The church campus is a considerable size, comprising a 125,000sq.ft main building with an additional 25,000sq.ft children's building, a 40,000sq.ft adjacent property that has been renovated it into a youth facility and office space, plus a state-of-the-art Creative Communications Center of 80,000sq.ft that contains three children's churches along with breakout rooms and a chapel for weddings, funerals and events.
Fellowship Church Pastor Ed Young's services include a large musical element that, according to the church, "wraps the weekend message in a relevant way, featuring everything from cutting-edge worship, to treasured hymns, to the latest pop hit", which effectively makes every weekend at the church an event in its own right. This, along with the shear size of the facility, requires both a sizable and flexible sound system.
"You really have to see it to understand what it's all about," says Matt Bishop, the church's broadcast audio engineer. "The production values far exceed that of most tours. It was unbelievable to me that the quality of gear I work on actually went up when I came off the road and went to work for a church!"
Bishop feels that the DS-00 has revolutionized the way in which he works: "The DS-00 has changed everything. I selected it because of its flexibility. It has powerful on the fly mixing capabilities along with extensive post-production automation that makes the DS-00 an ideal solution for Fellowship Church. The console's MADI protocol makes for incredibly efficient multi-track recording and re-mixing, as well.
"Because of the intense automation potential, my two mixes can now be much more specific to events. Each song can have independent level, panning, FX send, and dynamics set up, which has really increased the consistency and quality of my live mixes. "The Soundtracs/DiGiCo staff, particularly Taidus Vallandi, went above and beyond, providing us with access to consoles and information and giving us the knowledge we needed to make an informed decision. In the end the DS-00 was the best match for both our technical needs and financial situation.
"We have a few special events coming up: I'm currently mixing a 'Greatest Hits' CD of live worship songs that should release this Fall and Christmas, so that means a mega show and a live DVD. The DS-00 will certainly be a huge advantage in both these projects."
(Lee Baldock)
