Recorder

The WorshipSession recorder allows you to make audio-visual recordings of your church services onto the hard disc of the computer. The recorder is not normally supplied with WorshipSession, but is available as an extra-cost ‘plug-in’.

Chapter points in this section:

Introduction to hard-disc recording
WorshipSession Recorder - how it works
Setting up your computer to record audio
Controlling the Recorder in WorshipSession

 

Introduction to hard-disc recording

Recording audio on the hard disc of a computer has become standard practice in studio settings, but it’s not normally seen in church services, where other forms of recording - cassette tape or mini-disc, are still in use. Recording church services onto your PC has real advantages. The WorshipSession recorder has been developed for several reasons -

• It reduces complexity in the church service - there’s one less box to worry about. This is significant where the PA equipment needs to be set-up and disassembled every week. It’s also easier to control which parts of the service will be recorded - The “Start Recorder” and “Stop Recorder” instructions can be included in the Session, and controlled with the foot pedal like any other Item.
• It is very much more convenient to organise your recordings, and make copies for distribution. Media files generated by the Recorder are relatively compact, and are directly suitable for making audio / Video CDs and DVDs, publishing on the Internet, or sending by email. Since modern computer discs are so large, hundreds of historical recordings can be kept, and accessed at any time.
• In addition to recroding to disc, the WorshipSession Recorder can relay the audio, and the contents of the projection screen (e.g. songs and Bible readings) into another room (such as the creche), and even onto the Internet. Church members who are unable to attend services can “listen in” on their home computers, and see the visuals that are presented in WorshipSession or PowerPoint, as they happen.

WorshipSession Recorder - how it works

While WorshipSession is showing songs and Bible passages, it can record audio at the same time. The Recorder works in the background with almost no visible User Interface. The Recorder is controlled by HTML pages - one to start recording, one to stop recording, and another to give a title to the recording. These HTML pages are supplied with the Recorder, and can be found in the /Recorder folder. They also appear as three "#Recorder" Items in your index, so you can conveniently insert them into your Session using either F11 or F12. If you place the "setup", "start" and "stop" Items at the appropriate points in your Session, you can record the portion of your service that you require.

The three HTML pages can be modified so that they show your church graphic, or whatever you want to show, when they are displayed. You can use the “B2” (New Session) Utility to include the pages in your ‘Default Session’, which will be used every time you press F4 to begin a new Session.

Under the hood

Internally, the Recorder works with Microsoft’s Windows Media Encoder - a freely downloadable Encoder from Microsoft. The Recorder uses the file Recorder/ws_wmenc.wme - a “WME Session file”, containing various settings that configure the Media Encoder. Setting the format for the recording (Audio / video set-up and recording bit-rate) must be done in Windows Media Encoder application - details are in the next section.

Setting up your computer to encode audio and video

Installing Windows Media Encoder

Windows Media Encoder comes in two flavours - V9 for XP users, and V7.1 for everyone else. (V9 has some improvements, but the older version is still OK.) The appropriate encoder should have been installed for you when you installed the WorshipSession Recorder. You can re-install WME using WMEncoder9.exe or WMencoder71.exe supplied on the CD.

If the Media Encoder is correctly installed, the file Recorder/ws_wmenc.wme should be associated with it. Find the file in the WorshipSession area, and double-click on it - this should launch the Media Encoder.

Connecting your PA system to the PC

You will need to arrange an audio connection from your PA system to the computer. At its most simple, this would be a single cable from the output of the mixing desk, to the audio input of your sound card. However there are a few complications to be aware of:

• Audio level problems - If your PC has a “line in” audio socket, you should use that, but most notebooks only have “microphone” inputs. The audio level from the mixing desk will be too high for this input.
• Impedance matching problems - The mic input on the PC is “high impedance” and requires a high impedance source. If your PC has a “microphone” input, you can’t use a dynamic (low impedance) microphone into it - it can only be connected to an “active” microphone - i.e. one that has a battery in it. If you have an impedance matching problem, you will usually hear something, but it sounds bad - either it sounds thin and unnatural, or it’s thick and oppressive.
• Earth loop problems - Your PC is earthed (or if it’s a notebook, it will be earthed when you connect it to your projector), and your church mixing desk is also earthed, probably some distance away. There’s a strong possibility of a buzz being introcuced into the system when you connect your mixing desk directly to the PC, and turn everything on. You can recognise an earth loop problem because it’s more of a buzz than a hum, and typically the buzz volume doesn’t decrease when you turn all the sliders down.

These problems can be addressed using a DI box, or audio transformers. If you need to connect both outputs and inputs, and you want a stereo signal, you may need to use four transformers:

Making your first recording

Double-click on the file Recorder/ws_wmenc.wme to launch the Media Encoder and load ws_wmenc.wme as its “Session file”. The Media Encoder shows a helpful button bar:

Note: the Image is from WME V9 (Windows XP version). V7 looks different,
but it offers mostly the same features.

For testing purposes, play a CD or radio program through your mixing desk, so that you have a typical music source at a standard sort of level. You may hear the audio through your PC speakers, depending on your configuration -

If you cannot hear the audio through the notebook speakers, that doesn’t mean that the Recorder won’t work - the audio may be going into your PC correctly, but not routed through to the speakers. You need to check the “Audio Mixer” configuration as described below.

If you can hear the audio through the notebook speakers, it’s great for setting-up and fault finding, but it may not be what you want during church services. If your PC’s audio output is connected to the mixing desk, because you’re using WorshipSession to play CDs or background sound, you could easily have a bad situation that causes feedback in the wires. (Typically this feedback isn’t audible, but you can see loads of signal on the meters, on the PA desk or in Windows Media Encoder.) You can set the configuration of the “Audio Mixer” through the Media Encoder, as described below.

Setting the audio level

If your PC shows a “Volume” icon on the Task Bar (just next to the clock), double-click this to show the audio mixer. This allows you to control the levels of your computer’s various audio inputs.
(The appearence of the audio mixer varies between manufacturers, but they usually offer similar facilities)

You can use this to control the volume for CD replay, and WorshipSession’s “Background Sound”, and the “Microphone” or “Line in” slider will adjust the volume of the sound from the mixing desk, but these sliders have no effect on the recording level.

If you will use the PA to amplify the output from the computer (for multimedia use), you should tick the “Mute” box under the input that allows you to hear the PA (Line in or Microphone), otherwise you can get all sorts of trouble. But for setting-up the Recorder, leave it un-ticked so that you can hear the audio signal. The sound through the computer speakers is a good guide to the quality of the recorded signal.

The audio level for recording is controlled by a different set of sliders. To see them, select Options, then Properties. Click the Recording option and press OK. You will see a similar set of slider controls.

This looks like an audio mixer, but really it’s a source selector - there’s usually no ability to record from more than one source at a time (your computer may be different if it has fancy audio hardware). Tick the “Select” box for the source you want to use (Line in or Microphone).

If you can hear the audio through the computer speakers, there’s a good chance that it will now also be recorded. Return to the Windows Media Encoder and press the button.

While Windows Media Player is encoding the audio, it shows a VU meter on the left, so you can gauge the level of the input. As with any recording device, it’s best to have the level as high as possible, but not hit the top. (Because WME is a digital recorder, it is quite unforgiving of signals that are too strong, and you should be careful to avoid having too high a signal level.)

Use the slider on the Recording control to adjust the audio level. (If the slider must be positioned just a few pixels from the bottom, you need to reduce the audio level!) After a few seconds, press in the Media Encoder, then use Windows Explorer to find the file Recorder/test.wma and listen to what you recorded. You may need to try a few times before you get acceptable results.

Note: the file test.wma will be overwritten every time WorshipSession starts up.

Use the LEDs on the mixing desk

Once you have set the input level on the Recording control, it is unlikely to be changed accidentally, so it’s worth taking the time to set it up properly. If your mixing desk has a VU meter, you should be able to monitor the level of the signal that’s going out to the PC. Then you can tweak the slider in the Recording control until the VU meter in Windows Media Encoder shows the same level of signal. During your service you can use the meter on the mixing desk to check the level going to the WorshipSession Recorder.

Controlling the Recorder in WorshipSession

When WorshipSession is running, you can:

• Specify a title and other information for a recording
• Start the Recorder
• Stop the Recorder
• See the Audio level and elapsed recording time

Recording title and copyright information

The title and copyright information for your recording is set in the #Recorder setup page. (Either press F12 and enter #Recorder setup, or press F11 and navigate to the ws_recorder_setup.html file.)

The page shows the information in the form of titles intended for projection, but you can edit the page to use a different font, or in a dual-screen setup, the titles could be displayed only on the PC screen.

The image above shows the default WorshipSession “Church logo”. Instructions for installing your own church logo can be found here.

While the #Recorder setup page is being displayed, WorshipSession displays the audio level in the status line, providing a “last minute check” that the signal is being received OK.

The three grey fields on the page are editable, and WorshipSession remembers them, so the page can be set up in advance. The information is used to construct the filename of the recording, and is also embedded into the file so that it can be shown in the Media Player when the file is played.

If you don’t use the #Recorder setup page, WorshipSession just uses the current date and time for the filename. The date and time will also used for the Title of the recording, and the Artist and Copyright information will be taken from the Recorder/ws_wmenc.wme Session file. Use Windows Media Encoder to set these values.

Starting and stopping the Recorder

Start recording by visiting the #Recorder start page. As noted above, the page displays the “Church logo” image, but you can edit it to suit your purpose. (Either press F12 and enter #Recorder start, or press F11 and navigate to the ws_recorder_start.html file.) Recording starts within a few seconds of displaying the page.

The #Recorder stop page works in the same way. If you don’t use the #Recorder start page, the recording will run until WorshipSession is terminated.

Monitor the Recorder Audio level

Press R in WorshipSession to display the elapsed recording time, and the audio level on the status line. The VU meter is displayed until you press R again.