Situated 30 miles southwest of London, Guildford Baptist Church recently concluded an extensive refurbishment program that included an overhaul of the audio systems in the building’s 600-seat auditorium that utilizes Allen & Heath mixing consoles and companion components supplied and installed by UK-based church AV specialists DM Music.
Specifically, DM Music implemented an Allen & Heath dLive S7000 surface and DM32 MixRack as well as a compact SQ-5 digital mixer and a pair of DT168 Dante-equipped audio expanders. Serving multiple rooms, the dLive and SQ-5 combination is used for both the church’s own services as well as for community events and concerts.
“When it came to providing a new system, we needed something that was rider-friendly for visiting engineers to use, so the dLive and SQ-5 were ideal,” explains Graham Bennewith of DM Music. “When the church hosts large-scale concerts, the dLive is used at FOH with the SQ-5 for monitor duties and for various other uses. The ability to network everything via Dante adds very valuable flexibility, and the network capabilities allow for a very joined-up and versatile system which enables the dLive and SQ-5 to be used in multiple locations around the building very easily.”
All dLive and SQ mixers include AMM (Automatic Microphone Mixing) capabilities, with the option for multiple zones to be mixed simultaneously, a capability that DM Music leveraged to assist less experienced operators. “The church was in need of a versatile audio solution that could be used in a variety of situations and by people of very different levels of experience, from professional sound engineers to church volunteers,” adds Bennewith. “Although the Allen & Heath systems are extremely powerful, we can set them up for simple operation to take care of a handful of radio mics with an automix if necessary.”
With SQ and dLive both being built on Allen & Heath’s XCVI Core, a 96 kHz FPGA engine with stated latency of 0.7 ms latency, there have been additional benefits for users at the venue. “The fact that the SQ-5 architecture makes it feel very similar to the dLive also makes it a great training platform for inexperienced users that need eventually to get hands-on with the bigger system,” concludes Bennewith. “It’s been a great solution for the church’s needs.”