Dan Kreider, Grace Immanuel's Minister of Music, says the church's special services may include a 12-voice mixed ensemble and an orchestra resulting in as many as 78 sources. To accommodate this quantity of inputs and provide separate mixes for its sound reinforcement system, in-ear stage monitors and live broadcast, the church had been cascading a pair of older, 32-channel digital mixers. However, this setup was complex to operate, the channel count was insufficient and the broadcast feed had "hit its limits".
As part of their research into new mixers, Grace Immanuel contacted Kenny Bergle at Sweetwater who recommended Allen & Heath's dLive S7000. "We discussed several competing mixers," Bergle said. "But I recommended the dLive because we could configure it with the channel count they needed and it had plenty of flexibility along with Allen & Heath's great sound quality."
Grace Immanuel's mix booth is home to their new dLive S7000 Surface and the DX32 Expander for the church's 16 wireless microphones. The DX64 MixRack, near the stage, receives wired microphones and instruments and connects to the S7000 with Cat 5 cables using Allen & Heath's GigaACE dual redundant network link.
Kreider says he and his tech team were able to do most of the dLive setup themselves but appreciated the training provided by local Allen & Heath rep firm, Mainline Marketing. "The dLive was easy to learn," he says. "And we love the color-coded channels, mute groups and recallable scenes which make it easy for volunteers to log in and mix simple services like weddings."
(Jim Evans)
