Tuesday, June 21, 2011

One iPad, 5 Musicians, No Problem! #COTF2011



OnSong is being used on many stages in various ways. We wanted to highlight one of our OnSong users and allow them to tell you how they were able to drive four VGA monitors off of one iPad. This allowed them to provide chord sheets to almost all of their worship team. Of course those poor drummers, are always left out in the cold...


My name is Rob Shillito. Our band consisted of keyboard player, electric guitar, bass, drums, two backing vocals and me leading worship on lead vocals and acoustic guitar. The original plan was five monitors so everyone could have their own VGA screen with myself sharing the iPad with one backing singer.

We hired in a VGA distribution amp and when it arrived it only had four outputs so we got rid of the drummers VGA which was a shame but it was the least vital. I sourced some VESA mounts for the VGA screens which terminated into a mic stand screw thread, like on a standard mic clip. All the screens were mounted on mic stands which were then duck taped to the stage for extra sturdiness. The VESA mount is square so we were able to mount the screens rotated 90 degrees and then use the rotate function in OnSong. We used the built in output function rather than the hd mirroring so that when a search or transpose was being done it didn't obscure the chords on the VGA screens.

The backing vocalist found it really easy to navigate and search for songs, since we did quite a few unplanned songs, they were able to transpose into the current key to keep the flow going.

Church On The Farm is an event hosted by The City Church Canterbury for the Newfrontiers churches in the region, and was in it's third year this year. I head up the worship team for the church and led three of the sessions and Geoff one of my core team lead the other two.

The event was a great success! There were testimonies of healing, fresh vision for church planting, and reaching the lost being stirred in people. There is a strong emphasis on both solid bible teaching and experiencing God in worship as The Holy Spirit stirs us to praise Jesus.

Rob


It is amazing to see how God has moved in other peoples lives and how OnSong is being used as a tool too worship our Father. I want to thank Rob for providing us with this blog and pictures.

13 comments:

Jason Kichline said...

One concern we hear often is that outfitting an entire band with iPads is too expensive. We agree! But OnSong is more powerful than just a single-user app.

With some basic supplies, you can leverage one Ipad running OnSong to be used on displays for your whole band. Buy an HDMI splitter http://sewelldirect.com/HDMI-Splitter-1x8-v13b.asp

Digital AV adapter from Apple:http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC953ZM/A?fnode=MTc0MjU4NjE&mco=MTcyMTgxNTk

Get some HDMI cables:
http://sewelldirect.com/HDMICable16Foot.asp

And some inexpensive 720p monitors:
http://www.target.com/Sylvania-Class-720p-60Hz-HDTV/dp/B003AVMZ5Y/ref=sc_qi_detailbutton

And you can outfit your band for about the price of a really nice iPad. In iOS 5, you could also buy an AppleTV and keep your iPad wireless by streaming via AirPlay.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/apple_tv?mco=MTM3NTM1Nzk

The last part should be available in time for OnSong 2.0

Edgaba said...

I Don't have an Ipad and I have been running Onsong on the Iphone 4 but the screen is too small so, I wanna connect the Iphone 4 to a VGA Monitor and navigate the charts with the Iphone as I see the SVGA Display, can I do it on the Iphone 4? Has anyone done this?

Anonymous said...

Hi Edgaba,

I did a test with onsong on the iPhone 4 connected to a Samsung TV with the Apple HDMI Connector
http://youtu.be/z7Yfp8Z4dQ0

E.T. Klaus said...

Sorry, got an error with the YT-Account.
Here's the new link to the presentation.
http://youtu.be/_em_rfXMAMc

Mendez007 said...

I was wondering, what type of VGA screen do you use or better yet where can I find them? looking do to a similar set up.

Philipp Keller said...

Where can I get those stands from? I googled quite a bit and didn't find something inexpensive.

guitar man said...

How about getting the feed to an overhead powerpoint projector? Is anyone doing this?

Anonymous said...

Love these idea's!

My husband and I are worship leaders at an International Boarding Christian Academy. We have worked with hundreds of high schoolers over the past 10 years, teaching and training them in all area's of worship and music from sound, visuals, music, leadership and worship dance. http://www.canyonville.net/programs/fine-arts/

We have been looking for a way to incorporate the iPad to remove some of the paper stream we have (we normally have over 30 students on stage every Sunday).

We both just purchased this product and can't wait to try it out, along with some of your great suggestions!

Thanks!

Caitlin said...

Sounds wonderful! Will definitely try out the suggestions you have here. I believe it is going to be far easier as time goes by. hdmi cables high speed

Unknown said...

Hi I was wondering if I could use onsong to drive the congregation monito ie without chords. I'm hoping there's someway to use on song to drive both musicians and congregation screens with and without chords! Thanks Keith

Patrice said...

Is there a way where I can assign & change background on lyrics projection on each song sheet on my set so when I go to the next song on my set the background changes to the one I assigned to it?

Althea

Unknown said...

That is definitely great but I was looking for the most recent worship songs and its Worship Chords. It will be amazing to find an online teacher from where I can learn whenever and however I can. Can you please suggest me any?

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