First Baptist Church Woodstock (FBCW) in Georgia recently transitioned to immersive stage monitoring at its 7,500-seat worship center with the addition of a DMI-KLANG module ot its DiGiCo Quantum338 console supplied by the church’s integration partner, Diversified.
Every Sunday, FBCW presents two distinct worship experiences. The first, starting at 9:30 am, is choir-driven with a sizable individually mic’d front line backed by a full band and orchestra. After the conclusion of that service, a second 11:00 am service begins that is band-driven with a different set of songs, musicians, and vocalists.
Nick Geiger, account executive, Worship Environments at Diversified, says the move into immersive sound for FBCW’s stage monitoring came about as part of the same conversation that saw a move to immersive audio with the house system. “With so many unique audio sources, the need to expand the sound field to hear more distinction between the different voices and instruments is critically important,” he says. “It was also equally important to maintain the high audio fidelity that the musicians have gotten used to having. With the native integration of the KLANG into their DiGiCo workflow, the changeover was simple and immediately effective.
“With the limited time each week to flip the stage, moving 16 of the monitor mixes to KLANG, where those musicians can adjust their own ears without the assistance of a monitor engineer, freed up time for the monitor engineer to focus on the mixes that are sourced from the monitor console. The overall efficiency of getting the stage monitors dialed in has increased tremendously with this change.”
Each of the two worship services requires up to 20 unique IEM mixes. That’s up to 40 distinct mixes handled by a single engineer each Sunday. Beyond that, vocalists and band are on a rotating schedule, rarely appearing on back-to-back Sundays in either service. The audio team has been utilizing every tool available to provide the kind of consistency that one might expect from a fixed cast or touring band.
“With limited rehearsal time, preparing the monitor console for rehearsals and services is its own challenge,” says Joel Hilsden, FBCW technical director and regular monitor engineer.. “There simply isn’t time to build every mix on the fly from a generic start file. We have always relied heavily on the console’s mix presets to be sure we’re beginning each rehearsal with a familiar personalized starting point for every IEM mix on stage. With our 11:00 band rehearsing mid-week, it’s mission critical that the console recalls everything precisely across all inputs and outputs during our 15-minute set change.”
The backline musicians each use an iPad running KLANG:app. For vocalists, the stage manager has a wireless pack assigned to KLANG’s cue output. He walks the stage during rehearsals with the iPad in show mode with cue-link enabled, assisting the 12 vocalists one by one with their IEM mix. “We trust our musicians and stage manager to be able to handle mix changes independently of the engineer, and KLANG gives them full control to do just that. If anyone is struggling, the engineer can quickly step in to help. It’s remarkably efficient.” says Hilsden. “The band talkback microphones, previously dominated by mix change requests, are now just a way for the band to talk to each other about music, rather than mix requests to the engineer.”
“Prior to having KLANG in our setup, we had to pause rehearsals for several minutes at a time to request mix changes,” adds Cliff Duren, FBCW worship pastor. “Now we’re able to give our full attention to music. The band has full control and the vocal team has access to our stage manager to discretely and quickly get their mixes right without pulling focus or interrupting the flow of rehearsal.”
Trey Tanner, instrumental pastor and band/orchestra director for 9:30 worship, states, “I’ve been amazed at how much more detail I’m able to hear throughout my mix. The majority of our Sunday worship involves a choir, full orchestra, worship team, band and soloists. The KLANG system has completely opened up the box and allowed me to place things so specifically that I no longer have to pick and choose what certain things I want to focus on. I can pay attention to everything, all while having a super clear and enjoyable mix.”
FBCW’s DMI-KLANG is installed in one of Quantum338’s two DMI slots, connected to an Apple desktop running KLANG software, which is securely hard-wired to the console for Console-Link, connecting to multiple iPads onstage over Wi-Fi.
Jake Holman, lead director of music for the 11:00 service. adds, “The KLANG system required virtually zero training for the band because its operation is so intuitive,” he says. “And everyone has taken to the binaural immersive aspect of it. In fact, we’ve tried giving vocalists the option of setting their own voice centered in the stereo space, where you might assume a singer would prefer to hear themselves, but the overwhelming response has been that it ‘sounds more natural’ in the binaural 3D space centered in front.”
