Dallas, TX (August 10, 2020)—Serving a network of campuses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, nondenominational evangelical church Watermark Community Church recently installed a trio of Solid State Logic Live consoles in its main 4,000-seat auditorium just before the coronavirus lockdown occurred.
The church worked with commercial AV design and integration company Nexos to install two L200s and an L350, as well as implement a new Dante network at its main Dallas campus. Now a 24-fader SSL Live L350 sits at front-of-house while a 36-fader L200 can be found at the monitor position. The third SSL console, another 36-fader L200, is located in the facility’s broadcast and video control room, used for mixing content that is ultimately distributed to satellite campuses in Fort Worth, Plano, Frisco and downtown Dallas.
60 Seconds with Marc DeGeorge of SSL
Travis Brockway, founder of Nexos, which is headquartered in Red Oak, TX, noted that the Dallas campus job was no simple installation: “We have 112 lines scattered around the stage coming into the stage right rack with three SSL SB32.24 and one SB16.12 Stageboxes with Dual Dante outputs. Rather than using mic splitters and a patchbay, we installed the 112 SSL mic pres, so that it could all be soft patched via Dante. When this system came online, we also implemented a new Dante network across the Dallas campus. It was a big switch; we replaced all the previous DSP and its Dante functionality throughout the whole facility. Everywhere there’s an audio console, it plugs in via Dante, so the Children’s Ministry’s consoles and everywhere there’s a sound system is all Dante capable.”
The front-of-house L350 desk, positioned centrally in the auditorium just behind the lower seating bowl, directly drives the main left and right L-Acoustics PA system along with the flown and floor subs. The newly installed DSP system handles optimization of and distribution to the multiple L-Acoustics balcony delay arrays, outfill and front fills covering the fan-shaped seating area, says Brockway. The pastor speaks on a DPA d:fine headset.
At the L350 stage monitor console, Brockway continues, “We have 32 analog outputs total that can drive wedges or rental in-ear sets or whatever comes in. We’re also using an Allen & Heath ME personal mixing system over Dante.”
Depending on the skill level of the operator at the L200 console in the video control room upstairs, he says, “They are either taking stems from the L350 front-of-house console as insert returns on the broadcast console — they can mix drums and bass and guitars as stems — or they can take the compensated split and have individual control of their own mix. We have a couple of sends, one to the satellite campuses and one to the web stream. We’re also talking about making other compensated mixes for other purposes.”
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