Asked to provide a comprehensive audio and video installation at the Danbury Mission Church (Essex, UK), Wigwam Acoustics suggested a full Roland Systems Group REAC system including consoles, stageboxes and personal monitors.

With a busy events calendar and regular Sunday Services, the church required requested a flexible, high-quality system to serve speech, live bands, vision and playback – but it also had to be straightfoward enough to be operated by a number of people with varying technical knowledge.

A Roland M-480 48 Channel Live Digital Mixing Console was chosen for FOH, with an S-4000 REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication) Merge Unit, an S-0816 in the rack and an S-4000D REAC Splitter to supply audio and embedded power to the two S-1608 stageboxes and seven M-48 personal monitors on the stage.

Roland V-Drums are used to provide a ‘silent stage’ set-up, with the M-48s allowing the musicians to hear their own output through headphones.

On the video side, Wigwam specified Roland’s V-800HD Multi-format video switcher, offering the freedom to connect to any type of source to the system – in this case a projector, laptop, TV or DVD player. As a true multi-format video mixer, there is no need to match input sources to the output resolution as every input has its own broadcast-quality scaler. The V-800HD is controlled by RTI advanced control products, set-up with a dedicated button for each source, allowing users to choose from a control panel of eight switches.

The church A/V operation uses two modes – simple and advanced (based on the technical ability of the user) – all controlled via the system’s RTI. In simple mode, just the lectern mics can be switched on and controlled from the lectern position, while the advanced mode allows a full live stage production to be controlled from the A/V balcony. All events can be recorded via REAC by connecting a PC with Sonar Producer and a REAC Driver kit to the M-480 over Cat5e/6.

The M-480 at FOH is controlled via RS232 from the RTI control system, and is also configured to interface with the church’s Allen & Heath IDR rack mountable matrix mixers. The flexibility of the M-480 means that all the channels required for live bands, radio mics and pulpit mics can be fed to the same desk, and the console can be routed to both S-1608s or the S-0816 from any position, into the amp rack or to the stage.

For more advanced productions, including live band performances, the M-48 Personal Monitor Mixers on the stage allow musicians to control their own mix and levels. Using the M-48s also saves time for an engineer as necessary scenes can be saved in advance. Each M-48 has 16 onboard memories recallable from the unit and the M-480 has a further 50 M-48 memories in its scene memory set-up, which allows each performer to rehearse and then save the settings so next time they can recall everything at the touch of a button. This also applies to settings for services, so that multiple services can be preloaded on to the M-480 and recalled at the touch of a button.

The Rolad S-4000M merge unit and the S-1608 stageboxes on the stage allow the inputs to be split between the monitor and M-480, and to be moved or adjusted to serve different events. The S-0816 mounted in the rack connected to the M-480 for a full digital mixing system, also provides easy splits and recording options.

The subsequent addition of a Roland WNA1100-RL wireless adapter facilitates the use of a iPad to fine tune sound levels and EQ from anywhere within the auditorium.

‘I am very pleased with the system which despite its complexity and advanced capabilities most users have found extremely intuitive in use,’ says Kelvin Ward, Technical Director for the church. ‘I’m confident that with our investment in a superb modern building and some of the latest A/V equipment available it will cater for our needs for many years to come.’

More: www.wigwamacoustics.co.uk
More: www.rolandsystemsgroup.co.uk