where all were in a state of awe of Him, face down.
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There was a little dialogue on my Facebook about my images. The friend was wondering what type of camera I was using. On their last comment, I decided to make a quick screencast to show what I meant by the colors in a RAW black and white image using Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.
Friend: “These are great pics. What kind of camera do you use”? HM: “It really isn’t the camera”!
“You can take awesome pictures with a point-and-shoot (as some of these are) or an OLD oatmeal tub with the right size pinhole (as I have done before)”. “What matters is 1)your eye to see the shot, 2) the technique to get the shot and 3) knowledge in the details needed to produce the final image”.
“That being said, my main camera is a Canon Rebel (for now)”. “I love the layout of the controls on it”.
HM: “Here is an example (both examples are in this album)”:
“This is a shot that is nice because it has my family in it, other than that, it is in no way an “artsy” image” http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2308627&l=9b0df11833&id=557537005
“This is the same shot, except getting up at 5:30am in the morning just to find premium shots (the watermark doesn’t count as part of the shot) at the premium hours (dusk and dawn)”. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2312519&l=20bfe0ad63&id=557537005
“I will say that SLR’s are way more configurable than a point-and-shoot… and, for me, it is a must to shoot in RAW as opposed to JPG”.
“My Longwinded answer that, I hope, will inspire others to create with what they have”.
HM: ”Last comment”… ”As an example of #3 as you mentioned from my list… I deemed that this final image had to be B&W”… “I think it works, although I would love to play with the clarity, contrast and move the colors (they are still there) around to totally change the shades of B&W, I figured a lot of that would be lost in the Facebook compression they use on my images”.
“Here is the link”: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2313651&l=c7193eabe1&id=557537005
Friend: “Ok, I saw the pic, B&W, but it is interesting that I did not see that the colors were still there until you mentioned it”. “Very creative”.
HM: “here is a link to a video I made for you on what I meant by changing the colors in black and white”.
