Replacing its old analogue mixing desks, Electronics & Engineering (E&E) has installed two Allen & Heath Qu-32 compact digital mixers at FOH in each of the two main worship halls at Singapore’s St Andrew’s Cathedral.

Located within Singapore’s Central Business District, the cathedral was consecrated in 1862 and declared a national monument in 1973. As a major centre of worship, it hosts a variety of types of service, with contrasting musical requirements – and the necessity for quick changeovers between events. The installation of 32input/24output Qu-32 mixers in the traditional worship hall at the main building and the contemporary worship space at the extension building has provided the solution.

‘The cathedral has many services running back-to-back, especially on Sundays from as early as 6.30am,’ says St Andrew’s Facilities Manager, Kevin Quek. ‘With the previous analogue mixer, a reset was needed during service changeovers. This caused some anxiety among volunteers manning the mixer, as the time between services can be as close as five minutes. The numerous controls could be a headache, especially for new volunteers, and there were times when missing that one button caused some embarrassment.

‘With the Qu-32, we preset the scenes to the service requirements. Now, all that the volunteers need to do is to recall their scenes, and almost instantaneously everything falls into place. One volunteer commented that now they now have time on their hands while waiting for the service to commence,’ he adds.

Initially it was feared that volunteers would not be able to cope with the digital mixer but, following a training session with Simon Wong from E&E attended by nearly 40 volunteers, their confidence grew.

‘The house of worship environment is unique in the sense that the people responsible for the mixing of the sound are generally volunteers,’ says Electronics & Engineering Deputy MD, Gary Goh. ‘A lot of time is saved with a mixer like the Qu-32, which works intuitively and helps make the operations much easier. It is always very satisfying when we see that the solutions provided work to our clients’ benefit.

‘The Allen & Heath Qu-32 is designed with a logical layout, so you can get to what you need, fast. With touchscreen control, 32 AnalogiQ preamps, instant recall, 33 motorised faders, high-efficiency ARM core processing and an integrated multitrack USB recorder, the Qu-32 presents an impressive feature set at a competitive price.’