The installation of a pair of DiGiCo Quantum consoles at First Baptist Church of Jonesboro, a suburb of Atlanta, sees a Quantum852 replace the SD10 previously at FOH, and a Quantum338 take station for monitors. First Baptist Jonesboro is the world’s first house of worship to install a Quantum852.
First Baptist Jonesboro Media & IT Director Tom Gobebo points out that the church’s traditional orchestral/organ and choir worship style was expanded in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic to include amplified instruments, as well as backing and click tracks. Along with more outside concerts and increasingly complex holiday event productions, the mixer channel count and processing needed to follow suit.
‘The 144 channels on our SD10 were no longer enough,’ Gobebo says. ‘We already had a 30-to-40-piece orchestra and an 80-to100-voice choir, and that was just for regular Sunday services. We added more wireless microphones as well as a six-piece band with electric guitars and drums.’
This line-up currently shares worship music duties with Jonesboro’s 3,000-pipe organ.
The church also changed how it handled its online streaming of services, making them fully live and thus requiring additional channels. ‘We have literally more than doubled our inputs now, and that leaves us lots of extra channels for special events when needed,’ Gobebo says.
The Waves processing that was integrated into the SD10 consoles is still there, but now split between the new desk’s A and B engines, adding a layer of failover protection. And the processing load has shifted to the console, itself. ‘Before, the SD10 was doing about 40 per cent of the processing onboard; today, the Quantum852 is doing about 80 per cent of it,’ Gobebo estimates. ‘There’s just so much more there now.’
The church also doubled the number of stageboxes, adding two more SD-Racks to allow up to 220 inputs at the stage. These are currently operating the at 96k resolution, up from 48k before.
‘The audio staff at First Baptist Jonesboro has certainly loved the DiGiCo platform they’ve been using for years, but the arrival of the Quantum852 gave them the chance to also have the channel count they needed while still standardising around the console they’ve come to know and use,’ says Clark Business Development Manager, Noah Hawley. ‘More I/O, more horsepower — those were all the things they were looking for as their worship style evolved. They get exactly that with the Quantum852.’
The addition of the Quantum338 at monitors has brought equally significant changes to the church’s media workflow. ‘Having three screens on the console makes it so much easier to work on,’ says Gobebo, adding that it also greatly aids in training the church’s mostly volunteer audio crew. ‘It makes a huge difference now that we have the band and so many more microphone inputs and the tracks.
‘People have noticed, especially the musicians,’ Gobebo says. ‘There’s more space and depth to the sound. The quality is improved and the workflow is really enhanced. The Quantums have been a real step up for everyone.’
Both consoles were purchased through Atlanta-based integrator, Clark.
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