WORSHIP TEAM TECH
RECIPE TO GET THE WHOLE TEAM TOGETHER | Jaime Kichline
Do you want your entire worship team to be “on
the same page” when following chord charts,
but don't want numerous iPads in plain view?
Or do you have team members who just simply
can’t afford an iPad? If so, then OnSong’s
Stage Monitor Mode is the solution you are
looking for.
My church’s stage was getting cluttered with
music stands, monitors, microphone stands,
and iPads to the point that it became hard to
see our worship team through the mess. This
is why OnSong created Stage Monitor Mode.
Stage Monitor Mode allows you to use one
iPad in tandem with OnSong to control multiple
video monitors via a powered HDMI splitter and
some HDMI cables.
In our case, now when our worship leader
scrolls through a song in OnSong on their
iPad, Stage Monitor Mode makes sure that our
team’s monitors scroll at the same time. Or, if
our worship leader decides to add a song to
the set, everybody on the team receives this
change without any of them needing to lift a
finger. Sending messages in OnSong through
Stage Monitor Mode also allowed our worship
leader to communicate with the entire team
via the tap of a screen or press of a foot
pedal. Missed hand signals are now a thing of
the past.
If you too want Stage Monitor Mode to clean
up your stage and get your team on the
same page, the following is a rough recipe to
accomplish all of the above:
INGREDIENTS
• At least one iPad with the OnSong app installed.
• LED or LCD video monitor(s).
• Powered HDMI Splitter
• HDMI Cables
• Lightning Digital A/V adapter or 30-pin dock
connector
• VESA Mount Stands and/or VESA Mount Tripods
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DIRECTIONS you don’t end up with a low-battery iPad before
The first thing you’ll need for this recipe is to the worship service is over.
purchase LED monitors, which typically start at
$60 and go up from there. I would not suggest The most important step to this recipe is to
anything below a 20” screen, and if you have enable Stage Monitor Mode in the OnSong
two people sharing a monitor, I would start application on your iPad. To do this, open
with at least a 24" monitor. The biggest thing OnSong, tap the Utilities gear in the Menu Bar,
to remember is to make sure that the monitors tap Settings, tap Live Settings, tap External
have at least one HDMI port. Video, and enable Screen Mirroring. You can
also customize various Stage Monitor Mode
The next part to the recipe is the HDMI splitter.
settings in this section by tapping Stage Monitor!
I highly suggest you get a powered HDMI
splitter to ensure that you have ample signal The finishing touch to this recipe is deciding
strength to get to all of the monitors, no matter where you want to place the visual monitors.
how far away they are from the splitter. The For guitarists, vocals, and drummers, the floor
number of ports you’ll need for the splitter will is a great place. You can wrap the monitors
be determined by how many external monitors so they look like audio monitors, or you can
you’ll be using. Our team uses a 4-port HDMI make custom holders so they blend with
splitter since we use 4 monitors. Along with the the stage. Our church utilized VESA mount
splitter, you will need to get HDMI cables that stands attached to the bottom of pallets. For
are long enough to go from the splitter to each keyboardists, you can use a VESA mount
of the monitors. And don't forget the HDMI tripod to get the monitor up to eye level.
cable that will go from the iPad to the splitter!
Putting this all together will clean the clutter
An essential part of this recipe is getting the from your stage while also allowing your
adapter that will connect your iPad to the HDMI team to be more organized and effective in
cable. If you have a 30-pin port iPad (iPad 1, 2, communicating! If you want to learn more
3, or iPad Mini 1), then you will need a 30-pin about OnSong or Stage Monitor Mode,
Digital AV Adapter. If you have an iPad with the visit onsongapp.com
current Lightning port, then you will need the
Lightning Digital AV Adapter. The latter allows
you to charge your device while also connecting
to the HDMI cable, so because of this, I suggest
that you use an iPad with a lightning port so that
June 2019
Jaime Kichline
Jaime Kichline is the Product Manager of OnSong
LLC. She graduated from Messiah College in 1999
and has been a part of the OnSong team for nearly
10 years. She resides in central Pennsylvania with
her husband and President of OnSong, Jason, and
their two children.
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