With an in-person venue seating capacity of more than 4,500, a simulcast stream going out to remote church members, and a complex stage plot exceeding 50 inputs, Dream City Church in Phoenix chose to deploy Allen & Heath dLive consoles ranging from the compact C1500 to the flagship S7000 for its recent New Year’s Eve Celebration.
Setup
Dream City was one of the early adopters of dLive in houses of worship. Consequently, it built upon its existing audio network and leveraged the ability to expand and interconnect Allen & Heath consoles, even across different product ranges. The dLive S7000 control surface at front of house functioned as an audio “home base” as it paired with the church’s DM64 MixRack. It also provided audio networking interconnects for 128 x 128 channel Dante, Waves and Allen & Heath fibreACE and gigaACE across the venue.
Audio was split and routed as needed to a C1500 (with a DM32 MixRack) and an Avantis console to cover monitor and broadcast duties. Rounding out the system was a ME-U monitoring hub. This distributed audio to five ME-1 personal monitors and an array of Alclair, Jerry Harvey Audio, Shure, and Ultimate Ears (UE) in-ear monitor headphones. Shure Axient Digital wireless (with KSM8 capsules) were in wide use and a Meyer PA filled the hall.
The Upgrade Was A Success
“You just don’t get better than Allen & Heath desks,” notes Jordan T. Hurt, Senior Technical Director and FOH Engineer. “Integrating additional desks of various models is so easy and the user interface is consistent and easy to learn across every console. They’re the most flexible consoles you can own. Transitioning all of our organization over to Allen & Heath is a no-brainer.”
Dream City Church Glendale Campus Technical Director and Monitor Engineer Michael Lemus notes, “The flexibility of the C1500 made mixing a 56-input show feel effortless.”
“Yeah, Allen & Heath is my go-to brand for mixing consoles,” adds Broadcast Engineer Robert Salazar. “They’re easy to navigate, simple to set up, and beautifully built. Avantis is no exception.” The TEC Award-winning Avantis provides two additional I/O ports that allow connection to the range of current dLive option cards, expanding the scope for system integration, FOH/monitor splits and multitrack recording.
Benefits
The gigACE connection proved useful in this application, transporting Audio and Control over Ethernet using standard CAT cables for low latency and cable redundancy without audio dropouts. Designed with a “plug ‘n’ play” protocol, no computer was required for setting up the show’s gigaACE connections. System Engineer Sherman Jarrell plugged the Ethercon cable between the dLive/Avantis system pair and set the patch and clock settings directly on the mixer.
“It is wonderful to hear about projects like the Dream City Church and their New Year’s Eve Celebration,” concludes Allen & Heath USA Marketing Director Jeff Hawley. “Folks like Jordan and Michael are stepping up to new challenges and continuing to strive to meet their lofty goals for church growth and engagement all while ensuring the overall production quality on their end grows alongside church membership. It really means a lot to us to be able to provide a range of products and support out in the field to help them along the way.”