Third New Hope Baptist Church of Detroit recently added a Harman’s Soundcraft Si Expression 2 digital console to head the sound reinforcement system at is newest Northwest campus in Farmington Hills, which seats approximately 300 people. The church offers a mixture of styles when it comes to its services, ranging from traditional hymns to contemporary Christian rock.
As the lead sound engineer for the church, Derrick Holmes travels between all three campuses to manage the sound installations and train volunteers at each location. Having started his own live sound company for local bands called D&G Sound, he temporarily installed a Si Expression 3 console at the Farmington Hills campus.
The church was so impressed with the console that it led to the purchase of its own Si Expression 2, which marks another step towards implementing new audiovisual technologies at the campus.
“Based on my past experience as a live sound and studio engineer, I can confidently say that I’m impressed by the Si Expression Series,” says Holmes. “They’re user-friendly, and they hide well behind a screen. I can sit in the theater seat with an iPad and it feels great to control everything remotely. When I’m on the board, the FaderGlow illumination makes the operation more intuitive than other boards, especially when using the console in dark theater environments.”
The Farmington Hills campus has a modern venue that is also used as a theater, so the Si Expression 2 was the good choice for that application, as well as to help volunteers transition out of their analog backgrounds.
“It’s easy to teach people with relatively little experience to use the board, because it’s so intuitively designed and it sounds great,” Holmes adds. “Considering the price-point, you get high quality in sound and construction. The layout is very organized, so it wasn’t hard to transition people out of analog.”