Vinnie Alibrandi, HOPEpark’s director of Audio, at the DiGiCo SD8.
Nashville, TN (June 1, 2011)–HOPEpark Church recently upgraded its audio system from Clair Brothers.
HOPEpark’s new system features a Clair Brothers’ i212 line array and a DiGiCo SD8-24 console system. “An analogy I enjoy using to describe the combined Clair/DiGiCo upgrade for modern worship,” said Vinnie Alibrandi, HOPEpark’s director of Audio, “is going from experiencing a movie from VHS/CRT to watching it HD/1080p. The road to the upgrade was long, but worth every step.”
Alibrandi worked with both Clair and DiGiCo representatives about their needs while periodically renting and demo-ing systems. That process continued for over 28 months. “Educating staff and elders to these challenges, while presenting a dizzying array of expensive gear options took a lot of time, trust and prayer,” he said. “Plus, raising money during a challenging time with the national economy and following the devastating local flood that hit last year, seemed impossible when I tried to analyze it. But we persevered and are extremely pleased with the outcome.”
With the PA bringing an eclectic mix of worship music to church members, the console has aided in their efforts. “Whether running monitors from the front-of-house position or from a monitor position, there is nothing more important than having a high number of mix busses and output options. Satellite monitoring systems, and the like, offer no aggregate help for large group applications where possibly 24 mixes (either mono or stereo) may be needed. The SD8-24 can do this; for example, we can have 6-12 vocalists singing in front of an 8-piece band (also singing), with added horns, violins, and tracks—no problem. Count how many stereo channels we have in modern worship: all of the keyboards (both synths, real pianos and Hammond B3’s), stereo electric guitars, overheads, percussion, stereo miked choirs, effect returns, all playback devices from video, walk-in music sources… Then add to that the ability to make a single stereo channel turn into a dual mono channel. That alone is unique, but having the ability to still control their input gain separately is a game-changer.”
OPEpark’s Worship Pastor and 1CN Records/Provident recording artist, Andy Kirk, offered, “Because of the technicality of what we do, going digital with the SD8-24 has freed us up to focus more on leading people into worship and less on always having to build our worship experiences from scratch. We are now able to explore possibilities that we couldn’t before and have the opportunity to share what we do with the global church with confidence.”
HOPEpark Church
www.hopepark.com
DiGiCo
www.digico.org
