Empowering Christian Audio Pros, with Kahn Ellmers

Sound has the power to transport us. A familiar melody can evoke memories. Powerful speech can inspire action. And a well-crafted story can capture our imagination.

Han Elmas is our guest for today. He believes in the transformative power of audio, especially when it's used to share the message of hope and faith. 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.

We have potential to do something. In this episode, we'll journey with Khan as he shares his inspiring story of finding his calling and his passion for sound, and his vision for a future where Adventist audio reaches new heights of creativity, innovation and impact. I'm Luke Faruja and you're listening to the Blue Vignette Podcast. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Blue Vignette Podcast.

My name's Luke and I am here with the newest member of the Blue Vignette family, Khan. Khan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. 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. But 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 Vignette, 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 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 Farmstew International and with Africa Orphan Charity at Orphanage.

But later on, 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 your mom and your stepdad.

What was what was the environment like there as far as the spiritual element there? Like was it a Christian home and Adventist home? No, in fact, my family were not even Christians. So my first exposure to Christianity wasn't that great either.

You know, so like I didn't exactly I wasn't 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 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 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 it give examples of when I was about like 16, 18 years old. And there was I think a job of witnesses came to my door one day and knocked on the door and then there's like this kind of old guy, maybe my age now with these like four other guys behind behind them, like young young kids, you know, 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 answer to a question about the tipping point really came later on because when I was about 18 and I moved out of home, I started exploring different different religions and exploring things from my own perspective.

And that led me to eventually encounter have an encounter with my stepgrandmother, who's a Christian. And then she shared with me about Christ. And then I had I had my own my first experience of Christ at that time. And I felt like he he actually gave me peace and he forgave me of my sins at that time.

So that's, I guess, was the tipping point for me. And and when I started having more. How old are you at that point? I was about 20, 20, 19, 20, somewhere around there.

OK, and you 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 bit of a gap.

I guess it's a logical thing when you're into the music industry. 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, you know, a drummer, but he may be maybe having a few lessons. And he played and then it basically like. Caught my attention and made me very attracted to the drums and made me want to to learn how to play drums because he was like my idol.

You know, I like I want to be like this guy, you know, who plays these sick beats, you know. So I just decided that I would pursue that and I did that. Yeah. So when 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 think 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 when I was about 18 and I was I was living by myself because my 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 my while 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, I soon became the disciple of the New Age movement and tried to indoctrinate my friends that were around me in these interesting theories. So yet there was another another turning point in my life, which was when it was about a year later that year came to a conclusion. I had finished my certificate in audio engineering and I passed and did well.

And my pop and my step-grandmother 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, it's from another planet, you know, the. Yeah. Yeah. So like, this is interesting theories and and I was completely sold on and I believe that the Anunnaki was ruling the world and 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 channel or something like that. Fortune, you know, it's just ridiculous. I started showing the stuff of my mates and they thought I was a bit bonkers, but I shared with my grandma, my step-grandmother, she's a 70-year-old and it's but 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 led was talking to me about the great controversy and how there's 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 this is like great controversy going on. And she gave me the book, The Great Controversy and showed me a bunch of videos by Walter Weith and talked to me a bit more about Christ and stuff. And I remember one night I had prayed to God and after that, and 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 off my, you know, on my soul. And so, yeah, that's, 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 at 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, 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 the copy of the Great Controversy and I wanted to have Bible studies. And so I cut it out, you know, I sent it away and then I get my copy of the Great Controversy a couple days later. And phone call from my, from the pastor, 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, 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 Rastafarians and stuff and are they okay and stuff.

And it's like, 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. And 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, keep learning about the Bible and stuff. And I eventually start going to church and started attending 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 in 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 studied 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 I got some really good jobs. And at that time, at the end of my studies at Carpentry, I ended up getting baptized in 2014. That led me to work as an assistant carpenter for about six months. And 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. And he could be confirmed that he actually wants me to go to America and 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, through those circumstances and my conversion, Christ worked on my heart to 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 on all 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 did you, 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 main house, kind of like 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 Farms Do. 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. So 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 met 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 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 five 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 kitchen, a 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, you know, your experience and your passion is in this area of audio engineering, which you're now returning to. But I'm just interested because Blue Vinyan, 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. You know, let's... I mean, it's obviously the podcasting aspect. We could talk about that.

But in 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?

Or 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, the church's goal ultimately to share the message to the gospel, but then also change the hearts of people. And the worship... worshipping 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 there are 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 they can learn... other people can learn from that, you know.

So... and then we... There's multiple pieces to the puzzle, right? I mean, 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, then, you know, get them in the front, 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.

But... Then find that. Yeah, exactly. So, get them involved in the local church is important.

Going back to the question about making it sustainable, now, I think that's a really good question and something that needs to be addressed. 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, 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 in 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.

Yeah. 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. It's also very unlikely that you're going to make enough sustainable money from, you know, travelling 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 listed off what are those ways.

So there's the you mentioned the the royalties part of it. There's I mentioned, you know, touring, you know, a lot of artists will tour and take up offerings at concerts and things like that. What are some of the other ways that 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'd think about when it comes to income for musicians. Of course, you also have record sales as well. So a lot of musicians have 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 the sync, selling for sync, which basically means that it 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 is very important. That's a sync royalties.

That's essentially what people are doing when, you know, there's a trending sound on, you know, on TikTok or Instagram. There is a royalty that's going back to the artists. Correct. What we're saying if you're registered.

Yeah, exactly. That's interesting. I mean, I figured that there would be some some arrangement, but I didn't realize that that was like that people were getting royalties off those, you know, 22nd plays. That's pretty cool.

Yep, they get a little bit, maybe 0.0004 cents per play. So it's not a ho-ho-ho, but it all adds up. Yeah. Fact check.

It's actually 0.3 per play on TikTok as of October 2024. Yeah. But hey, I mean, some of those sounds, the ones that, that, you know, go really viral, you know, I could, I'm sure I could bet you a couple of of sounds that you heard on every third TikTok for, you know, a few months at a time. I'm sure in those seasons, people make a considerable amount of money if they, one of the ones that hit, right?

Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, all right, and one other that you didn't mention that I, 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. And, but that is the, the patron model, you know, like Patreon does as having people that are your, your patrons, so they're giving a certain amount of money per month or per release or whatever.

And you try to, you know, 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. That's a great idea.

Yeah. Freelancing is a great, 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 marketing, freelancing market like Fiverr, you know, and you'll get clients. So just approach you and just say, Hey, can you make a, can you make some harmony for this melody track that I've made, you know, or vice versa?

Or can you do singing for this track? You know, so there's so many avenues that you can explore. But the main thing is that you kind of feel out your own skill set and know exactly what, what skills you can, can make money from and then market that as best as you can. Yeah.

Yeah. That's good advice. What I'm just thinking about the, the Adventist world and I guess this question, you know, could span across all audio, you know, the radio or podcast or music. What do you see as the most the areas of the greatest opportunity?

Let's say that. What do you think we need to see more of in the Adventist audio world? Hmm. What would I like to see more of in the Everest?

Well, I guess one thing I would really love to see is to have more like storytelling content. Like there's some real, like if you look back into the history of the Adventist church, there are some amazing storytellers, like very talented people like Eric B here and HMS Richards who are very talented storytellers and they, 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 here was notorious for using his synthesizers to, to create this like underlying sound which, which just kept captured his audience.

Like 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. So, and then it's the same thing can be said with like the story hours that was being made by Southwest Michigan conference at the seventies, you know. So all these, these things like we today we can, we can do like amazing productions using the technology that's available to us now. And some of the things I see that the Adventist musicians and organizations are doing right now that really captures my attention.

Such things as like the voice of prophecies, you know, Discovery Mountain, how they create these amazing like real life stories that they basically immerse you in and then like there's another ministry called Love Voice which does remote productions of people from all around the world, you know, who do singing. And then I know that they then broadcast that and they bring it together and then they, they, they will actually broadcast it as like a digital choir, you know, like how awesome is that. But basically, yeah, that's amazing. It's something that could have never been done, you know, 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, like you who are listening, who can do these things just by using the simple things you had in your house.

Like, like one thing I was, I was looking at just today is that hundreds of thousands of dollars was spent on producing studios back in the 70s and stuff. Like, like the conferences were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars producing these, you know, these, these amazing studios. And today you can buy a few out, you know, simple equipment, you know, a little audio interface, a microphone, like what I'm using now and, and some monitors for a little, little over a thousand, you know, and then you have your studio at home. So, and then basically it's got the same capabilities as the studios, if not more than the studios that they're paying 100 something thousand dollars on.

So I don't know about you, but like I see this as an opportunity to like, to like get power and back into the people to be able to curate their own content, you know, as, as God's church as individuals to be able to share interesting media with with the world in a, in a, in a very interesting way, using technology in a way that captures people's attention. But, you know, not like those attention, like grabbing people's minds and like, like the world does and, and like, like possessing the mind and then like, you know, bypassing the front of manipulation. 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, I love what you just said. I really do believe that technology has, has accomplished the democratization of production, right.

So now, as you say, anyone can can be a content creator. There's no, 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, there are these waves, right, and no, 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 I, the ministry podcast that I run was probably, you know, number two or three off the off the 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 had, 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 not, it's no longer enough for us to just have something to say and go and say it. You know, this, 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, you know, now I'm competing with a million others.

I need to produce something that is of comparable quality to the, you know, 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 that requires a lot more time.

You know, 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, you know, highly competitive marketplace? It's actually very, 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. You know, the people that are the incumbents, the ones that have already been there and doing it and have other stuff that they're doing, you know, like me and, you know, 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, you know, 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, you know, like there should be some type of guidelines, simple guidelines to use these tools efficiently. And efficiently and effectively, you know, for the purpose of ministry. And I think that that's where kind of 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 put take into consideration when it comes to producing content, right? 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, you know, like in order for you to have a good production and to have a good sound, there, there just, it doesn't just happen by accident, you know, 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 the best for your choice and 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.

Do 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 all of your, 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, your content.

Yeah, absolutely. That will be on our site, which is blue vineyard.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, 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.

Right. So let's start off with the audio at the church, right? 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 buy 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 stand 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. 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 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'd say so. Or were you setting up for different ones? Yeah, I'd say so.

I mean, like the same principle applies. Pretty all-encompassing. 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. Look at you. You juice it all down into one hyper-useful set of recommendations. I love it.

Of course, it's always good to register on 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 on these blogs and stuff because a lot of the times they're some really good, they can be really helpful and resourceful. Yeah.

And yeah, so I think if or what, no, 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 we're offering. So there's like three main services that all also be on the bluevignet.com. Did you want to just before we wrap up, just mention the main lines of service that you'll be offering with Bluevignet? 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 at monetizing your content. And also we want to provide you with services for editing, mixing, mastering 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. And we pray that it'll be a real blessing. And I think it's a great need in our world today. 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, bluevignu.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. We look forward to catching you soon for another episode. See ya.