A modern church with an energetic worship style and a willingness to embrace new technologies at its Corpus Christi compus in Texas, Church Unlimited makes extensive use of recorded content in its online channels. Filming with boom mics, however, was cumbersome and so the church has looked to Point Source Audio’s Embrace on-ear lavalier mics for a concealable wireless mic option.
‘It is a hybrid model that we’ve gone to now,’ explains Audio Engineer Mike Peña. ‘We pre-record two hosts talking about what’s going on and, at the proper time, we sync up and everything goes live to the pastor on stage at our broadcast campus with the message and we stream it out.’
As with many houses of worship, Church Unlimited expanded its streamed content during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns to ensure that its services could continue safely. By the time congregants were allowed back into the church for communal services, the online side of its operation had grown such that the team were able to get creative with the content they were creating.
‘We thought “let’s get some different shots, let’s use the stage, let’s use the jib cameras to mix it up a little bit”, and the old way of doing things with booms and mics on stands to go around and capture all the talking head stuff was getting in the way,’ recalls Peña. ‘Every shot we did, you could see the boom or something else.’
Peña researched the Embrace microphones and became convinced that the on-ear lavalier – engineered for concealing but featuring a mounting system that keeps the mic placement consistent to the mouth – was the right choice for the church.
‘I was really impressed with the sound quality, you don’t see it and it sounds great the whole time,’ he says. ‘There are so many things that it fixed for us, and so many things that it opened up. The postproduction work doesn’t take half as long for me to clean up, fix up and send back out to the video team – they have made my workflow faster.’
The patented mounting has also enabled the church’s videographers to be more creative in the shots and angles that they choose, particularly with Church Unlimited’s popular At the Movies series. ‘Some of the camera angles, you don’t even know the mic is there,’ says Peña. ‘The mics have opened up a world of possibilities because we don’t have stands or a guy holding a boom. It gives the Pastor more freedom to move around during video shoots. They’ve changed everything on the audio for video side of things.’
The At the Movies series was the first time that Bil Cornelius, Church Unlimited’s Lead Pastor, experienced the Embrace mic. ‘He was ecstatic about the fit, the comfort and the possibilities,’ Peña reports. ‘There was a real level of excitement from him when he first tried it out.’
With Embrace proving its capabilities, the worship leaders at Church Unlimited are now keen to explore what the microphones can do in a live setting. ‘All of the pastors have seen them in video shoots and want to use them live on stage now, so it looks like we’ll be adding a few more to the mic locker,’ Peña adds.
