There are a lot of steps in getting a translation of one of Brother Branham’s sermons into the hands of the people. First of all, we must have an English manuscript that accurately transcribes the prophet’s words into text form. Then the translators listen to the English sermon and translate the manuscript into their native language. The new manuscript goes through many different checks to make sure every word is accurate. Then, we are finally ready to record what we call a “gapped tape.”

A gapped tape is where Brother Branham speaks a phrase, then a translator’s voice is inserted. This process is labor intensive, to say the least, and it takes a long time. The gaps are manually inserted after every phrase, and then the separate audio from the translator is put in the gap.

Fortunately, new technology has allowed us to streamline gapping, as well as many other things in the recording process. And now, with the advent of themessage.com, many believers don’t even have to wait to receive their microSD, CDs, or books; all they need to do is log on to the website and download the brand-new translations.

Representatives from our audio department are traveling to some of our recording studios in various parts of the world to train our staff in the new technologies.

Here is their report:

Brother Joseph wanted to increase the number of sermons we can offer God’s people in all the languages. Along with this, he wanted to speed up the translation work without sacrificing quality. So rather than increasing the number of people to be used in the process, we used available technology to improve the entire translation process from start to finish.

In times past the editing process has been a long and fully manual process. A person would have to manually put each gap (spaces between Brother Branham and the translator) in so the translating brother would have space for his translation. This would take countless man hours both during the recording and editing process. We needed something quicker and more efficient with the assurance that it would not cut off ONE word of God’s prophet.

We found the solution in an upgraded version of the translation software we currently use. What used to take a few hours to do manually, now just takes a click of the button and a few minutes to complete.

We can now edit in four days with one person, what used to take us 12 days with two people.

In order to get the full benefits of this new process, we needed to upgrade the same software features in all 17 of our recording studios overseas.

Translation equipment

The Cape Town, South Africa office was chosen as the meeting location to spend a week of training with the brothers who would record in Cape Town, Durban, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Each studio was supplied with all the equipment they would need to record with. This included: a computer, a microphone, and the necessary wires for connection. Each studio was also supplied a monitor for the translations. Along with providing the new equipment we also went over the steps in making the recording process more efficient. During this time, it also allowed for us to revisit the responsibilities of both the operator and the translator.

After training the brothers, we took the training and applied it into live translation sessions in the Cape Town training studio. At the studio session each of the brothers were able to take part in a hands on session with the new software. Including a full translation and recording of “A Prisoner” 63-0717 by the VGR Afrikaans voice translator Brother Donald.

From left to right: Maurice Phiri - Zambia, Ben Chivaura - Zimbabwe, Keith Herne - Cape Town, Steven Young - Durban, Paul Alfonso - Malawi, Jonah Tutani - Zimbabwe, Mayeso Njovu - Zambia, Jaiden Pillay - Durban

Concluding our week, the brothers parted with great joy of what the Lord has done in the translation process for His Bride. They are eager to start this new process to provide more of the voice of God’s prophet to their countries.

Audio Department

VGR - Jeffersonville