I really could use a new mixer for the church. Really. It's to the point that I'm daydreaming about what I could do with a few channel inserts and direct outs, as well as a few sub mixes.
The board we have seems to be a good little servant, except we need more channels and inputs/outputs, and the main outputs have gone out, so we use the aux outs for main and monitors. The sliders actually provide the recording mix to the send/return jack from which we feed the compressor/recording units (okay, so nothing is returned).
I've been on this boat for a few years, though, and I don't have any evidence I'm any closer to getting true action toward getting something new, so I'd better keep thinking about how to squeeze even more expansion into what's there.
As for diagramming, I decided to use Draw in OpenOffice.org. Not fancy, but with a little playing, it gets the job done. Or maybe I will take the time to do it in Inkscape (okay, so I'm looking for excuses to sharpen my vector-drawing skills). As for the database, I think I'll just go with the Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition and construct a front end in Visual Basic.NET and let it go. I'm tried of fooling with the phpMyAdmin/MySQL stuff. I'm a novice, so I'd better stick with the people who give documentation I can understand. Not to mention it's unlikely the church (or any I can think of, for that matter) will move away from Windows for quite some time, so I think I'd be of better service knowing that side of things. And did I mention that the "express editions" of VB.NET and SQL Server are free? Now that's what really settled it. Otherwise I'd still be fighting to get MySQL into shape.
I need to remember scope when I'm working on things. I'm trying to build for the future, something that will last until the last computer is shutdown... but I simply have too much to do and the tech world changes so fast that my idea of what will be in the future might be completely off the mark. I think I will focus on getting some things done, and focus on the "make it last forever" side of things later. Just trying to be a good steward, you know, but this is tech.
The board we have seems to be a good little servant, except we need more channels and inputs/outputs, and the main outputs have gone out, so we use the aux outs for main and monitors. The sliders actually provide the recording mix to the send/return jack from which we feed the compressor/recording units (okay, so nothing is returned).
I've been on this boat for a few years, though, and I don't have any evidence I'm any closer to getting true action toward getting something new, so I'd better keep thinking about how to squeeze even more expansion into what's there.
As for diagramming, I decided to use Draw in OpenOffice.org. Not fancy, but with a little playing, it gets the job done. Or maybe I will take the time to do it in Inkscape (okay, so I'm looking for excuses to sharpen my vector-drawing skills). As for the database, I think I'll just go with the Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition and construct a front end in Visual Basic.NET and let it go. I'm tried of fooling with the phpMyAdmin/MySQL stuff. I'm a novice, so I'd better stick with the people who give documentation I can understand. Not to mention it's unlikely the church (or any I can think of, for that matter) will move away from Windows for quite some time, so I think I'd be of better service knowing that side of things. And did I mention that the "express editions" of VB.NET and SQL Server are free? Now that's what really settled it. Otherwise I'd still be fighting to get MySQL into shape.
I need to remember scope when I'm working on things. I'm trying to build for the future, something that will last until the last computer is shutdown... but I simply have too much to do and the tech world changes so fast that my idea of what will be in the future might be completely off the mark. I think I will focus on getting some things done, and focus on the "make it last forever" side of things later. Just trying to be a good steward, you know, but this is tech.
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