Michael Stockdale, associate professor of music, can add another recording project to his already impressive musical resume.

“Reach the World” was recorded at the end of June and sponsored by Resurrection Life Church International. The project features worship leader’s original work from 12 different Resurrection Life affiliate churches.

“The songs, when we started, were fully arranged and developed. Some were rough, like here’s the words and here are the chords,” Stockdale said. Bruce Vanderveen, music director at Resurrection Life since 1999, approached the album as putting together a house band to work with and actually create arrangements of the songs.

The newest release has a markedly different feel from past albums.

“The overall feel of the album has straight up rock-and-roll feel to it,” Stockdale said. “Whereas for our last one ‘For You I Live’ was a more eclectic mix of R&B and pop. This is more of one sound throughout.”

All of the recording was done at Resurrection Life Church, whereas previous projects were sent off to Nashville for mixing and mastering. An outside producer was usually brought in to finish the project but this was not the case for “Reach the World.”

The project serves as a fundraiser for “Walking by Faith,” a Resurrection Life television show broadcast in 170 different countries. Money will be used toward developing awareness of the program and increase its resources. Vanderveen also saw the project as a unique way to do something with all their different churches and association.

Utilizing recordings from church services, “Reach the World” is basically a live album. The project did call for rerecording of a significant amount of music. According to Stockdale, they basically recorded everything but the bass and drums. Footage from dress rehearsals or live performances was also used.

Everything else, Stockdale said, was recorded from scratch. The album will still contain clapping and audience participation.

“Not that were embarrassed from the live version,” Stockdale said, “but sometimes you don’t get a clean mix. When a person buys an album, they are going to hear a clean, polished sound at the end of it.”

The recording technique of mixing live and overdubbed tracks is becoming very common. Such a process allowed them to layer a lot of guitar effects. Stockdale said there is a good amount of him playing and a song can contain as much as 20 tracks of guitar because of the way they wanted it.

Since they were using different effects and amps, it took four tracks to record one guitar.  Stockdale explained this process in which they used two different amps. One would have a bright tone and the other with darker, richer tone.  A microphone would be close up to the speaker and another speaker. Another microphone would be about three feet away, serving as a room microphone, to get the general sound coming off the amp. 

In all, four microphones were all coming out of the amps in order to produce the sound. Stockdale would do multiple takes, sometimes doing low chording or higher chording in order make it sound incredibly full.

Some of the nights spent recording provided unique images. Stockdale recalled that on a night with the worship leader, there were “more guitars on stage that you could shake a stick at,” he said. The presence of other band members on stage, however, helped take away from the emphasis on any one person at one time.

Stockdale played one of the tracks on the upcoming release and featured what he described as “just a wall of guitar.” 

Overall, Stockdale felt the “Reach the World” was an enjoyable venture.

“It was fun to do,” Stockdale said. “It was a lot of work and Bruce is a brilliant musician as well as technician. It was very rewarding. Very exact but that is okay. Perfection is good.”

Vanderveen is excited about the results of the project.

“I think it is going to be an amazing project,” he said. “We had all of these different people coming to work on it, bringing uniqueness to it and making it really special.”

An exact release date for “Reach the World” has not been determined but the target date is early November.