Founded by Rick and Lori Taylor in 2000, the Healing Rooms Apostolic Center (HRAC) in Santa Maria, California has installed an Allen & Heath S7000 Digital Mixing System in its main 500-seat sanctuary.
Used for live events and video and audio streaming, the console plays a central role within the 22,000 square-foot facility’s production capabilities, serving followers in both the US and abroad. ‘HRAC is a global resource where people receive healing, pray, and grow spiritually,’ explains Jason Allen of A-Town AV, the integration firm responsible for the dLive S7000. ‘As one of the most heavily used stages on campus, the main room hosts services four days each week that are contemporary in style. The technology was chosen to foster creativity while providing a feast for the senses via audio, lighting, projectors, and LED video walls.’
With its dedicated audio and video streaming rooms, the HRAC relies upon a fibre-optic hub that networks the entire facility. Equipped with a Dante card, the S7000 system is constantly expanding its role under the direction of chief audio engineer Brian Williams, who oversees a staff of operators with varying degrees of experience.
‘The console has been up and running since September of last year,’ Allen notes of the S7000. ‘And throughout this time the staff has steadily added more layers of functionality to it. It’s super-powerful, sensitive, and the latency is incredibly low. The 26 assignable softkeys have been used to trigger scenes for live applications, and everyone enjoys the ability to create side-chains for compression, limiting, gating, and dynamics processing.’
A dLive DM48 MixRack with 48 mic/line inputs and 24 line outputs resides onstage in the main room, providing the real estate necessary to mic every instrument and voice. ‘Obtaining the highest quality sound is a priority at the centre,’ Allen says.
‘Before the DM48 was installed most of the drum kit had to be captured with nothing more than a couple of overheads. Now there’s room to mic everything individually, and the sound is much more accurate. Guitarists onstage play directly into the S7000 using one of the insert channels as well. Patching is seamless everywhere, and dLive has made it simpler too.’
