As a sound engineer who’s set up PA systems from New Zealand to Zimbabwe, I’ve learned a thing or two about audio. Whether you’re a volunteer running sound for the first time or a seasoned pro, these five tips I gleaned from a recent podcast I was featured in which will help you elevate your church’s audio experience
- Invest in Quality Gear (and Learn How to Care for It): “Don’t invest in something that is cheap… buy quality gear that’s going to last for many years.” Look for equipment that will stand the test of time, and make sure you know how to properly maintain it – from coiling cables to cleaning microphones. Your congregation (and your budget) will thank you!
- Reach Out to Your Conference: Most conferences have media departments that can offer support and guidance. “They usually will help you find deals to get good deals on gear.” Don’t hesitate to tap into their expertise – they might have access to resources you didn’t even know existed.
- Encourage Storytelling and Engaging Content: “There’s a lot of content that is not really reaching people because it’s not the content that is the algorithms that are being used in the mediums that people are currently accessing their information from, especially in social media.” Adapt your content to short-form and long-form formats to ensure your message gets heard. Think creatively about how you can use audio to tell compelling stories that resonate with your audience.
- Prioritize Education and Training: “There’s a need for…a push in the education on how to use these things well.” Seek out resources and training to help you understand the principles of audio engineering. Even small improvements in your technique can make a big difference in the overall sound quality.
Take a listen to our podcast to explore more of my journey!
- Invest in Quality Gear (and Learn How to Care for It): “Don’t invest in something that is cheap… buy quality gear that’s going to last for many years.” Look for equipment that will stand the test of time, and make sure you know how to properly maintain it – from coiling cables to cleaning microphones. Your congregation (and your budget) will thank you!
- Reach Out to Your Conference: Most conferences have media departments that can offer support and guidance. “They usually will help you find deals to get good deals on gear.” Don’t hesitate to tap into their expertise – they might have access to resources you didn’t even know existed.
- Encourage Storytelling and Engaging Content: “There’s a lot of content that is not really reaching people because it’s not the content that is the algorithms that are being used in the mediums that people are currently accessing their information from, especially in social media.” Adapt your content to short-form and long-form formats to ensure your message gets heard. Think creatively about how you can use audio to tell compelling stories that resonate with your audience.
- Prioritize Education and Training: “There’s a need for…a push in the education on how to use these things well.” Seek out resources and training to help you understand the principles of audio engineering. Even small improvements in your technique can make a big difference in the overall sound quality.
Take a listen to our podcast to explore more of my journey!
5. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help: Whether it’s reaching out to your conference or consulting with an audio professional, there are resources available to help you achieve your audio goals. At Blue Vineyard Audio, we offer consultation services for churches, helping you design audio systems, create a plan, and even conduct site visits.
Want to share your ministry’s message with even greater impact? Blue Vineyard Audio specializes in creating high-quality podcasts for Adventist ministries like yours. Let us help you craft engaging audio content that resonates with your audience and spreads the Gospel further. Visit us at https://bluevineyard.com/audio/ to learn more about our podcast production services and schedule a free consultation.
Podcast Transcript:
Welcome to Adventist Waves. Hey there Adventist Waves family, you know how much we love exploring music and podcasts that share the gospel. Well, today is a bit different and exciting. I was recently a guest on the Blue Vineyard podcast and I’m thrilled to share that conversation with you guys right here. Let’s roll.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Blue Vineyard podcast. My name is Luke and I am here with the newest member of the Blue Vineyard family. Khan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So as anybody who has been listening to the podcast will know that it’s our plan to build out and foster the growth of the Adventist digital ecosystem and a part of that ecosystem is the world of audio, both music and podcasts. And Khan is passionate about those areas and I’m going to let him tell you a bit of that story, but just that’s a little bit of context. Khan, how would you introduce yourself? What do you do?
Well, right now I’m a freelance audio engineer. At the same time I am working as a department leader in Blue Vineyard, which is exciting to me because it allows me to grow in many different ways and use my skills that I have gained over the past years as well. So I have interests in background and pastoral ministry and carpentry and agriculture and audio engineering, but overall I love Jesus and I want to serve him. So I find this is a unique opportunity and hopefully my story will illustrate that and how I can serve God using my skill sets. Excellent. So speaking of that story, let’s rewind a little bit.
So there’s a fragment of an accent that I’m picking up there. So where are you from originally? Yeah, so I grew up in Auckland and New Plymouth, New Zealand. And I had a loving family. In fact, when I was one years old, my parents split and I live with my stepfather and my mother and two siblings. So that was when I was growing up. Excellent. And so that how long were you in? You said I used to live in New Zealand. So when did you stop living in New Zealand? Well, when I was about 21, 22, I moved to America. I studied pastoral evangelism at Heartland College. And then I graduated with my degree and then went over to Africa as a volunteer missionary with Farms 2 International and with Africa orphaned care at Orphanage.
Basically, I met my wife in Africa while I was serving in Zimbabwe. And then we got married at the end of my term there, 2024. And we now live in Malaysia. All right. So I want to rewind a little bit. I want to pull on some threads there, but I want to rewind a bit. So from let’s go back to New Zealand for a minute. You talked about your family and growing up with your mum and your stepdad. What was the environment like there as far as the spiritual element there? Was it a Christian home, an Adventist home? No. In fact, my family were not even Christians. So my first exposure to Christianity wasn’t that great either. So I didn’t feel very warm of the Christians.
In fact, it never appealed to me growing up. The Christian church, it wasn’t something that I ever, I never saw as being, had value, could give value to me. So I found myself more attracted to like the music scene and the subcultures in the middle and rock music groups. So that’s really where I found meaning, especially when I was a teenager growing up in those environments. Those environments usually are quite hostile towards Christianity. So what was the inflection point there? What was the tipping point that made you start to take Christianity seriously? Well, I guess there was experiences in my youth that I really rubbish Christianity. I could give examples of when I was about like 16, 18 years old.
And there was, I think it’s a whole of witnesses came to my door one day and knocked on the door and there’s like this kind of old guy, maybe my age now with these like four other guys behind him, like young kids, maybe my age at the time. And they were sharing with me about the Bible, you know, and I said, how can you trust in that thing? I mean, it was written by a man, you know, I completely rubbish them and then close the door on them, you know. And so that was kind of like, but the dance, your question about the tipping point really came later on because when I was about 18 and I moved out of home, I started trying to, I guess, exploring different, different religions and exploring things from my own perspective and that led me to eventually encounter, have an encounter with my step-grandmother, who’s a Christian.
And then she shared with me about Christ. And then I had my own, my first experience of Christ at that time. And I felt like he actually gave me peace and he forgave me of my sins at that time. So that’s, I guess, the tipping point for me. And when I started having… So how old are you at that point? I was about 20, 2019, 20, somewhere around there. Okay. And you mentioned that you went to study in the US, but you were, you’re in audio engineering. So like that, those two things aren’t usually found in the same person. So like, was audio engineering happening before you went over to the US? Yes. Yes.
I studied audio engineering for two years. When I was about 18, I started when I moved out of home and I went up to Auckland to study. Yeah. So there was a big gap there. I guess it’s a logical thing when you’re into the music industry, right? Yeah, exactly. Because I was in a band at the same time as well. I was a drummer. I grew up playing drums since I was 15, even younger. I got into playing drums. I had an encounter with a kid in my intermediate school and he was a drummer, but he may be having a few lessons and he played and then it basically caught my attention and made me very attracted to the drums and made me want to learn how to play drums because he was like my idol. I was like, I want to be like this guy who plays these sick beats.
So I just decided that I would pursue that and I did that. So when did you decide that audio engineering was not the career path that you wanted to be on at that point and you were going to go and do ministry? What made that happen? Well, I just take a, it’s a good question. I think in order to answer that question, I have to kind of step back and just share with you a bit about like some of the things that was happening at my, when I was about 18 and I was living by myself because I had an uncle who was allowing me to stay with him, my step uncle. For a few weeks, he allowed me to stay with him while I was looking for housing in the city and I was curious, you know, and I wanted to learn more.
That’s kind of why I was up there and he had a large digital library of books and PDFs. So he shared that with me and it had a lot of scientific and nature, you know, authors in there and new age authors as well. So fast forwarding up to the time that I was living in the city. I found a small apartment in the city and I started my course the following month and it wasn’t long until I started browsing the books that he had given me and I read the conspiracy theories and the propaganda that these authors were teaching, you know, and I soon became the disciple of the new age movement and tried to indoctrinate my friends that were around me and these interesting theories. So yet there was another turning point in my life, which was when, it was about a year later that year I came to a conclusion.
I had finished my certificate in audio engineering and I passed and did well and my pop and my step-mother invited me over to their house to visit them on the weekends. And so we began to have these conversations about the things that I was learning, you know, in these books and I shared with them about the secret societies that ruled the world and were actually reptiles from another country, you know, not country from another planet, you know. Yeah, so like, these interesting theories and I was completely sold and I believe that the Anunnaki was ruled in the world and like, what’s the name, like the presidents were blood-sucking reptiles, you know. And I was just crazy stuff, stuff that you would imagine on like A-chan or something like that, 4chan.
Yeah, 4chan. It’s just ridiculous. And all my mates were into it, I mean not all my mates, but I started showing this stuff with my mates and they thought I was bit bonkers. But I shared it with my grandma, my step-grandma. These are 70Av and I had no idea, you know. So I used to stay with them like I was sharing with you on the weekends and through our conversations she was talking to me about the great controversy and how it was actually like, you know, an evil power that’s, I guess, a spiritual power that’s working in the world and there’s also a power of good, you know, and that’s represented as Jesus and God. And there’s this like great controversy going on and she gave me the book, The Great Controversy, and showed me a bunch of videos by Walter Weiss and talked to me a bit more about Christ and stuff and I remember one night I had prayed to God and after that, I went in my bed and I said, Jesus, forgive me, Jesus, forgive me, like that and I just felt like this peace like come with my, you know, my soul.
And so yeah, that’s kind of like what, you know, the background of what happened to me and then like, so that was kind of my conversion story and it kind of links into why I went into Heartland and I stopped doing audio engineering because at the same time I had also started Bible studies with my pastor because what happened was one day I was walking on the Saturday afternoon and I found a stack of newspapers on the side of the road and I picked it up, I took a copy and went home and I read through it, you know, and I saw that there was an advertisement for The Great Controversy and at that point I had already read The Great Controversy and I thought, hey, it’s a good book, you know, I want to share it with a friend.
So I cut it out, I took that I wanted to have a copy of The Great Controversy and I wanted to have Bible studies and so I cut it out, you know, send it away and then I get my copy of The Great Controversy a couple days later and phone call from my pastor and he said, hey, like, did you get a great controversy? And I said, yeah, I got my great controversy and stuff and he’s like, would you like to start Bible studies? And I said to him, no, you know, I’m really busy right now. I can’t really, don’t really have the time to do that. I’m so busy with my audio engineering stuff and I’m recording and he’s like, well, what about, let’s take a look at your schedule, you know, what about Wednesday? Monday afternoon and stuff.
And I said, okay, yeah, sure, we can do Monday afternoon. And so then he comes around to my house on Monday afternoon and visits me, sits down with me and just talks with me, you know. We’re just sitting outside my flat and he’s just talking to me about my family and like what I like to do. And I ask him some funny questions like about like Russifarians and stuff and are they okay and stuff. And he’s like super wise and I’m like, the dude is like 50, you know, maybe like 40 years older than me or something like that. So I had a lot of respect for him, you know. And then he gave me a Bible. I started Bible studies with him the next week after and yeah, we just keep learning about the Bible and stuff.
And I eventually start going to church, starting to go with my grandma. But there was a bunch of things that kind of like decided for me like to leave audio engineering at that stage. Like there’s some things that were happening in my life that I just I couldn’t see a path in that and doing audio engineering as a job, you know, because I had accepted Christ as my savior and I began to have these experiences with him like how I got kicked out of my band like because my guys were pretty much asking me to, you know, like do gigging on Saturday, Friday and stuff like that. And they were asking for me to do commitments that I couldn’t do and they were getting angry with me and stuff because I wasn’t able to fulfill their needs.
And so they ended up kicking me out of their band. So yeah, that’s what happened. That’s what happened to me. And God did other things as well. But I figured that, hey, you know, like I can’t really use these skills in the church that I’m going to. I mean, I wasn’t even baptized in the church at the time. They would come a few years later. So I was like, let me just leave then and go do something else. So I started Carpentry. I did one year of studies at Carpenter and I got a certificate in Carpentry and I really loved it. You know, it was a good job and honest work and I enjoyed seeing things being put up and building houses and whatnot.
And I got the support of my grandfather. He gave me a car as well. Like he gave me a flat deck ute and I did pretty well and got some really good jobs. And at that time, at the end of my studies at Carpentry, I ended up getting baptized 2014. That led me to work as an assistant carpenter for about six months. But I got fairly good at doing Carpentry and then the call came to go to America and study. And I prayed to God and asked him if he would provide for me like a visa and jobs as well so I can do fundraising and also like some counsel as well. So then you could be confirmed that he actually wants me to go to American study to do ministry. So yeah, I don’t know if that kind of answers your question, it’s kind of a long way around.
But basically like it was, yeah, through those circumstances and my conversion, Christ like worked on my heart to, to just make that shift away from audio engineering to Carpentry and then over to ministry. You mentioned that after you went and you studied and please feel free to mention any of the progress or notable events from your time of study. But you mentioned after that you went to serve in Africa. And I’m curious about your experience there and feel free to, this is a placeholder kind of a question. So take it where you want to take it. But how do you feel that time while you’re working in Africa? How do you feel that changed you as a person? How did that make you grow?
It challenged me. It challenged me to come out of myself. So just to give you a bit of a background, I worked in Zimbabwe at an orphanage called Newstart Children’s Home. And there has about 70 children that live there in a dormitory and in a, sorry, in a nursery. So they have like one to seven year olds in a nursery where they take care of the kids. So I was able to volunteer as the greenhouse manager and also as a coordinator for like an educational program called Farmstew. So it really challenged me to think outside the box to get things done unconventionally. Mind you, if you’re familiar with anything about Zimbabwe, you have to be unconventional when you’re working in Zimbabwe because everything is challenging. It’s a challenging place to live with, yeah, with different, you have people who have different characters and different ways of doing things.
And so you really have to be very considerate of culture as one. When you’re working in another culture, you have to be. Ultimately, your culture and your way of doing things is secondary to what’s going on around you. It’s a great opportunity for me to kind of come out of my bubble and to experience another culture and to gain relationships that I would never have if I did not have the opportunity. That’s amazing. And you said that you meet your wife over there. Was she volunteering as well or was she working at the same place that you were? No, she wasn’t working at the same place, but she was volunteering in Zambia.
She was at Riverside Farm, which was just on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia. So it’s maybe like an hour drive from the border. So I used to go up there to just escape Zimbabwe because of my visa issues. And that’s where I met her at the farm. That’s beautiful. And so as you said, now you’re in Malaysia. So how has life been since moving there? How long have you been there now? So I’ve been here for about six months since December. We got married in January. Okay. And how has the experience been?
I imagine it’s culturally very different from where you were in Zimbabwe. Yeah. Well, Kuala Lumpur is a metropolitan city. It’s a really big city. I think there are like 5 million people who live here. It’s the capital city of Malaysia. We are very blessed because God led us to live in an area that has got a lot of expats in it as well called Mount Kiara. So we’re grateful. We’re also involved in a church plant here as well that’s got a plant-based restaurant and a church above it. So that’s pretty exciting. And we’re enjoying the challenge. That’s very cool.
Well, I want to, obviously, your experience and your passion is in this area of audio engineering, which you’re now returning to. But I’m just interested because we try to think about the ecosystem as a whole. You and I have spoken about this before. But I’m interested in your perspective. There’s obviously the podcasting aspect, but we can talk about that. But at least in the realm of Adventist music, music has been really important to us as a church. But Adventist musicians often don’t seem to thrive, or at least very few of them thrive in the ecosystem the way they should. And I’m curious what your perspective is on that. Why do you think that is?
What barriers do you see to the Adventist music ecosystem working well? Yeah. So I guess to answer that question, I’ll first start off by saying that musicians are an essential part of worship and are needed to fulfill our goal, like the church’s goal, ultimately, to share the message to the gospel, but then also change the hearts of people. And the worship, worshiping is involving, involves our hearts and involves all our senses. And part of music that I really like is that it engages those senses. So they are a very critical, central part of Adventist worship, I think we’d all agree on. And the church has a very rich history of Adventist musicians, and it currently has a lot of very talented musicians all around the world, which is really amazing.
Every culture you go to has a musician which has got amazing talents, that God has blessed them with amazing talents. And we need to keep that in perspective that everywhere we go, there’s going to be musicians who are needed at that local area that can help to shape music that’s going to reach the hearts of the people that are around them. And then also, we need examples of musicians who are going to be able to create that on a worldwide scale as well, like to be an example of what a good musician does, the quality of music that they make, so then other people can learn from that. So there’s multiple pieces to the puzzle, right? There’s the quality of the output itself, like the talent of the person, there’s the opportunity, like exposure, let’s say, as the other piece of the puzzle, right?
And from what you’re saying, we need to find that mixture that makes it sustainable for them so they can do it. Exactly. Like for myself, when I first started coming into the church, I was like, I love music, I play music, and I studied how to record music, but then I saw that there was nothing that I could do with my skills in the church that I was attending. So I mean, maybe I can elaborate more on this later on, but I think it’s just really important that a church sees the talents and its members and seeks to get them involved in those skill sets, you know, and if they’re invested in an audio like I was, and get them on in the back, I mean, and teach them how to set up a front-of-house worship set up, you know, and get them involved in that.
And of course, some churches don’t have the capacity or the infrastructure, you know, right there, but at least help them to get involved in something where it’s tech-based to use this. If it’s tech-based, if it’s something else, then, you know, sure. Then find that. But yeah, exactly. So get them involved in the local church as important. Going back to the question about, like, making it sustainable, now, I think that’s a really good question and something that needs to be addressed. I mean, if we have, I mean, in the world today, there is a system where musicians are compensated for their work.
It’s a licensing, you know, system, and it’s just, you know, to do with distribution and royalties and stuff. And there is systems established for that and it does provide some resources for musicians. Of course, it’s hard for them to make a living off royalties and stuff, but it certainly helps musicians to have that. So from my perspective, having an ecosystem and an environment which encourages musicians to be able to earn royalties from their performance royalties and mechanical royalties and educating them how to do that, but then also educating them how they can actually do music ministry and make money from doing music ministry is very crucial.
And that’s kind of where I’m at right now and how I see the Adventist musician world kind of growing and it’s a point where kind of a lot of attention needs to be put on. So I’m curious now. You said the how to do music ministry right. What I’m picking up from what you’re putting down is that in order for sustainability to take place for an Adventist musician, well, probably any musician, but certainly an Adventist musician, it requires multiple streams of income, right? You’re not just going, it’s very unlikely that you’re going to make enough money from royalties. You’re also very unlikely that you’re going to make enough sustainable money from traveling or doing tours or whatever.
So you really do need this multifaceted approach. And so maybe it would be helpful for someone who’s listening if you list it off, what are those ways? So you mentioned the royalties part of it. There’s, I mentioned touring, a lot of artists will tour and take up offerings at concerts and things like that. What are some of the other ways that an artist would be able to make a living? Right. So you kind of touched on the main ones, which was the royalties and the touring. That’s kind of the main ones that you would think about when it comes to income for musicians. Of course, you also have record sales as well. So a lot of musicians have the sole licenses to their recordings.
That means that they are the only ones who can sell their recordings unless they sell the rights to someone else to distribute albums on their behalf. So selling their own records is a great way to do that. And also selling the rights for sync licensing as well is another avenue that can be done. You can register your license, your music online in the US Copyright Office. And then with your licenses, you can basically sell them for sync, which basically means that they can be synced to video and for YouTube and TikTok and things like that. And every time it’s played, they will give you a royalty for that. So collecting sync royalties, collecting mechanical and performance royalties.
That’s a sync royalties. That’s essentially what people are doing when there’s a trending sound on TikTok or Instagram. There is a royalty that’s going back to the artists. Is what we’re saying if you’re registered. Yeah, exactly. That’s interesting. I figured that there would be some arrangement, but I didn’t realize that people were getting royalties off those 20 second plays. So that’s pretty cool. Yep, they get a little bit, maybe 0.0004 cents per play. So it’s not a hell of a lot, but it all adds up.
But hey, some of those sounds, the ones that go really viral, I’m sure I could bet you a couple of sounds that you heard on every third TikTok for a few months at a time. I’m sure in those seasons, people make a considerable amount of money if they are one of the ones that hit, right? Oh yeah, for sure, especially if it’s a catchy melody or something. Yeah. So all right. And one other that you didn’t mention that I guess I’m curious about, and I’m speaking to this as a podcaster because as a podcaster, this has been the most useful to me. But that is the patron model, like Patreon does, as having people that are your patrons, so they’re giving a certain amount of money per month or per release or whatever, and you try to give them perhaps early access to things or discounts for your staff.
But in return for that, they pay you on a monthly basis. And if you can amass a certain number of those, then that gives you a more predictable income stream as well. It’s a great idea. Yeah, freelancing is a great way to do it as well. I mean, if you’re a talented musician, you can also sell your composition skills on a free market, free-lancing market like Fiverr, and you’ll get clients who will just approach you and just say, hey, can you make some harmony for this melody track that I’ve made, or vice versa, or can you do singing for this track? So there’s so many avenues that you can explore.
But the main thing is that you kind of fill out your own skill set and know exactly what skills you can make money from and then market that as best as you can. Yeah, that’s good advice. What I’m just thinking about the Adventist world, and I guess this question could span across all audio, be it radio or podcast or music. What do you see as the most, the areas of the greatest opportunity? Let’s say that. What do we need to see more of in the Adventist audio world? What would I like to see more of in the Adventist world? I guess one thing I would really love to see is to have more storytelling content.
If you look back into the history of the Adventist church, there are some amazing storytellers, like very talented people like Eric B. Heer and HMS Richards, who are very talented storytellers. And they didn’t just speak, but they also used the technology that was available to them at the time. You know what I’m saying? Eric B. Heer was notorious for using his synthesizers to create this underlying sound, which just captured his audience. You didn’t want to go anywhere while he was talking because he was just such a captivating speaker and everything he said, if he were like hanging off his words. And then the same thing can be said of the story hours that was being made by Southwest Michigan Conference in the 70s.
So all these things, like we today, we can do amazing productions using the technology that’s available to us now. And some of the things I see that Adventist musicians and organizations are doing right now that really captures my attention are such things as the voice of prophecies, discovery mountain, how they create these amazing real life stories that they basically immerse you in. And then there’s another ministry called Love Voice, which does remote productions of people from all around the world who do singing. And they bring it together and then they will actually broadcast it as a digital choir. How awesome is that? But basically… It’s something that could have never been done in the past, right?
This is the only time in history that would ever work. Exactly. So it’s just about using innovation to create things that just have never, was never possible and today can be possible because of young people like you who are listening, who can do these things just by using the simple things you had in your house. One thing I was looking at just today is that hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on producing studios back in the 70s and stuff. The conferences were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars producing these amazing studios. And today you can buy a few simple equipment, a little audio interface, a microphone like what I’m using now and some monitors for a little over a thousand.
And then you have your studio at home. And then basically it’s got the same capabilities as the studios, if not more, than the studios that they’re paying a hundred something thousand dollars on. So I don’t know about you, but I see this as an opportunity to, as God’s church, as individuals, to be able to share interesting media with the world in a very interesting way using technology in a way that captures people’s attention. But not like those attention, like grabbing people’s minds like the world does and possessing the mind and then bypassing the front. Not for the purpose of manipulation, right? Yeah, not for the purpose of manipulation, but for the purpose of sharing the gospel.
And with the technology and how it is today and how cheap it is to start producing this type of content, we have potential to do something that we’ve never imagined. I think that we need to kind of open our eyes to see the possibilities as before us. I love what you just said. I really do believe that technology has accomplished the democratization of production, right? So now, as you say, anyone can be a content creator. There’s no gatekeeper on that anymore. And as a result of that, in theory, what that should mean is that we have more and better in practice.
What has happened is, and I mean, you probably noticed this yourself, but when there are these waves, right? And no pun intended. But there are these waves of activity. And when podcasting was first becoming normal, you could say in the Adventist church, I guess the podcast that the ministry podcast that I run was probably number two or three off the rank, so to speak. And I saw there was this massive wave. So many people were doing it. It was so exciting. But after those guys had done it for a couple of years, everyone, or at least most of the people, they kind of said everything they wanted to say. And so then they kind of, that was it. They sort of started to die off.
And now there’s still a lot of a lot of new ones coming up, but there’s not a lot of staying power that they only stay there for a little bit and then they stop. And I think it’s great. I mean, even if someone releases a podcast and they do a single season of five episodes or something like that, they’ve still put something out into the world that’s valuable that God can use. And I think they should do that. But I think we’re entering the second wave now, which is the wave that you’re talking about where it requires some innovation. It’s no longer enough for us to just have something to say and go and say it. I think this second wave belongs to the innovators, the storytellers, the ones that go, okay, we now have a stable medium, which is being utilized by an enormous percentage of the population.
But now I have to, now I’m competing with a million others. I need to produce something that is of comparable quality to the top 20% if I’m going to achieve a market. And whilst that feels intimidating, I actually think it’s more exciting because it means that the trend is towards more innovation, more creativity. And I think the next sort of, from now, the next five years, let’s say, we’re going to see a very sharp uptake in the number of innovative kinds of content. The downside, I believe, is that we have, that requires a lot more time. So if a young person is hearing this and they’re saying, oh yeah, I’d love to get involved, but how do I compete in this highly competitive marketplace?
It’s actually very easy. If you’re a young person with lots of time, the coolest things that you can do with audio require precisely that innovation and time. The people that are the incumbents, the ones that have already been there and doing it, and have other stuff that they’re doing, like me, and I’m sure a lot of other people out there, we’re in a position that it’s hard to be innovative because we don’t have the time that we had when we were younger. So I say that to encourage anyone that’s younger and feels like they have a drive for this kind of activity, be it musical podcasts. I think you are in a time where you have a disproportionately high advantage than you would have if you were trying to enter the industry five, six, seven years ago.
Yeah, I can just jump in on that point too. Yes, there is much more opportunities and it does give us a lot more opportunities to be innovative and stuff. And also, I see that there’s a need for, simultaneously, for a push in the education on how to use these things well. There should be some type of guidelines, simple guidelines to use these tools efficiently and effectively for the purpose of ministry. And I think that that’s where I fit into the thing as well because, yes, we need to make things that are very high standard, right?
But then that can be subjective to different people. Some people might have a different standard than another person. But then there’s certain principles that we have to take into consideration when it comes to producing content, right? I would really love to see, like, myself, I would really love to help people, young people and all people to know the principles of audio engineering, what it takes to create a good recording. And because there are certain things you need to know, like, in order for you to have a good production and to have a good sound. It doesn’t just happen by accident.
It takes a lot of effort and does require some investment into it, even though it’s much more easier to do. So don’t get me wrong, we have access to a lot of technology, but then there’s a lot of bad technology as well. So then you have to navigate, you have to know which technology you want to invest in and best for your choice in the area that you’re in because everybody lives in a different place and has access to different technology. But you’re having an understanding of those principles can help you and to have the best sound that’s possible in your setup.
And by the time this episode goes out, Kahn, you have a resource that will be available on the Blue Vineyard site. You want to just mention a little bit about what’s in that? Sure. We have been working on a resource for ministry leaders and for laymen about podcasting. We want to encourage you to get into sharing about your story or with your community about podcasting and through that avenue be able to win souls for Christ. So check that out. It’s on our website. It’s going to help you to go through all the basics of how to start a podcast, including your big idea, you know, making like shaping your story and your concept all the way through marketing and sharing your content.
Yeah, absolutely. That will be on our site, which is bluevineyard.com slash audio. So if you go and check that out right now, you should be able to access those that course for free if you’re if you’re interested. So just as we do get toward the end of our discussion, kind of I just just to make this a bit a bit tactical. Maybe if you could share the maybe the top three things. And obviously, I know there’s multiple places we’ve talked about podcasting, we’ve talked about music, we’ve talked about local church audio, maybe if you could give one piece of advice to each of those categories of what’s something that you that people could do that would easily improve their game.
So first of all, I would recommend that you invest in quality gear like I just mentioned earlier. Don’t invest in something that is cheap. And just because you want to save money and look good on the board. No, like actually by quality gear that’s going to last for many years. And don’t don’t just last but then also it’s going to not get dated and it’s going to send the test of time and it’s going to be the highest quality that you can get at that certain time. And you have to also know how to maintain their equipment as well. Knowing how to coil cables and cleaning your equipment after it’s being used and putting it away and making sure that it’s in a safe location.
All these things can help you to make sure that your gear is going to stand going to last for a long time.
So that’s that’s what I would recommend people who are looking to invest in for church audio. The same principle applies to home home audio as well and podcasting and everything. I would also recommend you contact your conference for support as well. I know local conferences usually have a media department. So I’d recommend if your church is looking to get upgrades and stuff, go talk to the conference. They usually will help you find deals to get good deals on gear.
I would also recommend that you encourage your congregations to start sharing stories and share engaging content because what we’re seeing now is that there’s a lot of content that is not really reaching people because it’s not the content that is the algorithms that are being used in the mediums that people are currently accessing their information from, especially in social media. So trying to adapt your content to short form and long form formats can really help to make sure your content is being seen and heard by your community. I hope that kind of touches on some basis that can help you and your church’s ministry and improve your audio.
That’s great. That’s great. So you said that kind of that covers all of them, right? Like is that what you were saying? So that covers all three categories? I’ll say so. Were you setting up for different ones? Yeah, okay. All right. I’ll say so. I mean, like the same principle applies. Pretty all the cumbersome. Yeah. I was surprised. I gave you the three because I thought he’s going to say, well, it’s a different answer for all of them. So I thought I’d give you three options, but look at you, you know, juice it all down into one hyper useful set of recommendations.
Of course, it’s always good to register on like cura and stuff and continue to watch the reviews of latest equipment as well, especially for people who are looking to get into more home setups because you’re going to be able to hear from different professionals. Don’t be afraid to go and talk with people who are, you know, on these blogs and stuff because a lot of the times there’s some really good, they could be really helpful and resource for. Yeah. And yeah, so I think if you want, I think I know if you have any questions about what you’re doing and one of the things we haven’t really talked about is the specific services that that we’re offering.
So there’s like three, three main services that all also be on the blue then you.com slash audio site. But can you do you want to just before we wrap up, just mention the main lines of service that you’ll be offering with blue then you. Sure. So we offer services for musicians for podcasters and for consultation services for our churches. So we want to help musicians to be able to present music that is going to be of a high quality and to do that, we want to provide resources to help you to become better composers, better, better at monetizing your content.
And also we want to provide you with services for editing, mixing, mastering your, your music. We also want to provide services for podcasters. That means we want to help you to know the steps that it takes to set up a podcast. We don’t just want to help you to do that. We also want you to have the best services available in terms of mixing and mastering and editing. If you’re not good at those things, we want to link you and provide you with people who can actually make your podcasts 100% better, crystal clear, so then it can appeal to your market.
We also want to help churches in terms of consultation. So if you have a project that you’re working on to start up an audio public address system in your church, we can assist with writing up a plan for your church and making recommendations for your church. And even we have a possibility of coming and visiting the church and having a site visit. So we are offering those services to Adventist musicians, podcasters and churches. And we pray that it will be a real blessing. And I think it’s a great need in our world today and it can help us to complete the work of spreading the gospel to all the world.
Excellent summary. So thanks so much for that, Khan. For all of you who are listening, please, as I said, check out that page on our site, bluevignan.com. And there’s a form right there where you can send a message and Khan will get back to you about from that page. So anyway, we will leave it there. Thank you for joining us. And we look forward to catching you soon for another episode. See ya. We hope this episode of Adventist Waves has given you a fresh perspective on how media can be a powerful tool for ministry.
If you enjoyed today’s conversation, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review and connect with us on social media. You can also support our work directly by becoming a patron at patreon.com forward slash Adventist underscore waves. Our generosity enables us to produce more high quality content and reach a wider audience. Special thanks to our production team at BlueVignard Audio and our producer, editor, mixer and sound designer, Khan Elmuz. We’ll see you next week as we continue to explore the art of sharing the gospel through sound. Adventist Waves. Thank you.
Summary:
This episode of “Adventist Waves” features a conversation between Luke, the host, and Khan, a new member of the Blue Vineyard team. Khan shares his personal journey, going from a non-Christian background to becoming a devoted follower of Jesus. We learn about his studies in audio engineering, his decision to pursue ministry, and his experiences volunteering in Africa.
The conversation then shifts to the Adventist music scene, where Khan emphasizes the importance of supporting and encouraging musicians within the church. He stresses the need for a sustainable ecosystem for Adventist musicians, exploring various income streams like royalties, touring, and online platforms like Patreon and Fiverr. He also shares his passion for storytelling and using technology to create engaging content.
Khan closes by providing three key recommendations for those involved in church audio, podcasting, and music ministry: invest in quality gear, seek support from the conference, and focus on creating engaging and innovative content to reach a wider audience.
Podcast Description:
In this episode of “Adventist Waves,” we delve into the world of audio with Khan, a freelance audio engineer and new member of the Blue Vineyard team. Khan shares his journey of faith, his passion for audio engineering, and his insights on the Adventist music scene. Learn about the opportunities and challenges facing Adventist musicians today, and discover practical advice for improving your church’s audio, launching a podcast, or building a successful music ministry. Join us as we explore the exciting world of audio and its potential to spread the gospel!
Welcome to Adventist Waves. Get ready to turn up the volume as we dive into the inspiring story of Ernie Hernandez, a sound engineer who found his calling in the heart of Music Ministry. Let’s roll. Ernie and his wife Laura write and produce music together. It’s their ministry. They even have an expensive homemade recording studio. Listen as he shares the secrets for this resourceful studio setup.
Sure yeah, so it came out of necessity. So for people that don’t know, me and my wife we do Music Ministry and she’s a singer. And I’m an audio engineer by trade because I went to college for audio engineering. So as we got together, as we got married, as we began our work together within the ministry, clearly the most important part of her side of the music is to record things like vocals and in the best environment possible. Of course, a lot of us people that know anything about music industry, we usually think of the old-timey ways of doing stuff. And what I mean by that is like people have the mentality that we have to go to a multi-million dollar music studio. Like it’s the only way to get quality recording. And I found through just through YouTube channels, through the schooling that I had, that building your own studio or a space where you can just do proper recordings, even though it’s not in the millions of dollars, you can actually get better results now because of the technology that has advanced in the last 20, 30 years. It’s actually way better than it was even 20, 30 years ago. So it’s just a matter of utilizing how to record correctly.
So yeah, I kind of built our own little sound booth and it’s taken on a few iterations, but we kind of settled on one that is now cost-effective, is a lot easier to move around. And yeah, it seems to be working for us right now. So how much did you actually spend on that thing? It’d definitely be less than $200 for sure. So the newer one we have built is just basically built out of the, I don’t know what to call it, styrofoam, but yeah, it’s like the insulation that you would buy at Home Depot. It’s like a big board that’s like eight foot. Then it has like some thickness to it because it’s basically for super insulating the house. And you use that as walls. And then I just cut up some, some basically some sound panels that I got from Amazon that I bought, you know, seven years ago or whatever. And then I filled it on, filled it in on the inside and it works pretty well.
And yeah, it just kind of gets us through before that, I like I built a whole box out of wood. And I built an actual box and that was just more expensive. And this was way easier to move around. If I need to take it down, I can literally like move it like it weighs almost nothing because it’s styrofoam and it sounds great. That’s awesome. I was also watching a video of, I think back in 2020, I think it was and you had like a little studio and your, before you began your, and then before you had your house there, you were recording in your, your wife’s parents’ home in their closet as well. And you just put some, some sound insulation on the back of the wall there and you were just recording into the closet, right? Yeah, that’s what we had to do.
And actually me and Laura, you know, when we were first traveling, we were still working on albums. So I recorded in multiple closets throughout the States here, like just because we needed to get those things done. And they all relatively sounded the same. So they worked out pretty well. I guess every closet is a closet, right? And some did. Yeah. As long as you just put the work in, like it, most people won’t notice. I notice now as I’m looking back on my work, but most people don’t care.
San Bernardino, Southern California is where Ernie’s passion for sound first took root. Journey back with us to his childhood, where Tinkerin with Legos and playing guitar ignited his lifelong love for music. Sure. Yeah. I grew up in Southern California in a really big county called San Bernardino County. There’s a little city there called Colton. That’s where I spent most of my adolescence into kind of adulthood or early adulthood and that kind of thing. So yeah, Southern California. It’s an interesting place. I’ll just say that, man. But I loved it down there. My family, you know, they moved down there many generations ago. I think they immigrated from, from somewhere down in Mexico. So, you know, here we are.
I think I’ve always been pretty articulate with things like, I like being hands on, I like physically doing something, something that takes patience, something that takes the time to do correctly, so that kind of stuff. So I mean, I can imagine as a kid, like I was really into Legos and Legos kind of led into like the beianicle thing, which was like, it was a whole thing. Some people don’t want to talk about it. That’s okay. But then it moved into other things as I got more articulate. I was like, oh, well, I would love to learn guitar. That seems technically hard, right? And it would take time to do that. And of course, I picked out music as a means to do that. And guitar playing was one of my biggest hobbies. So I think it just started when I was young. I like just like doing things with my hands and carried it into what I do now. And now I’m doing things with my ears though. So that’s kind of interesting.
Did you, do you have friends who are like that as well? Like you have a group of friends you were? No, see that, that’s a good question. And I don’t think I really had too many friends. I think throughout the years as I’m looking back on my life, I think in every period of my life, I had like one solid friend and I would just kind of cling on to that one friend. And I didn’t really need anybody else other than that one friend. So as I got older and then you know, you get high school ends and people go separate ways and you make new friends or whatever. Yeah, it was kind of that way up until I eventually moved out of California. But yeah, just, it wasn’t like that with other people. It was just, just me. Like that’s how I was doing. And even in, even getting into my adulthood, like I put down a guitar and I picked up like doing card magic because it was so hands on and I also was trying to quit smoking. So I just carried on through that and still in adulthood, I’m still doing too many hobbies that I don’t have time for.
Growing up, Ernie’s life wasn’t just about music. This unique family situation had a deep impact on his creative spirit. This set him on a path towards a very unique calling. Sure. Yeah, I would say my family’s home life was strained to say the least. So like I’m an adopted child. My mother was an addict. So I was adopted within the family. So it wasn’t like I went through foster care or anything. But that kind of really put into motion a lot of other problems in my life. But in general, I had a hard time coming to grips with who am I? What is my purpose? Why am I here? So when you go into primary school and you meet all these other kids that have both their father and mother and I don’t, and then even my skin complexion is much lighter than my adopted family, they left me with some pretty deep seated emotions and problems, if you will, trauma, I guess you want to say that. I could feel like the millennial would think to say trauma, but like that’s kind of what it was. So by the time I get into school and all that, I’m trying to integrate. I’m trying to have those social skills. You’re building those things as a kid, but I was still pretty reclusive. Now, ironically, I’m pretty extroverted. So I like people. I’ve been around people. I love talking and doing all that kind of stuff. But as a kid, I wasn’t. I wasn’t that way for a long time.
That really carried on into high school. And I did find a good score group of individuals and I had one decent friend in each of those periods of my life. But it was with other people that felt the same way. So a lot of other outcasts and that kind of thing. So I kind of followed. You would know this as an individual. I kind of went into kind of like the punk rock heavy metal scene, at least in my generation was more the millennial emo phase, if you will, if you want to get into the history of it all. But it all comes out of that anti-establishing aggression, angst, you know, that kind of stuff. And I found my solace there with my friends that all felt the same way and that kind of thing. So I still kept a lot of things back and I didn’t, I wasn’t very open as I am now in my adult life. But I just surrounded myself with other people that felt like me. And yeah. But yeah, but the circle rack around to your question, I’m sorry I didn’t answer it completely. My family life was strained because of those things. So feeling different, feeling like I don’t belong, you know, that really put a load of my family, especially towards my adopted mother, the one that took me in.
So we had a lot of conflict there and a lot of stuff wasn’t ever resolved because I was so young and I had a hard time articulating how it was feeling. She had a hard time understanding because, you know, she was only 18 when she took me. So she had no experience about this kind of stuff. So it just kind of festered and festered and got worse and worse. And I went deeper and deeper into my, you know, my thing here with all this, you know, rock and roll, punk and rock and heavy metal, all that kind of stuff. And she was trying to learn as an apparent and all that kind of stuff. So it really exploded by the time I got into my adulthood. And when I turned like 18 and I was about to graduate high school, actually got thrown out. So then I was completely on my own. Like, and that’s a whole other story. But yeah, so it was, it was kind of rough. Let me put it that way.
From childhood dreams to a defined career path, hear how a pivotal moment led Ernie to embrace the world of audio engineering and dedicate his life to perfecting sound. Let me give it to you shortly. I think I got into audio engineering because of my beginning with playing guitar, right? So starting with music. I had an older brother, my biological older brother. He picked up guitar. I think he played in a, like he played in the Sunday church. It was like a youth service and stuff in the morning. And I remember attending his church when I was like 11 or 12 or something. And it was cool to see him like on the stage, if you will, you know, playing guitar and all that kind of stuff. And I think that planted the seed to, hey, you know, maybe you want to be just like your brother and play guitar, that kind of thing. So I think that’s how it started.
And then I had a grandmother that, you know, wanted to encourage me in my interest and stuff. So when I mentioned it, she ended up buying me a guitar for when I was 13 and kind of stuff. So it kind of led from there. And as I moved into my adulthood, as I got into this type of music, that’s the kind of stuff I learned how to play. Eventually as I get into ending high school and going on this journey where it was kind of kicked out of the house, I was also surrounded by a bunch of other individuals that liked that kind of stuff. So I continued to play music. And then by the time I finally moved back home a little bit more in my adulthood, early life, I was like 2021. That’s all I had. I’ve longed to music most of my life and all that time. I put a lot of my emphasis there. So it just made sense to kind of get into music and audio engineering because they kind of go hand in hand. Although I did have a lot of dreams. I wanted to get into graphic design and do like video games and build that kind of stuff. But I wasn’t articulate enough in the sense that I didn’t like drawing, which ironically is what you would do if you’re a video game creator. You have to do all these kind of things. And it was a lot easier to get into music. So that’s a long story short. But yeah, I think it started with me playing guitar and here we are. I’m still doing music.
When Ernie was younger, his brother made a big impact in his life. But there was also a big development going on in the music industry in California at this time. This played a big role in influencing him to pursue a career in the music industry. Yeah, yeah. I think it was a little bit of, I mean, at least playing guitar. I know it was because of my brother. I want to be like your older brother. I want to be as cool as him and all that kind of stuff. So I definitely looked up to him, even though our relationship was strained and I didn’t see him very often. He wasn’t like a constant thing in my life. But the little moments I did have with him was that kind of stuff. At least for the music, I think that demographic of music, that genre focuses, I want to say solely and maybe correct me if I’m wrong or others that are kind of in this. But it focuses on those types of emotions, that aggression that you have, that emptiness that you have, this longing to feel like you belong somewhere, all that kind of stuff.
So the music I was taking in, especially in the early 2000s, there was quite a boom in just music making in general. You can see the literal shift in the music industry that was like, there was all these successful bands that record companies were taken care of and putting out to the masses and then simultaneously all these like at your home studio kind of things started popping up. And with the boom of the internet with things like social media just starting like MySpace, there were these brand new bands that were building off the building blocks from before them. So at least in my world, I clung to that music already and then that music went through this dramatic change because now it was transferred over to just individuals like myself, young people like myself, and they were making music and they were doing whatever they wanted to do and it was an amazing time to be listening to this kind of stuff because it was just happening all around you. So I think that’s why I clung to it. It got me when I was young, it was something I already had an interest in and then as I was growing, I just kept seeing it change and I was like, wow, this is just powerful, things are just happening so quickly.
Now we have subgenres, subgenres and these people are almost so close to touch and social media was the very first time. It’s like, wow, this band is only down the road, like they’re based out of here or this person’s over there and it was an interesting time. But I think that’s why I clung to music because it was so real and so attainable. Ernie was not a Christian at this point in time. He would give his heart to Christ when he was 22, but back when he was 21, he started to study audio production. Yeah, so I just turned 21 and I had to move back home, I exhausted all the places when I was homeless and I lost a job and I had nowhere else to go so I went back home. And so it was about 21 and I had rolled into a college down the road or down in San Bernardino so it’s a little farther. But yeah, they had an audio program and a million dollar studio and I was like, oh, I can do music, I play guitar, all that kind of stuff and they kind of sold me on the idea, you know, graduates from this college, they end up in million dollar studios or they end up doing live sound gigging, you know, they do big concerts and all that kind of stuff and it seemed too good to be true and I signed up for it and just kind of dove head first into learning production and what that looks like in this generation with the digital audio workstations, if you will. So what did you end up doing with that initially? Yeah, I didn’t do much. I was going through the motions in my life at this moment. Like, I had the interest in audio engineering but I was kind of doing it out of obligation.
One of my stipulations for coming back home after I turned 21 was like I needed a job or to get into college. So I did both of them so I had some security. So I kind of went into it a little blind and just kind of going to flow and just hoping that it kind of worked out. But as I was studying, I was realizing that this was intuitively creative, it challenges me, it’s quite difficult in some parts and I just love this. I love creating things. Like it was like this playground of whatever you can come up with, whatever you can physically record, whatever you can manipulate it to, you can just make it happen. And so as I’m going through school, I started to really like enjoy the process of recording and throwing sounds together and just being creative. All of a sudden now I can do something. It was like being introduced to Legos all over again. It’s just like, I can just building blocks, I can make something. So yeah, it led me down the path and I definitely wanted to get into recording but I was totally happy to get into live sound if all else failed. I would do geeking. That would be totally fine with me. What started off as a curiosity ended up being a lifelong passion. I only loved to use those creative energies to make stuff and record other people’s music. Yeah. Yeah, from there I got into recording other musicians and that kind of stuff, getting started with that and quite enjoyed it. I really enjoyed post-production with sound design and all that kind of stuff but it’s a field that is very competitive and it was actually a lot easier to record other musicians than try to be a sound design person but I still enjoy it quite a bit. Whenever I can do it I try to.
When Ernie crossed paths with his wife Laura, their connection wasn’t just about love, it was about a shared passion for music. Prepared to be inspired by their heartwarming love story and the powerful way their talents intertwined. Yeah, so I met her around the time I moved back home, so roughly 2021, that kind of thing. As I enrolled into college, one of my best friends at the time because I usually only have one core friend, he actually got a job next to this pizzeria and I was a big pot smoker. I was in the scene, man. I was in the world and he had this job at a smoke shop that was literally attached to this, I don’t know, triplex so all of the businesses were on one side of the building so it was a water place and there was a smoke shop and then it was this pizzeria and a barber. So what else do you need in life, right? Food and a good haircut and some hydro therapy. I don’t know.
But it turns out my wife, Laura, as a traveling musician, her brother, her half brother actually owned the pizzeria with him and his wife and she was on tour down there and she was working at the pizzeria one day and I happened to be at my friend’s smoke shop because it was his first day on the job and Laura comes outside and I saw her, she saw me and then she went back inside. I guess we were a little intimidating. But long story short, I ended up going in, getting a pizza, sort of talking to her. She had her own CD out on the front desk and she was selling CDs while she was in town and I was like, you sell CDs, you’re a musician. She was like, yeah, I do this. I’m a traveling missionary, I go to church to church and I was like, I’m an audio engineer. I’m in the school, like 20, 30 minutes down the road. If you need someone to record you, I could be that guy. There’s a million dollar studio, we can get that done. So I gave her my number, come to find out. She just threw it in the trash but what can you do? But that’s kind of how it started. I got to know her. I found out a friend of mine actually from high school was working at the pizzeria also. So my best friend was next door at the smoke shop. I had an old friend from high school in the pizzeria, Laura’s this musician and they were doing things all the time with the pizzeria so I just kept showing up and I became one with the family there and occasionally would work for them and that kind of stuff. That led to other things. I don’t know how far you want to go with the story but that’s how we met my wife.
Her partnership would develop after they recorded a track together. Ernie and Laura began by collaborating musically, creating beautiful harmonies together. Yeah, it did work out. As I was getting into finals week I needed to record an artist and I didn’t know anybody at the time that I could record any person that I did know they already had recorded with a different student. So I was like, who am I going to do? I was like, hey Laura, I really need you to do a solid like this is just for a grade. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I just need to record something and edit it. Would you mind doing that with me? She was like, sure, I would love to see what a studio looks like. It could be a good experience for her. It’d be good for me. So we went in and we actually did a cover of Hallelujah. I forget the original author but most of us know the one from Buck something. He plays guitar and it’s that big Hallelujah song. So I played it on acoustic guitar and then she sang right there in the vocal booth just like the first couple of verses in a chorus. So technically we have a recording in a million dollar studio together as a couple, as a team if you will. But no one’s ever heard it except for us. Yeah, yeah, more or less it was music oriented.
As I look back now I think it’s really similar to like Johnny Cash’s story when he met his wife. He was already doing music and his wife does music. He was like a bad boy from the world that had this conversion because of his wife and all that kind of stuff. So I think it’s pretty cool and how we travel and do it together, it’s powerful. Their music has taken them on incredible adventures. Get ready to travel alongside Ernie and Laura as they share stories of their music ministry journey. I can do it. I’ll give it to you short. It started as we got married. That’s the short answer. But you can imagine I went through a conversion experience because of certain circumstances and studying the Bible for myself. So that eventually led me to finish up my college. I got my degree. I got an associate’s degree in audio science. And then I made the very abrupt decision to leave California and move up to Washington with Laura and her family. And for about a year, maybe a year and a half, maybe a little less, me and her worked on two albums back to back.
So for that year, we were getting to know one another, we were thinking about the prospects of marriage, but we’re working on music together for almost a whole year. And at the end of that, we finished two albums. We did a duet album with a friend of hers that is a musician who plays guitar. His name is Darryl Sawyer. A fantastic guy. I love him. His music’s great. And then me and Laura finished up her first album that we did together called In the Garden. And then as we were like, she was going to go on tour again, which was going to be like nine months or something long. She was like, I can’t go on tour if we’re not married or together. Like we can’t do it together unless we’re an actual couple. And then we were like, wow, maybe we should just get married. Doesn’t that just make sense? If we’re going to continue to do this, let’s just do it now and get it done. So ironically, the family and me and Laura, we were thinking about getting married. We’re not sure if this is the right thing to do. What do you guys think about this? And they were like, well, I mean, that’s what you’ve been here to do, right? You’ve been spending time with us. You’ve gotten to know Laura. You’ve learned a lot as a new Christian. Let’s pray about it for a week. And then after that, we’ll see what happens. So we prayed Sabbath a Sabbath basically, so seven days straight. And by the time we got to that next Sabbath, everybody had a general consensus that this is exactly what the Lord wants. No one had any impressions that this wasn’t right or this wasn’t the right thing for us to do. So we made that decision then and there. Let’s get married. And we had about three months before she was going to go on tour. So we made the very first stop of the very first church, the place where we were going to get married. And so we got married Saturday. We did a concert there Sunday, and we just haven’t stopped doing concerts since.
So as soon as we got married, we got into ministry together, and we just continued to go on. And we sold those two records that we made together that whole year before we got married. So that’s how we began. And that’s, you know, here we are seven years later, and we’re still making records and doing music and traveling. From humble beginnings to a successful ministry, you’re going to discover how God’s provision has been woven into every step of their journey from acquiring equipment to reaching new people. Yeah. So how do I put this? So as Laura was touring before we were married and we were going to work on that album, she had done some fundraisers at her concerts. So she was like flying here and there and doing big events. And she saved enough money to just buy the essential, so an interface, a microphone, you know, cables and that kind of thing. And then I used a tax return that I had from working to buy a decent computer about like a 2015 MacBook. And it was perfect for what we needed. And so with that, we just kind of started recording. We used, we used scrap things around the house to build our first sound booth. And we bought some sound panels, some super cheap ones. And we just got recording. But as we got into ministry, there was other needs.
So as a traveling musician, you would definitely need some type of PA system, right, to perform and that kind of thing. So that was one of the bigger ones. We also needed a vehicle. So as we got married, we also, we took all the money that we didn’t really spend on our wedding because everybody was super cheap and the church was free and the people there were, that’s all a whole other story. But all the, you know, the gifts we got from that, we used that money to buy our first car together. And it was a bigger SUV and it was perfect for us. And then as we were traveling, we’re really needing to get a PA. And we went to a local church down in San Francisco and there happened to be an audio engineer there that also does piano music. So he’s like, he was trained in piano music, but he does a lot of audio stuff. I can’t remember because it was so many years ago. But as we were talking to him and we were mentioning what we’re trying to do with our ministry, you know, where we’re at right now, he was like, I have a bunch of PA systems that I don’t really use very often. I have a few different, you know, variations. I’ve used them for things in the church. Some churches, you know, helped me buy it and this event and that event. Would you mind, you know, would you want one of these things? And me and Laura was like, absolutely, like this would be perfect for us. We’ve been praying about this for weeks, weeks and months. And so our very first PA system was gifted to us by a fellow musician and we used that PA system for the next year and a half or so before we can save up enough to buy a better one if you will. And so it’s been a lot of that. It’s just like, Lord, we’re in need of this. It’s out of our control to obtain it. Please help us. And every step of the way, the Lord has made it very possible for us to obtain those things, whether it be microphones, whether it be other cars, whether it be equipment and, you know, monitors and computers, like all of that, the Lord has just opened up the way as needed for us.
And we just make good decisions that will last. Like we’re not buying the cheap stuff of it just to get by, but making quality purchases and they’ve carried us in the ministry and it’s been great. Seven years of marriage and ministry have brought countless blessings and achievements. Join Ernie as he reflects on some of the most significant milestones and moments that have shaped the path. The bigger things we have accomplished, I mean, me and Laura have put out, you know, nine records in seven years, which in and of ourselves, I mean, you ask any other musician that has been in crazy, crazy amount of content, if you will. Most musicians don’t do stuff like that. They put out, you know, a record every couple years. We’ve bumped more than one out almost every year, which is just nuts and crazy, I guess. But so that’s one of the bigger things we have accomplished. We’ve also really established ourselves as is more than just a music ministry, I think, especially now as we’re getting into the later years of our ministry. We still do music that is our sole focus is around music, but we have found ourselves throughout the years of going to churches and doing concerts, that the churches are in great need of uplifting music.
Yes, sometimes they’ll take home, something they’ll meditate upon. But when you do events like that, those in person events, it’s more of a time of reconciliation, not only with you and the audience, but people of the congregation are in need too. Also there’s a great need for reform in our churches and people’s lives. And then on top of all that, as we’ve traveled and met so many people, people are going through a lot. There’s a lot of tragedies. There’s a lot of difficulties, a lot of strife and whatever facet that comes in, whether it be, you know, personal things, family things, church oriented things, which happens quite a lot. It’s kind of those things we wanted to focus on as we do concerts. So I think as professionals, we’ve really realized the need of the music we produce and the reason we’re making these songs, they all have to have purpose and meaning behind them. It just can’t be a collection of songs that we like or we think that others are going to like. It has to have its own mission. So as me and Laura have made all these records, we’ve made it a great point to, every time we do an album, it has a purpose.
So as we moved from just doing music, we got into like one of our first big albums that we really focused this idea on is called Redeeming Love. And it goes through Desire of Ages with subsequently songs that tie into each of the chapters of the Desire of Ages. So you go from the crucifixion all the way down to, you know, the second coming of the Lord, right? And we had narrations of the Desire of Ages in between songs that are like all tied together. And then we finished that record, we moved on to another one. We were like, let’s make a children’s album, but not children’s music where it’s all hokey pokey, you know, like too kiddish. So let’s make something that’s mature enough that children will love, but it will be adult enough that they will also be able to grow up with it. So we moved this, we did this children’s album and that led us to our next album and our next album. So it’s, I think those are the big pivotal things we have achieved with our music. It went from just like being a hobby and like being popular songs into like the music itself is a mission. And what we do with this is a mission. And as long as we say mission minded, the Lord has opened up incredible opportunities to reach others with the gospel and with reconciliation and all these kinds of things. And that’s what we want to solely focus on, especially now as we’re getting into the later half of our music missionary journey, if you will.
Of course, no journey is without its share of laughter and learning experiences. Over the years, it has helped them realize the calling that God has for their lives. So many things have happened for us. I mean, from cars breaking down in the middle of nowhere and the Lord worked it out. And we got it fixed and moved on the way to albums we could not afford. Then a donation comes in that totally covers it. I mean, it just, the list goes on prayers that are answered. I had a lot of reservations as I got into the early years of our ministry. This is, you know, Laura’s thing. Laura has been doing, by the time I met her, she was doing this like for eight years straight. So as I come into working with her and also being married to one other, it was my purpose, or at least I thought it was my purpose, to just support her in her music the best I can. So anytime we went to a church, I ran PA systems. I helped the church like to fix audio. And I was just the guy behind the scenes. But I think the, as Laura would want it, and as she was realizing this, she wanted me to be more a part of the ministry. So we did something together and it wasn’t so much focused on her. So people are coming to see her because she is the musician and people love her music. You know what I mean? It’s only possible because we are working together.
So I think one of the biggest things that the Lord has done and it was, because Lord also prompted me. So I think the Lord worked through her is to bring me more, I don’t want to say upstage with her, but like to bring us in the same place where we’re actually a team. And it wasn’t just like one person’s the face. Now we’re doing it together. And because of that, that whole shift of me, you know, I thought I should just be the background person and run audio. But Laura and the Lord, I guess, they wanted to me to actually share my story. That’s when I think our ministry has taken the biggest turn towards the direction of being more effectual, if you will, because we’re sharing our story together. I’m sharing with other people what it’s like for me to be a convert. A lot of the churches, you know, they don’t think about these kinds of stuff. Or it’s been so long that they’ve had new converts come into the church. When I come in, it’s like, Oh, this is why we need to be a living church. This is why we have to, you know, actually spread the gospel for people like me that were so destitute and we’re going through all these things. And it just took, you know, Christian sharing the gospel with with a person like him and his whole life change, you know, kind of thing.
So I think that’s the by far the biggest thing that the Lord has done. I did make a YouTube video on one of the biggest stories, I guess, how the Lord kind of saved our house as we were built in a house. I would definitely encourage anybody that’s listening to go check that out. I think it is titled that how the Lord’s saved our house or something. Yeah, it’s a great video about impossible things that God set up like weeks before. And it’s that’s pretty cool. So I definitely check that out. Ernie had a passion for helping to improve the media of the church because he witnessed the change that has been taking place in the audio world. He wanted to help the church catch up to the technology, but he realized that God had another calling for his life. Yeah. Yeah. And it took some time to realize that. And I think I knew that as I became a convert and came into the church, I did see the church had a great need for dealing with media based stuff. Like it just seemed like they were behind the times or they just were not utilizing it. Like, you know what I mean? Like, like I started when we first started talking here, like I in my generation, I’ve seen how technology has literally changed in that course of those 10, 15 years from the internet, you know, into the digital age. And it seemed like the churches were only stuck in like 20 years ago, which is like, Hey, we’re you’re 20 years behind and so much has happened. And as an audio engineer, someone that deals with media stuff all day, you guys need to know this because it’s only going to get more important for you to understand this. So I thought I was doing a better job just being behind the scenes. And I thought I was doing good. And I was to tell you the truth. But as Lord has brought me forward, I think now people are really paying attention and seeing and as we as me and Laura continue to do media based things, it’s becoming more apparent. And the demographic that churches is changing to we have younger people coming in and some some of the older people are finally finally allowing things to change all that kind of stuff. So but that is a different topic.
Now it’s time for our tech corner break. Tech enthusiasts get ready. Ernie shares his favorite audio gear and tech essentials. Tune in for valuable insights and recommendations that can elevate your own music ministry. Yeah, I have like three answers here. Like my quality cables, like quality cables will last. I have had this one cable for seven years and it’s never given me any problems. I wrap it correctly. It has just lasted I beat this thing up and it still works and there’s no problems with it. So don’t buy cheap things because they will break on you and you’ll be replacing them and in the end you’ll spend more money. So by quality cables, when you get into music ministry, that kind of thing, I would aim to buy better audio interfaces. I know there are some that are less than $100 and it looks really appealing, but they’re noisy and they will give you other problems when you get into mixing, all that kind of stuff later. And though these converters and the audios and the kind of things are way better than it was 10, 20, 15 years ago, they still can sell you stuff that isn’t great. So again, kind of re-emphasizing by quality things. So get a really good interface. It doesn’t have to cost you too much, but if you get a really good interface and you have sort of a cheaper mic, it’ll sound better. If you get a really bad interface and you have a really expensive mic, well, that expensive mic’s not going to sound good because the interface is not good. So it’s kind of one of those things. So I think those two are probably the tech corner kind of side of stuff. Good quality cables and then a very good audio interface. And of course, as you round it out, by solid headphones that are actually meant for mixing audio or editing audio, don’t use consumer headphones like beats or AirPods or stuff that is only meant for listening to music. You need to get headphones that are dedicated to editing music. That is made the biggest change in our ministry and most people I talk to, that’s one of the first things I share with them. And it makes all the world a difference as you’re getting into this space.
Their music ministry continues to inspire many people around the globe. They are working on some interesting projects. So let’s explore some of them. Absolutely. Right now we’re currently in between three projects. The first one being the biggest project that I’ve ever worked on. So in my life as I’ve got into the media field, I actually picked up doing video editing, videography if you will. And that’s a whole story. I basically got into it because I thought it’d be cool to make vlogs and stuff for YouTube and my family because I’ve never traveled outside of California and all that kind of stuff. And then that eventually led into, hey, you can still use videos as it means a mission too. So that led me doing topical videos and led me to focusing on that kind of stuff. All that to say, right now in my project that I’m working on, this really big project, I’ve actually gone back and I’ve interviewed both my biological mom and my adopted family and my sister. And I’m putting together this four part or four episode series, a video series of my entire testimony. So there’s a lot of other moving factors in my life. Why was I adopted? What were the circumstances? What was going on in both of my mother’s lives? Why did you give me up? Or why did my adopted mother embrace me? And I got their stories and I learned a lot as I’m looking back on my life and hearing from them personally that there were so many unforeseen things that I didn’t know about. And I wish I would have known them when I was younger because it would have brought me a lot of understanding at the time. But because I was young and because they were trying to figure out life still and all that kind of stuff, it got pushed back and eventually that’s what led me down my path and whatever.
So I’m working on this huge project. It’s already been almost a year and two months and I’m still working on it. I have one episode left and I’m going to try to finish it this summer. So that’s our biggest project right now. And then for me, Laura, of course, we’re pumping out new albums. So we were secretly doing this, I guess it’s not so much a secret now, but we’re doing a Christmas album or a holiday album this year. It’s not necessarily a Christmas. I’m not supposed to say that. I always talk to Laura about that, but it’s focused around those kind of thematic things of the holidays, if you will. And so that’s a really big one. And then the next one immediately after that follows the lines of what I was talking about earlier with the redeeming love that was Desire of Ages and then Songs. Laura has had this idea that we should do the great controversy and then do a list of songs with that. So we’re going to go and put basically an album together, 10 to 13, 14 songs that tie together the whole great controversy and we’re going to get somebody to narrate it. We’re looking really high. We’re aiming really high. We have a pretty high list person we would like to hire. We don’t know how much they’re going to cost or if it’s going to be possible, but he would be a grade for us. If not, we have some other plans. So basically, yeah, That’s on the Horizon is a great controversy album and that’ll go through the whole story condensed, of course, and then have these corresponding songs that will tie together with the history of the great controversy, you know, the reformers and all that kind of stuff and how the Lord has led through the generations to the very end of time where we are right now. So those are our big three right now and we’re getting so close I can almost taste it, but it just takes time.
You know, this concept is time consuming over the past two years, he has been teaching audio engineering classes. He shares his experience. Yeah, so Heartland College reached out to me, I think three years ago. And from what I understand, they had someone that was teaching audio, but he had other obligations this one year and they were kind of scrambling to find an audio engineer. And it happened that I think a fellow musician, a friend of Laura’s that she’s worked with many years ago or has heard about her music. I’m not quite sure now had recommended, you know, me because he knew that I was an engineer. And so they reached out and I was like, yeah, I’d be more than willing to teach. You know, I enjoy doing audio. I’ve done a lot of teaching, traveling on the road, you know, I do a lot of live sound teaching because a lot of sound boards aren’t really set up correctly when you go to church. That’s a whole other story. But they’re, they looked at my resume, they saw, you know, I made at that point, you know, four or five records that my YouTube channel had a lot of videos and they, they felt like they knew me all that kind of stuff. So I took the job and it was fun. That first year was great. I put together a whole syllabus and it really regrounded me in my roots, you know, because as you get into a field of type of work, you kind of forget the basics. So as I was putting together my lesson plan, like, so as I was putting together my lesson plan, I actually was like reaffirming the things that I learned from school and putting it together also made me a better engineer because it was like going back to the fundamentals and kind of stuff.
So I’ve taught there two years now. I’ve just finished, like I think today was one of my last classes at Heartland for the, for the trimester or whatever. So I’ll probably teach then again there next year or the year after something like that. And it’s been good. I love teaching education. This is something the church needs. It’s something I’ve noticed a long time ago. Here was an opportunity to teach and I absolutely took it and I just try to teach as much as possible. So if anything else comes up like that, I will probably be very open to sharing what I can, what I can, you know. Not only does he want to help educate the church about audio engineering, but he also wants to explore the possibility of working on audio projects in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Well, I’ll start by saying I don’t know if there is any huge audio based projects going on in the church right now. So maybe that’s on my end. I’m not looking close enough. But I think just because of something that I enjoy doing, I think I would love to do something post-production oriented with whatever film or short story or documentary that the church may be working on or something like that. I personally would wish that they were doing something more in the, like another digital space. Like so, like I said, I wanted to get into video game design. I think our message and the truth that had been passed down to us would translate very well if someone built like a Bible oriented game, a video game of some sorts. And I would love to be someone that’s a part of something like that, to do sound design for that kind of stuff. Or even if it wasn’t that, move into doing music with one of the more popular musicians in our church. I think doing a big project like that would be incredible to be a part of and all that kind of stuff.
But yeah, so I think one of those two, whether it be the sound design realm of post-production or getting into actually recording music, I think that’d be incredible. If they revamped recording, you know, the audio books for the conflict series and stuff, I would love to be a part of that job or doing testimonies or something. But as far as I know, I don’t know if the church is doing stuff like that right now. So yeah. Doors are opening for earning to get into public speaking. He and Laura have a passion for sharing their story with the youth in the church. They want to help people who struggle with the same problems that they have faced. He relates this to me. Right now, I think right now the Lord’s leading us to do more work, ironically, but kind of in the sense that as we’ve been traveling musicians, we focus primarily on doing concerts. But as I’ve come into being more upfront and getting more comfortable, I think the Lord is kind of leading me into the same kind of direction that Christian Riddall kind of went. I don’t know if you know anything about his ministry, but he kind of started as a musician and then transitioned to being a public speaker. And I think that’s definitely how the Lord is kind of leading us with our different backgrounds as I’m a convert, as Laura has grown up in the church. I think we can do a lot of good for generational Adventists or generational Christians and for people that are new to the church or people that are converts that this is their first time really being exposed to these things because both of those fields have pitfalls and trials and problems that only Lord can relate to or only I can relate to. And us together to put something together that’s more public speaking oriented or topical, I think would be very beneficial.
As the Lord is leading, I think that’s kind of the direction that we’re going. And especially as I finish up this DVD project or this four-part video series that probably leave into other family oriented ministry, there’s a lot of adopted parents out there that are looking for questions, have kids that are going through the same thing that I’m going through during my story and they need some guidance, they need some help and all that kind of stuff. So I think that’s where we’re headed. I don’t know. To be sure, ultimately things can change. I could just end up being overseas missionary if the Lord wants it. I don’t know. But that’s what it looks like right now. Are you considering to become a sound engineer? Ernie Shears the need of high quality engineers and ministry, whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out. You won’t want to miss his practical advice and heartfelt encouragement. Yeah, I would say go for it. There hasn’t been a time that it’s been more accessible, cheaper even. I would even go so far that it’s a cheaper field to get into. It’s just all about actually doing it. Just literally doing it. It’s going to be difficult in the beginning because you’re going to make mistakes and you don’t know, you don’t have that experience under your belt. I was there too, even getting out of college. I still didn’t feel very sure of myself as an engineer. But Laura needed albums done. We needed I was the person that was supposed to get it done, that kind of thing. So just practice, practice, practice, take on all the projects that you can. The reason why you don’t burn yourself out, that kind of thing. And just run with it.
It gets easier the more you do it. You learn what type of engineer or person you are or all that kind of stuff. The Lord will open up avenues for you if this is exactly what you need. I know and maybe you know also that there’s a need for individuals like us, especially in the audio world and even more so even in the video world. So if you can learn both or you have only an interest in audio, there is a place for you not only within the church but within the work of God and the working for people to be in the kingdom. And this is a field that is, it needs you. I need you. You know, the Lord needs you man. Yeah, I think what really encouraged me that I can see that it could be plausible in the beginning was I was introduced to Christian Bertol ironically and the first time I met him I was in Christian all that kind of stuff and I ended up talking to him and he’s a musician at heart but he had a media based background and from what I understand if you look at his testimony you know him as a person. He ran this video company where he would do like these events and he would be the guy like you know with these big rig cameras to do live shows and conferences and all these kind of like bigger kind of things and then as he went through his conversion because of an event that he did ironically he saw it that well hey I’m a pretty decent musician, I do theater, let me make you know Christian albums, Christian music and he made a bunch of albums and he did really well and then that led him into doing more media things like he wanted to do more videos so he started doing topical things, topical sermons, topical things and that led him to have a full-fledged ministry that not only was media based but also had that emphasis on music so when I was talking to him especially in the beginning of my career I can see that it is working like it was working for him to be a musician and to be a public speaker and for someone like me at the time I wasn’t a public speaker but I had a musician you know Laura was the musician of this and the music side was functioning just fine she just needed someone like me to continue to further her music because she could only take it so far as an individual and with my expertise in professional training we can take this to an evolution that is much better than where we are now so I would say be encouraged to understand that people like me, people like Christian Bredal, people like even yourself that are in this field it is working and we are you know some of us are overworked I know I have plenty of projects I can’t take on because I just don’t have that many hours in the day so it can be done, it has been done, it is working and if the Lord is calling you to it you shouldn’t have any fear in that because the Lord will take care of it right it is his mission, his ministry we are just instruments in his orchestra and if you want to play beautiful music that is the way to do it, it is with the Lord.
Hey man God is in charge of his work that is for sure and you know just wrapping up the conversation here it seems to me like this is going to be a medium which God is going to use mightily in order to continue to share his word with other people you know of course we need to balance it out with relationships and communities as well and kind of engage with communities and help them to access these technologies in order to really enhance the outreach of the church so I guess that is kind of why I am also reaching out with other churches and individuals as well and the church to really hear from them and see what their ministry is and learn from their ministries and I just really appreciate the lessons that you brought out today and I think you can learn a great lesson from your testimony just as a lay person is a new convert from the church coming into the church and coming into music ministry as you have done it really I think it opens windows of opportunities for what can be done for young people today so just really appreciate you man and may God bless you continue to use you amazing ways in the future you and your wife and just continue to keep you guys in prayer. I appreciate it brother it has been a journey you know I went traded for the world and we have had to learn we have learned a lot in these last couple of years but I have learned as we travel as we do what we do like it is only possible because the Lord has opened up the way he has made us able he has encouraged us even when we fail or we don’t do a great job he has lifted us up he has covered us from our mistakes all these kinds of things and it is really all because of him that I am even here that the Lord has even done ministry and you know the music that we get to produce together and make like how it affects people it is not us it is him he is the one working through us and you know the Lord has written songs that have come out of nowhere because the Lord needed a song for someone out there all this kind of stuff so yeah it has been a journey and the Lord has just all grace and power be to him and blessing be because of him and yeah so if anybody is in this field or wants to get in this field it can be done the Lord wants to use you don’t be afraid you know what the future might hold it doesn’t have to turn out the same way it did for me like as an engineer you don’t have to become a public speaker like you know that kind of thing it is okay but like you can encourage others like myself to be better public speakers better musicians have higher quality music and that starts with you and your expertise and just you and your practice and your experience and that can start today it can start a year ago it can be right now you know what I mean so continue on keep keeping on I guess and I will do the same and we’ll be in the kingdom together God willing of course that’s Ernie Hernandez a sound engineer who’s using his talents to make a big difference in the world and thank you for tuning in to Adventist Waves we hope this episode of Adventist Waves has given you a fresh perspective on how media can be a powerful tool for ministry if you enjoy today’s conversation don’t forget to subscribe leave a review and connect with us on social media you can also support our work directly by becoming a patron at patreon.com forward slash Adventist underscore waves your generosity enables us to produce more high quality content and reach a wider audience special thanks to our production team at Blue Vineyard Audio and our producer editor mixer and sound designer Khan Elmer’s we’ll see you next week as we continue to explore the art of sharing the gospel through sound Adventist Waves.
