"It's not a typical sanctuary," notes Tim Cates, audio-visual director for the church, "it's a multipurpose facility where we also host concerts and banquets in addition to two full size basketball courts. So we needed something with lots of flexibility and, of course, we had a budget. We looked at all the alternatives, and in terms of bang for the buck, iLive hit a home run."
In its primary use as an 1800-seat sanctuary, the church has a 90ft wide stage along one of the long walls of the rectangular room. The iLive-176 Control Surface is positioned halfway back, with the iDR10 MixRack located backstage, connected by two Cat 5 cables. The system also includes the optional Aviom module which integrates with the band's monitor system.
Highland Baptist has a large musical ensemble, centred on a contemporary band with electric and acoustic guitars, bass, keyboards, drums and a horn section. The group is augmented by an orchestral ensemble of varying size, a full gospel choir and a praise team of six additional vocalists. With the worship leader's mic and playback from video and CD sources, roughly 40 channels are used for most presentations, expanding to over 50 when larger orchestra and choir groups are used for special events.
"iLive is easily equal to any task," Cates says. "The drums, keyboards, choir and orchestral sections are all assigned to DCA's for easy submixing, and the system is configured with eight effects and eight additional auxes. We use the audio groups feature to combine signals for the Aviom monitoring system. Another thing we love is the ability to look at individual aux sends on the faders instead of using the rotary knobs, so the engineer can quickly come up with a monitor mix on the fly."
Rick Robinson, senior systems designer for integrator Digital Resources was responsible for the full system design, from lighting and acoustics to audio and video. Asked why he recommended iLive, he replied: "As part of the technical systems design, we assess the Church's level and ease of using a digital console. If you're used to analogue consoles, iLive is the easiest digital system to make the transition. It's very intuitive, so the learning curve is very fast. Plus, the support from Allen & Heath has been awesome."
(Jim Evans)
