Grace Fellowship Church in Bogart, Georgia, has completed a major audio and video system upgrade including an Allen & Heath S Class Digital Mixing System with S5000 Surface, DM64 MixRack, DX32 Expander and seven ME-1 Personal Mixers with an ME-U Hub.
The church hosts two contemporary worship services each Sunday with praise vocalists, a 30-voice choir and a band with keyboards, drums, acoustic and electric guitar and bass. Services are recorded and live streamed over the church’s website.
dB Integrations of Gainesville, Georgia, designed and installed the church’s new systems. dB’s Ronnie Stanford says, “Grace Fellowship had an older analog mixer and wanted to move to digital for its flexibility and for their streaming broadcast.”
The church auditioned several digital mixers but, after a dLive demo from dB Integrations, Rick Freeman, technical advisor to the church and a broadcast engineer for the University of Georgia Athletics Department, said, “Hands down, there was no question about which mixer was the winner!”
Grace Fellowship’s dLive mixes both FOH and monitors. To minimize stage clutter, the church’s vocalists have wireless in-ear monitors, and the band uses a mix of wireless and wired ears fed by six Allen & Heath ME-1 Personal Mixers and an ME-U 10-Port Hub. The church uses a seventh ME-1 to mix its streaming broadcast.
Freeman explained, “We stream both of our services on Sunday and the dLive provides a clean, adjustable mix, but the ME-1 allows us to make minor adjustments easily.”
dLive scenes and layers allow Grace Fellowship FOH engineers to manage the church’s 30 sources and switch quickly from praise and worship to offertory and to the pastor’s message.
“We have instruments and vocals on their own layers with recorded tracks and Pro Presenter audio on another layer,” said Freeman. “And, the guys have become pretty creative with scenes. We had a children’s play recently, and they were able to flip from the normal Sunday service to the play-type atmosphere quickly. And, the guys are using effects like the compressors often. The capabilities of the dLive have made a night and day difference.”
Freeman continued, “The new system has made a huge difference in the impact of everything at the church. The dLive’s functionality and ease of operation are very important to us, along with the great support we’ve received. And, the sound quality is amazing. Everything sounds very clean, and we can hear the pastor’s message clearly.”
Established for over 45 years, Allen & Heath designs and manufactures professional audio mixing consoles for an international clientele in the live sound and installed systems markets, www.allen-heath.com.
