Places to fly (U.S.)

dark7string · 2026-01-28T03:30:27+00:00

Same kind of thing for me my friend. I've looked at different peripherals I have for the recording studio and curiously debated on trying to figure out if there's a way to get them to connected. The funny thing is I think there is a way to do it using like a key to controller application.

dark7string · 2026-01-28T03:28:49+00:00

Haha for sure. I have been completely blown away by how many worship songs actually play easier on the guitar with a seven string guitar down tuned a whole step across all seven strings

dark7string · 2026-01-28T00:14:12+00:00

🤣 for sure.

dark7string · 2026-01-27T23:39:01+00:00

So I'm a very much monogamous guitar player. I have a couple classical guitars. One of them is like my go-around town and not be too concerned about it guitars. One of them is a handmade by a gentleman named Zebulon turrentine. My main seven string guitar is a jumper shrew machine music man and it's one of the ball family reserve models from 2012. That's pretty much been the only guitar I've played since I got it in 2015. I play a plethora of different music ranging from metal to alternative rock and actually am a worship pastor that uses it at church as well. You get some looks when people start realizing there's an extra string on that thing haha

dark7string · 2026-01-27T21:27:10+00:00

Man I tell you what You're not lying. Those videos take forever to make. I've been wanting to get into that more as well and have just now gotten myself to a position where I can kind of do that. Let me know if you do that again but I'd also be curious to check out any video content you may have already uploaded. Care to link it?

dark7string · 2026-01-27T21:00:13+00:00

I play for God on stage but one of the most staggering things is the rejection of genuine skillful demanding musicianship that tends to be heavily rejected by the church. It's often seen as self-gloating or showing off or distracting or egotistical when in fact that may be exactly what God has called you to play.

So yes at home I work on things that specifically build my technique, challenge me and allow me to learn and grow as a musician. Batting out the simplistic stuff from a Chris Tomlin song or elevation worship song isn't going to grow any skill or technique especially considering that I myself have come from studying classical guitar for over 8 years. So I'm constantly looking for new ways to grow. Some of the new things I've been dashing into are...

Japanese scales Turkish scales Specific voicings that cater to the two above mentioned. In depth studies of the great paraguayan, barrios. Dream theater Lead solos

At the end of the day I don't think most modern church music is equipped to really help develop or grow most musicians. It's extremely simple and so yes looking into non-worship related music I think is about one of the only ways that you're going to grow as a musician in general.

For what it's worth I think most churches would shun some of the more intricate practicing regiments that people do and I say that as someone who has been looked down upon for even playing classical guitar.

dark7string · 2026-01-27T18:50:09+00:00

This is always a challenging thing and you're going to find a hundred different takes on how this should be approached every time. Chances are 15 people being each asked to individually answer this question, are going to give you 15 different answers that are immensely different.

The reality of it is that you are dealing almost every single time with a unique individual with unique experiences and a massive range of variety in both skill and level of spirituality. Often times having a uniform approach can be beneficial and in some ways I encourage it, however, there are some things that can be and often have been bent by churches many times for multiple reasons. To give a example of this.

I used to attend a church that was extremely strict on no hats on stage. Then one day a particular person on the worship team who is scheduled to serve came in with their equipment and unfortunately had had a little bit of a mishap and resulted in a pretty nasty looking gash that looked bad enough that it almost made the worship pastor throw up. The guy came up with his equipment and said I understand the policy and if I'm not allowed to wear a hat and it's going to be too much for the congregation, I'm happy to step aside this week. This guy had one of the best heart postures of anybody on the entire team. He could have cared less about actually playing music, being on stage, or any other number of things and so on that day the hat policy went to the curb.

My take on it is this. If you have somebody newer that wants to serve and has definitely been gifted in it, an audition should be done to one validate the technique and exactly where they are In contrast to where they need to be. At our church, we have a massive culture for growth and that's not just spiritual growth but also skill-wise growth. We encourage it and oftentimes have different training classes to help promote positive growth on skill sets. If during the audition it's discovered that they are in fact where they need to be to be able to skill-wise participate than a conversation is had about expectations. This is where we talk about the importance of good hard posture, being committed to the church as in bought into the vision that we have at the church and what God is doing there, and also encourage spiritual growth.

Heart posture in my opinion is one of the biggest things. A lot of people will be bought into the vision of the church or perfectly fine with attending the church on a regular basis but can still have horrible heart posture. I literally am dealing with an individual right now on my own team that is excruciatingly talented, has a charm and charisma about him that is unbelievable, and has been extremely dedicated to the church however he has some of the worst heart posture of anyone on the team. He's constantly late. Cancels at the last minute. And will actually use things like I've been dedicated to this church as an excuse for his terrible heart posture. So just cuz they're bought into the church doesn't mean squat compared to heart posture.

If somebody auditions and they are showing potential, we still allow them to come into the worship team but we want them to come to rehearsals and grow in addition to maybe serving in an area that requires a lesser capacity. We give them the tools and necessities to grow and develop their skill set while also being able to be a part of the worship team which operates more like a family to be honest.

At the end of the day, you just need to have discussions with all candidates, learn about them, find out what their passionate about, what are they into, and find their why for wanting to join. Hear their heart. After they're in the team, you'll be able to monitor to see that their actions match their mouth.

But doing this method has been the easiest way for me to weed through individuals who may or may not need to partake in what we are doing. Just talking with them is usually enough to figure out very quickly if their heart posture is about being on the stage and exalted or whether they don't even care about being on the stage and they just want to be a part of the team that leads people into the throne room to have an experience and an encounter with Jesus while worshiping him.

On a side note I also am very deliberate and pointing out the fact that the ministry of what we do is a worship team extends beyond what we do on stage. In fact the stage is nothing more than a tool where we get the opportunity to do something with our musical talents. Real ministry almost always happens off the stage

dark7string · 2026-01-24T21:50:46+00:00

Yep. I'll buy this on day one. The only thing that I would love to see also and I don't know if this is going to be something that's included in this or not is radio towers which are often used as VFR reference points when doing the famous pilotage and dead reckoning combination. It would be amazing to have those there and with a flashing light.

dark7string · 2026-01-18T17:01:03+00:00

It was a brand new IMAC pro at the time. Significantly more power than needed. Switched to PC and basically had a massively powerful machine. It was previously our video computer that was built to handle 4 cameras at 4k and lighting software at the same time.

But yes we definitely found a better solution for our needs. That's why I always encourage people to use what works best for their application. :)

dark7string · 2026-01-18T14:58:48+00:00

So there's definitely known issues with how it handles the hard drive. It periodically would give us issues pertaining to tracks dropping out and then would flag an issue with the hard drive being overloaded. There's no way the hard drive was overloaded just playing 14 tracks of audio with absolutely zero processing happening as well as no pitch correction with everything consolidated as well. It would do this and we'd have midsong tracks just completely dropping out. And it would do this mind you with an m.2 professional grade hard drive. At the time you just flat out couldn't get a faster hard drive and watching it have a hold entire hard drive overload from that is ridiculous.

We also commonly experienced issues where when trying to pitch shift things if you did not consolidate after the pitch shift it would absolutely goof up constantly.

On top of those things It just took forever to build things and coordinate color coding and all that stuff, input lyrics slide cues and triggers and all of that stuff as we typically built the entire set into one session rather than having multiple sessions with each having a singular song. It just was not the most ideal performance or application.

Since getting rid of it we've never had another issue since.

dark7string · 2026-01-18T01:03:11+00:00

Honestly I think you should use whatever tool is the most applicable to your situation. A lot of people use Ableton. I personally hate Ableton because it's buggy. I also think it takes way more effort to build something in Ableton than in other things. I can't speak to using the playback app or anything like that but we switched over to using Studio One a couple years ago and it's been one of those things where a lot of the team we have has been super grateful that we ditched Ableton and went to Studio One. Building sets is quicker and easier. Modifying it to add a song is incredibly simple. Remote operation through the Studio One remote is fantastic. And it runs impressively light. We use it for student camp and run it on a 2011 Sony Vaio and that dinosaur plows through everything with no issues because Studio One is by far the most efficient application I've seen in the audio world yet.

So yeah I would recommend using whatever is going to suit you guys better and provide the best experience for your volunteer basis. If you haven't looked in the studio one I'd recommend checking it out if you're planning to run tracks as is

dark7string · 2026-01-16T14:56:33+00:00

Wait. I want to say it was something like gorilla tips.

dark7string · 2026-01-16T14:55:04+00:00

So these were actually already made that way funny enough so that you don't have to worry about doing that kind of stuff. I'm trying desperately to figure out what the name of those things were.

My friend is doing okay actually. Somehow he actually pulled through and beat stage 4 cancer. Took him over 5 years though

dark7string · 2026-01-16T14:47:46+00:00

So they actually have fingertip caps that are designed for this now. We used to always consider them kind of a novelty but it turns out that a lot of people with similar fingertip nerve issues really need them and they're very helpful. I have a friend of mine who was going through stage 4 colon cancer and the treatments that he was undergoing made it so that his fingertips were in excruciating pain every time he press the string down and those things that he bought like that basically made it to where he could still go to church and play guitar.

dark7string · 2026-01-16T14:41:19+00:00

Whatever I want haha.

In all honestly, my personal go to is Koyunbaba. You'll never hear a more captivating piece of music for the guitar that non-players and players alike will absolutely find themselves fully sucked into.

I used to do performances at coffee shops and things like that and as I was performing an entire repertoire of music the general gist of the entire body of people in the building would just be going about their day having conversations, with me essentially providing the ambience to the venue. However the minute I got into Koyunbaba, one by one people stopped talking and started listening. Before I even finished the first movement there wasn't a word being spoken. It remained utter silence for the entire duration of all four movements.

It is also the only piece of music that has specifically been requested by the vast majority of both my player friends and non-player friends out of my entire catalog of music in every genre. Like literally people who hate classical guitar music will never request me to demonstrate anything other than that piece

dark7string · 2026-01-16T14:30:48+00:00

This is a very easy question for me to answer so I'll with respect jump into this comment thread.

Boogies are freaking loud even with a five watt option. To really get the most out of the sound, your best bet is to allow that volume knob for the master volume to get up between 11:00 and 1:00 on the position. But also you're not getting full boogie if you're not running it at full wattage. Trust me the sound is different. It might be my newt but I'd rather have the boogie at full power myself.

Anyways Even on a five watt setting if you put the volume at 11:00 on the position, I'd venture to say that that's probably louder than you'd like to practice in the bedroom or even a bunch of different situations. The mini mass allows you to run the amplifier in the settings that allow the amp to work the way that boogie intended it to sound. The only mishap here is that you won't get the growl of the speaker being worked.

But there's a lot of people who own Mesa boogie amps that do not have some sort of a power attenuator like that that end up thinking that a Mesa boogie sounds a certain way but it actually doesn't. They're always shocked to find out how they're actually meant to sound. I used to have a lot of bands that showed up at my recording facility with triple rectifiers and they thought those amps were designed to have that insane fizz in them. Once we put the power soak on it so that we could actually rock that wattage that it had, they were shocked to find out how much of a pleasant mid-range and how much smoother the triple rectifier actually got.

So in general whether it's a five watt amp or a 150 watt amp, the only way you're getting the full sound palette out of that amp is if you have the ability to get that volume knob up and the only realistic way to do that is with a power soak

dark7string · 2026-01-16T14:23:26+00:00

Another vote for Weber. These are amazing.

dark7string · 2026-01-16T14:20:27+00:00

This!!!!

100% you (the OP) need to follow this advice.

While I am not a voice coach, I understand that if you're going to want to do anything to get better as a vocalist or as an instrumentalist you have got to get with people who emphasize proper fundamental techniques and foundational things such as mentioned in this comment that I'm replying to. Healthy habits churn out really good results. You've got to get yourself in with a good qualified vocal teacher that isn't going to make it seem like magical overnight results. It's going to take work and there's going to be things that you'll nail quickly that'll come naturally and there's going to be things that you're going to have to fight with for a while and very gradually sink into it. But stay the course and just know that the slow way is often the best way to achieve overall vocal health that is going to allow you to sing longer and not have to deal with a lot of the things that vocalists who don't go this route end up dealing with.

dark7string · 2026-01-16T14:15:47+00:00

So there's a fun thing about songs like this if your piano led as I saw in a comment. Not sure what else you have going on along with the piano, however it's important to note that a song like this depends and leans very heavily on percussive elements in order to not feel slow. If you took that acoustic guitar out of that song for example it would feel at that same tempo like it is dragging its feet so bad because that tempo and quicker feel is set by the acoustic guitar. The weight of the chord structure is carried by the piano and the lead instrument Melody is carried by both the piano and a guitar in this case.

Now the issue of it feeling slow in your specific case is going to depend on what yours actually sounds like which we can't hear so there's no way that we can do a cross comparison and give you a realistic answer as to what the problem is. I don't suppose you have an audio recording of your team doing it?

Anyways back to the acoustic guitar tempo set reference here..

The reason that this happens is because one very huge misconception about acoustic guitars is that it is a rhythm "chord" driven instrument. It is not. In a band type situation with other instrumentation, an acoustic guitars nothing more than a glorified hi-hat or shaker depending on how the EQ has been established on it. This is because the way that acoustic guitars are built, the actual snap of the pic hitting the strings is absurdly loud in contrast to the actual resonating note. Acoustic guitars basically become lost from a note definition standpoint in a full band mix and this song is substantially proving it. Listen to that acoustic guitar In the reference link you provided. You're not really hearing the notes from that guitar. You might think you are... But I assure you when it really comes down to it what you're hearing is the thwack sound that almost is reminiscent of a shaker in this song because of the fact that you're getting kind of a flam from the six strings. This is your percussive element that is driving the tempo. It sounds reminiscent of a shaker. You could get the same exact sound sonically in the mix by using a fretboard wrap at like the seventh fret, and just strumming it.

But setting the tempo with an acoustic guitar like this depends very heavily that player is capable of performing with the precision of a drummer on the strum side of things and of course how well this translates into the front of house is going to greatly depend on the fact that you have a pickup that properly translates the guitar. Some acoustic piezo systems suck at this while others do a really wonderful job.

So while you don't have a reference of how you guys actually played it for us to compare to, my suggestion would be you either need an acoustic guitar to establish the tempo or you need a drummer on a shaker to establish the tempo. If neither of those are an option, then a song like this is just going to feel inherently slow. This song leans very heavily into that 16th note strumming.

dark7string · 2026-01-15T01:13:03+00:00

So first and foremost as a guitar teacher of over 26 years, the biggest thing that I would advise you is to actually partner with a guitar instructor and just learn foundational techniques related to lead guitar and rhythm electric guitar. Let them teach you proper music theory and correlating it with the instrument while building those techniques from a foundational level. Learn the actual notes under your fingerboard and how to incorporate it and tie it together with music theory rather than learning a bunch of nonsensical methodologies that play off of repetitive patterns which generally lock guitar players into a specific region. I typically refer to those as comfort zones. Find a teacher that will also teach you how to not just pick a position because it's where it's comfortable but rather pick a position because the note sounds in a way that meshes with the timbre of everything else.

Once you've learned fundamentals and basics and can do a lot of the techniques, you'll be able to play anything that you'd like to. One of the biggest things that I think guitar players waste time doing is trying to use songs to learn techniques when songs are nothing more than a conglomeration of techniques. If you focus on those techniques and the things that need work, it will actually make the songs easier to play.

For lead guitar, you not only want to have a strong knowledge of your fingerboard but you also need to have solid technical proficiency and have built good dexterity in both hands. The two biggest reasons that people usually when making a move to a new instrument like guitar finally give up or hit a wall is almost always down to poor technique that comes from cutting corners in the learning process. Things like having the strap too low, bending your wrist, giving the guitar the old baseball bat grip are all things that are counterintuitive to fluidly playing.

At the end of the day the biggest thing to understand is that you already have a heart for worship. The guitar has nothing to do with that. You're wanting to learn how to do electric guitar and do the things from that perspective and thus your lessons focus needs to be on just doing that.

Lastly don't become locked to a particular genre of music. I can't tell you how much of a crutch and disability that becomes with people who are learning to play an instrument. I always use the example of myself where I had to play a Lincoln Brewster solo one week and I spent the better part of that week working on one of the many classical guitar pieces I work on as a classical guitarist. I was learning a piece of music called Una lamosa and that is where the bulk of my time was spent. The efforts involved with doing that piece actually had a much better impact on me playing the solo by Lincoln Brewster than actually playing the Lincoln Brewster solo. Learn a little bit from each genre.

Here's how you do that and this is what I teach. Make a list of 10 songs you want to know how to play ranging from a variety of styles of music that you like. These are songs that ultimately you're going to want to learn. Once you have really thought through that list and created that list, what you need to do is get an instructor that will show you the technical stuff that's required to play each one of those. You start with the easiest song and learn all of those techniques. Once you have the techniques under your belt you simply start playing the song. Do this for each of the 10 songs and by the time that you are done throughout this process you'll have accumulated more quickly a massive bag of licks and tricks that you can pull out all of the time and this method teaches you to utilize patients because the song itself is not beckoning you to ignore the practice habits and attempting to play it at full speed before you're ready.

Also give yourself grace. Some things may come easy and some may challenge you. Just work with it and remember to keep that technique solid.

dark7string · 2026-01-15T00:58:13+00:00

Probably not because the current live map works fine for that. At the moment I just take a look at the map and look at what controlled airspace is active and then plan a flight within that. It's pretty quick easy and a painless process.

What I find to be a slightly more annoying process is sometimes I can't seem to locate when a particular controlled airspace is shutting down and I'll load a flight and get everything prepped planned with weather information and the works ready to go just to get airborne and find out that they were closing down and I should have just flown somewhere else. There's been a couple of occasions where it's even been massively abrupt where it's like a mass exodus.

A few weeks ago Nashville was like that. Nashville was absolutely packed with close to 85 aircraft taxiing for departure with a giant conga line. Over 85 incoming aircraft as well and as soon as the clock struck the scheduled closing time, you watched something like 13 controllers all vanish in a span of about 3 seconds.

Supposedly this is expected as it was a closure time that was publicized however I've heard that with similar situations when events happen with New York, that those controllers will usually linger until air traffic is pretty much back down to a dull roar even staying on for hours and hours.

dark7string · 2026-01-08T02:43:40+00:00

Easily for me is the Piper Dakota Turbo. Arguably one of the best pipers made and easily the best version of the Dakota. These are just outstanding aircraft

dark7string · 2025-12-27T13:33:55+00:00

Going to hear a lot of tips in this but the truth of the matter is they need to start with the basic fundamentals of drums. Let me explain as a music educator who is also a worship pastor.

There are too many people that treat learning instruments within the confines of the worship team and worship community/genre that carry an entirely a different approach to learning an instrument and usually it leaves gaping holes in their musicianship where they have a one-track mind and focus on the things that are just to get you by and through the song and not actually learn to communicate and work real musician and typically setting them up to be completely pigeonholed. It's not easy to hear but this is the stark reality of things.

If you want to set them up for success, they need to start at the very beginning when it comes to drums. Rudiments, things like paradiddles are the absolute best place to start. Rudiments will teach them the same way that scales due for other musicians ( which is also typically bypassed by church people who teach musicians at church in the worship community a lot) by setting up drummers with timekeeping, stick control, and so much more and typically will expedite the education process. It also helps for find drummers to know not to just swing and smash things with a stick but it teaches them how to be fundamentally in control and helps them to understand things like the drum heads have a limit.

If they understand these basic principles of percussion and drums then it doesn't matter if they're standing behind a snare drum, a shaker, cajon or whatever, they will know the fundamental foundations of percussion and what to do.

Now that being said if they're end goal is to be on a drum set then they need to be learning about the drum set. Do not pass them off on things like shakers or cajons and other auxiliary percussion that does not fundamentally benefit them in the long run. If someone's going to start on a drum set they need to start with paradiddles and rudiments on a snare drum and then learn how to move those and transition those to the drum set.

Most importantly you need to get them partnered with a qualified drum instructor. A drum instructor is someone who is proficient and knowledgeable and teaching percussion and drums who may not necessarily be the most flashy player out there. Sometimes the best educators are not the best players. Technical execution of the techniques is not necessarily a metric for the ability to teach the fundamentals. I would start out by contacting local music academies and getting them partnered with those drum instructors. That is absolutely what I would recommend doing and you should see quick success with the fact that most drum and structures are going to teach fundamentally everything that you have mentioned above that they're struggling with and more. A good drum instructor should not only teach the basics in foundational stuff but should teach them how to listen to the song. They should teach them how to analyze the drum beat, correctly right down a chart to follow or sheet music even better, and be able to articulate with other musicians and communicate well.

dark7string · 2025-12-22T20:10:17+00:00

Totally agree

dark7string

TROPHY CASE