Village Baptist Church near Portland, OR, has recently taken delivery of a 72-input/16-output InnovaSon Sy48 digital mixing console with DioCore stagebox following the opening of their brand new worship center in September 2009. The new building provides 43,695 square feet of space spread over three floors and includes nurseries, a toddler care room, five multi-use classrooms, lounge/coffee bar areas, and a 1,000-seat Sanctuary.
With the new build came a new sound system, at the heart of which is an InnovaSon Sy48 with a DioCore complete with the onboard VB-Audio FX package and a 16 x 2 Aviom A-Net card. Positioned at Front of House in the Sanctuary, the Sy48 handles both the Front of House mix and monitors, while additional feeds are used for recording purposes and for distribution throughout the rest of the building.
Village Technical Director and Sound Engineer, Jerry Keifer, explains that he went through a rigorous selection process before settling on the Sy48. “A biggie for me is sound quality,” he states. “I don’t care how many features can be crammed into a console if it sounds bad. I mean, we all like these digital boards for their versatility and processing power, but what good is any of that if the preamps make everything sound like garbage? With the Sy48 I get the same richness as a good analog console, but I have the recall and processing power of digital.”
“Another thing that really drew me to the Sy48 was the layout of the console, or, rather, the lack thereof,” continued Jerry. “That I could design the console using the Personal Console Builder and put everything where I want it was a huge draw. Add to that the wonderful functionality of the Xfads, and I have the ability to mix the way I want to mix; I’m not limited to the way some design engineer thought a console should be used.”
To illustrate his point, Jerry described his first configuration of the board: “I had a split of each channel onto virtual faders which were for my monitor mixes, so I was literally able to mix monitors and Front of House independently of one another while still keeping my channels divided into groups via the Xfads… it was a bit ambitious for my introduction to a digital system, and I need a little more time to get used to it before I use that configuration in a live situation. But my point is that the Sy48 is able to do just about anything an engineer can imagine; the only real limitation is the engineer him or herself.”
