Weekday visitors to the fifth level of the Furama City Centre Hotel in Singapore are likely attendees of a corporate event or private function in the hotel’s 6,250sq-ft ballroom. But, on Sunday, the ballroom gives itself over to the Redemption Hill Church (RHC)’s 400-500 congregants. Requiring weekly set-up and breakdown, RHC’s techs have turned to the mobile myMix personal monitoring and mixing system to simplify rehearsals and services.

Founded in 2008, RHC sought to upgrade it's A/V system when it began looking for a permanent residence in 2014. However, over the four years that ensued, the scarcity of available land in the prosperous island nation led RHC pastor Simon Murphy to announce that the Centre Hotel’s fifth-floor ballroom would continue to be RHC’s home in the immediate future.

Built in 1982, the ballroom housed an outdated speaker system that was becoming insufficient for use by the congregation’s contemporary musical ensemble. So, with the help of house of worship A/V consultant and systems integrator PAVE System, the hotel collaborated with RHC to upgrade the church’s A/V system – including the adoption of myMix personal monitor mixing.

Two levels below the Furama City Centre Hotel’s ballroom, the headquarters for Redemption Hill Church include office space for RHC’s 17 full- and part-time staff, a purpose-built rehearsal space, and a storage facility housing the audio, lighting and video equipment used in each Sunday service.

Each week, three hours before the first of three Sunday services, RHC Service Operations Manager Titus Tiong begins moving a flightcased console, mobile stage, musical instruments, lighting equipment and two projection screens up to the fifth-floor ballroom using the hotel’s service elevator. Here, he hooks up the console to the recently installed speaker system using a Dante digital network via the amplifier controllers.

Due to the labour-intensive set-up and breakdown routine, RHC has attempted to minimise the amount of equipment needed for each service. PAVE System Senior Sales Manager Stephen Teo explains that the ensemble – which includes an electric drum kit and keyboards, as well as vocals and guitars – uses myMix to give the musicians control over their monitors. It connects to the Dante network via an IEX-A 16-channel input expander.

myMix is a personal monitor mixing and multitrack recording system that puts each user in control of their own mix. Giving users up to 16 channels of audio controlled through a musician-friendly interface, myMix lets users change volume, tone, pan and effect send level in their IEM without affecting the mix of anyone else on the network.

‘We were able to eliminate the need for stage monitors, making the stage quieter,’ Teo says, adding that this frees up the RHC engineer to focus on other aspects of the A/V system during Sunday services. ‘Since myMix is easy to use and configure, it gives users the ability to control their own level and they can also control levels of the other musicians they want to listen to without the need to communicate with the sound engineer.’

Teo says that the RHC musical ensemble has further benefitted from the recording and playback feature, which allows rehearsals and performances to be recorded as 24-bit .wav files, and then played back immediately, providing a quick reference for how the practice and performance of their repertoire sounds overall.

Now, with an updated sound system, myMix monitoring and a well-established routine for setting up and taking down its mobile stage, lighting and A/V equipment, RHC is ready to continue holding its worship services in the Furama City Centre Hotel indefinitely.