Senior audio engineer Matt Wheeler comments: "We try to stay on the cutting edge, to do what we do creatively, so it's not the older, more traditional 'just sing the hymn' kind of service. We want to keep things interesting and relevant, so, in doing that, technology plays a large role in what we do."
Because Fellowship Church has to both provide the full-range audio for musical performances and clear vocal and speech reproduction for sermons and prayers, finding the right microphone has proved to be an ongoing challenge: "We'd tried every brand over the years," says Wheeler, "but even with more expensive systems that sounded OK, I wasn't happy with the handling noise we were getting. I had heard about DPA microphones being used in a Broadway show, so we decided to try them out. We bought one, tested it, and were pretty much sold on DPA from that point on.
"At this point, we have a lot of wireless in the Church, actually up to 120 channels of Sennheiser facility-wide right now, so we really needed to find the right microphones. We first bought about 40 DPA 4061 miniature condensers, then we tried the DPA 4065 headset mics out for dramas and stuff like that, and everyone said 'What did you do! That sounds amazing!' Being able to get it louder with a lot less EQ, and a lot less interaction between mics opened up a whole new world for us. After hearing the DPA headset, our Pastor wanted to try it, and once he got one, he refused take it off.
Incorporating top-line equipment throughout the audio system, Fellowship Church has a Yamaha PM1D front-of-house digital console, Sennheiser and Neumann hand-held mics. Summing up the discussion, Wheeler concludes: "In addition to using DPAs for vocals, we've had a lot of success using the 4061s. It's nice to finally have microphones that give us the sound we've been looking for without any of the problems."
(Lee Baldock)
