(L-R) Greg Labruzzi, Cowser Marketing; Joe Smart, Covenant Communications; Andrew Probstfield and Nathan Wells, Second Baptist West Campus audio; Tyler Boyle, Second Baptist West Campus lighting; Taidus Vallandi, DiGiCo; Shawn Mullins, Covenant Communications; and Matt Howard, Second Baptist West Campus audio at the church’s new DiGiCo SD5 FOH console
Houston, TX (March 23, 2015)—Second Baptist Church’s 5,000-seat “in-the-round” worship center on its West Campus in Houston recently added two DiGiCo SD5 consoles, installed by local HOW systems integrator Covenant Communications.
The Church previously had a D5, but had outgrown it. Joe Smart, Covenant’s sales manager, said, “The new spec required close to 160 inputs, no doubt in part to accommodate the fairly large band, including 12 to 15 rhythm players and 20 to 30 string players. That doesn’t include the enormous choir of up to 180 singers, 24 of those members being wirelessly close-miked and processed for a massive choir sound.”
Second Baptist Global Tech Director Mark Sepulveda notes that the DiGiCo consoles play a major role in the church services being broadcast. “The broadcast engineer takes direct feeds via tracking of the overall mix as well as 12-16 of the individual ‘money’ and room mic channels for the broadcast mix that is edited and mixed at the Main Campus’ (Woodway) broadcast studio,” he explains.
There wasn’t much of a learning curve moving from the D5 Live to SD5, notes Second Baptist West Campus Director of Audio Nathan Wells, because “the basic operation and layout of the SD5 was very familiar to both myself at FOH and our monitor mix engineer, Matt Howard, from working with the D5 consoles. So we were able to get into our mixes pretty quickly with little trouble. In other areas, such as the software menu options, the amazing in-depth snapshot detail, audio I/O setup via the software, session structure setup and, of course, the second function button, the ‘learning curve’ was more sizable but a very welcomed change from the D5 with the expanded features of the SD series software and hardware.”
Second Baptist employs as many as 30 full-time AV staff, and 70 total when combining the volunteer force across all of its five campuses, which collectively comprise the US’ largest Baptist congregation and second largest house(s) of worship overall.
In addition to the two new desks that went into Second Baptist’s West Campus, the Woodway Main Campus very recently upgraded its monitor mix position with the church’s third new DiGiCo SD5. Commenting on this Sepulveda adds, “We have plans to bring the remaining campuses up to date within the DiGiCo family of consoles in a systematic, as-needed upgrade over the next few years.”
Second Baptist’s West Campus
www.second.org/west
Covenant Communications
www.covenantcommunications.com
DiGiCo
www.DiGiCo.biz
