Three drive-in worship services held in response to the Covid-19 pandemic saw New Haven Connecticut-based Vox Church field a sond system using dBTechnologies DVA K5 Active Line Arrays and Sub 18H powered subwoofers recently. A growing church with seven locations, Vox has standardised on these dBTechnologies models for most of its needs, and uses them for load-in/load-out services in several locations. This simplifies crew training, speeds setup and makes it easy to configure systems for large events like this.
The drive-in system comprised arrays of 11 DVA K5s and a 3x3 end-fire cardioid array of Sub 18H subwoofers. Vox Church FOH engineer Eugene Mulcahy used dBTechnologies Composer software to design and optimise the arrays: ‘I did everything Composer told me to do, and the predictions were right on,’ he says. ‘We had good audio out to at least 200ft.’
Mulcahy simplified FOH by using the church’s digital mixer for processing, routing and EQ. ‘I had a Waves super rack, but the only thing we used was an API 2500 compressor,’ he says.
Monitor engineer Justin Beardsley mixed the band’s in-ear monitors from back stage and commented that the DVA K5 arrays helped minimise rear spill onto the stage. ‘I was directly behind the arrays and did not have that flush of PA right on me or on the band. That was nice,’ he says.
Vox Church plans four more similar events soon and Robert Roy Jr, the church’s Central Production Lead, says that, based on the success of the drive-in services, ‘These outdoor events for our church are going to become a norm. Now, all the gear is specified and pre-rigged with the array angles set in the shop. We know how to pack it on the truck so moving from one location to another is simple – just copy-and-paste. All we had to do on-site was fly it.’
Roy says his crew worked very hard to make this weekend of drive-in worship a success but believes that it was worth the effort: ‘After the weekend, lead pastor Justin Kendricks came into our normal Tuesday meeting and he simply said, “our production team only knows one gear, and that is awesome”.’
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