FredMcKinnon.Com

I really like Matthew West’s music.

I just saw from someone on FaceBook that the entire “Something to Say” album is available as a .mp3 download on Amazon.Com today and tomorrow only for $1.99.

Now that’s what I call a bargain!

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Hey, just found out that one of our songs, “Though I Can’t See You” was featured on CCLITV.Com today.  It’s an incredible worship song written by Mack Tucker that we recorded in 2005 during the “Worship Under the Stars” event.  You can see other friends on here including Mandy Thompson, Jay Sellers (twitter), and Shannon Lewis among others.

Please go checkout the song and give it a good rating.  Of course if you enjoy the tune and wish to use it in your worship services, the chord chart is now available in CCLI’s SongSelect.

Thanks, CCLI!

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*Still Live Blogging and Twittering from the re:create 2009 event  …. tune in here*

Ok Folks - this incredible guy just played at re:create 2009 …. his name is Josh Wilson, all he had was a piano, his guitar, and some incredible looping devices ….

Anyway - what a humble dude, but very talented - fun, creative music - loves Jesus.

His ENTIRE ALBUM is on iTunes for a whopping $1.99.

Don’t wait - run … and pick up this album, folks, “Trying To Fit The Ocean In A Cup”.

And no … this ain’t an affiliate link - I’m not trying to make a quarter - I just really liked this dude’s music.

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Hey Everyone,

What an incredible week we’ve had discussing the usage of Christmas Carols in our corporate worship services.

This Sunday I’ll be leading the traditional version of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” by Charles Wesley.

Years ago, I wrote a 4th “stanza” to this carol, and I call it my “Doxology Adaptation”.  Feel free to use this as you wish.

I’m serious - try it .. hopefully, you can feel the meter and timing of the words below with the melody of the song.  It works really well.

“The Doxology Adaptation”
(by Fred McKinnon, to the tune of Hark the Herald Angels Sing)

Praise God from all blessings flow
Praise Him creatures here below
Praise Him all ye heavenly hosts
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

Praise Him for the Savior’s birth!
Praise Him, He who came to earth!
To redeem us from the fall
Son of God, the Maker of all
Hark! The herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King.

Can you hear it?  Will you try it?

(TWC members, this is also being discussed in the forums at TheWorshipCommunity.com)

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Hey Everybody -

One of my favorite things to do in music is creating original soundtracks to video clips.  In my role as the Worship Director here at SSCC I get lots of opportunities to do that.  Our Tech Dept is amazing, and huge kudos to Travis Paulding for leading it.

Though our videos are pretty short, it’s often necessary to score original music with them.  Sure, we can find “canned music” online, but it’s much more meaningful to me when I can feel the vibe of the video and relate it musically.

This past week was no different - only the “vibe” was amusing … my challenge was to create a spoof on the “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” Apple commercials.  The music needed to be similar enough so that people could get the parody, yet different enough to prevent infringing on their copyrighted composition.  This video is being used to setup the sermon on the last two weeks of our “Ignite” series on Sex, Dating, and Marriage.  Special thanks to John and Missy Weaver for the acting!

You can read more of the technical details of how the video was shot on Travis’ blog, but for the music, here are all the recording/tech details for those who are interested.  But first, the video:

Ignite - Marriage Intro - Man vs. Woman from Travis Paulding on Vimeo.

1.  Travis edited the video and once the timing was established, I received a QuickTime Movie.  It was still raw, the green screen was in the video and hadn’t been keyed out, etc., but the timing was there, which was all I needed.

2.  I imported the video into ProTools, and created several new tracks:
a.  Midi Track for the Shaker
*I used the Stylus RMX plugin to get the Shaker sound.  It’s an awesome plugin by Spectrasonics and it allows me to copy/paste a MIDI segment that I can alter and arrange.  Most importantly, I can control it with tempo changes, since it’s really a simple MIDI file.

b.  Midi Track for the Marimba
*I used my Yamaha S80 for the Marimba sound.

c.  Midi Track for the Piano
*Again, I used my Yamaha S80 for the piano.

3.  After tracking everything, I used ProTools’ Tempo controls to insert a gradual ritardando (slow down, for you non-music folk) over the last couple of measures, to give it that same feel as the Apple commercials.

4.  I bounced a stereo .wav file, but after getting it back to Travis, the mix wasn’t nearly the same.  Although I have great studio reference monitors (Event 20/20 biamps), it simply sounded vastly different on Travis’ monitors.  The marimba was way back in the mix, and the shaker was way too hot.  So, I went back to ProTools and created 3 new AUDIO TRACKS.  I bussed the output of the existing AUX INPUTS from Stylus and the S80 to the inputs of the Audio Tracks, named those tracks with the respective instrument, and recorded them.  Now, I had individual .wav files in my Audio folder for each instrument.

5.  I brought the invidiual .wav files back to Travis who was able to mix them appropriately in Final Cut.

Voila - what do you think?

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