The Electric: Setting up a Guitar Rig for Worship. Part 2- Amplifiers

I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music.

This week we’ll talk about setting up your electric rig for the first time or upgrading it to something better, specifically amplifiers. This is part 2 of a 4 part series. Part 1 can be found HERE. Part 3 can be found HERE. Part 4 can be found HERE. 

The Most Important Thing

As I said in the last post, I believe the amplifier is the most important part of the guitar rig. I didn’t always think so, I used to think that the most important thing was to get the right guitar. This thinking stemmed from years of acoustic guitar playing where the guitar is everything in getting a good sound. For years I barely gave the amplifier a second thought beyond how loud it could get. Then one day I was in a guitar shop trying out a reverb pedal when it struck me that this pedal will never sound as good in my rig because my amp wasn’t as good. It wasn’t a bad amp, but it just wasn’t able to compete. So I sold some gear and bought a very good mid-priced amp, and switched my long term gear savings plan from a high end guitar to a high end amplifier which I hope to get in a few years. Since that time I have not regretted that decision. A great amp can make so/so guitars and effects sound much better, while a great guitar will be hamstrung by a low quality amp.

When Life Happens

I’m making a shift for tomorrow.

We are changing around our set list a bit.

After the first two christmas carols my pastor will come up and address the tragic massacre in Newtown this past Thursday. We will then go into Jesus Paid It All which we do in a minor key. I didn’t feel like it worked well to go from a time of prayer for those suffering into an up beat/retro swing version of O Holy Night.

If you serve the Lord here in America haven’t in some way made room from the national tragedy that has occurred I encourage you to rethink. When life happens we can’t cling to our plans as if nothing has changed.

Be open to what the Holy Spirit speaks to you. Be open to what the Holy Spirit speaks to your pastor or leadership.

Praise Jesus. Acknowledge suffering. Worship God.

Change

This morning I after I got up I was looking over email, news feeds, and social media. There was an older relative complaining that Facebook had ‘done it again’ and changed their “look” on the main page. I honestly hadn’t really noticed much of a change but therein lies the genius.

Change is inevitable. Change will happen. The only question is how prepared we are for that inevitable fact, and how we respond to it. Times will change and your church will change. People will come, people will move on, people will grow older. Most churches seem to do one of two things. Either they do nothing, never changing, never deviating, always the same as the year before, or they they don’t change for years and then one day realize that a change has to be made so it’s sudden and drastic. Why not try a third way, the ‘Facebook way’?

The Electric: Setting up a Guitar Rig for Worship. Part 1-Starting Out or Stepping Up

I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music.

This week we’ll talk about setting up your electric rig for the first time or upgrading it to something better. This is part 1 of a 4 part series. Part 2 can be found HERE. Part 3 can be found HERE. Part 4 can be found HERE.

Who Is This For?

I guess I’m writing for two different people. The first is the worship leader who has been leading for a while, and only used an acoustic guitar. The way music is going this worship leader wants to start using an electric guitar as their rhythm guitar either every so often or a majority of the time.

The second person is the one who has an electric guitar set up, but it’s not very good and they want to get serious about it and they are going to use it mostly or specifically for church music.