Music To Pray By

This comprises of the songs left out of the Music To Pray By album "My Father in Heaven". This is the first podcast recorded on my new Yamaha DC7XE3 Grand Piano as well as all new mics and pre-amps. I believe it is the best sounding piano audio I've ever captured. I hope and pray it inspires you to pray and spend time in our Heavenly Father's Presence.

The last podcast to be recorded on my Yamaha DC3M4. It goes away tomorrow, and though it’s only been 4 years, I feel as though I have a tremendous amount of history with that wonderful piano. I actually had to pick and choose from about 2 hours worth of recordings since I’m not sure if the old format will be supported on the new piano. I’m truly excited about the capabilities and the sound of the new Yamaha DC7XE3Pro, but it’s also sad to see my old piano leave the studio. I’m sure it will end up in good hands!

About the podcast – it’s all original except the last song. I had to choose between two really good covers and ended up going with “Oceans” by Hillsong United. It is one of my favorite songs, and though I feel like I barely did the original justice, I hope to do another rendition in a future podcast.  I did a lot of playing with this mix, which will likely change noticeably with the new piano. I wanted to make sure the last podcast from the DC3M4 was as good as it could possibly sound, and I think I accomplished that.

I have a number of things to share with you so I apologize in advance for all the non-music posts that are to come over the next week or so. I pray this podcast is a blessing to you.

Yet another all-original podcast. I did use some pretty familiar chord progressions, but I also tried out some new styles. I’m definitely looking forward to trying this podcast out tomorrow morning during my devotional.

Sorry this came a little late. I spent way more time editing than I have in the past largely due to Logic Pro X, the new version of pro audio software I use. Some of the editing techniques I use don’t work the same way unfortunately so I spent bit of time finding workarounds.

May the Joy and Peace of our LORD overwhelm you as you listen and stay your mind on Him!

You may not hear any familiar melodies as this podcast is mostly original. I've adopted a fairly new process to recording the podcast. Rather than attempting to record all 30+ minutes in one sitting, I've just sat at the piano and pressed "record" as the Holy Spirit has led throughout the past quarter. It has been working out okay so far. It also gives me an opportunity to select the best recordings out of many, and there was a really bad 15 minutes of recording I was happy not to have included in this podcast. You may notice that it may have a slightly different sound than previous podcasts. I'm still perfecting the audio recording and mixing aspect of the podcast even after almost 5 years. I pray this podcast encourages you to spend some quality time with our Maker.

I think this might end up being my favorite podcast to date. What God has brought me through over the past 7 months is expressed in this music since even today I fail to grasp the words to properly convey what God has done in me. Even the technical part of getting this recorded was met with enormous opposition. I had hoped to post this on Wednesday, but two completely separate devices in my studio failed - one of them is still dead. Praise the LORD it is finally done as I silently hope my computer doesn't crash before I click "Publish". :-) The two familiar songs I used go way back. The titles are "Holy, Holy, Holy LORD", and "I Love You LORD". I also wrote song with the primary lyrics being, "I stay my mind on You God". I hope to someday make it into a full blown song with verses and a bridge, but I'm not really a lyricist, nor was Moses a speaker so we'll see where it goes. I pray this podcast blesses you as much as it has blessed me and thank you for your patience. I'll post an update within the next couple of weeks regarding some of my future plans for this ministry and life in general though His Kingdom will I seek first.

In this podcast, I used songs Soundwave prepared for DCYC - they are "Strong Enough to Save", "Your Name High", "Forever Reign", "Always", "Your Great Name", and "Our God". I think this is probably the first podcast ever to be original-free, although, it does contain some originality. Those who like consistently quite and peaceful podcasts may not enjoy this one as much since I get a bit loud in some parts. It may be a few months before the next podcast is posted, but I'll try to make it softer. I thank all of you who continue to use this ministry to enhance your prayer time. I'm blown away at the number of downloads that happen on a daily basis.

What a crazy couple of weeks it has been! I won't bore you with all the details, but the end result is I finally have a new podcast. You'd think after 3 years of doing this I'd have it down but I don't. This podcast required a massive amount of editing, but I think it turned out okay. I did find some ways to improve the audio over the previous podcasts. The only issue is there's too big of a dynamic range so had to go a little overboard on the compression and limiting. I wish I could commit to doing these more frequently, but with work at AT&T consuming more and more of my time, family, Soundwave, and {hopefully} a Music To Pray By album by early 2013, I'm going to keep it at once a Month for now. God bless all y'all who are listening, and please keep me and my family in your prayers.

I finished mixing the Soundwave album last week so I'm back at it - thanks for your patience. This podcast, I only used "Hosannah" for a brief period. The rest is original - some from previous podcasts and some that's fresh and new. An interesting stat about this podcast is it's the first to be exactly 30 minutes long! I admit, I stretched the end out a little, but it was already pretty close. I added a bit more gain both at the pre amp and in software using a little more compression and gain on the limiter to try to even out the level a bit. There is quite a bit more dynamics in this podcast compared to the previous two or three. This time, I wanted to keep the dynamics as original as possible, especially during the soft parts, and I didn't change the level on some of the louder midi notes like I have in the past. I think it turned out better this way. I'm sure I'll get better at holding back more as I record so please bear with me as I continue learn and grow in this ministry.

I used quite a few worship songs during this podcast - "Give Me Faith", "Our God", "I Lift My Hands", and "Mighty To Save". In a way, a lot of this podcast sounds repetitive to me compared to previous podcasts. It's becoming a little challenging to keep things unique considering there is already over 30 hours of podcasts. :-) If this podcast inspires you to pray, mission accomplished.

Still searching for the best mic placement and mix, but I think its getting there. Most all the tunes are repeat or new originals. You may recognize one or two of them. I pray that every note played will encourage you to seek God's Kingdom first. Peace.