John Pape Online Blog

Here is a list of various sites that provide song media to help you learn new songs.

Free Praise And Worship
This website is for YOU. We’re working together with songwriters all over the world to build a comprehensive collection of music (Sheet Music, Chord Charts, Midi, RealAudio™, Overheads) for praise and worship. All of the songs on this site are available for you to use in worship services.

HighestPraise.Com – Praise and Worship
Praise and Worship Resources, Free Praise and Worship Music

Worship Archive
Very comprehensive site with many new and contemporary song sheets with lyrics and chords

Christian Teens.net
Large collection of Christian Hymns in MIDI format

Heavenly midis
Hymns, Praise & Worship, Spiritual, Kids Praise, Southern Gospel, Spirituals, Contemporary Christian Music, Special Music. Over 1000 Midi files

Lutheran Hymnal midis
Lutheran Hymnals, Christian Hymns, Sheet Music for Churches, Religious MP3’s & Midi’s These are the traditional songs of worship and praise from Lutheran Hymnals presented in midi, in mp3, in lyrics and in sheet music.

Praise midis
Collection of Praise Midi

Songs of Praise
Songs of Praise, a unique source of original songs and plays for your church. This site was created by Elton Smith and Gilberto Barreto in 1996, but along the way dozens of other people have contributed their efforts. Each song has a midi file and music score. Many of the songs also have MP3, WMA and RealAudio files with singing.

New Hope Music
410+ Original Scripture-Based Songs & Hymns Designed for Public Worship Gatherings, Youth Ministry and Bible Memorization All FREE to Download, Copy & Share With Others ! Scripture Based Songs to sing with your congregation

Tom Lascoe’s Praise & Worship Song Center
The goal of this ministry is to provide free praise and worship music for church worship leaders, music ministers, choir directors, and anyone interested in lifting the name of Jesus Christ in song.

Music Resources for Today’s Christian Worship
Proven guitar and keyboard-based contemporary music for Christian worship in sheet music and MIDI format (either unpublished or not widely known), made available as efficiently, effectively and freely as possible – that’s the purpose of this site.

Free Music Downloads
Gracies Cafe Top Praise Song Streams

Hillsong Lyrics and Chords
Collection of lyrics to several songs

MIDI Music for Worship
This page is a resource for the use of MIDI for worship services worldwide. More and more people are discovering the use of MIDI organs, pianos, and guitar synthesizers to provide accompaniment for learning music, choir rehersals, and even for worship services in settings where musicians cannot be present. The goal of this page is to provide tips and music files to churches setting up and maintaining MIDI systems.

Calvary Chapel Worship Resources
Songs, written music, guitar aids

Your Christian Home
Here you will find guitar chords & lyrics to your favourite praise and worship songs. The archive is constantly updated with the newest songs. Worship database, articles, message boards

Orange County Worship Fellowship
A collection of praise and worship songs, includes MP3s, PowerPoint chord charts

A few years ago a person who wanted to record a CD would either pay enormous fees for studio time or need to be picked up by a record label. Nowadays when you are ready to record you simply set up your recording space with the equipment you need and start laying down the tracks for those killer sounds you hear inside your head. It’s that simple; but, before you start recording there are few things you’ll need for your studio.

#1. A computer and software program.

Almost everyone has a computer these days, but not just any computer will do. You need one that is optimized for music with a lot of storage, memory and the power to run your music programs. As for software, there are several options available and only you can decide which is best for your needs. Just remember your software and your computer is the brain power of your recording studio. Definitely get the best equipment and software program you can afford.  More Info…

#2. Sound Proofing

Sound proofing is a vital requirement in your recording studio as without it your instruments and voices will bounce off the walls, creating an echo when you record. A good medium for this is recording foam.. as it deadens the sound and allows you to record without the echo effect. Anything that absorbs sound will work; I’ve known some would-be-stars to use egg cartons! More Info…

#3. Soundcard

An audio soundcard with adequate inputs and outputs to allow you to record all of the instruments at once. Without an audio soundcard there is no way for the sound to get from your instrument into the computer! More Info…

#4. Pre-Amp

Pre-amps give your instruments that extra boost of good sound that you don’t get if you simply plug your instruments straight into the mixer. By pre-amping your guitars and basses, you will keep their best sound before they go into the mixing board. More Info…

#5. Monitors

Monitors are special speakers you’ll need to make sure that you have everything right. With monitors you will be able to hear the highs and lows of your recording so that you can make sure that it all blends together correctly. Recording head phones can work in this capacity as well if noise becomes an issue in your basement at around midnight. Remember, it’s all in the mix. More Info…

#6. Microphones

Recording Microphone Equipment is a must-have. Recording mics are not the same as a regular microphone. These are designed especially to capture all of the sounds from the voice on every side. Attached to the recording microphone should be a pop filter, which will stop the hard consonants and hissing from dirtying up the recording with muffled sounds. More Info…

#7. Audio Compressor

Consider getting a compressor. While this is an optional piece of equipment, don’t overlook it. Specifically used for vocals, the compressor prohibits the waves in the voice from reaching certain peaks, putting you in the red zone. It equalizes the waves so that you can adjust the voice to match the other instrumentation as you go. More Info…

Setting up your own recording studio can be an exciting challenge. These are the necessary basics …you will need.. to get you started recording your own music… in your own home studio. You can always add more equipment later – or take away unneeded equipment. The mentioned list will give you a good start… to a complete your home recording studio. Have fun!

About the Author Jimmy CL Newson deals in all aspects of the music industry from audio and video production to marketing and promotions. He is currently working on projects involving internet television, internet radio and live music performances across the United States. His primary focus is the independent music community. Visit his website at http://www.musicindependenceonline.com for more information.

I’ve added several new resources to the John Pape Online Blog.

• Bible Trivia – Test your knowledge of the Bible
• Daily Bible Story – A new story every day from the Bible
• Christian News – News items with an emphasis on Christianity.
• eBooks – There are many resources available to help you to grow and learn in your Christian faith.
• Shopping – A shopping section has been added to help you easily find items such as books, software, musical instruments

Below is a list of many free software resources that are available to you.  If you have also found software that is useful and you want to share it please leave a comment to this post.

PraiseBase©
Worship team database has all the functions from SongBuilder (below) plus a database to track team members, worship sets and schedules.

SongBuilder©
(formerly CLOG Chord, Lyric, Overhead Generator).  New version can also do key transpositions for chord charts and choose inline chords or chords on top.

Anvil Studio
Anvil Studio™ is a free Windows program designed for people who want to:

• record music with MIDI and Audio equipment,
• compose music for MIDI and Audio equipment,
• Sequence music with MIDI equipment, or
• play with music using a computer and sound card.

Finale Notepad
You can create great looking sheet music with this free application.

Ghostscript
A freeware program for creating PDF files.

VanBasco MIDI Player
vanBasco’s Karaoke Player plays MIDI Karaoke files. Lyrics can be displayed in full-screen. You can change and recall tempo, volume, and key of a song, and mute or solo instruments.

Adobe PDF viewer
This is the software need to view many of the sheet music files on this site.

Finale viewer
This program is needed to view .MUS (which are a combination of Sheet Music and Midi)  files created by users of Finale software.

UltraPlayer
UltraPlayer is a free MP3 player supporting MP3, WAV, CD Audio and Internet radio streams. Loads of features including a sleep timer.

Winamp
Very popular, versatile MP3 file player. If you use it longer than 14 days, you’re required to pay $10 to continue to use it for noncommercial use or $25 for commercial use.

Free Praise And Worship – Worship Leader Resource
Praise And Worship, chords, lyrics, mp3, realaudio, sheet music. Over 700 songs from independent christian songwriters. A great resource for worship leaders

Worship Assistant
Software tool for planning your worship services and presenting song lyrics using a video projector.

Online Transposer
Web based tool automatically transpose song chords to a new key

Free Bible Software
Free 31 volume Bible Software CD that this nonprofit ministry gives away. Commentaries, Bibles, and more.

In addition to this website I have a couple of others as well.  From time to time I go in and tweak the site to make them better.  One site I’ve been working on is http://www.accordionboot.com It is what you would call is single product e-commerce site.  This item is used in many application primarily in vehicles.  It is used as a gasket in truck campers and also use in a blow-through audio port for car audio speakers.

Recently I expanded the site to include new pages.  The goal for creating these pages was to develop new content that would help in my SEO for the site.   To accomplish this I added a resource page.  On the resource page I added several page that relate directly to the accordion boot product.  I included these pages:

• Glossary of terms
  The idea behind this was to create a list of keywords that are related to this product.  Then provide definitions of these words.  The hope is to create a keyword rich content.  In turn, I hope that it will attract the search engine spiders and index this page.
• White Paper
  The purpose of a White Paper is to provide a document that will provide information regarding the product.  The format contains 5 sections:
  • Abstract
  • State the Problem
  • Describe the Product
  • Tell how the product solves the problem
  • Conclusion

  Again the purpose of this document is to provide my client with additional information that will allow them to make an informed decision when they decide to purchase the product.

• Technical Data for the rubber material
  I added this page to provide proof and evidence of the technical performance of the material used in the product. With this I hope to gain trust with the client.  Although this data is technical, it will appeal to a certain segment of my audience that wants this type of detailed information.
• Online calculator
  This page came about as a result of one of my customers ordering the wrong amount of accordion boot material.  As a convenience to my customer I included an online calculator that will help them determine the amount of material they will need for their project.  As the boot is designed to fill a gap between two openings, all a person has to do is make a few measurement, then enter the numbers into the appropriate form.  The calculator will them use the proper formula to determine how many feet are required.  The form uses javascript to perform the math functions
• Installation Guide
  Although the material is very simple to install, one issue that popped up was how to properly boot the two end together.  This page has a visual representation of how to do that.  I create an illustration in Photoshop to help the customer visualize the solution.

Now that I’ve added these resources to my website, I can now monitor any improvements in incoming traffic.