Campbell, whose background is steeped in both corporate events and entertainment music production, has been extremely pleased with the onboard features available on the SD7 in just the few weeks he’s been mixing on the console.
“Currently, I mix FOH with my wingman Brian McKinney,” says Campbell. “I stepped into the driver’s seat not only to get more familiar with what the console is doing in general, but to find out what its capable of, which is more of my background. I’ve done production for 17 years, 14 of which were as a FOH engineer and production manager, so it’s second nature to me. The onboard effects are really good and make life so much easier.
“Some of the features we really like are the snapshots and the de-esser, which is just amazing. They’re just as good if not better than any of the outboard gear I’m used to, from a Lexicon 300 to TCM2000. It makes me feel like I’m in front of a high-end, clean studio desk. Plus, with the SD7’s dual engine, stealth processing and fast operation, it makes mixing on the fly an ease.
“Since we did the integration,” Campbell continues, “one of the first things out of the gate I noticed was the console’s clean gain structure. The mic pre’s are very very clean. Before we put in the DiGiCo, our system with the PM1D was very cloudy and just didn’t sound sonically clean. The PM1ds at best were doing 18- to 20-bit conversions at 48 KHz. We are now doing 24-bit and 48 KHz. After putting in the SD7, literally, even with our existing speaker system – which we’re planning to upgrade in the future – it sounded like it had a blood transfusion.
“There was so much more clarity, pristine definition and space in what we were able to mix and create sonically, and the sound signature of the room changed, too. For us, we’ve merely changed our console, but it feels like we’ve really infused more interaction with our audience because they’re able to properly respond to the charge of worship. With the video, audio and all the things you can do from a creative standpoint, we’re able to utilize these tools to make what is being said in the word come to life and give them the maximum amount of impact.”
One of the biggest hurdles the DiGiCo has been able to help the Potter’s House crew overcome is getting vocal intelligibility and headroom over an enthusiastic crowd. “They can yell and scream with a volume exceeding about 105 dB,” Campbell says. “For all of us at the console controls at the end of the day, I don’t care how good of a mix you think you have, it doesn’t mean anything if we can’t get Bishop Jake’s lav to cut through that mix.
“That’s our hardest challenge and biggest focus. Making sure that when he walks out, he’s got the volume and the comfort he needs to deliver the sermon that he’s got in his heart. To try and have a lavaliere compete with that – without feedback – was a difficult thing to do with the PM1D, if not impossible. We were always underneath what the crowd was making happen to the room. And in this situation, having it in place for only a few weeks, we feel more in control. We’re able to really get Bishop’s mics and vocal in front and on top of the crowd so we’re not competing with the crowd noise.”
With world-class musicians gracing the stage weekly, the SD7 and Aviom combo has greatly improved the monitor situation for players and engineers alike. “With approximately 30 mixes in total—including 12 onstage mixes, and 16 in-ear mixes—we’re much better off than where we were two years ago,” Campbell states. “We have the Aviom system running to the drummer and guitar player, with wedges on the horns and choir, the praise team, and on organ and keyboards, so there’s lots of volume onstage.
“Another challenge is to make sure we don’t impede the flow or the feel of the worship service. So it’s a heavy gig. It’s nothing short of a full-on, R&B rock show or Essence Festival on any given weekend. We’ve got a group of really stellar musicians; many of who play for some of the top names on the market, from Jill Scott to Jay Z… so these guys are pros. When they’re happy, we know we’re doing our job and we’re really maximizing the tools we have to make their performance more fluid.”
Campbell says there’s rarely a predictable service from week to week, and being able to flex within these unforeseeable changes was another deciding factor in going with the SD7. “There’s never a dull moment in our service. It can go from something that we thought we were going to do and it’ll just break out into something totally different. And that was a key factor in deciding on a console. We needed something that was going to be flexible and allow our operators to get to where they needed to and quickly because that’s our imperative. We’ll never have a second chance to get it right. We need to be fluid in order to capture the movement of the whole experience.
“As a matter of fact, the first week that we incorporated the consoles, we had one of our pastor’s come back from having major heart surgery. Right out of the “Praise & Worship” segment—Bishop Jakes walks out onstage to engage the audience on the amazing recovery of our Senior Associate Pastor. Bishop would normally come out later in the service—however he decided to walk out on stage to make this testimony. So we had to switch gears quickly. And then from there, instantly we went into a straight, Pentecostal Praise & Shout moment for the next 15 minutes, and then went back to our normal scheduled service.
“But that’s what happens at any given time on any given Sunday. It never goes exactly as planned which is why flexibility was key to us. Being able to get to things quickly and not have to bank through pages, faders and knobs was critical because our service could take a turn at any moment.”
Having consistency in the operating nature of the consoles between the different audio stations was a critical factor for Campbell and his audio team, making it possible for each engineer to move between FOH, monitors and broadcast world with ease.
“We actually put an SD8 in one of our satellite campuses, too, early this year,” he says, “and that was another of our goals, to have consistency in the equipment as far as how it operates and how our operators work in those environments, that is another reason we are committed to the DiGiCo SD Series. To have all the consoles on the same software platform was critical in making sure we didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot with different consoles that each has a different learning curve.” That can be a crippling situation especially when operating multiple campuses.
Campbell is confident that the addition of the DiGiCo consoles will prove to be an audio solution that will serve the house of worship for many years to come, and will be expandable and flexible to accommodate their needs as they grow and evolve.
“At the end of the day, our purchase had to be approved by some level of executive administrator and some accounting process, so if you only have to go to the bank once and get the maximum value for that dollar, then that’s a real bonus. We looked a number of console manufacturers and a number of solutions and DiGiCo really stood out. Again, we’re at 117 inputs today, but we have the flexibility to go up to 200-plus inputs/outputs from there. I don’t know if we’ll ever get there, but it’s good to know from my standpoint, we have the ability to support our current and our future audio demands.
“It is very comforting to be able to expand the system to grow as we do. We have 2 satellite campuses that ultimately the audio and video are going to tie together. With the integration of fiber and some of the other features including MADI available with the SD7, that makes that argument easier to get into place, in terms of infrastructure. And we’re pretty much there already. The feedback from our executive administrators in the first two weeks has been great; they can hear a significant difference, which is very encouraging. We know we’ve gone in the right direction.”