Having extended its five weekly services to include musical performances, the Manna Methodist Church in Bundang New City, South Korea, has correspondingly expanded its audio mixing capabilities by replacing an existing DiGiCo SD7 with two Quantum 852 consoles, one in the church for the performances and another in a broadcast suite to manage online audio.
The 4000-seat church currently attracts thousands of congregation members and large audiences online. Ensuring its members a say in these choices, 100 worshippers were invited to analyse the new system in its entirety before the purchase. The audience listened to a variety of loudspeaker systems with live music, speech and playback all included. A d&b audiotechnik KSLi system, with SL-Subs was subsequently chosen to accompany the brand-new Quantum 852s.
Overseeing the purchase and installation of the consoles was DiGiCo’s South Korean distributor, Soundus Corporation. Soundus also commissioned and completed the original installation in 2012, and Sales Engineer Sean Kim is a regular visitor to the church. For him, DiGiCo’s renowned stability was a large part of the decision process.
‘The initial choice to use DiGiCo consoles was based on the SD7’s ability to handle more than 200 input channels, with the dual engine offering stability, reliable redundancy and excellent sound quality,’ he explains. ‘As the church also needed additional mixing consoles for the media suite, the DiGiCo solution maintains user familiarity and a consistency in audio quality.’
As Manna Church audio engineer Jin Won Young explains, with services moving online during the pandemic, the online congregation has continued to grow. Their experience is very important, so the quality of the recorded and broadcast sound is a priority too. The quality of the church’s output over the past five years has significantly increased the church’s reach, with services broadcast on national television and a YouTube channel.
‘High-end audio quality is paramount but, critically, the built-in dual engine redundancy back up is also important,’ Jin says. ‘Like the SD7, I wanted our next audio console investment to endure for the next 10-to-15 years, so future-proofing dictated the need for more channel inputs should they be required. Prior to the upgrade, we were considering the Quantum 338, and this would have been a perfect match for our current set-up, but the Quantum 852 provides us with the space for system expansion.’
The DiGiCo system includes three SD-Racks located behind the stage in a room adjacent to the broadcast suite, with an SD-MiNi Rack connecting all the loudspeaker outputs. Six musicians and a choir of up to 50 vocalists are positioned to the rear of the stage, with a 50-piece orchestra performing to the left. Up to 504 channels of audio are split by the Optocore fibre loop to the DiGiCo Quantum 852 console, located in the broadcast suite.
‘The broadcast Quantum 852 ensures that levels can be correctly output to the online viewers and listeners,’ Jin says. ‘The pandemic may be over, but many worshippers still prefer to watch and listen to their services from home. Before the Quantum 852, we relied on plug-ins. Now we have the reliability and consistency of the actual hardware.’
Keeping track of all of these inputs is made simpler by the flagship Quantum 852 control surface. With 52 physical faders and three 21.3-inch 1000 nit LCD high-resolution touchscreens engineers have room to display all the inputs they need. The onboard processing includes Mustard channel strips, Spice Rack plug-in style native FPGA options, Nodal Processing and True Solo. Another feature that Jin appreciates is the Fourier integration, this has expanded his use of plug-ins.
‘We are really maximising the onboard processing of the Quantum 852 and we’re enjoying experimenting with Chilli and Mustard,’ he continues. ‘The new v20 software features my new personal favourite, MSE and Spice Rack plug-ins. The Fourier transform.engine has further future-proofed our set-up. The built-in control within the console’s open platform allows us to choose VST3 based plug-ins and does not limit us to specific suites of plug-ins, allowing us to experiment.’
The Manna Church system is of the highest possible quality, but it is not just engineers and audiences that are noticing the difference, the performers are also benefitting. As Jin concludes, it is this holistic approach that has ensured their success, delivering crystal clear sound for the church, not just now, but for the future, too.
‘We have greater levels of control over the entire system now,’ Jin closes. ‘The excellence of our DiGiCo system is matched by superb local support from Kim and his team at Soundus. We are truly blessed with best-in-class audio quality.’
More: www.soundus.co.kr
More: www.digico.org