…have been greatly exaggerated.

When I was in college, my mother phoned me to say that she had been told of my death. Apparently someone in my high school graduating class had heard from someone else (who heard it from a friend and so on) that I had died. Somehow that rumor became fact to many because my entry in one of the high school alumni listings showed me as “Deceased”. After reassuring my mother that I felt fine, I tracked down the source of the rumor and corrected it.

It seems that rumors are flying around (thanks to some folks) that Sacred Loops is dying or is already dead. That was news to me, so I thought I’d post an update just to quell any consternation among the one or two of you that actually read this blog and/or utilize the site. We’re still here, and we’re still moving forward on multiple fronts. It’s just taking a lot longer than I had planned.

And here’s why.

When I decided last year to revamp the site and offer a bunch of new options and ideas, I turned to a trusted individual to handle the look and feel aspects and some of the other web-related activites. This was so I could focus on the content and strategic (yes, Virginia, there is a strategy) parts of the site. To make a long story short, I trusted someone who ultimately betrayed that trust and set me back quite a few weeks in both planning and execution. I’m not naming names, so don’t ask. Suffice it to say that I’ve learned my lesson (again) about relying on the commitments of others. As my father always said, “Trust, but verify”.

I’ve said it numerous times, but I do feel like we’re almost home in terms of getting the changes in place. The majority of the issues remaining are not technical in nature, but the simple fact is that I had to step in and address the technical and site implementation issues before I could return to the planning and strategy. Call me crazy, but I want everything to be great before changing it over.

If you have specific questions, feel free to email me at kent (dot) kingery (at) sacredloops (dot) org, and I’ll try to answer any questions I can. Be prepared for me to say “It’s none of your business.” if you ask questions that I think are, well, none of your business. I appreciate all who have offered to help (and I’ve taken a few of you up on specific things), and rest assured this site has not been abandoned. More importantly, what this site represents to me and others is still the same as it was when I took it over from Dan.

So, there it is. We’re still here, and we’re still kicking. There’s still content available, and very soon I’ll turn on the beta version of the content management pages so you can upload and search and so forth. Then I’ll concentrate on the education portions and some other interesting ideas.

If you haven’t taken the time to fill out our short survey, why not do that now? The information will help us in a number of ways, not the least of which is understanding our audience at a basic level. Here’s the link for those that missed it:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=yAvC0H2vQVihRnweURQoZg_3d_3d

Thanks again for your support, faithful readers (and downloaders and other fans). Have faith.

…the behinder I get. I saw that on a plaque in someone’s office a long time ago, and I think it applies to me pretty much these days. I took some time off at Christmas (first vacation in a long time), hoping to get a lot of work done here. And I did. Probably too much work.

But I’m finally getting everything straightened out again. Videos encoded? Check. Site structure repaired (after disastrous attempt at moving stuff around)? Yup. Content management system in place for files? Final testing, boss!

Just a bit more and we’re there. Hang on…

Kent

I finally got the old content restored from a backup (long story behind that) and have the site back up and running in its old form. I’m doing some final testing on the now-severed content pages and hope to have those up this evening.

2009 is starting off with a whimper rather than a bang…

Kent

Well, it turns out that my new WordPress theme is part of the problem (not sure why since I’m not really a WordPress guy). I’m still working on it and will probably forgo the new WordPress theme in favor of getting the content system online instead. I need to separate the content pages from WordPress now, but I should have it online today.

Nothing like a big build-up and then a system flaw to ring in the New Year… Sheesh!

Kent

Okay, I admit it. I broke the site. Well, to be fair, I broke the new site. In my zeal to get everything squared away by this morning, I made some changes that apparently threw the server for a loop. And I managed to “booger up” (a term my daughter uses to mean “really messed up”) the file permissions and some PHP scripts.

Please bear with me while I get everything sorted out today. Sorry for the delay…

Kent

We’re almost there. I’m doing some final testing of the new file management system and should be ready to post that online tomorrow. I’m also working with my graphic designer on some last-minute changes to the WordPress theme set which should also be in place.

And tomorrow I’ll have a long post about where we’re headed with the site. So, come back later in the day on New Year’s Day for all the scoop.

Have a great New Year’s Eve!

Kent

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you that frequent this site and have worked to make Sacred Loops what it is (and soon will be). Your devotion, sharing, and interest have given me renewed energy, hope, and vision for the future.

Gloria in excelsis Deo!

This morning I realized that we’re a little less than 10 days away from launching the new Sacred Loops. I’m pretty excited but also starting to feel the pressure of having everything ready. Between the redesigned loop/sequence/patch management system and the updated site appearance, it’s been a busy last few weeks.

I’ve also been spending quite a bit of time thinking about the Sacred Loops “brand” and the process that has gotten us to this point. I’ll talk more about that in a future post, but the upshot is that Dan Lukas (aka Frugalpole for some of you) has provided a legacy that I’m working very hard to live up to. Admittedly the site has been fallow over the last year or so, but that’s all about to change.

In looking over the web logs, Sacred Loops still by and large is a place where people come for worship loop-related content. And that’s a good start. But I’m hoping the site will be much more than that. I’ve already talked about Sacred Loops TV in another post, and I’ll simply tease you with this term: Sacred Loops University. No details yet, but the name should conjure up for you the intent.

For the next couple of days, I’m trying to grab some much-needed sleep and spend some time with my kids while they are out of school. After that, it’s full-on until January 1st. Hang on!

Today is a milestone for me. I’m finally selling my first analog tape-based setup, and I thought I’d post the pics here for posterity. Sometimes it’s easy to forget our roots amidst all our shiny toys…

This is a Teac A-3440 4-track recording deck and a Teac 2A mixer. This particular setup was the equipment on which I recorded my first real project that eventually got pressed to vinyl (a small blues band recorded in Denton, Texas during my sophomore year in college, around 1981). Over the next 25 years, I recorded everything from choirs to jazz bands to country-and-western groups to synth-pop ensembles. Most of the master tapes were spun off to Logic and/or Pro Tools years ago, but some are still around (somewhere).

The A-3440 was a great deck with a great headstack, and I used a Teac RX-9 dbx unit later on for noise reduction (young people have no appreciation for tape hiss). The whole setup weighs quite a bit and wasn’t all that portable, so I have to chuckle when I think about how I show up now with my laptop, audio interface, and mics in a couple of small bags.

As a way of tying this in here on Sacred Loops, this deck was used during some church productions to play back pre-recorded band and choir tracks (tracks 1-3) and send a click to the live band during performance (track 4). We recorded the click onto track four using a Roland DR-55 and played it back through a headphone amp matrix that I built one summer. We were using click tracks for live performance as far back as 1981!

Here are a couple of close up pictures of the mixer and deck:

The mixer is 6-in/4-out and doesn’t even have XLR inputs (we used matching transformers instead), but it does have a 4-channel bussing system as well as direct outs and buss ins. Quite advanced for it’s time and certainly nothing like what had previously been available to the consumer market at that price point.

The whole setup was probably around $4,500 in 1979, and I am forever grateful to my parents for loaning me the money to buy the setup (while I was still in high school). It took a few months of recording sessions with local bands to pay them back, and I’ll never forget the day I paid it off free and clear.

Thanks for walking down memory lane with me!

From Create Digital Music…

Just how rugged is your microphone? Mats Stålbröst, editor of the Stockholm-based Studio, took testing to a new extreme last year. He did violence to the legendary Shure SM58 – the sub-$100, vocal dynamic mic. It was used to hammer nails. It was dropped several meters. It was frozen. It was dunked in water. It was driven over by a car. It had beer poured on it. It was placed in a microwave atop a pizza. And the thing kept on working.

Then they buried it in the ground, left it for a year, and dug it up to test again. Read the full story on CDM.

I use the SM58 all the time live, and I’ve always treated my personal SM58s like (probably better than) my children. I guess I don’t have to be so cautious now.