Michael Mongin

This past month of my summer has been spent in the back woods of Ohio at a place called Butler Springs which is a church camp right outside of the town of Hillsboro down here in the good ole south west side of Ohio. I’ve grown up coming to this camp my while life outside of the summer before my senior year when I was way too cool for church camp experiences. These past two summers I have spent five consecutive weeks down here running sound for the guy who rents his stuff to the weeks. This gig is amazing, I get experience on some awesome gear and I make a little cash all while being in my own little world with internet and a Wal-Mart thats only a scenic 15 minute drive away. As you can probably expect this equation only equals more weight added to mah belly. That and I gain more and more experience with sound. Last summer I was still learning some things about sound, how it worked, what it did, why it did it, and how to change it. I learned a lot about what not to do which in most cases with things in life is a good thing…

With sound I would have to say thats debatable. With sound, knowing what NOT to do doesn’t necessarily tell you what TO do. The physics of sound are some weird things. Sound weird but cool things. The experience I have had with the system down here has allowed me to learn exactly what TO do with things. I have started listening to things with the intent of subtracting instead of adding. (ie. “hey his mic sounds really thin, I should add some low end.” NOO!! I should take away the highs and high mids and give it some gain..) Feedback is a lot more controllable when you know what your doing. Side note… self controlled in ears like the Aviom systems are out of this world. Probably way over priced for what they are and are definitely not for every situation but man are they sweet.

I’ve been able to diagnose my tendencies in what I like to hear which is really weird but really cool at the same time. For example, I LOVE VOCAL COMPRESSION, in my opinion every mic that is being used on a singer or even speaker should be compressed. This however, is not always the best (Most Natural) sounding thing. And that is exactly what we are trying to do with sound in the first place.. Make it sound natural but a little louder than normal… well sometimes a lot louder.. But thats just the issue, its when we try to adjust the natural sounds of things that we have issues with sound. I CANNOT STAND LISSSSPSSSSS, why? because I de-s the crap out of them and it comes out sounding processed. Back to my point, its nice to be able to realize what my habits are with things in relation to audio.

A huge thing that I have come to a realization with is this, You can only try to polish a turd for so long before you become so frustrated and mad that you give up. Knowing when you have cleaned something up as much as it can be is am important thing. Sometimes you just have to tell the musician to change what they are doing. That can be pretty difficult sometimes but too much gain on a guitar is too much gain on a guitar. This all probably sounds really lame and like it means nothing to those of you who have been doing this sound stuff for a while but this is sooo new to me. I always thought there was a magic knob on that huge board full of buttons and switches and knobs that would make me sound awesome. Problem is, nowadays there are those knobs and thats frankly stupid. Turds are turds, trying to clean one up is an endless journey.

Learning how to properly mix is an interesting journey in itself. I like a lot of what ever drives the song to be upfront, sometimes more so than vocals… This isn’t good and I have repented from that but I still have those urges every once in a while to bring the rhythm guitar or bass or drums up right with the vocals. I think i’ve found my ear mixing which is cool.

Im gonna start making these posts a little bit more structured because I realize I just kind of ramble on in them… Until then, I love Cherry Pepsi and Peppermint Patties.

So my amp, a Fender Hotrod Deluxe, is the most common amp I play. It’s a pretty versatile amp, having 6L6′s in it, it’s your standard fender clean amp however, do not be mistake this amp has a dirty side that’s huge. And it takes pedals like a charm. The history of this particular amp is cool, it was an awesome deal. I got the thing in early October 2010 when I saw a guy on craigslist with and American made hot rod with a eminence tone tubby speaker in it for only 350 bucks. I had to have this amp, I had been using a peavey delta blues for a while but the thing just wasn’t for me, I wanted an amp that could be loud and clean and the EL84′s, while they broke up well and sounded really good driven, didn’t have any clean to them. This fender however had clean written all over it. Me and my buddy clay went to Troy (a bit of a drive but worth it for the price) to pick the thing up and the seller had it in his garage plugged in already warmed up and it sounded awesome and I bought the thing. The thing I really like about this amp is that speaker. It’s made of hemp and has a nice magnet in the back of it and I can’t even explain the sound it produces, it’s just literally CLEAN. If your looking into getting one let me know and I’ll let you play around on mine, you can’t beat this amp for the price you can get them for online. Yet another awesome piece of fender gear in my rig.

-Michael M.

In my head when I hear the word critic I automatically start gathering my proud accomplishments in my head (not really that many) so that if someone has something to critique on my work I can try and prove that I’m superior than them and that there opinion or view holds no value to me and my work. I only do this because im extremely self conscious about my stuff wether it be my physical possessions or my art. Then comes the day that 200 high school students watch a video with misspelled words and even better yet, a whole clip that should have been cut out but was left in by accident. The truth is that critics, while they can sometimes be condescending, rude, and just down right un-motivating, have there place. Someone else has to take a look at your stuff for you to really know how well you did. This can be subjective to your intended audience of course however, most everyone knows how to spell correctly so it can also fal into an “absolute” category. I find this with anything wether it be film, general video, graphics, pictures, audio, music, etc.. its always good to have someone with limited experience or none at all listen to or take a look at your work to make sure you didn’t miss anything during one of probably a hundred or so “previews” that you did on your own.

Michael Mongin

                                                                                                             My strat has a cool story behind it and that’s why I love it and why I will probably never get rid of it. It’s a 2003 mexican made strat with a wine red finish and a rosewood fretboard. I bought it about a year and a half ago from my buddy for $125 and its been an awesome project guitar. I took it to centerville music and had them put jeff beck hot noiseless pickups in it and had it setup there (best decision ever). Ever since then I’ve played it everywhere and anywhere I can and I love it. It will probably be the only guitar on all of Kevan Dukes stuff as its tone fits that style sooo well. The pickups in the thing really make it sound great. Individually the tone of those things is killer, it’s exactly what a strat sounds like in my head and in position 2 and 4 it literally sounds like a bell. I’ve had the thing for a while and it was my first “real” guitar that I bought with my own money and I guess im pretty attached to it but it really is an awesome piece. Whoever said a mexi couldn’t sound good was totally wrong, this guitar is huge.

-Michael M.

Carington was over one night while kevan was laying down scratch tracks so i snapped a little shot of her running around the studio

So a brief background on this guy, I met him a long time ago (early 2000′s) when he was a bible college student and he was interning at my church in xenia. He seemed like a really cool guy and he was pretty involved with the junior high ministry there which was my age group. needless to say when i was a 6th grade student me and my friends (about 10 of us) would sit down with kevan and a few other adult leaders and have a discussion and talk and play games and really have a good time. Kevan planted a seed in that ministry along with the youth minister at the time and the help of a very involved high school ministry that would produce an awesome group of kids. Needless to say my 8th grade year i remember going to youth group with 75 kids down in a basement jumping to music and dancing and having a good time in the name of God. I miss those days in that basement. A few years later im in college and kevans the youth minister of a church in waynesville (right down the road from here) and he calls me up and asks if i can play guitar for a college ministry that him a few of my close friends were starting up at his church and of course i said yes. The first practice we had was magical, absolutely magical. amazing. i cant even tell you how awesome. It was kevan, my buddy joel who plays drums, kevans sister mallory and her husband brad, and our friend samantha who sings. the music flowed so well and we were all really tight. at the end of practice we were all sitting around hanging out and kevan and samantha asked if they could play a song for us that they had been writing for a girl at there youth group who was going through some tough things in her life. they wanted to get our opinion on it and of course we wanted to hear it so they played it and it was amazing, the song has such a powerful, breaking tone and melody to it and i loved it. they ended up playing it a second time and i grabed my phone and recorded a little bit of it and i remember thinking right then that i would record this song in my studio one day and it would be awesome. fast forward a couple weeks and Ryleigh’s Song had been recorded and it sounds soo good. and everyone who was at that practice was on the track. jump a couple more months ahead of that and im looking at an 11 song worship album on my computer slowly coming together. The process of recording this album has been really fun, Kevans an awesome guy to work with and hes open to literally whatever you throw at him. The songs speak crazy loud and i cant wait to finish recording so i can mix them and let the world hear there awesomeness. This music can go sooo far and im excited to see just how far it does. I’ll keep you updated on the progress of this project for sure!

-Michael M.

If theres a single person that sticks out like a sore thumb with all of those words in mind its Martin Luther King Jr. Its crazy to think the day after he gave that speech he was assassinated, but then again it almost makes sense. Its more crazy to think that someone who stepped outside of the norm to call out something that was wrong and bring forth the name of God in the matter would not be shot and killed than for him to live and see the rights he fought for in their fullness. I truly believe that had this man lived past the day after that speech this country and world would be a completely different place. The reassuring thing about it is that although Mr. King has passed, the man who he mirrored so greatly still perseveres in the perfection that King himself was attempting to reach. What if we all chased God like Martin did? What if we were all willing to stand up and give our lives to make life better for others. What if we could listen to a speech like that and not be moved by it because it was the life we lived everyday?

-Michael Mongin

 Guitar has been a fun journey for me, and i am positive it  will continue to be a great one. It started out for me at a fairly  young age, as far back as i can remember my family  reunions and pretty much any gathering we have had has  been full of music all played on three or four guitars that my  aunts and uncles had played for years. They would all sing  john denver and paul simon and various other old folk songs  that really stuck in my head. The picture of my uncles and  aunts being so emotional and drawn into the music they  were playing and singing really drew me in, even when i  was young i could feel the passion in their voices and  playing. I was given my first guitar on my 7th birthday and i  can’t explain to you the joy that overcame me, I remember  my parents had told me to go to my room and wait there until  they asked me to come back. When i was called back my dad  was holding a cardboard box that was a strange triangular shape and i had almost no clue what it was, then he opened it and i i couldnt believe it. I didn’t really play much guitar the first few years i had it, it wasn’t something that i dove right into, in fact i didn’t begin to play until i was about 13 or 14 years old. My brother matt decided he wanted to start learning and like all good younger brothers do, i also wanted to begin to learn with him. Then matt told me he was going to be better than me. Long story short, matt builds guitars for me now… I started playing music in church and grew a lot from that but i wasn’t getting much direction in the theory side of things but i had background in basic theory from the piano lessons i had taken when i was younger. I connected a lot of the dots but there were still some pretty big wholes in my understanding of guitar from a theoretical side of thinking. I didn’t think i wanted and or needed lessons however so i just continued to play in church until the summer after my senior year. My good friend joel always talked about his uncle who played guitar and gave lessons back in the day. Well his uncle had moved away to the middle east for a while and lived there for a few years so i never met him or anything but he seemed like someone i’d maybe want to meet or go see play sometime if he were back in the states. Well the summer after my senior year joel let me know his uncle was moving back to the states and that he could probably set me up with him to get some lessons and we did just that. I remember walking up to joels grandmothers house where we were going to be having the lessons and trying to imagine what this guy would look like and then all of the sudden boom a skinny joel opened the door haha. Michael Kotur has been teaching me since then and if i owe anyone other than God himself credit for any ounce of talent i have its him. I have not only become a better guitarist by studying under him, i’ve become a much better musician and person. He is by far one of the best human beings i know and hands down the greatest musician ive ever met and hed deny it all if you said it to him but its a fact. My abilities have easily tripled from the time i started with him until now, my theory is solid and my playing is better and better every week. Hes a great teacher and he’s brought me a long way. All the way up to now. I am currently being tested as a musician, guitarist, recording engineer, mixer, producer, person. Im recording an album with Kevan Duke and mixing it, and producing it, and writing and playing guitar on it, and writing and playing other various instruments on it. Its a fun process but man can it really wear me out. Writing guitar parts is not nearly as easy as some would like to make it seem. A good quality guitar part is harder to write (AND play) than it seems. But im getting through it and so i far id say its sounding pretty good. Im excited about this album were doing and ill probably write more about it later. Guitar is where its at! If your wanting to learn how to play or just take lessons in general, please please please do yourself a favor and ask me for michael’s number, he is worth every bit of time you give him to teach you. Thanks for taking a gander at my post.

-Michael Mongin

My nylon string acoustic (bottom right) has been with me since I was 7 and I can honestly say that I will never find a better instrument than her. She has taken many sets of strings but continues to stay in tune for extremely long amounts of time and bring me lots of enjoyment. Theres something about the sound of that old nylon string guitar that just can’t be replicated, I’ll never forget that tone. My Microkorg (top right) was my first instrumental investment and one of the best I have ever made, the thing is an awesome and extremely capable synth. My acoustic (top left) was a gift from my parents on my 15th birthday and it has been a wonderful guitar and still sounds great despite all the crap its been through. My strat (bottom left) has got a story of its own that I will eventually write about in a post but long story short I purchased that from one of my friends for a steal and its been my project guitar ever since. My pedalboard (center) is yet another very interesting piece of gear that will inevitably show up in its own post as this tool has changed a lot however is now shaping up to be pretty solid. My amp was purchased for a steal and has been extremely reliable and I love the thing! My piano is a fine music instrument that will also have its very own post as the story behind it is pretty cool. And finally my laptop, this might be one of the most important things I have, its a great machine that works well and functions as I need it to, this piece will also have a dedicated post (as im writing this im questioning the purpose of this post since I will be elaborating on most all of these items) I have a lot more equipment and things I can throw in on top of all of these but I figured this would be a cool little taste of what I’m working with. Thanks for reading!

-Michael M.

Currently I am involved with a few different ministries that I contribute my gifts to. Fusion, is a sunday night service for college and young adult aged people that takes place at Ahop in Xenia. It’s a great community of people and I love serving there. I play guitar there for the most part but I have also played keys and ran sound. Canvas is another ministry that I have been involved with. It too is a college and young adult based ministry but it’s based out of Crossview in Waynesville. I have played guitar there a couple of times and I do video work for them. Finally 1twentyone ministries is a group that does retreats and other events for high school aged kids, this is an awesome group of people who I love to work with. I do video and other technical tasks for them. I also have a recording studio in my friends basement that me and my friends record stuff in. Currently were working on an album for my friend Kevan Duke who is an awesome musician and a good friend of mine. Me and Joel plan on taking this studio to the next level and making it a business someday which would be awesome but who knows what the future has in store for us?

-Michael Mongin

My name as you probably know by now is Michael Mongin. I am a college student here in dayton and I have a small studio that I use to record music/podcasts/videos/whatever in and I love working with media. I play the guitar and piano and I mess around with a lot of keyboard/synth/midi/reason stuff trying to be cool and make different but good sounds. A lot of my friends are musicians or have some love music so its a cool thing to hang out in the studio on a friday night (or an entire spring break) and come up with some stuff. I owe all of my talent and knowledge of anything to God, he has given me everything I have including physical possessions and intellectual creations and I thank him for that everyday. My friends and I also enjoy pretty much anything media based including, videos, graphics, photography, and much much more. I’ll post some of there work sometime and allow you to see some of the cool stuff that we put together. I, along with a few of my friends am involved with 1twentyone ministries media team where we create videos to help advertise events or lead into discussion for messages at the events. For the most part i guess you could say that if it can be “tagged” as media I love it and want to be good at it. This can be a good and bad thing considering I never really get too good at any one thing. I would consider myself pretty decent at sound related things though, so for the most part this blog will be about that. However, I will most likely talk about some other forms of media on here and probably a lot of my pointless projects that you won’t care much about. Once again, I hope that this will be a helpful site for people who are interested in the same stuff I am and I hope that you feel free to help me out with some input on things.

-Michael Mongin