The flock at the Good Shepherd Church has become quite diverse over the past 35 years, with four Sunday worship gatherings – three in English and one in Spanish – serving its community in Charlotte, North Carolina, as well around the world through online services. Good Shepherd is also tech-savvy, and recently installed a DiGiCo Quantum225 FOH console paired with the new Klang:vokal+ as part of its IEM mixing world.
‘Our previous console was about 16 years old and definitely showing its age,’ says Good Shepherd Worship Arts Pastor, Chris Macedo. ‘It was an early-generation digital console, quite large and cumbersome, and limited in both input count and functionality. It also lacked some of the capabilities we wanted, such as virtual soundcheck, automation features, and easy integration with external processing, so it was time for an upgrade.’
When evaluating replacement options, the church initially didn’t look at DiGiCo, expecting the brand’s products to be out of its price reach, but the Quantum225 ‘changed everything’. ‘Our technical director saw it, and it immediately stood out as a unique opportunity,’ Macedao says. ‘It landed just above the price range we had been considering, but it made entering the Quantum ecosystem possible in a way that simply hadn’t been possible before. Without the Q225, we would not have been able to make that move.’
The church purchased the console from Charlotte-based dealer/integrator World-Class Acoustical Visual Elements (WAVE), which upgraded the room’s acoustics and retuned the sanctuary’s existing PA at the same time, revitalising the space. Good Shepherd’s technical team handled the console installation and, although they had not mixed on a DiGiCo desk prior to putting in the Quantum225, the crew’s impressions were very positive.
‘There was a noticeable increase in overall fidelity and clarity,’ Macedo recalls. ‘The mix now feels more detailed and articulate, and the way frequencies sit in the room feels more balanced and controlled. The workflow improvements were also significant; moving between layers, organizing inputs, and navigating the console are far more efficient than what we had before.’
The Quantum225 handles Good Shepherd’s FOH mix – with 48 inputs typically feeding the desk – while the Klang system handles all monitor mixing. A significant portion of the church’s audio infrastructure is Dante-based, accommodated via a DMI-Dante64@96 card, primarily used to receive audio from the DSP and route out to a DiGiCo DQ-Rack that serves the drums and feeds wireless in-ear monitor system. A smaller DiGiCo Dante A168D Stage rack is also used on the opposite side of the stage. ‘We send a lot of individual instrument channels using Dante Virtual Soundcard as well as from our Shure ULXD microphones,’ Macedo says.
Prior to installing the console, the church considered building a separate production suite with a dedicated broadcast mixer, but that plan wasn’t deemed viable. ‘Instead, we worked with WAVE to improve the acoustics in the room, with the hope that if we paired that with the right console, we could deliver a mix that translates well both in the room and online. Now, when someone watches on YouTube or our website, they are essentially hearing the same mix that is coming through front of house.
‘We simply send that mix out through another group and apply some very basic tone shaping and levelling with a limiter to prepare it for the online platforms. In other words, it’s more or less the same mix – just slightly optimised for streaming – and it works very well.’
Building on the Klang:vokal platform that the church adopted in 2021, the church also recently enhanced its original Klang:vokal processor with the :vokal+ upgrade, which gave it 64 mono channels on each of the 12 immersive in-ear mixes, and Klang parametric Root/Intensity EQs for all 64 mono inputs and all 12 mixes.
Between the Klang:vokal+ and DiGiCo Quantum225, the church has what Macedo says is an ultimately streamlined workflow. ‘The Klang:vokal+ upgrade brought us from 24 channels to 64 and gave certain musicians, such as our drummers, tons more flexibility in terms of setting up the percussion space for everyone,’ he says, ‘They can put exactly what they need on their Klang:kontroller or their iPad, set it, and forget it.’
Macedo says the immersive 3D capability of the Klang:vokal+ has given everyone onstage a fantastic space in which to perform. ‘All of our vocalists use it, all of our drummers use it. A lot of our inputs are in stereo, so having that immersive space really helps them to dial in the width and the placement of everything inside of the mix.
‘Pre-Klang, we didn’t really use a lot of stereo inputs in our monitoring, so when we moved to this, having stereo available to us just because of the increased channel count allowed for everything to open up. Specifically, our guitar players were ecstatic to be able to hear their instrument coming through the way they always imagined it would sound, with delay and reverb effects. It let them translate what they imagined into a reality in their ears.’
The church’s Klang:vokal+ is operated as an outboard unit, with every user able to balance their own monitor mix directly from either a Klang:kontroller or from an iPad. ‘I’ve looked into the idea of fully integrating Klang with the console, which can be done,’ Macedo says. ‘But we just haven’t found a use case that makes a lot of sense for us yet since our setup is pretty static. But it’s nice to know that capability can easily be done.’
In addition to the musicians, the house engineers are equally pleased as, with so much of the monitoring in the hands of those who benefit from it the most, they are able to focus on what the audience is experiencing. ‘The user experience is far superior and it really allows us not to be limited by what’s available on the console, because the :vokal+ is really doing all the work,’ Macedo says. ‘We don’t have to have someone who is constantly watching monitors – I mean, week-to-week, we sometimes never touch the mixes. It just works rock solid every time, and it makes Sunday very, very easy and enjoyable.’