The MxU Podcast

The MxU Podcast Episode 135
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Jeff Sandstrom: [00:00:00] At MX U, we love how church gear supports the local church. Do you have it on your 2023 New Year's list to clear out your used gear closet with Christmas behind us and Easter still a few months out? This is your chance to start the year off with an empty closet that means more space for you. Church gear can help you convert that used gear into new dollars for your ministry.

Just send them your list of [email protected] and they'll help you out. You are now entering the

Kristian Ponsford: M X U podcast, no

Jeff Sandstrom: credentials required. Well, hey everybody. Welcome to episode 1 35 at the MX U Podcast. I'm Jeff Sandstrom, and I'm here finally, back again from all over the world. My co-host today, dad Worldwide himself, Jay Desai.

How are you doing, buddy? I'm doing great, . All right, so for those of you who. Might not understand Jay's signature. He did that with Gene Kim too a couple episodes [00:01:00] ago. Today the beverage of choice though is Minute made. Minute made. Mango. Mango. How is it? It's actually pretty good. Well, it's time for healthy breakfast.

You gotta drink the mango juice. Yeah, I'm

Jay Desai: basically a mango. I, I literally could eat mangoes all day, every

Jeff Sandstrom: day. Mangoes are really good, especially if you're in a place where mangoes are actually local and seasonal. I mean, it's not, not Atlanta. Not Atlanta, not in January. .

Jay Desai: Actually, I did have some mangoes from Miami earlier this year and they were pretty good.

Okay. Impressed. The best mangoes in the world are from India, and I'm not saying that cuz I'm Indian, but it's

Jeff Sandstrom: just proven. I've never had an Indian mango. You kinda look like an Indian mango sometimes. .

Jay Desai: Actually, I wore this mango colored Indian outfit to a wedding earlier this year and I kept calling myself little mango

It really should have been big mango, but here we are. .

Jeff Sandstrom: That's amazing. [00:02:00] Well, you have not been with us for a while. Um, and that's because you've been traveling a bunch. So after, right after Christmas you went to England and the uk and so tell us about your trip. Looked like it was awesome. Awesome.

Jay Desai: Yeah, I had a great time.

Um, you know, just doing diplomatic stuff as I do while overseas. I understand hanging, hanging out and uh, seeing some fam. I've got some family. I saw some friends. I had some friends traveling, um, both in England and in Scotland. So, I went and did that. It was awesome. Got to spend some quality time with people I really like.

It's always great, incredible food as always, you know? Yeah. The Indian food so good. I stayed in soho. I didn't stay with my family. Um, which I haven't seen, really talked to my mom in depth about it, but I'm sure I have some

Jeff Sandstrom: upset aunts. I'm sure Word has already gotten back to your mother and you're gonna have to deal with that.

Yeah. Oh [00:03:00] man. The

Jay Desai: lashings at this age, uh, 40, I still get beat . Um, I deserve it though. Uh, it was great, honestly. Um, I didn't, I took my laptop and I didn't open it one time, but I have this weird thing where I hate not having it. Yeah. But I literally

Jeff Sandstrom: didn't open it. I love it. Well, you had such a busy. Season up to that point with the Johnny Swim, Christmas dates and all the stuff.

Just prepping for piling up at the end of the a year. Yeah. Prepping for passion. So how, here's the big question though. How did it feel not to be at passion this year? Because you did a lot of work leading up to it and then kind of handed off and just let other people run with it, which is great. So yeah, it was

Jay Desai: awesome.

I mean, I'm obviously, uh, it'd be stupid to say there weren't like mixed emotions with it, you know? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, I loved hearing, it went great. I mean, I heard from you and several of the people [00:04:00] obviously. Uh, as soon as I got back to church, everyone was like, it was awesome and it was great and I'm very, very glad.

But for me it was a much needed break and I had hints of fomo. Yeah. And I also had an incredible time where I was, so I was trying to be very, very present. I didn't watch the livestream at all. , uh, you know, people would text me, did you see this? I'm like, no, I'm

Jeff Sandstrom: sorry. This is for everybody. Uh, speaking of not watching the livestream, the livestream is actually still available until the end of January.

So if you missed it, if you didn't check it out, you know, it's been on the video podcast. We've talked about it on this podcast. You gotta go check out some of the highlights, especially from, uh, passion 23. The Dallas and Atlanta events are streaming at Passion 2020 three.com until January 31st. So if you missed it, you gotta go check it out.

From the stage design to the lyric treatment, to all the stuff that the guys in the video podcast are [00:05:00] talking about to the, the broadcast mixes of all the bands to the content from the talks, I'm telling you, it. . It's stunning. It's really good. So make sure to check that out. It, it's great, but we missed you, Jay, I gotta say walking backstage and not seeing your smiling face dealing with backline or transportation or stage managing, or any of the band guys, you were missed.

Jay Desai: Yeah, I appreciate that. I, I did miss being there, but very, very healthy thing for me to step away. And, um, I had plenty of distractions over there to keep me busy. That's cool. I just stop in on every third pub, you know, .

Jeff Sandstrom: Well, that's, that's what you do over there. Yeah. But I gotta say, you know, we've talked on this podcast before about the importance of just connecting with people and reaching out and the power of a handwritten note.

So I have to tell everybody. A couple of days ago, my daughter got a postcard, and on the front, it's a picture of the Edinburgh castle, [00:06:00] and on the back it's a note from. dad worldwide himself to Stella, and she was floored, like not just, oh, that's cool. Jay sent me a postcard. It was like I got mail, like, to me handwritten from a friend who is actually checking in on me and just tell me what they're doing across the world.

It's like she was floored. She's got it up on her bathroom mirror and it's like, so it just, it just reminded me of the power of connection. Like, first of all, she thinks you're the coolest person ever. Which, I mean, who can argue? But I get it. Second, the fact that there would be, um, just the, the thoughtfulness and the care taken to actually write somebody a handwritten note.

It's like, it just means so much. So that's something I think we can all do better at is we, you know, just start this new year and want to, Connect and be healthy with people. It's like, man, don't [00:07:00] forget not a text, not just a how you doing in the hallway, but to send somebody a card, to send somebody a letter to write, to take the time to write how you're thinking of them and how you feel about them is so powerful.

Well, honestly,

Jay Desai: I saw her posts and she didn't know I wasn't gonna be there. So that's on you. But ,

Jeff Sandstrom: uh,

Jay Desai: I saw her post, she was having a great time and I was trying to unbiasedly not pay attention to a lot of the passion stuff, but her perspective was, is fresh. You know, it's like, yeah. I kind of wish I could walk into any event honestly.

I kind of wish I could walk into church some days and still have the excitement and expect. that Stella had going into, into conference. Like she was just, you could definitely tell she enjoyed it, left a mark on her. So yeah, wanted to send her some encouragement. So it was great. I, I literally sat on a train from Edinburg to York, which if you've never been to York, it's a [00:08:00] magical town halfway between Scotland and England.

And, uh, I just was writing postcards and it was every, you know, few minutes you look up and look out the window and see, I, I think train travel is still magic, so Yeah. Totally. I'll probably watch too many Harry Potter movies. Um, that's awesome. But it was great, so I'm glad she enjoyed her note. But yeah, we should all write each other notes.

Sometimes you, uh, boldly, uh, write things when you write 'em with your physical hand and not text them or something and Yeah. In order to, like I write slower than I text.

Jeff Sandstrom: Right. You have to be more thoughtful.

Jay Desai: Yeah. And so it, a, a allows you to kind of. Form thoughts sometimes, uh, all the time before you do it.

So I, and also, people don't know what mail is like

Jeff Sandstrom: these days. I know. It's, it's amazing when you get a piece of mail that's not a bill or a political flyer or a junk mail from Bed Bath and Beyond, it's like, as much as I like your coupons, I really like [00:09:00] personal notes much better. I send

Jay Desai: my nephew postcards a lot from places.

Not always. I send Lenny Westbrook to deedee Michael's daughter. Postcards always because like, uh, , I like one. They get to see it from my perspective, but two, I hope at some point it inspires them to tra I think travel's one of the greatest things ever. Yeah, it broadens, you know, um, minds, but, uh, and connects us with people we never would.

So, but yeah, I, I think it's fun. I, I always tell my sister, I hope that one day Dylan just has a stack of postcards for me that he just, he enjoys sitting there reading very billbo bag ins, vibes, you know,

Jeff Sandstrom: What? Well, there's a couple. That's true. Well,

there's a couple things we need to talk about before we get to our interview today. Um, first of all, I'm excited about our interview. We're talking to the guys from multitracks.com about just using tracks [00:10:00] in worship and integrating it into your workflow, but then also specifically playback, which is their, uh, playback software that they've integrated into their ecosystem.

And it's, it's pretty great. So I can't wait for you guys to hear from them, but first we need to talk about a couple of things. One, one of my favorite things lately that I've seen on our M X U team Slack is from our friend Thomas, who he's done this for a few years now. He, every year he has, has this thing called middle school micd Up.

And it's their middle school and elementary school Christmas program. And he basically is PFL and all of the kids' mics backstage and just writes down what they say offstage, but on Mike. And it is some of the most hilarious, like I'm just imagining being a middle schooler backstage. That's so good.

Talking on Mike. Yeah. So I just wanna share a couple because it's [00:11:00] sort of like a turned out for M X U, but from a middle schooler in the Christmas program. So here's a few. One kid goes, I did so bad. Somebody else goes. Yeah. If bad means good.

Uh, another one says, we need to work on the part where we bow. So it actually looks like we're bowing. . Can you imagine if they had

Jay Desai: micd

Jeff Sandstrom: me

Jay Desai: up in

Jeff Sandstrom: middle school? Oh my gosh. It's, it, it would be crazy. I wouldn't mic me up now. No. Um, I'm scared to mic you up actually, for this podcast. Yeah, I get it. Here's another one.

Have you ever felt your armpits rub so much? What does that even mean, ? I think it's a

Jay Desai: fat joke. Well,

Jeff Sandstrom: maybe answer's yes. As soon as my mic is off, I'm gonna fart so hard.

Jay Desai: which I say, you know,

Jeff Sandstrom: showcase it. I mean, if you've got a mic, you might as well might as well flaunt it. [00:12:00] Anyway, I just thought those were really funny. Just imagining what backstage at a middle school Christmas program looks like, so, oh, thanks Thomas for sharing that. P

Jay Desai: ffl, your pastors Mike. See what you hear.

I'm kidding. Don't do that. Definitely

Jeff Sandstrom: don't, don't do that. Yeah, definitely don't post it. You might hear something

Jay Desai: about your mix.

Jeff Sandstrom: Yeah. Or many other things. Anyway, I hope y'all, um, have things like that to look back on from your Christmas and holiday stuff because, you know, sometimes we just gotta look back and have a chuckle.

Cuz once the heat of the moment is gone and the stress is gone, it, it, it's fun just to look back and have fun. So, I was

Jay Desai: gonna say, I would love to hear people's, um, Christmas nightmares and stories. Tell

Jeff Sandstrom: us them. Yes. Tell us, tell us your Christmas, uh, service opportunities, highs and lows. Give us your highs and low lows.

Yeah, highs and lows.

Jay Desai: Uh, um, what, uh, so you did passion conference. [00:13:00] What else you been up to?

Jeff Sandstrom: So, um, I mixed at church a few times since I've seen you. Um, we've been integrating. The LV one system in our church. We replaced the M 32 at front of house with a Waves LV one console. Mm-hmm. . So I've been helping with the integration of that.

So it's been, it's been really cool. Um, are people getting it? Yeah. Uh, the myON app, which is basically the personal monitoring system. All the band is using it and it's running great. I

Jay Desai: like the Mimon app. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's, I've used it. It's really cool. Uh, the Barnes Christmas tour last couple years have used my V one and has used Mimon app and they really enjoy it.

Jeff Sandstrom: Yeah. It's very easy to use. Super intuitive. Um, did

Jay Desai: you use the link feature? The little link mixer thing? I used it where you can basically create in the Monitor app, create some subgroups, you know? Yeah. And I just did, I just did rhythm, um, [00:14:00] melody. Melodies instruments and then bgv and lead vocal. It was awesome.

Just like little, yeah, that's cool. Quick subm mixer thing.

Jeff Sandstrom: So yeah, it's cool. Well, especially if you have a singer on stage who doesn't really need to worry about the level of the bottom snare. You just have a fader that says drums. Yeah. And they can just turn the drums up and down. So it's, you know, it takes, it takes your available channels and just condenses it down.

So it's like, okay, drums, bass, whatever. Almost like a dca. But, um, for monitors, it's, it's very, very straightforward and simple. Yeah.

Jay Desai: And they, they just came out with a front of house app too. I haven't

Jeff Sandstrom: used it yet. Yeah, it works great too. Yeah. So you can basically put it on an iPad and then if you need to walk around and check things in the room, you can control LV one from the front of house app, which, which is great.

Huh? I've tried that. Version 14 is coming soon. So I'm curious to see what their new features are gonna be. Cuz I've heard it's, um, it's gonna be great. So anyway, that's been exciting. Um, the other, the other thing that's exciting in general is, [00:15:00] um, Next week we start version two of the MX U 75. Ba, ba bu.

Exactly. So my question for you, Jay Desai, is are you gonna be participating with us this year? Yeah, ma'am.

Jay Desai: I actually did pretty, pretty good last year. Yeah. Um, obviously the hardest is the end where it's a lot of water intake, no booze, which honestly was relatively easy. Cause I'm a socialite regardless where the, you know, as long as I think the key for me was not, not making plans cuz I couldn't drink.

So if someone's like, Hey, do you want to go grab a drink? I'd be like, yeah, absolutely. And they just didn't have a drink. Yeah. Uh, but the water part is the, was the hardest thing getting, you know, 90, a hundred ounces of water in you every day. You just feel like a water bag. You're just walking around like a big old waterbed.

Jeff Sandstrom: Well, If you're a waterbed, then I'll [00:16:00] just rest my head on your belly and, uh, we'll call it, lay your head on,

Jay Desai: on my buzzies, um, , that's biblical. Some scripture in there somewhere. Song of Solomons type stuff. . Um, I, yeah, I'm in. I am for sure. And honestly, I'm excited to do it. I remember the encouragement text and, um, kind of the communal part of that whole thing, and it was fun.

It, it yep. Led to some great conversations and

Jeff Sandstrom: yeah, and I think that the biggest thing for me is that it actually truly changed people. Like there were a few guys that we've heard from who Sweet Pete, their lives are different. Yeah. Their lives are totally different because of what they experienced through this challenge.

So for those of you guys who don't know what we're talking about, go to last week's podcast and check out Dr. Barrett's conversation. But, um, if you've, if you've heard it and haven't signed up yet, go to get msu.com/msu 75 and you'll. Learn all about what we're doing. It's just basically a health challenge from now until Easter.[00:17:00]

That involves some nutrition stuff, some exercise stuff, but it's basically habit stacking. So every five days you have a new thing that we add to the program to basically stack habits over the, over the timeframe of 75 days so that we can, by Easter, be healthier versions of ourselves and, uh, be better.

So that's what we're all about here and we're challenging you guys to join us. So we already have a few hundred people so far, um, and we just want you to join in on the fund. It's gonna be great. Starts next Monday, the 23rd of January. Um, if you miss that day, go ahead and join us, you know, as you can because we want to get as many people involved as we can.

So, and uh,

Jay Desai: I think, um, last year I just sent a big group text out to a bunch of people. It was like, Hey, I'm doing this follow along. And, and, and obviously the follow through of I probably sent it to 20 people, wasn't like, [00:18:00] at the end of it, not all 20 of us were still doing it, but I You'd have grace with each other.

You fall off, you get back in. Yeah. And uh, uh, the best part was like we would schedule walks and stuff, so people were like, yeah, I'll go for a walk with you, or I'll do this, or, yeah. You know, so I think, uh, nothing else, just establishing and building community within your own teams and then uh, maybe outside of the walls of your church and

Jeff Sandstrom: so forth is good.

Yeah. So the other thing that, speaking of community, the other thing that we're doing, you know, part of the program is X number of minutes per day of reading or Bible study and prayer. So we're going to recommend some books so that if you want to do a strategic. Maybe deep dive into a topic or a book study.

You know, grab a few people from the community here and or in your own local community face-to-face, and go through a book together. Go through a book of the Bible together. Do something strategic, [00:19:00] uh, that develops your person, whether it's personal habit or a book on leadership or whatever. So we're gonna make some book recommendations as part of the program.

And so, uh, we just encourage you to jump in with that as well. So it's gonna be great. So good. Yeah, man. Um,

Jay Desai: tell me, uh, I wasn't on this interview with the multi-track skies. Yeah. Tell me like, uh, I mean, they're about to listen to it, but was there like a major revelation for you in

Jeff Sandstrom: the whole day? Yeah, the biggest thing for me, you know, I knew a lot about the tracks themselves because they have, you know, over 20,000 songs where they have licenses from the original masters, the original publishers, the original record labels to give you access to.

The masters from all these songs. So all the, any worship song you can imagine is in their library. So I knew about the tracks, but I didn't know much about playback, which is their software. That's kind of like Ableton, uh, but it's [00:20:00] in their ecosystem. So I learned a lot about that and I think, you know, we use it at my church and I learned things about it that, um, are pretty compelling.

So anyway, I want you to listen and hear from these guys. They're great guys. They love the church and I think it's a great interview, so let's check it out. Well, I'm really excited to be joined today by Christian and Oscar from multitracks.com. Guys, welcome to the MSU podcast. Yeah, thank you. Thanks,

Kristian Ponsford: Jeff.

Great to

Jeff Sandstrom: be here. We're here in Knoxville, actually together in person because, uh, Christian has been recording some content for the MSU platform around multi-tracks and playback and just giving us great tips and. Just ideas about how to use the, the software, and I've, I've learned so much and I know everybody who watches these videos is gonna be really impacted by what you've been able to teach us.

So thank you, first of all for that. Thank you. Um, but I wanted to have a conversation on the [00:21:00] podcast just to talk about. You guys in your history, but then multi-tracks specifically and how, um, for people who aren't using tracks yet or want to implement tracks into their workflow, maybe some ideas and best practices for how they can make that happen.

So first, why don't you guys tell everybody some about yourselves and how you got to where you are. Oscar, let's start with you. Sure.

Oscar Interiano: Yeah. So my background is worship, leading music producer. I'm a keeper, player by trait. Grew up in a traditional Spanish church and just grown up in that environment. You pick up piano, you pick up bass, drums is whatever the, the need is.

So, uh, that's my background and that's kind of how I connected with Multitracks. I moved to Austin, Texas where were based, uh, 12 years ago, and I went there at a church plant. It wasn't to be a part of Multitracks, but God had a different, uh, plan and trajectory for my life once I got there, when I connected with Philip Edwards, our ceo, and he, uh, invited me to be a part of this amazing team.

And [00:22:00] initially when he. Asked me to be a part of multi-tracks. I was church planting, I was fundraising, I was playing cover bands, just doing different things and just trying to ob be obedient to the Lord on what he wanted me to do. And, uh, but yeah, Phillip saw something in me and I'll always, uh, give him kudos for seeing that in me.

And I've been with the company now for 12 years and wanna start with the company. I think we had about four or 500 songs at that time. Um, some of the passion stuff, Chris Tomlin and um, music from that era. And fast forward now, 12 years later, we have over 20,000 songs, uh, and growing in our catalog. So it's been fun just to see, uh, just the trust that the industry has given in us.

And we, we love to serve the church. We also love to serve our partners. Yeah. And the songwriters that are writing a song for

Jeff Sandstrom: the church today. That's cool. So your role is actually in that world. Yep. So you're responsible for securing all of the licensing agreements and all of the rights to use, not just the songs, but the recordings from the original masters of those songs?

That's correct. And so that's a. [00:23:00] Mountain of work. I can't even imagine, like when, when I think about just what's required for a song for that to happen, but then you expand that to 20,000 songs. I mean, that's, that's a lot of relational capital that you've established over the years, and I, I think it's, it speaks to actually the, the songwriters and the industry in general that they would be willing to release that to the church.

I think it's, it's, it's speaks to your mission as a company to go, Hey, we want to empower worship leaders and worship teams to deliver these songs in the best possible way, so why not let them present the best possible version of that song, which, From the record. So that's really cool. Uh, we'll get back to some of that in a minute, but, uh, I want to talk to Christian too.

So same, same thing for you Christian. Yeah. Talk us through kind of how you got here.

Kristian Ponsford: Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up [00:24:00] as a pastor's kid in the uk uh, trumpet player in the worship team. Um, by default found myself picking up an acoustic guitar, becoming a worship leader, and then became a customer of multi tras.com.

In fact, my first ever email to the support team was answered by Mr. Oscar and Terri sat here next to me, . That's great. Um, he didn't solve my problem in the first email, but we'll talk about that another time, . And, um, yeah. Fast forward a few years, found myself working for a church, trying to level up our production.

Discovered Ableton Live it clicked, pun intended, and started. put resources out, um, training other churches on Ableton. And then fast forward several years, and now I get to sit a multi-track as director of products. And we've moved from the UK over to Austin. A and I sit on the other side of the table from Oscar.

So Oscar's very much on the content relational side. Uh, my team very much on the product side. So solving problems that worship leaders in day-to-day churches are facing, uh, and trying to use technology and innovation to make their lives easier. And we say our mission [00:25:00] statement is to create resources that save worship leaders time so they can focus on the things that matter.

Uh, and it, that really ties back with my story. Uh, I wish I had more time Yeah. When I was a, a worship pastor to focus on people, uh, and do some of the, the better. That's great.

Jeff Sandstrom: You told me a story about how much time it would take you as you tried to create tracks on your own mm-hmm. to, you know, bring.

some more to your team than you could pull off with a four piece band on stage. Yeah. And I, the, the phrase that sticks with me is you would spend basically 40 hours a week for a 30 minute worship set and to now have that, that time back. Yeah. And to be able to spend that time now pouring into your team and developing volunteers and building culture and establishing a DNA for the team like that is so much more valuable.

in the long run and as it relates to the people side of what we get to do. Yeah. Then, uh, I mean, just that efficiency alone, it's like, that's worth it.

Kristian Ponsford: I think that's my biggest regret looking back, reflect on more [00:26:00] about my time in ministry. I worked for three different size churches in three very different context, but I, the common theme was I probably.

Too much focus on the production and on the excellence and on the performance that I did, on the people that I was leading. And it was a necessity. It was the culture of the church we were in. Yeah. But quite easily, you know, 30, 40 hours of my week was focus for that 30 minutes and it got to the point where it was kind of like, could I use that time better to invest in people and grow people and pastor the people.

A and I got challenged once when a colleague of mine said, Christian, you're a worship pastor. That's your title, but are you capital W or capital P ? And really pointed out that so much of my focus was on what we call worship and not so much on pastoring. Yeah. So that's kind of like now sits as my internal driver that if we can create resources that give that gift to people so they don't have to be as consum.

In the production side. And I love excellence. I love production. Don't hear me wrong, but if we can make that a little bit easier for them to focus more on people, that really [00:27:00] excites me. Yeah.

Jeff Sandstrom: Well, there is a tension because, you know, modern worship music, like the, the fact that worship is a genre mm-hmm.

has always been a little uncomfortable for me. It's like there, but, but there is a healthy tension. It's like we're not, we're not just singing hymns anymore. We are singing these songs that are part of a business, that are part of a machine that helps, you know, perpetuate the music itself. But it helps feed people's families and it helps, you know, minister to the church at the same time.

So there is that maybe healthy tension that we need to acknowledge because it is real. But I think having tools like what Multitracks is able to offer through playback and through other software and products and ecosystem, it really helps kind of keep. The main thing. The main thing, yeah. Um, and you know, I dunno if there's anything you guys would add to that idea, but I think it's, it's so important to remember, [00:28:00] um, that it is a ministry.

You know, it's not, it's not just making records. It's not just, Hey, let's put a studio in our church. Yeah. It's like, how can we connect with people and help them as a team experience what God has for them?

Kristian Ponsford: Yeah. I let speak to this more, but I know from, from my side of the table, Songs are so powerful, right?

The number of times I've been in church when a, a song is used, oh my God, that's everything I wanted to say, but I didn't know how to say it. And then as a worship leader, having new songs is the lifeblood of me being able to lead my congregation. And what I love about the combination of both parts of multitracks.com is we get to bridge that journey from the incredible artists and songwriters and publishers and help that song translate into local church, but then make sure it doesn't die there.

And that we're able to accurately reflect that and honor back to the songwriter so that they can continue creating new resources. And, and that's your world, Oscar. That's what you, what you get to do. Yeah.

Oscar Interiano: No, it's been a fun journey for [00:29:00] me. Uh, just over the last few years being a part of, of this side of, of what we do, that, um, I think the Lord's also softened my heart.

And I'll be honest, at one point I was, I was pretty cynical about the Christian music, music industry, and what is this. And over the years as I've gotten the privilege to meet, you know, some of these songwriters and the guys that are, uh, investing their lives and their time, and they, they're constantly away from their families.

And just to see the heart of guys like Tomlin and Cody Carns and Chris Brown from Elevation and many others, that man, they, they really do believe, um, and what God has put in their heart and they love what they do. And it's not about the bottom line. It's about, you know, just bringing you, uh, verbiage and lyrics and expression so that we, the bride can connect with God.

And I think a lot of. people can look at what is happening on social media and it's easy to criticize and uh, but a lot of times it's, it is just not, uh, you know, who are we to criticize, you know, the voice, uh, that God has given to these, to these guys and to these [00:30:00] gals. So we love getting behind what they're doing.

I get excited when I, you know, I seen God pops up or a Christ be magnified or firm foundation, and I'm like, yes, here we go. Here's a new way for us to express our love for

Jeff Sandstrom: Jesus. Yeah, that's great. You know, in the years that I spent with Chris Tomlin, I just, I just echo what you said. You know, his, his whole reason to get up in the morning is to write songs that help people.

have voice for their faith. Mm-hmm. and to have a way to express what God has done for them and who he is. And so I, I totally echo that. So let's take a bit of a turn. I love, I love hearing your guys' hearts, uh, but let's get into the actual sort of nuts and bolts of the product. Great. So why multi-tracks in the first place?

Why should my team implement backing tracks into our worship set?

Kristian Ponsford: Yeah, great question. We often say that we don't believe that every church should use tracks. That's not what we're saying. We don't believe that it's a prerequisite to doing ministry or doing worship at all. [00:31:00] But we haven't met many churches that haven't benefited from implementing tracks either.

And there's a number of different, uh, playoffs and benefits and reasons to do. And so, For example, I think you can often lower the bar of quality of musicians that can join your team. Uh, and I've experienced that with youth bands that maybe wouldn't have been able to hold their own. But the supplementation of tracks has allowed that to be able to be a, a part and right through to incredible musicianship who can cover all of the parts that simply can't replicate everything that was recorded in

Jeff Sandstrom: a studio.

Yeah. It could be the size of the team, right. Is a limiting factor. You've only got four or five people on stage and you don't have a, a team on stage that can pull off guitar. Four. Yeah. From the record or acoustic three, or all of these loops or pads or whatever. So as a way to supplement just the capabilities of the team, not, not always, just from a skill level Yep.

But just from a personnel level.

Kristian Ponsford: Absolutely. And, and we've just found that. The addition of those sonic textures inside [00:32:00] music keeps it more exciting, keeps it more engaging, keeps, and you, you know, your audience know this better than anybody, but just keeps it to the point where it causes people not to switch off.

So we often say not every church should play to track, but we would make a pretty strong argument that most bands should play to a click. And the tightness that comes from playing touch. 100%.

Jeff Sandstrom: Yes. So for somebody who is at that level, yeah. Like they're just trying to figure out how to play to a click.

Mm-hmm. and how to get everybody's sense of time better. Let's start there. Like what are just some best practices from your experience as musicians, but also from Multitracks perspective? Like if I, if I just want to add click and maybe some pads to what we're doing. Yep. Where do I start? What's the best sort of way to get that implemented into our

Kristian Ponsford: workflow?

So playback, our tracks app is available on MacBook, but also on iPad and iPhone. On iOS. And if you download the free version of playback that comes with clicks in [00:33:00] all of the BPM range, I think from up to 200 and something BPM and all the way down. So it'll cover most of worship, right? And in all the time signatures.

So we can put a click track in there and we can match it with a pad. And we often say that's a great place to. You often say start with an ambient pad, just so the band get used to hearing something in their in ears that maybe isn't being played on stage. And then add a click track on top. And inside a playback you can set the subdivisions of the click.

So we find it really helpful to put the accent in. So there's always the downbeat, there's always the accent that people can follow. Yep. And then you've got eight 16 some L one quarter notes in there that you can mix to get the comfortable level of click. And obviously on a slower song, we would encourage you to fill out more of that space so that there's not so many gaps between the parts of the metronome.

Uh, and we'll often say, look, that's a great tool to take to a rehearsal and spend some time just getting comfortable. Um, And I've met plenty of musicians that think they have incredible timing until you introduce a metronome and then suddenly it exposes that maybe that's not the case. And it's a skill and it's something [00:34:00] to practice.

But it's such a key that once we unlock plane to metronome, it just opens up this whole world available to us. That's always, it's always the click track that's off. It's always the click that track, never the drama, always the quick track . And then we also make, uh, guide cues available. So most people have heard the intro, 2, 3, 4, um, the multitracks.com voice, but we make them available as well.

So you can add a pad, a click, and even the guide queue. So we could take phone foundation and we could have our team just play just to that guide track without the rest of the tracks. It takes the pressure off, uh, and it's very easy to turn that off, um, or to fade that down should you get off track.

Jeff Sandstrom: And those features are available for free.

Yeah. In playback they, without downloading any songs, really. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. That's great. Yep. I think, you know, from a musicianship standpoint, I think. just playing better in time. Mm-hmm. playing better in tune. You know, people forget that those fundamentals are so important. Yeah. You know, for a student band or [00:35:00] even, you know, a volunteer band that's on stage in the main service, like just cleaning up your timing can do wonders for how it feels when you play a song.

Yeah. You know, so that that can't be overstated. But as you get more advanced and you get bigger teams and you sort of move further down the road, there's this distinction for me between, cuz I've heard it several times in churches where I hear everything from multi-tracks dot com and then the band is trying to sort of play on top of that instead of letting the tracks compliment what they're doing.

So give us some best tips and strategies around how not to just feel like you're playing. with the record playing along on top of the record, because I think there's a tension there too of, Hey, I have all these tools, I need to use every one of 'em. Yeah. And then we're duplicating things, or we're stepping on parts or parts from [00:36:00] tracks or stepping on us.

So how, what do we do about that? Yeah. From

Oscar Interiano: um, I think from a team, team standpoint, we have a product called Rehearsal Mix, uh, that is available in our chart app chart builder. So as a musician is getting ready for, for the weekend, you have the chart. But you have access to every guitar part. So not my church.

I communicate with our guitar players, and if a song has four parts, we take time to listen. Okay. What's the main hook on the verse? The pre-courses. So we kind of talk ahead of time, and I think a lot of times, um, people don't spend that time to really kind of dive in into all the parts. So that's what happens is you show up and a guy is playing, then all of a sudden you hear the same part being played in the guitar stem.

And so I think there's, there's a, there has to be a healthy balance in, in, in my, my opinion. I think every environment is different. So we're always very cognizant of that. And we don't want to say this is the only way to run tracks. I think look at the dynamic of your, of your, or the makeup of your band, the room, and really kind of just set some goals on what you're trying to accomplish.

Uh, you may [00:37:00] be in a place that having all the guitars on is the best thing because your guitar player can't play riffs yet. All they can do is power chords and that's, that's okay. Um, so I don't know if there's a right or wrong way, but I think just. try trial

Kristian Ponsford: and error. Yeah, I'd agree. I I think it's contextualized right to the, the church you're in.

Uh, I'd been on the receiving end of being so destroyed by learning my part and turning up, and then it's in the tracks and I'm like, come on guys, what's happening? I've worked hard to learn this part, and I've been on the side where you just don't have quite enough in the tracks as well. Um, I think there are some best practices around it that we talk around.

I think, uh, we often talk about making a church comfortable with the idea of hearing tracks as well. A and I think mixed well. Mm-hmm. , they shouldn't be as obvious. They shouldn't be sticking out. They shouldn't, you know, and I think there's a psychological component to that where I, I like to say that if I can see an instrument on the stage, I'm happy to hear the group of sounds that come from that instrument.

So if I can see a guitar, my brain's not confused by hearing three or four [00:38:00] guitars. If I can see a piano or a keyboard, I'm comfortable hearing a. Variety of sounds. Right. But there's something a little bit disingenuous to me when I go to a worship service or even a performance by a non-war band, and I'm hearing that guitar riff and then no guitar on stage, or I'm hearing the drums and there's just a kahan player, and I'm like, what?

There's something disconnecting here. Yeah. So I think that's subtle kind of adding of tracks and complimenting the band so that they're supporting a band rather than the band doing karaoke. Mm-hmm. , um, is, is a really useful conversation

Jeff Sandstrom: to have. So where is that cello coming from? Are they backstage?

Where, what are they doing?

Oscar Interiano: Yeah. . Yeah. But even with that, like I was telling the guys at dinner the other night, so, um, A few years ago, I was a part of a, a church plant in downtown Austin. And, um, after five years of, of, um, planting seeds, it was evident that we weren't gonna, uh, bear the fruit of that. So we ended up closing our doors.

Uh, and I was working at Multitrack at the time, and, you know, we dwindled down to about 15 or 20 people on a Sunday morning. And my band at that point had gone. We had now, and [00:39:00] so we're closing our doors. So I think this was the sun, not, not our last Sunday. The last Sunday I brought everybody back and we, we celebrated what God had done.

But, uh, a few Sundays before, I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna put myself in the situation and just me on guitar and have everything on. And I gotta tell you, I felt, I felt like a dork up there. I had the drums gone and, but I committed to the moment and I led worship and I walked off stage just feeling that.

It was ridiculous. And then I talked to some folks, they were like, man, that's the best it's ever sounded. And I'm like, what do you mean? It was just me up there. My wife was like, no, I wasn't distracted at all. Mm-hmm. . And it just, for me, it was a moment of realizing, okay, my job as a worship leader is not for me to be comfortable.

It's to create, to be cognizant of what God is doing in the room. And so it's not about how I feel, it's about as long as the message is coming across, as long as there's no distractions, and in that moment I realize, oh wow, it's not about me, it's about what's happening in the room. So I've never done that again.

But I ha I, I will say that, uh, I [00:40:00] have led worship with drums and everything on, and, and it,

Jeff Sandstrom: it worked that morning. Yeah. It's about context. I think also it's important to make sure that there's clarity among the team and leadership about why we're making some of these choices. Yep. You know, so to have a clear conversation so that you have a clear response if somebody asks a question.

Hey, you know, there seems to be a lot of stuff going on that the band isn't really doing. What's that about? Like, to your point about it being disingenuous or it being contrived? Yeah. It's like, no, we, we have a vision for, we want to present this song in the best possible way, and there are things that we aren't able to pull off with our band and its current configuration.

So we've decided to add some of these elements and everybody's okay with that. It's, it's no secret, it's not like we're trying to pull one over on you. It's just, hey, we want to, you know, present this song in a way that is engaging and compelling and emotional, and these tools are available for us to be able [00:41:00] to do that better.

So I think again, it's, it's all about, you know, conversation and relationship Yeah. And leadership. So is there anything you would add to that in terms of a best practice? Like if you're the worship pastor, what's the best way to communicate those kind of things to leadership?

Kristian Ponsford: Yeah, G, great question. I, I think so much of it is mission based and in context and in conversation, like you said.

Uh, it's been really helpful for me when I've been communicating both to musicians and leaderships as a worship pastor, to, to point out who out there that inspires us is already using tracks. Uh, and you'd know this better than anybody. It's not just small churches that need to supplement the musicianship.

A lot of the teams that we look up to yeah. That are leading incredible times of, of worship. But also,

Jeff Sandstrom: and I will also say every one of the artists that you like to listen to is not able to pull off what they have on their records. Hundred percent, correct. Live, correct. Yeah. Chris Tomlin's band is five people.[00:42:00]

there are many guitar parts on those records, many background vocal parts on those records, many keyboard parts on those records that you're not gonna hear. Yep. From those five people. But the audience is coming to experience what they've heard on the record. Mm-hmm. . So whether it's Tomlin or Elevation or Passion, they all use tracks in their live performances.

Yep. So it's, you know, it's. Acknowledging that being okay with it and finding the right balance for you and your team?

Kristian Ponsford: Yeah, absolutely. And in my context, in the UK where I was leading worship, the actual end goal was beyond just supplementation of our sound. We wanted to get to the point where we were able to put less lyrics on the screen at any one time.

And we couldn't do that because our poor volunteer was pressing space bar every two seconds. So we wanted to get to the point where we could automate our lyrics and have them kept in time with our tracks because that was the single biggest thing that we did to increase engagement in the room, was have [00:43:00] lyrics that were always on time and less lyrics on the screen.

Uh, and we went then to automating some of our lighting changes and having them done. And that all came as a result of implementing this technology. That meant the band were tight and on a click track.

Jeff Sandstrom: So let's talk about that for a second. Actually more than a second, because there are a ton of features inside Multitracks through the playback app.

that enable a lot of that to happen. So for people who haven't used playback mm-hmm. , maybe they've used Pro Tools or Ableton or some other dah talk about playback because there are so many features that in my mind make it a category leader. Mm-hmm. in terms of live performance. So, yeah. I know this is Christian's question because he is the director of products and so I know you're really excited about this.

So just, just go cause I don want everybody to hear all about.

Oscar Interiano: I can pointed to Christian, I'm like, this

Kristian Ponsford: is your world man. . Yeah, no, I could talk about this all day. My, I said [00:44:00] this earlier on my background was able to live my background was trying to achieve all of this with an incredibly powerful door, but it wasn't really designed for the church world.

It was designed for the DJ market and for El. Creation of music. A and there are so many people out there that were hacking Ableton, myself included, in creating resources to make it do something that was really effective, but not what it was designed for.

Jeff Sandstrom: And certainly not easy

Kristian Ponsford: for a moment and not easier.

No, absolutely. Uh, we were chatting about this story earlier on Jeff, but I was on a field trip with Compassion in Uganda, visiting an orphanage. And as I'm walking into that service in this Tin Hut on the side of a mountain, I got a FaceTime call from my church back in the UK asking me for tech support on Ableton on a Sunday

Jeff Sandstrom: morning.

So you're standing there with a worship team in Uganda who has a guitar with two strings Yep. And a piano with broken keys. Absolutely. And the contrast between that. This fully resourced team in the UK that is having [00:45:00] Ableton crashing. Yeah. And doesn't know what to do. Yep. That's a pretty stark It it

Kristian Ponsford: was, yeah.

Dichotomy. It was drastic. And, and I helped them get 'em set up. And it was funny because like Christian worship's, you know, gonna crash this morning and we can't lead the way that we're used to leading. Uh, it's gonna be a disaster. We're going, you know, and, and there I am. And we sorted them out. It was a fairly easy fit, so it was something to do with warping without having the right, you know, buttons pressed.

And we talked 'em through it. And then I walked into this Ugandan service and I was like, my goodness. Some, there's a disconnect here, but also it's for me as this Ableton life trainer that's training churches around the world. And I haven't passed on enough knowledge to my volunteers that they can.

Solve that. And that really kind of started my church's transition from Ableton to playback because playback was catching up and in some areas overtaking Ableton all the time to the point where I could put playback in any volunteer's hands, and with not much time, they could get fully comfortable to do it.

And then suddenly I had this time back to focus. So many other things. So inside a playback [00:46:00] we've got things like, uh, dynamic vocal cues. So if I decide to jump from the verse to the bridge, I'm not having to tap dance and press it in the last measure like I would with Ableton. I can choose that at any time in the verse and it's gonna call out bridge and seamlessly go to bridge.

But not only will it go there and tell the band in there in ears, it's gonna make sure the right lyrics come up in front of the congregation to go to the bridge and the right chord charts and lyrics in front of my musicians. So this connected kind of ecosystem that we call the connected stage means that any decision I make as a music director or a worship leader is just gonna seamlessly play out,

Jeff Sandstrom: um, in front of.

And so that's basically the software is sending mini commands to pro presenter. Yeah. To be able to queue the right slides. You're sending you, you've got web socket technology that's connecting playback to chart builder. Yes. Correct. Which is basically making sure that every core chart of people are using charts on stage.

Yep. It's following along. and if the sections of the song, if the form of the song changes Yes. [00:47:00] It just automatically tracks. Absolutely. Yeah. And those chords can be selected to be shown in either chord symbols. Yep. Nashville number system. Yep. Whatever other Do Remi do Remi?

Kristian Ponsford: Yeah. Capo all, all the options.

Yeah, all the options. So every musician can have. Um, and core charts are so personal, right? Every musician can have them in front of them the way they, they want to. Maybe the vocalists don't want the chords and they just want the lyric. So maybe the drummer just wants a song map in front of them. But in real time as we make those decisions, to repeat the bridge, go to the core, uh, go to the chorus, uh, go back to the verse, it's gonna go ahead of you and highlight that section in front of the musician that before they even get to the section, it tells them Yeah.

Jeff Sandstrom: So it it it's a look ahead feature. Yeah. Both with the guide Yes. Vocally, but then with core charts. Absolutely. And mi Yeah. And then you, you can also then send MIDI information to your lighting desk. Mm-hmm. or, um, MIDI changes to maybe, uh, the [00:48:00] key of the song in waves. Um, what about time code? Yeah.

Kristian Ponsford: Playback sends simpy time code now, uh, over a discrete audio output as well. So we have churches that are using that for lyric videos or sending to the Grand MA for lighting controls or sending it out to broadcast rooms as well and, and playback. As you turn on, CTI will ask you to choose, I think, one of five different frame rates, uh, inside of playback, and then you can select where in the song simply starts from.

And it's starting time as well. So however your simply set up, uh, playback can root that. And this is all coming from an iPhone or an iPad, right? It's all from an

Jeff Sandstrom: iPad or an iOS device. All MyBook if you want to, but yeah. So another thing that strikes me as I watch, as I watch you interact with playback is just the, the ability that it affords somebody to be, um, free in a flow moment.

Yeah. To adapt to changes in real time. Yeah. So, um, [00:49:00] talk about pad player and some of the other features that enable those sort of transitions to happen smoothly.

Kristian Ponsford: Yeah, absolutely. I think if we wind back a couple of years, we were in a scenario where tracks were amazing, but they hindered the improv or spontaneous part of leading worship unless you had an incredible technician side of stage running that for you.

Yeah. Responding to what was going on. And that's an incredible role. And you know, we've talked about this in the last few days. There's some really talented people that do that. But if you don't have that playback able to engineer side of stage, how do you respond to those moments? So we. have put several things inside a playback specifically for churches that want to respond and move differently.

So we have a single loop button that can be mapped to any mid controller or to your feet, to fingers, or even on screen. So if I just wanna do a one time repeat of that bridge or that chorus, I can tap a button. The vocal cues, the mini cues, everything will allow me to do that. I can infinite loop a section.

So if I just wanna [00:50:00] stay in that interlude whilst I read a scripture, encourage to the church, uh, talk about what we're doing, I can absolutely

Jeff Sandstrom: do that. So the practical application for that is a host or pastor comes up on stage Yes. And there's a four bar section of the song Yeah. That would typically go into a bridge or start the bridge and build.

So you can take that four bar section, just hit infinite loop. Yep. And those four bars just keep going. Absolutely. So that somebody can have a spontaneous prayer or a talk or do something to transition the the room that isn't dependent on the band doing their typical build into the bridge. Right. And then all you have to do is turn infinite loop off and it will automatically advance to the next section of the song.

Correct. So it's a very simple way Yes. To go from a looping section to, okay, now we're back in, and the guide and all the instruments and all that just changes with, is it one bar or is it selectable to be two bars or is it, yeah, it'll

Kristian Ponsford: get to the end of that section. So it'll play through the [00:51:00] rest of that section and then move on into the next.

So again, what we love about this is I can toggle on and off that loop, but I'm not having to do it in the last measure and then fear that I've missed it. It's just gonna go through so good into the next section. Um, a little while ago we put another audio engine inside a playback for running pads as pad player.

So previous to that, playback had one audio engine, it could play. , um, section of audio to time. When we added the second one, we're allowed to put tracks on top of ambient pads. So the practical application of that is when we press play, we can have the tracks from the original recording with a complimentary ambient pad, maybe even some that are designed to match perfectly underneath.

So if I need to fade the tracks out or get to the end of the song, and I don't want the sonic moment to change from a listen's point of view, it's not clear whether I'm playing with tracks or if the ambient pad has sat there, I can turn on and off the click or I can choose to go back into a section. So we do this all the time in my context, where a song will finish and it'll just rest on the [00:52:00] ambient pad.

And if we want to go back and improv and go back into the bridge or the chorus at a tap of a button, we can do that as well. So a lot of these tools that

Jeff Sandstrom: are available, that's incredible. And you've got dozens of pads to choose from. Yep. Different textures, different, you know, producers have created some of these things that have.

Customizable levels of, let's say there's, you know, there's a darker mellow thing, but then there's a, a swell or something. You can, you can mix those elements independent of each other within that pad sound Absolutely. To create a more customized version of that to begin with. So rather than having a keyboard player who has to try to craft that in real time spontaneously in the moment, they could focus on maybe just playing the piano.

Yeah. And have pad player do its thing underneath it all and just be ready for what's next. Absolutely. It's

Kristian Ponsford: amazing. Yeah. And we'll see musicians use this all the time. Recently we saw the guitar player with Phil Wickham using Pad Player, [00:53:00] um, and as part of his guitar rig, so that he can put a guitar, ambient drone sat underneath the parts.

He's playing. Uh, we borrow and take pads from the lights of Peter James from Hillsong and Nigel Hendra and Cool Sound and David Wellman and Jim Danica and a whole bunch of other incredible musicians. And they're creating pads for us that sit inside a playback for you,

Jeff Sandstrom: independent of the song

Kristian Ponsford: itself, independent of song itself.

So you can match any pad with any song. Yeah.

Jeff Sandstrom: In any key in, at any time. At any time. . So what else? What are the other key features of playback that make it a differentiator in the space? So

Kristian Ponsford: I think the ability to take, uh, mix any of the stems. So we're gonna give you the original recording, as we've said already, but you've got access to all of the stems in there.

So we can mix those stems, we can put them into any one of those 12 keys that are available. We can change the bpm, um, we can change the arrangement of the song. So if I want to start with a bridge rather than the verse, I can do all of that. If I [00:54:00] arrive at soundcheck and the worship leader says, actually, I just want this to be a short intro and straight into the bridge within a few clips, I can make that happen.

Um, and a lot of that was reserved for my 40 hours a week that I used to do, where I would have to have all these options available even if there weren't gonna be used, and we almost had to know what we were doing. Right. You

Jeff Sandstrom: almost have to know in advance what's coming so that you can pre-program those and make them somehow still feel spontaneous.

Right. That's

Kristian Ponsford: difficult. And have those options. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that's why, you know, all of these courses and Ableton experts popped up because they were hacking different ways of trying to give you those tools to do that. Uh, and the benefit of writing an app from the ground up. Designed for worship leaders and to innovate on that weekly, um, means that we're starting with the worship leader in mind, uh, and given those tools.

So

Oscar Interiano: for me, like I'm, I'm leading worship this Sunday, and uh, tomorrow night our production team shows up and they build a pro presenter and on the flight here, and I finished, uh, this morning, you know, [00:55:00] I did all my arrangement, my mix settings, my busing, and I just saved to the cloud. And then tomorrow our tech person's gonna walk in on the iPad on stage, they're gonna open up my set list with everything ready to go, go to represent a computer, download it, and that's it.

You know, so I, even that for me, I just, I was building it this week. I'm like, I'm excited to leave worship, uh, for many reasons, but I'm like, it is so cool that I don't have to be physically there. Mm-hmm. , it's just, I did the work here and they just open it on their end and we're ready

Jeff Sandstrom: to go. So you talked about your team and what they're going to experience tomorrow night at rehearsal.

So what if we rely on planning center for that information? , how does that integrate with playback?

Oscar Interiano: Well, yeah, the great, the great thing is if you're using planning center, you don't have to duplicate the work. If you go into playback and go into the set list section, I just do import from planning center.

So everything's just imported directly. And then I go into each arrangement of the song and I can recall whatever arrangement I want, whether it's the default or if I'm gonna do a shorter version or extended version. A lot of different ways. [00:56:00]

Kristian Ponsford: That's very cool. That's great. And I think then the benefit on the other side of that is once you finish leading that set of worship, if you have the church streaming license, that automatically reports Yep.

Back for you as well. So there's an end of that product that will end of that process that would've taken a lot of time to take on that activity and make sure it's reported. Uh, now just happens automatically in our ecosystem as well.

Jeff Sandstrom: That's amazing. So is there anything. that you can sort of tease out to us That might be, cause I know you're developing new features all the time.

It seems like there's a new version of playback. Yeah. Every week . Okay. Or some update. So what's a feature that's coming soon that you might be able to sort of let our listeners in on, especially as church production folks that you think would be like, Hey, this is gonna be really cool. Yeah.

Kristian Ponsford: I'll, I'll tease two for you.

Okay. Uh, so one that we'll see pretty quickly here, um, [00:57:00] probably beta within the next week or so, is something called automations. So this is the idea that what if I only want guitar two in the bridge and not in the verse. What if I want a completely different mix, um, when I get to the chorus than I do in the bridge.

So we're gonna allow the customer to go down and pause the track at any point, change some mix settings inside of the fades, uh, and then commit that change to the timeline a bit like you would a digital snapshot in a desk. Yeah. And then as playback progresses through the timeline, it'll make those recourse and you can set fades over certain number of bars between those sections.

So we might decide that in verse three, we want nothing but a pad and we can take that out, but we want it all fading back in at the end of that pad to create that moment. So automations is coming really soon. That's very cool. That's pretty exciting. I think the one that the MSU listeners are gonna really love is what we're calling remote.

Jeff Sandstrom: Okay. So you told me about this. Yep. And I instantly said, , this needs to [00:58:00] happen like tomorrow, . So it does tell everybody what remote is gonna enable us to do.

Kristian Ponsford: So we're finding that more and more of our customers are using playback in very different ways. So it could be that you have a MacBook plugged into a Dante connection slide of stage.

You could have it in the drummer's cage, it could be in front of the music director. What remote will allow you to do is to open up a copy of playback on any of the device. And control the main playback device. So let's say the MacBook is side of stage and it's plugged into Dante, your front of house engineer could open up his iPad and effectively see the same playback session and in real time make mixed changes inside of the stems or make any changes that are available to playback and do that.

Your guitar player could have their phone with a mid controller plugged into their phone and it's gonna send that midi control wirelessly back to the main playback device for them to maybe press loop or for them to press, go to song two or go to bridge. So we can give midi control, live [00:59:00] control, and mi control to any of those devices.

Jeff Sandstrom: That just opens up a world of possibilities and, uh, uh, you know, you have to trust who you're putting that control. Absolutely. , you know, capability in. But from a front house perspective, you know, there, I can't tell you the number of times where there's a, there's a loop. Stem Yep. That I really want to push, but the tambourine or a shaker or something is just outta balance.

Right? Not, not in the, not in the creation of the track, but just in the way it's translating through the pa. Okay. So for me, able, for me to be able to go into that element Yeah. And go, okay, in this set of stems, let me just pull down the tambourine three DB from front of house. Yeah. Without having to interrupt the rehearsal, without having to do anything to sort of disrupt the flow.

Yes. That's invaluable. I mean, that is gonna be a massive [01:00:00]

Kristian Ponsford: asset. Absolutely. And, and even then, at front of house, you could, if that's the perfect mix that you want coming from playback, we can save that as an arrangement. So then every time that song is record, you're gonna have that percussion stems come out at exactly the right level for you as well.

Jeff Sandstrom: Man, that's cool. You guys are doing incredible things and I'm just so grateful for your commitment to the product and to be com, you know, constantly listening to feedback and implementing new features like these, but also your just commitment to serving the church and building teams. And you know, what I love about our partnership is that we both just focus so much on getting better and helping teams get better and to be more healthy.

And so, um, your commitment to producing products that enable that on a daily basis is inspiring. So thank you both for being here, Oscar and Christian. I just, it's great to know you [01:01:00] guys and it's great to partner with you in this journey of serving production teams. Thank you,

Kristian Ponsford: Jeff. Thank you. Yeah, it's great to be here.

Thank you so much.

Jay Desai: Man. Uh, I some days want to go back to the simple days of just a band, but then like all this technology's so like enticing that all the flexibility and cool stuff. I've been in Ableton for a minute, but like the playback software and that kind of stuff, what a great tool, um, to help people kind of do it with excellence.

You know? I love that. I do love the licensing part. Incredible that they've done all the legwork

Jeff Sandstrom: on that. Yeah, and I love the idea that even for a band who. Just wants to implement a click track right now. You know, you can get click and guide and all that stuff for free. You don't even have to subscribe to any of the other content.

They're just, they, they want you to be a better band. And so I love their heart for the church. I love their heart for building teams. It was just [01:02:00] really cool to meet those guys and work with 'em for a few days in person as we made some videos for the M H U library about multitracks. So can't wait for you guys to see that They're gonna be edited soon, and they're gonna be coming to you on the app.

If you're not an M H U subscriber, I'm telling you some of the things that we're doing in the next few months to build teams and to help you recruit, train, and retain your volunteers. Is gonna be amazing. It already is amazing. But, uh, if, if you're a leader of a team, I'm telling you, you have to [email protected] because what's coming is gonna blow you away.

So thanks for joining in with us on that. Jay, it's always a great pleasure to see your face. I'm so glad we got to chat today. Yeah, man, always.

Jay Desai: You're only two hours away, but sometimes in my head it's like, so far I know I should meet you, meet you halfway from lunch. You know, isn't there's gotta be a Chick-fil-a halfway

Jeff Sandstrom: No, you need to come up here for some Louis barbecue. That's what we [01:03:00] do, father God. Yeah, but I'm gonna be mixing actually at your place next Sunday, so maybe we'll see each other. We won't cause I'm gone. Oh, that's why you're there. Cuz I'm not there. Where are you? Uh,

Jay Desai: rusty and I are, um, doing an event for our friends at Think Q.

Oh, nice.

Jeff Sandstrom: Yeah.

Jay Desai: So we'll be at the ko. Um, rusty will be playing golf. I'll be taking a nap.

Jeff Sandstrom: Well, there's worse things. Yeah. It'll be great. Great. Well, until next time, I hope you have a great week and, uh, write somebody a note. Yeah, check in with your friends. Build some community. We'll see you on the MX U 75.