Tadco, DiGiCo's South African distributor, was approached early in 2008 to quote on the console requirements for Hatfield Christian Church, and during the first discussions it was apparent that the church has some special requirements.
In addition to its normal Sunday services, it also has a radio and television broadcast arm, Impact Christian Media. The Sunday services are broadcast live via radio to Pretoria and are then packaged for worldwide television broadcast to a potential 42 countries.
A further complication is that three to four times a year large events are held in the church which use up to 70 channels of mixing at FOH. The norm would be 40 to 45 channels.
As a result, three consoles were required - FOH, monitors and broadcast - all with identical channel layouts to make it easier for the operators to switch between positions.
The initial idea was to supply large format DiGiCo consoles for all three positions to cater for the bigger events. However, this solution took the complete package outside the church's budget parameters and serious thought was given to a phased approach, but this was not feasible as all three mixing positions had to change over at the same time.
For a while, the project stalled and it looked as though it might have to be postponed for another year or two, that is until DiGiCo produced the solution with the release of the SD8 console.
Tadco's Philip Kruger, who had been working on the Hatfield project from the beginning, spotted the solution - four SD8 consoles: one console each for FOH, monitors and broadcast, with an additional console that could be used for the bigger events and in between could act as standby for any of the other three consoles. This also gave the church a digital console to be used for the many outreach events it holds during the year.
"The DiGiCo SD8's are very easy to operate," said Adrian White, Hatfield Christian Church's head of sound. "This is very important to us as we rely heavily on volunteer operators and even with minimal training they grasp the basics very quickly."
(Jim Evans)
