While theologically conventional and traditionally orientated, Morrison Heights Baptist Church services court a refreshingly contemporary take on their production employing a mix of traditional orchestra and modern band for its music, and a state-of-the-art technical foundation.
Located in Clinton, in Hinds County, Mississippi. the church’s most recent technical foray brings technology platforms from DiGiCo, Klang and Fourier Audio into play. Installed by Integrated Production Solutions (IPS), the church now has a pair of DiGiCo Quantum338 consoles for its FOH and broadcast mixes; Fourier Audio transform.engine plug-in interfaces supporting the use of VST3 plug-ins within the audio workflow; and a Klang:konductor paired with 16 Klang:kontrollers to provide immersive in-ear monitoring onstage for its worship vocalists and musicians.
In addition, the DiGiCo consoles are each fitted with the new Pulse upgrade, which takes their capacity from 128 channels to 156 and from 64 aux/sub groups to 72.
IPS Executive Director of Integration Wade Russell and Morrison Heights Baptist’s Director of Media & Technical Ministries, Eric Busby, have been working together for more than a decade, helping the church walk the critical line between being at the sharp edge of audio technology without the requirement of higher levels of training and operational intensity.
‘It’s one of those situations where you want to be on the cutting edge, where the customer is one of the first ones who has a new technology, and but not where they have to say, “I hope it works”,’ quips Russell. ‘That’s why this combination of systems was such a good fit for Morrison Heights – the technology is right at the edge and can do a lot, but it’s all centred on the DiGiCo consoles, which bring a high level of recognition and trust. You’re at the leading edge, but you also know it’s all going to work well together.’
Russell adds that the Pulse upgrade was timely, allowing the consoles to better accommodate the more-elaborate events the church conducts at Christmas and Easter. The transition from an older IEM system to Klang matched that, allowing virtually everyone onstage to have complete control over their personal monitoring environment. ‘The Klang:kontrollers fit their needs perfectly,’ he says. ‘Eric was like, “I have all these hands-on mixers that my people have been used to and I can’t imagine going away from something that’s a tactile mixer to just an iPad. I need the physical knobs and controls”. So I pointed the Klang:kontroller out to him, and it fit the bill perfectly.’
In addition to audio, Busby has a significant background in IT, and he says the combination of the three brands into a single solution resonated for him in that manner.
‘First, we’re getting proven technology that’s at the leading edge of where the industry is,’ he says. ‘Then, it’s all consolidated into a single integrated solution that makes it easier for me to manage. As an IT person, that means a lot to me. When you have several different platforms from different manufacturers, it’s not unusual in tech for one to blame the others when things won’t work together like you want them to. With DiGiCo, Klang and Fourier Audio, I get all the support I need from a single source. It makes everything so much smoother.’
He also notes that the Klang:kontrollers have made things smoother onstage for the musicians: ‘Having a hardware interface, the ability to simply reach for a knob instead of an iPad screen when you’re trying to play and work other aspects of your rig makes it so much easier,’ he says.
Busby has been a long-time Waves user, however moving to Fourier Audio has been a rewarding integration of his plug-ins into the consoles via the transform.engine. ‘We have two transform engines: one driving in-room FOH plug-ins and another for broadcast plug-in needs,’ he says. ‘This gives us a lot more customisability between our broadcast world and FOH.’
Russell confirms that Fourier was the right choice, adding: ‘Eric texted me a couple of months ago and said, “Tell all your clients that if they’re considering anything else, they don’t know what they’re missing”.’
As well as all of this new technology did fit together, it was still a lot of ‘new’ to arrive all at once. Anticipating that, IPS assembled the entire ecosystem in its Franklin facility, giving Busby the opportunity to familiarise himself with each component and the system as a whole, off-line and without the pressures of having to first encounter it in the church.
‘We’re a design-build integration company – we shop-build and test all of our systems in-house to make sure everything’s perfect before we deploy it,’ he says. ‘It saves a lot of time on site and just makes sure that we have all the components needed and everything’s operating by doing our own QC. As part of that, I reached out to Eric and had him come up to our facility and load a session that he’d built and start getting familiar with it, running some tracks through a small PA in our shop and being hands-on with it. That way, he was not having to learn the console the week we installed it.
‘We also brought in DiGiCo National Sales Manager Ryan Shelton, who lives nearby in Nashville, who came up and answered any questions Eric had. It’s really valuable to have that level of manufacturer support, as well as be able to learn the systems and how they work – and work together – in an environment completely free of pressure.’
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