FAITHFUL CENTRAL BIBLE CHURCH MUSICIANS SPREAD THE GOSPEL OF REASON
JULY 18, 2006
Stockholm, Sweden
Propellorhead’s Reason is the number one software choice for houses of worship including the famed Los Angeles’ Faithful Central Bible Church (FCBC) under the direction of Music Director Andrew Gouché. Founded in 1936, FCBC is one of the foremost leading African-American-owned entertainment venues of its kind, and utilizes Propellerhead’s Reason as the cornerstone for its multimedia production services. FCBC is also the home and operational base for The Takeover, an avant-garde program designed to reach the youth market, spearheaded by Contemporary Gospel and Christian music phenomenon Kirk Franklin. The Takeover’s multimedia presentation integrates dancers, a full band, choir, DJ, video clips, poets and orators. The majority of both the FCBC and The Takeover music crew utilize Reason as their main software for production rehearsals and presentation.
“In the church world, and especially in the urban churches,” explains Jae Deal, keyboard player for FCBC, “music plays an integral part of the worship experience. The more expansive a musician's tools are, the more responsive the musician can be to the flow of the service. The renowned church musicians I know who use Reason are able to better enhance the mood of the service and respond quicker to mood shifts. All of a musician's ‘colors’ can be preset, easily viewed on the computer or laptop monitor, and accessed through multiple MIDI-controllers in real-time with the church service. No two church services ever flow the same and Reason allows musicians to make spectacular responses on the spot.”
“Most of the time,” explains Deal, “we're required to perform the songs to sound as they were originally recorded so I'm literally re-producing songs with Reason, minus the lead vocals, replete with peripheral sounds to complement the live band, adding sprinkles of the original recording's backing vocals to recreate the ‘color’ of the recording. For the live show, the band and I use MIDI controllers to trigger sounds and effects in Reason as we play along to the 2-track program I prepared with Reason.”
Thirty-year industry veteran and FCBC Musical Director Andrew Gouché attests to Reason’s relevance in the church market. “Reason is so practical and comes in handy for our church, especially the drum loops. It takes our music to another level. We strive for excellence and Reason’s phenomenal technology takes it up a notch. In fact, our church is not unique. It has become the norm. And we have some of the baddest players in the music scene that have all come out of our church and most of them are using Reason.”
Tracy Carter, FCBS’s main keyboardist and an in-demand player (Gerald Albright, Babyface, Rafael Saddiq, Jonathan Butler) was the first to use and introduce Reason to the players. “I got introduced to Reason thru Rebirth. I was doing a lot of production work and I loved how it sounded. It reminded me of the Roland 808 drum machine. I knew that Reason would change the whole production game and it certainly has. I started to get involved with it, writing with it, traveling with it on tour with Wayman Tisdale, doing loops for the church productions… I bought a laptop and loaded it with Reason, and it’s everything you could ever want in production software. That’s all I use now. I love the sampling and ReCycle and how it works together with Rex and Redrum, and it reminds me of using my Akai MPC. I can sample things with ReCycle and turn them into AIF or wav. files that can be transferred into Redrum.”
Collectively, both the FCBC and The Takeover’s band members—drummer C' Von Parchman, keyboardists KC Knight, DeWayne Swan, Marcus Hodge and Jae Deal, and Gouché, the group’s bassist—have a lengthy list of A-list credits both in the R&B and Gospel music realms—ranging from Rev. Quincy Fielding, Jr., Jonathan Butler, and The Winans, to Snoop Dogg, Wayman Tisdale, The Roots and Faith Evans.
