With a 75-year-old sanctuary that seats 1,700, the First Alliance Church in Calgary uses various styles of music and dynamic services in its worship. Bringing a new level of performance and flexibility to its work, the church has recently brought in a Soundcraft Vi6 digital mixing console, installed by Sapphire Sound in Vancouver.

The Vi6 was chosen for its ability to accommodate full orchestras, choirs and bands, as well as the annual Broadway-style Christmas musical the church stages, and to switch between them with minimal fuss.

With 96 inputs to 35 output channels, the Vi6 is capable of handling any large event: ‘We researched flagship models from many other brands,’ says Technical Director of Environments, Paul Nadeau-Bonilla. ‘From an ergonomic standpoint, the Vi6 is head and shoulders above all the other consoles. The intuitive layout and visual appearance drastically improves our workflow, and the onboard features are really easy to work with, unlike some of the confusing navigation on other digital consoles.’

The desk uses Soundcraft’s ‘knobs-on-glass’ style of control through the VistonicsII channel strip interface, along with FaderGlow colour-coded illumination of the faders.

‘The details in the layout of the Vi6 are amazing,’ says Wayne Jeschke, Associate of Technical Arts. ‘Someone can run wireless microphones and orchestra at the same time, while the Cue Advance buttons and Snapshots are readily available and well within reach. We wanted something as user-friendly and analogue-like as possible, and the Vi6 hits the sweet spot. Even some of our non-technical engineers are able to work on it flawlessly.

‘We did not expect the sound to be this good,’ he adds. ‘The difference in clarity from our older board is so great, that we get compliments from numerous untrained people all the time. The user-friendliness combined with a clean, natural sound makes the Vi6 an extraordinary console within its class. It blew us away.’