The worship sanctuary on the Sandton campus of Rivers Church in South Africa was recently equipped with two new Yamaha RIVAGE PM7 digital consoles, one for front of house and the other for monitors, both provided by integration firm Stage Audio Works (SAW).
The new desks in the 3,000-capacity autorium replace the previous Yamaha CL Series consoles that SAW supplied in 2015, including a CL5 and a CL1 for FOH and two further CL5s for monitors. These have been repurposed and put to good use in the faclity’s second auditorium and youth venue as well as at the church’s other campuses across South Africa. Over the course of their relationship with the church, SAW has specified and supplied an array of AV equipment that also includes d&b audiotechnik loudspeakers along with Sennheiser microphones and in-ear monitoring systems.
“We started working with Stage Audio Works (SAW) in 2011 at the most basic level, but they are now our principal supplier and integrator for audio and video,” explains Andrew Illgner, head of audio at Rivers Church. “We’ve worked with a lot of suppliers over the years but SAW goes the extra mile as they bring knowledge and expertise that we don’t have. The service is amazing – it goes much further than simply supplying the product. They have an extremely knowledgeable team; for example, it was Nathan [Ihlenfeldt, SAW technical director] who got us on the path of digital audio networking.”
The church has been utilizing Yamaha mixers consistently since 2009, with 20 consoles disbursed throughout numerous campuses. “Due to the large scale of our operation, we often have to rely on the generosity of volunteers when it comes to operating equipment,” says Ed Helliwell, technical manager at the church. “Thanks to Yamaha’s intuitive, and standardized console design across generations, these volunteers can easily slot in and very quickly feel at home on the interface, even on a console they’ve never seen before.”
All campuses also employ a Dante netorking ecosystem. “We have a complex environment that is always changing – church on Sundays, conferences and other activities during the week etc.,” notes Illgner. “Dante makes it very easy to change scenarios quickly.
“In 12 years, we’ve had almost no downtime due to technical faults,” he continues. “Stability and reliability is excellent. On top of this, the round-the-clock service SAW provides is amazing – everything needs to work on a Sunday.”
