A popular Christian Camp, Hume Lake is not just active during the summer. Throughout the year, the facility hosts as many as 35,000 people between its 10-week winter camp, off-site trips and a variety of weekend retreats - such as those for mothers/daughters, marriages and firefighters.
During Hume Lake's 10-week summer series, as many as 3,000 students (age K-12) can be found in the four Sequoia campuses and upwards of 1,000 at its San Diego location, each week. With such a large attendance and broad spectrum of events comes speakers, services and drama performances, all of which rely on the DPA d:fine Headset Microphones and d:fine 4066 Miniature Headset Microphones.
"A typical camp chapel service at Hume Lake entails a featured speaker as well as live drama with as many as 15 mik'ed actors," explains Rob McInteer, Hume Lake Camp technical arts director and Hume Lake Studios engineer. "A couple of our camps also have live plays that run nightly throughout the week. We usually use the wireless d:fines for these dramatic performances. Needless to say, with the environment that we're in, the mics get handled quite a bit and we needed something that was robust and rugged, and the d:fines have held up really well."
An audio professional first and foremost, McInteer was most impressed with the sound quality of the d:fines. "Sonically there's no comparison between the DPA d:fine and other mics on the market," he explains. "Because of that, there's a whole lot less work for us. You put it on someone and it's a real, natural sound right out of the gate. This is nice for our summer staffers, because it takes little effort for them to get an even and smooth sound from the pastor or speaker."
In addition to the sermons, a wide variety of dramatic and musical performances, as well as audio playback, take place at the venues during the week. As the variety of people who perform during these events may not be familiar with using headset microphones, the camp needed a solution that would provide a high level of comfort.
"The one thing I've heard from my seasoned speakers is that the mics are comfortable," adds McInteer. "Over the course of the year we have as many as 150 speakers come through, and everyone compliments how the mics feel. As soon as the mics are on, they fit the speakers really well and stay in place. We've had problems in the past with other mics slipping or rolling, or even peeling off the side of their face, but not the d:fines. They always stay in place. They've been a really stout and stable solution for us."
Founded in 1946, Hume Lake Christian Camps' Sequoia Park location is comprised of the Ponderosa, and Wild Wood high school camps, Meadow Ranch junior high camp, and Wagon Train elementary camp. Hume Lake also hosts a five-week camp at Point Loma Nazarene College in San Diego and recently purchased over 400 acres of property in scenic New England, where they are building and recruiting for an east coast campus, which currently hosts as many as 200 summer students each week.
(Jim Evans)
