AMSTERDAM — The Levenstroom (Livingstream) church’s large congregation recently moved to a new building equipped with extensive in-house AV and media production gear and an audio system that includes a pair of DiGiCo CSD5 consoles, one at front of house and the other in its studio facilities. “We had been using a 36 channel analog console since 1992, but had issues with not having enough channels and were looking for a long-term solution, one which would be enough to take us through the next 10 years,” said Levenstroom music pastor Andre Zijlstra.
“At first we hadn’t really thought about going digital, we were just thinking of expanding the existing system,” added Rob Gips, the church’s main sound engineer and system tech.
“We tried to stay below 48 channels at first, but whichever way we looked at it, we ended up with wanting more than 48 because we have such a wide variety of praise nights,” Gips added.
“We often work with a choir or an extended brass section and re-miking and re-patching was causing so many headaches. We would also often have situations where we had a number of musicians available to play, but we couldn’t accommodate them all. We wanted a set up that would provide a solution for situations like that.
“We inevitably started thinking about digital and so made a list of the number of channels we would need. The count got ever-higher and we realised fairly quickly that the CSD5 was the ideal solution.”
The church already had a relationship with Utrecht-based TM Audio, DiGiCo’s Dutch distributor, and Jaap Pronk addressed the church’s needs.
Jonathan van Klaveren of JVK Sound Control installed the gear supplied by TM Audio, including the two CSD5s, two MADI stage racks, two local racks, an RME MADI bridge, two RME MADI PCI cards, an Apogee Big Ben master AV clock and an Aviom personal monitoring system.
Providing 112 mic/line inputs and 16 line outputs, the new system interfaces with the church’s existing Renkus Heinz loudspeaker system and is expected to have enough flexibility to take the church many years into the future.
“We have only been using the CSD5 for a couple of months, but there are so many options I am already using,” said Gips. “Now we can use an extra keyboard, percussion and other instruments which we had to stop doing before because we simply didn’t have enough channels. We no longer have to find imaginative ways to accommodate a performance or feel we are always fighting for the number of channels. That’s really nice.”
In addition to the channel count, the church has found that the CSD5’s audio quality and functionality surpasses what they have been used to.
“The desk’s sound quality is inherently better, but making just as big a difference is the greatly enhanced control that the CSD5 has given us,” Gips said. “The high quality compressors, gain and dynamics have made a massive difference to how we can control the sound.”
Zijlstra agreed, adding “For example when I’m singing and playing keyboard, after I’ve sung a line I tend to hum a little bit, but now I don’t hear the humming in the monitors – the noise gates are really good. And there are so many options for what we can do.”
The church has nine volunteers whose role is as sound engineers, so there has been something of a learning curve, but the CSD5’s functionality has eased this.
“It has required a new way of thinking — for example, the simple things like remembering to save settings are new to our volunteers. But we are producing our own documentation which is helping everyone,” added Zijlstra.
Gips continued, “The memory stick facility is really useful for that. I can take a setup from the board, put it on a memory stick, load it on the offline software, take screen shots, then put them into a Word document and effectively make an illustrated manual for the people who are at rehearsals.
“There are so many possibilities and options to get to know, so it really helps.”
The second CSD5 is located in the church’s recording studio. With the same channels allocated to the same banks and faders as the FOH console, it’s not difficult for the volunteers to transfer between the two consoles.
The Aux outputs of the stage racks are routed to the recording studio, where the RME MADI bridge splits the incoming audio feeds to the studio console and a Nuendo recording system.
“We record every service in the studio, the audio is mixed and goes directly to the video section as a basic stereo mix,” said Gips. “For a lot of situations that’s sufficient, but we can also produce a multi-track mix, which is really useful for being fed back to the consoles, allowing our volunteers to practise mixing our worship sessions without musicians having to be present.”
“The system is so flexible,” added Zijlstra. “We can handle the large services with multiple orchestras or choirs and broadcast our services to the highest international standards. The sound of services, both in the church and on recorded media, is great.”
Gips concluded, “It wasn’t just a step forward, it was a massive leap. It has been a big change for us, but I’m really happy that we did it.”
For more information, please visit www.digico.org.
