Dallas, Texas (May 13, 2020)—Since it was founded in 2020, Gateway Church has expanded to eight campuses around Texas, with another in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In all, it provides a spiritual home for more than 30,000 people every week. Key to bringing its message to them at every service is a string of DiGiCo audio consoles. While they’re used at each location, Gateway’s 4,000-seat broadcast location in Southlake, TX recently updated all three of its DiGiCo SD7 consoles—used at front of house, monitors, and broadcast—with the latest Quantum engine upgrade.
Quantum7, developed with seventh-generation FPGA devices that further expand audio processing power. Brandon Conn, senior audio specialist, Live Production, noted, “With the new Stadius 32-bit Mic Pre-Amps, the vocal clarity has improved dramatically, and it was very good before the Quantum7 upgrade. The worship pastor’s vocal presence is so transparent, it’s as though you’re standing right next to the source.”
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That, adds Conn, has very practical benefits, as well. “It’s a real improvement in dynamic range on the microphones with the extra bits, so we find that we don’t have to push the pre-amps as much to achieve intelligibility, and that in turn helps with gain structure.” Conn added that all consoles share the Gain Tracking feature during events, which assures each has plenty of headroom and automatically optimizes trim. They also allow all monitor engineers to manage gain during the rehearsals.
Among the Quantum7 features they’ve applied so far is Nodal Processing, which applies processing to any node on the auxiliary section of the console, allowing engineers to send processing on each send from a single or multiple channels. “Our monitor engineers especially like the Nodal Processing feature for how it lets them customize the mix for each group of musicians,” he said.
The various churches’ audio team members have a variety of proficiencies when it comes to running a sound system. “We set up a standardized workflow for all the consoles, which helps us maintain consistency for the staff and volunteers,” said Conn. Gateway Church has a DiGiCo SD7, SD8, SD9, or SD10 in every main auditorium, and in all of its eight locations where kids worship, services happen there are SD9, SD11, or S21 consoles. “Having a consistent work surface everywhere means our engineers can fill in at any location at any time.”
Gateway Church • www.gatewaypeople.com
DiGiCo • www.DiGiCo.biz
