In the new space, the congregants are situated around the stage area. A key challenge for West Coast Sound and Light, who handled the audio, video and lighting for the sanctuary, was to ensure that the stage audio was loud enough for those in the audience to hear without drowning out the people singing or speaking on the stage during worship services. Compounding the issue was the short distance between the stage and the audience, making it difficult to keep the stage sound from overwhelming the audience, especially if those performing used speaker monitors.
"In a space like Shelter Cove's, on-stage monitors can be troublesome because when several or all the musicians on stage adjust their instruments' audio levels at the same time, the noise coming from the stage can get loud and drown out the house sound. This forces the sound engineer to run the house sound even louder in an effort to mask the stage sound," says Andy Cross, general manager and director of engineering at West Coast Sound and Light. "It becomes this constant back-and-forth battle between the house and stage sound."
To help manage individual monitor levels, the new sanctuary was outfitted with 10 Aviom A-16II Personal Mixers, which offer fully variable stereo control, giving each performer and musician direct control over his or her monitor mix. An Aviom16/o-Y1 A-Net Card for Yamaha provides a digital interface between the Yamaha PM5D console at front of house and the Aviom system.
(Jim Evans)
