Paulus-Chormusical (The Choir Musical) by German church Evangeliums-Christen Gemeinde e.V is a unique project produced using community resources exclusively for both creative content and performance. With a limited budget and challenging technical requirements, Markus Gorges of AV Support Nümbrechting in Germany acted as technical advisor and Head of Audio, and recommended a combination of a DiGiCo S31+ console and Klang:vokal for the project’s monitoring requirements.

‘In the end, 151 participants volunteered over two years to put together their own musical, in their free time, and that’s what makes this unique,’ Gorges says. ‘In terms of numbers, 53 were choir singers, 11 musicians and 43 actors, and the rest did all the work around it.’

This was no small an undertaking – the show was to be performed five times in three different locations and, with the personnel, budget and transport costs kept as low as possible.

‘The S31 has the advantage of many faders in combination with the Spill Set function, which gives quick access to multiple channels,’ Gorges says of his console choice. ‘In addition to the inputs for the band and choir, there were also various external feeds and ambience mics, which is why in the end we decided to increase the input channel count with the software upgrade to S31+.’

Budget constraints also dictated that wireless receivers be used multiple times. ‘The challenge was to always equip the right person with the right microphone,’ Gorges continues. ‘Due to the different locations and the ever-changing conditions, we decided not to completely automate the show. However, since the users of the respective microphone section were always changing, the parameters of each singer/actor were loaded individually using snapshots. Due to the S31’s outstanding preamps, no gain adjustments had to be made during the show and the sound remained clean.’

The decision to use Klang was due to both budget and system performance, as it gave the actors the opportunity to rehearse under real conditions during the regular rehearsals without the need to have a technician present every time. With 16 different in-ear mixes, two Klang:vokal processors were used in Cascade Mode, and were integrated into the system via Dante, and the system was adjusted to the basic parameters for each rehearsal.

‘By using the Klang:vokal, it was possible for the musicians and actors to adjust all the necessary monitoring parameters themselves via the Klang:app and create their own snapshots,’ Gorges says. ‘The band, which already plays with in-ears on a regular basis, was really taken with the possibilities Klang gave them and the open and transparent mix. They reported to me, that it felt almost like playing without in-ears.

‘The beauty of this solution was that during rehearsals and the show phase, the technical team could simply concentrate on taking care of optimising the live sound. The combination of the S31+ and Klang:vokal worked perfectly.’