18 November 2009

SOUTHLANDS CHURCH FINDS SUPERIOR SOUND ON A TIGHT BUDGET WITH ILIVE

Southlands Church in Brea, California, recently installed a new sound system following its relocation from a temporary to a permanent facility, selecting an Allen & Heath iLive digital system as the centre point.

They hired Paul Dexter of 7k Audio, a Grammy-nominated studio mixer who has designed systems for some of the best-sounding churches in Orange County.

“While I’m a record producer first, I’ve managed a few rock ‘n roll church installs in the area, and word gets around,” notes Dexter. “My job was to give them the sound they wanted and the knowledge they needed, while working within a pretty modest budget. One of the keys to making that happen was choosing an Allen & Heath iLive-112 system as the mixing console.”

“My job was to represent the church’s needs to Paul Dexter – what kind of sound system we wanted, how we use it for various events, etc,” explains Dudley Rogers, primary sound engineer at Southlands. “I liaised between 7k Audio and the church administration.”

The “new” facility is actually an industrial space that has been converted for worship use. The room was gutted and divided into a worship space, with other areas reserved for future development. To create a reasonable sonic footprint in this steel and concrete space, the floor was carpeted, and the ceiling covered.

During the design of the sound system, Paul Dexter took special care to find a console that could fit into the budget without compromising on either sound quality or functionality. He eventually selected an Allen & Heath iLive system, comprising an iDR10 MixRack and iLive-112 Control Surface.

The iLive-112 Contorl Surface at Southlands Church

“Features are one thing but finding a digital console that sounds good has been very frustrating and I was on a year-long journey looking for a good-sounding yet affordable digital console. I looked at a lot of them, and the Allen & Heath was the only one in that price range that I fell in love with. The sound, the EQ, the A/D converters – everything was top notch, and I was absolutely astonished by the user interface. It’s a brilliant approach.”

The iLive fast learning curve allowed Dexter to concentrate on his specialty – teaching volunteers how to achieve a great mix.

“Most contractors teach what all the buttons do but don’t really have time to go much further. It’s a problem,” he says. “I teach my customers how to mix from an artistic point of view as well – how to listen, what to listen for, plus some technical training on things like EQs and compressors, some of the tricks we use in the studio to get a great sound.”

Southlands’ iLive handles both FOH and monitor duties and is set up with 32 input channels and 16 outputs in the iDR10 MixRack, which is located behind the stage and connected to the iLive-112 Control Surface via a single CAT5 cable.

“The band is on wedges currently but the system is wired up for in-ears in the future. They also plan to have a ProTools recording studio in the future, so we left room for expansion.”

The main PA outputs feed a SymNet system for processing before going to the speakers. As the room is wider than it is deep, Dexter opted for a stereo point source approach, with a pair of EAW speakers hung on each side, reinforced by three subwoofers in the centre, all powered by QSC amplifiers. Five more outputs are used to send the monitor mixes to the band on stage, while another handles distributed audio for the lobby cry room and hallways.

“The new system is simply brilliant,” says Dudley Rogers. “With a good speaker system and a new building, we expected it to sound good but this is so clean, it sounds like a CD! We pushed for digital because we wanted the flexibility and ability to save our settings. Of course, the iLive does all that but what surprised us was how easy it was to learn for the volunteers. The whole system is so intuitive, it allows us to concentrate on getting a great mix instead of the mechanics of board operation.”