The Ministry of Helps

1Co 12:28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers,
after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

My goal here is hoping you'll catch a vision of a unique niche service you could develop in helping any ministry while working at home on your computer in your spare time.

Helping in the ministry is not all about being center stage in preaching and teaching leading worship. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes with needed helpers to make it all happen more smoothly.

In 2004 Glen saw a need to stop recording on cassette and begin recording on CD. I did some research myself to see just what I needed in helping to make this new challenge possible. This really retired Glen from the over 40 years of recording, and gave him a new freedom to fellowship more with others during our camp meetings. I knew that if I was do this, it would be something I would need to be faithful in.

Taking a tape recorder to play into a computer is not hard. It all done in real time. This means if a cassette is 90 minutes, it takes 90 minutes to have the computer record from the cassette player. While time consuming, it's the software that is makes cleaning up all those audio messages so possible. Like background noise like, hiss, microphone pops, muffled sounding audio, very low, or too high volume too. Some of the early camp meetings we had here in the early 1970's and 1980's had some poor audio quality, because of line noise, HUM in recordings. With Diamond Cut software I've been able to restore most of these recordings better then the original cassette master, or reel to reel tape.

While many ministries, big or small, might still be recording their services on audio cassette, most have moved on to CD recordings, or just DVD Video (which still has a need for audio enhancement). There is still a big need in converting all those older anointed treasures on cassette to CD. You have probably bought audio CD's from other ministries that sounded low or just need some tweaking. With your help those messages could sound so much better. If you love to work alone, this job could get you hired. To me I rather do this, then stand behind a microphone any day.

All these problems can be easily fixed on a basic Pentium 3 or 4 computer. You can pick those up real cheap as off lease, used or refurbished. You don't need the latest technology to start for just transferring cassettes and editing and saving files. But if you have a multi core CPU you'll just get your work done so much faster when running software filters to fix all these audio problems.

There is about many scores now of messages in our free audio directory where anyone in the world can click to listen freely. We now have more web space, so I'm hoping to have a lot more messages for what's new each month.

Originally my old Pentium 4 computer did not have a good internal sound board for recording purposes. None really do even to date. I needed a professional sound card. I save the *.wav file in stereo to make CD copies unless I'm uploading it to our website. Web files need to be in (mono) single track. The file size is much smaller (4-to10 megs), which allows us to have more room to share more audio files for listening online. I'll explain more about this later in detail.

When I started this CD project late 2004, All I had was a 5 year old Pentium 2. I had a friend who upgraded his, so he gave me his old Pentium 4 running Windows 2000. But he said the hard drive was starting to go bad, as sometimes it would not boot. There is always warning signs. Well it was good enough to launch me and it lasted a few months before it crashed.

I then bought a Pentium 4 running XP in an e-Machine. Gateway had bought them out by then, so I thought maybe they might not have power supply issues anymore. That system lasted me a good 3 years before that hard drive crashed. But the power supply never did die.

So I bought me a basic Dell Core2Duo 2.93 GHz for home use. (Under $500) Wow that doubled my speed, and saving these giant *.wav files took less then a minute instead of over a minute. This home computer is running under Windows Vista. I really liked XP better as it didn't have hardware and some software compatibility issues like Vista does.

Trust me, you got to have a backup plan for all your internal hard drive data.

In October 2011 I wanted a new audio computer to work full time at the camps office. My needs have changed a little more. I still wanted another audio computer for playing in tapes, and working on the camps website, but now been thinking of helping with the video editing and that needs a lot of power. This time around I was not looking for something cheap to just get by. I bought this custom built system from www.tracertek.com This is one of their latest audio center computers. My configuration is their AMD 1100 Turbo 6 core processor. This is my first AMD. I've always owned INTEL CPU's. But this one is just fine and runs so cool. Not even a hint of warm air out the side and back. I wanted 16 gig of RAM, M-Audio 2496 64 bit audio card. Their new Diamond Cut (DC-8) software pre-installed. I use it for recording, but it's power is really in filtering, and fixing every conceivable audio problem known. This software is easy to use once you read the basics of how to filter an audio file. I read the first 3 chapters and I was off fixing old tapes like they should have been recorded.

I have always bought from tracertek when needing their DC software program. We usually bought their Juli@ sound cards. But in ordering this new computer, Tracertek said the Juli@ card is having problems in 64 bit mode. So taking their word for it, I steered into buying their M-Audio Audiophile 2496 instead. This new system is running under Windows 7 Professional. I was a little nervous in trying a whole new operating system I had no experience with, but wow it's so much better and really it reminds me a lot in the simple ways of XP-PRO. So smooth. I really like it. It's even got 11 USB's, plus Firewire. Some USB 3.0 besides several USB 2.0. That's great for these new faster external hard drives. I bought both a CD/DVD rewritable as well as a Blu-Ray rewritable. The Blu-Ray rewritable also burns CD's and DVD's but buying both allows for burning two CD's at once using this 6 core CPU processor. This way the machine will double as a quick two drive duplicator in a pinch if recording in the field. This video card in this computer can run two monitors at once and it has all three connections: VGA, DVI-D and a HDMI port too. One is really all you need for audio recording, but for video editing two can be used.

My C: drive is just for programs. But it's one of those electronic SSD Drives with no moving parts. (maybe this type hard drive will be more reliable). While I record on that lightning fast hard drive I save my files on it's D-drive which is a single 1,000 gig hard drive. They had options for a bigger drives for only $69.00 more. But for me it's cheaper to buy 1,000 gig back-up hard drives.

I always backup my hard drive files to an external Western Digital My Book hard drive. That brand seems to be a little more reliable. I also have a mini Western Digital Passport 60 gig we bought in 2004. The first part of January 2012 I bought a 750 Gig Toshiba mini hard drive. Their small like the WD Passport, but it's USB 3.0 as well as USB 2.0 compatible.

Internal drives should never be used for permanent solution of any sole file storage. While a raid system would be great, they cost a hundreds of dollars. And those single one Terabyte external drives now days are less then $100.00.

Making two or more mirror copies of all my work is cheaper. I recommend replacing those back up external drives every 2 years. Or when you feel their not connecting very fast. That's your warning sign.

All hard drives crash, even external ones no matter the brand. I already had one external Terabyte Western Digital MyBook die. It's symptom was that it was taking several minutes to boot when plugging them into the computer. NOTE: If you're not using them, unplug as those drives so they will last longer.

I always have at least two complete backups on single Terabyte drives. I can't stress enough the need to have an external hard drive backup plan.

This is now my 15th computer since 1984. Remember DOS?

I explained my history just to show you that internal computer hard drives are like time bombs. If you have not ever backed up your family pictures on your computer, you better go do that ASAP. Is there any data in your computer right now that you don't mine loosing? Enough said!

If you only have a laptop and can't install a physical card into your computer, you can also buy a USB audio powered devices too.

You need software to record and then a fast way to quickly edit your *.WAV file. I recommend the home edition of Sony Sound Forge it's so fast to edit files and save to any file format. DC8 can too, but it's better for filtering then quicker editing. Sony won't do it all either. Got to have both. Sony Home edition is about $69.00. I paid half of that once on eBay and it was brand new never opened, and not an upgrade, but a new version. Nice!

To transfer a cassette into the computer, we bought those inexpensive Radio Shack cassette decks. About $40.00. You might consider buying an extended warranty. The tape head won't wear out in a year, but pressing the button keys hundreds of times might. Well I just replaced their player. The head did wear out, and the clue was the volume was so much lower. While I had bought an additional warranty for that player, it died in 3 years instead of the two. So this time didn't bother with buying a extended warranty for it.

How To Record

I plug my patch cord bought from Radio Shack into the earphone jack on the player and the other end has two plugs that hook up to the left and right jacks on the back of the computers sound card. Test your cassette out first before recording into the computer and adjust for medium volume. Make sure your recording software is set to 44,100 Hz, 16 Bit Stereo. Press record on your software, and then press play on your cassette recorder.

Remember you have to be there to turn the tape over when it's time unless your cassette deck has auto-reverse. No need to stop recording, unless you want to save side one as a separate file name and then copy/paste side two's file to the end of side one. For me it's easier to make it all one file and just take out the long gap between both sides using Sony Sound Forge.

After you save your *.WAV file, look at your file at 1:1,024 magnification. The audio should be within the fixed audio lines on screen. If higher run the normalize feature to 6 DB. Everyone speaks either too soft, or too loud, so it might take you an hour to go through the whole file raising volume in places, and normalizing screaming volume above the lines. This is a tedious job, and most people either don't have the time, or are not interested in making the minister sound the best they could be.

Transferring a cassette into the computer is done in real time. So if you have a 90 minute tape, it's going to take 90 minutes to play it all in. Then, save it to a *.WAV file and start editing it with Sony Sound Forge. When I say edit it, I'm not taking anything out of the message itself. I mean editing out the gaps over 1 second. NOTE: You can't get 90 minutes of recording and fit it on an 80 minute CD without taking out gaps. Gaps occur where the speaker pauses for more than 1 seconds. Example: they might say, “turn to so and so scripture,” and then wait several seconds for the people to find the verse. Taking out those long gaps really helps those listening to an audio CD. Why make people wait before the speaker starts up again?

Next, you need to filter your file. When transferring from cassette to your computer, there is always going to be some hiss between the speaking. Not because of the transfer, but usually because of the cassette, especially if it's just a copy of the original master. It's best to transfer from an original master, but that might not be always available to you. Cassette duplicators help to raise the volume in copies made, so if there is any background noise in the master it's also raised even more in the copy. DC8 will take all this out in their continuous noise filter. It's amazing.

In viewing your audio file you'll notice that there is a thin line between the speaking. The line might appear to look darker, thick or spotty. That indicates noise in the audio. Hiss filters are really not the best for taking everything out for noise reduction. I have upgraded to their new DC8. Wow what an update this is. This program can do anything.

DC8 can be ordered from www.Tracertek.com. They have a free demo you can use that allows only 10 minutes of recording to just try it. This program will be able to fix ANY audio problems. The manual is like 400 pages, but all I did was read the first three chapters and I was out of the gate producing quality masters. As you have other types of audio problems you'll find how to fix it is in the manual.

This work is not hard. You will be amazed and excited.

In DC8 there is a "continuous noise" filter. Just highlight a half second of the sound file and sample the noise. Turn your computer speakers up full and listen. Preview the noise, and compare what it sounds like with what DC8 will produce as a sample finished file. Then either select all, or just double click on the whole file and run this filter. DC8 makes a destination file copy. So you can see the old one and also the new filtered file at the same time on your screen. If you like it, then make the new destination the source. DC6/7 makes a new file name for you. So you always have the original to go back to if needed.

For microphone pops run DC8 Ezclean filter. It's a labor of love to take time and make the master as perfect as possible. This is not about how fast you can do it. You will get your steps down after few several transfers. This can be fun. I have a saying. "Choose a job you love, never work another day".

I'm only using just a few of these great filters, but from time to time I run into a different audio problem. Like the echo effect when a minister is speaking in a great hall, or convention. The DC8 “Ping Pong” filter takes the echo out in speech. Got a file that sounds muffled? Click on the DC8 10 channel graphic equalizer and sample a few seconds of audio. Choose the filter for raising Treble. All muffled sound will now sound so nice and clear. DC8 also has a 20 channel graphic equalizer for enhancing your music too. Wireless microphones have a problem with the speech sounding too sharp. Use a warming a filter to make it sound better. There are hundreds of filters in DC8.

Want a better way to transcribe an audio message to make a booklet? With DC8 you can run "Stretch & Squish". It's a speed change filter. Its primary purpose is for Forensics applications in which a spoken word recording needs to be slowed down for transcription to the written word. ....Just a little hint after writing this. When we started writing books for others, I.E. Earline Moody, Jack Harris, etc. These we're originally just audio tapes that we transcribed.

Lots of folks don't know how to write a book, but if they can speak and don't repeat themselves then this can be the beginning of a booklet. Printing a big book can be very expensive. How about making just chapters into little booklets instead. You can save a lot more money just printing your books in your home. All you need is a laser printer that does duplex printing (double sided printing) and Microsoft Publisher. Now you can just print as many copies as you need. You can pick up a hand operated saddle stapler to put three staples in the center. Now for web publishing your book. You can buy ebook authoring software. I'm looking now at a ebook maker for the Apple iPad 2. This is another way to get media out to the masses. To be able to download a whole booklet to some ones phone is nothing short of amazing to me.

Want to restore an old record that is terribly scratched. When you play it into your computer, and save to a *.WAV file, just run the scratch filter and all those scratch sounds will be totally gone. Sweet!

Also, don't go to the limit of your 80 minute CD, try to make your .WAV file under 79 minutes. You're going to need some space to add what you want to say in the beginning of the file as a header. The speaker’s name, date, where given, etc. Also at the end of the message add, "This is the end of this CD or message." Try and keep your file as close as you can to 79 minutes for your 90 minute cassette, or you'll end up having to make two CD's of one tape. It does happen, but not if I can help it.

For making these little .WAV files for my heads, I just open Windows word pad and type what I want to say and record a little .WAV file and save it as "EndOfThisMessage.WAV", etc. Then I just copy/paste this to end of every CD master I make. Make another file for a start head. A head is what we say in front of every CD message to where they can know who is speaking, the date, etc.

Also, or if you have to split one big file into two files to have an A & B set of CD's because the message went over 80 minutes and it's even to big after taking the gaps out. Make a saved audio file that says. "This is the end of Part A of this CD, please play Part B, thank you". Then on the B CD in the front, make a head you can quickly copy paste that says, "This is now the conclusion of this message from Part A. What I like to do is copy just a few seconds off the end of Part A and copy/paste it to CD Part B, that way no one is going to feel like their missing anything.

Do not delete your original finished *.WAV file once you burn a master copy. Instead save it in a compressed Windows Media file format on your hard drive. Example a 700 meg file can be compressed down to 50 meg, using Sound Forge and saving in Windows Media v9 or v11 at 128kbps 44,100 Hz Stereo. I have a second external drive for just storing my masters. They can be loaded and saved back to a bigger *.WAV keeping the original quality in your finished restoration.

I accidentally dropped one of my masters and scratched it, and when I put it in our CD duplicator it gave me an error – No longer able to copy! I'm so glad I'm saving my masters on my second hard drive. Get yourself a USB backup hard drive and make sure you don't just store your masters only on your computer's internal hard drive. These drives can be unplugged and stored in a safe place till you need it again to back up of another new file you just finished.

If your ministry has a website you could save your audio files as Windows Media 11 to 20,000 kbps, this is 16 bit, mono. The quality is pretty good, and clear enough for anyone wanting to listen online as a freebie. The file size will only be around 4-8 megabytes. If you take the time and take those gaps out it will make your file size even smaller, get that hiss out too, because compressing this tight is going to magnify any background noise too.

On older Home computer which was a Pentium 4 computer at the time. I had a 7200 RPM drive. Still it took 2-4 minutes to run certain filters in DC6. For the campgrounds edit work station we bought a 60 gig Western Digital 10,000 rpm SATA drive. That speeded processing up even more. Today multi-core CPU's and SSD C: drives are turning those minutes of waiting into just seconds. Another way of speeding up a hard drive is buying two drives and configuring your system for RAID 0 for extra performance in filtering or video rendering. RAID 1 is for mirroring for data protection - But that makes a computer run slower! That's why I like External plug in drives, I need to keep the computer running as fast as possible.

We have one work station in the office that we bought in 2004 running XP PRO. Other then the first software update we don't hook it to the internet. It's only used to edit CD masters, and print CD labels on it's CD printer. It's amazing that this computer is still just as fast as when we bought it. Probably because it's not continually getting endless Microsoft updates to slow it down over time. I tell people I'm running Microsoft QUILT. Because of all the patches. :-) It's nice to have speed to be more productive. Audio filters should only take seconds, not minutes to run. But I guess I need to learn some patience too.

For better quality, I've save my original .WAV file to MP3 in 128 kbps, 44,100 Hz Stereo for CD quality audio. An uncompressed *.wav file is about 700 megabytes depending on it's length. Saving to high quality MP3 at 128 kbps or even 96 kbps won't sound much different, so if you need to put a few more on one CD, that will help you. But compressing anymore for resale purposes you will notice that you'll start to lose a persons tone in their speech. Filtering can bring some of this back too. These higher quality files become around 40 to 60 megs depending on length of the message, so you can see you can get a lot of them on one CD/R.

By the way, uncompressed *.wav files you get 80 minutes. Really it's 81 minutes, but I don't use all of it. I try my best to keep my time at 79 minutes. Sometimes when I get ready to burn a CD, even if it's closer to 80 minutes I get an error and it won't burn it because it's also looking at space and it's over 800 meg. So i try and get the message around 79.30 minutes or under and that will fix that problem for single CD masters going over 800 megs. There will be times when the service time we run over 80 minutes and you got to spilt the message onto two CD's, but I'm not talking about that here.

I can get a 3 day camp meeting, of many full services on just one MP3 CD. So after each future camp meeting, going to be doing this. I'm just save my original *.WAV files to MP3 at 44,100 Hz Stereo and I can not tell any difference if I stay at 128 kbps, or slightly lower at 96 kbps. But for just speech 128 kbps or 96 kbps your not going notice much difference, providing you fix your audio problems first before saving, because at a higher compression rate with just a little hiss that sound is going to be magnified.

Generally I can get 9 full messages on one CD in MP3 format. Providing the speaker stays under time, or I'll have to make an A & B message of that one service normally. So sometimes I can only get 6 full messages on one MP3 CD. But I have gotten as many as 10 full messages on one MP3 CD too.

This is a big savings to a customer. Shipping costs more in many single CD's. Plus it's saves in cost of materials too. Anyone with a home computer can play a CD in MP3 format. MP3 is also the same audio quality in 128kbps 44,100 Hz Stereo format but a smaller file size around 50 meg allowing for several full messages to be burned on a single CD in juke box mode. It's not just for music.

Your part is just as great as the person who spoke this originally. Learn how to fix and save these messages, then duplicate yourself and teach others how to do it. Get behind your pastor, teacher, or layman who is called of God to minister. Put your computer to work for the Kingdom of God and be a blessing and you will find a wonderful niche service, as you serve the Lord in the Ministry of Helps.

Kevin King, Webservant