JACKSON, WISCONSIN: Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School serves over four hundred students from in and around Jackson, Wisconsin, a town 45-minutes northwest of Milwaukee. In the last decade, the school has expanded its facilities, and the crowning jewel of that expansion is the 750-seat Performing Arts Center. The center includes facilities for the school’s choirs, bands, and theatrical productions, as well as a state-of-the-art venue for Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School and other area schools and artistic organizations. Because funds were limited, the school asked Professional Audio Designs of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin to build a cost-effective sound reinforcement system that could start with simple coverage for Sunday services and have the ability to scale up to handle full theatrical productions as the funds became available. To accommodate that challenging request, Professional Audio Designs built the system around the Symetrix SymNet Radius 12×8 Dante Network Audio DSP.
“At the outset, the money allocated to the sound reinforcement system was generous, but the building itself ran way over budget,” explained Kim Leonard, president of Professional Audio Designs. “They came back to us and asked us to pare down the sound reinforcement system initially, while at the same time laying the foundation for the more expansive system that they will eventually have. That future vision includes a full-sized mixing console, dozens of mics and inputs, and a full stage monitoring system. But for now, they have a modest four microphones and a line-level input. We’re using the SymNet Radius 12×8 to auto-mix them.”
With the core system now in place, Fulcrum Acoustics loudspeakers powered by QSC amplifiers provide high-impact, high-fidelity coverage of the auditorium’s seating area. Three Symetrix Radius 12x8s provide the modest processing needed for basic sound reinforcement and will go on to provide the more advanced processing necessary. A Symetrix ARC-2e wall panel remote control gives users simple and intuitive control of volume for all four microphones, volume control for the line level input, and an overall master volume control.
When they get the funds, the school can simply plug in the digital mixer, the assisted listening system (ALS is installed now), the online streaming system, and a back stage monitoring system. Additional Symetrix ARC-2e units in the control room, in the house, and on a future portable backstage paging rack complete the system. Importantly, the simple quick-mix system that is already in place is selectable from the main ARC-2e so that the school and church can hold simple events and services without requiring an audio technician on hand.
“The whole system is networked via Dante,” said Leonard. “We built a primary network and a secondary network for backup. We’re glad Symetrix is leading the charge with fully-integrated Dante technology. It’s extremely cost-effective and robust and the fidelity is excellent. In addition, we always use Symetrix with Fulcrum loudspeakers because the FIR filters required by Fulcrum are fully supported within the SymNet software.”
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