CityHope Church has completed the installation of a DiGiCo Quantum338 console at its flagship Malbis campus, north of Daphne in Baldwin County, Alabama, where it is the centrepiece of a larger audio upgrade that also includes two DMI-Dante cards, an Orange Box interface for Madi, integrated DMI-Klang in-ear monitor mixing, an SD-Rack fitted with 32-bit Ultimate Stadius mic preamps, SD-MiNi Rack for broadcast audio-for-video I/O and DiGiGrid rackmount Quad Madi interface that allows recording of up to 128 channels at 96kHz.

The Q338 console, SD-Racks and Klang audio are all on a newly-installed Optocore loop network.

The package was designed and installed by ESB Group, the same integrator that installed CityHope’s L-Acoustics Kara(i) and ARCS WiFo loudspeaker systems six years earlier when the church first moved into its new 1,400-seat worship centre.

The new DiGiCo Q338 console represents an ‘inflection point’ for the church’s audio infrastructure, replacing three existing consoles with the single Q338 desk.

‘The consoles they had at front of house, monitor world, and broadcast were showing their age and lack of support, but putting in the DiGiCo Quantum console was more than just an upgrade – it represented an order-of-magnitude improvement,’ says ESB Group Solutions Architect/Design Engineer, Drew Breland. ‘For starters, it’s eliminated two consoles at monitors and broadcast. The Quantum console at FOH and the Klang card take care of all of the sound in the house, from the PA to the in-ear monitors on stage.’

He reports that church’s usual complement of five vocalists, two electric guitarists, acoustic guitarist, electric bassist, keyboard player and drummer have quickly taken to Klang’s immersive monitoring. The same goes for the church’s live sound engineers, who have embraced the Quantum’s powerful Mustard and Spice Rack processing.

‘CityHope Production Director Adam White comes from the recording studio world he worked in before, and he was planning on running external plug-ins on the console,’ says Breland. ‘But once he started hearing what he could accomplish with the Quantum processing, he knew he’d found his console.’

‘Coming from a studio background, for me, the mix is always first about creativity, and I was amazed at what I could find once we got into Mustard and the Spice Rack,’ White says. ‘The processing immediately felt familiar; I was able to get the same results I was used to working on Pro Tools and a DAW, without having to use third-party plug-ins.’

He says he appreciated being able to train his associate FOH engineer on the Q338 quickly and effectively, allowing him to keep abreast of his other responsibilities at the church. ‘He was able to jump on the console on day one,’ he says.

White also notes the economics of the move to the Quantum console, as managing FOH, monitors and broadcast from a single surface has saved money and time while improving workflow. ‘The routing and assignment flexibility of the Quantum is pretty incredible,’ he says. ‘I can create one mix for the house, then use the buss structure to create completely separate mixes for streaming and for areas like cry rooms and overflow space in the lobby so that each use is perfectly tailored for what that use needs – and for a fraction of what it would have cost to buy three consoles to cover all of that.

‘Klang has been a game-changer,’ he continues. ‘Before, we had a monitor console, but no dedicated monitor mixer, so the musicians would have to walk up to the monitor console to adjust volumes, and that was all they could really adjust. Now I can send the band a fully processed mix that they can have individual control over onstage. They were blown away during the first soundcheck with Klang – they said it was like hearing music for the first time.’

The addition of the Ultimate Stadius mic preamps has made a noticeable difference in the worship centre’s sound quality: ‘We didn’t touch the PA system at all,’ says Breland. ‘They played back tracks recorded in the worship centre, and they’re literally hearing the PA system in a different way. And the AES cards in the SD-Rack allow us to stay digital directly to the PA system amplifiers, so the signal path is cleaner and more direct. It all contributes to make the overall sound in the room better.’

Two 64-input DMI-Dante cards feed 128 channels to the Pro Tools system in the church’s recording studio, while a DiGiGrid Rackmount Quad Madi interface provides 128 channels at 96kHz for redundant recording and virtual soundchecks, further streamlining the church’s music performances. ‘In fact, the virtual soundcheck capability turned out to be even more important that we’d expected,’ says Breland. ‘They were able to take previously recorded tracks and use them to set up the routing and preliminary EQ for the new console during the one rehearsal they had before the first Sunday church service.’

More: www.esbgroup.net