dLive and SQ perform in harmony at Guildford Baptist Church

UK - Guildford Baptist Church recently completed an extensive £7 million (US$9.6 million) refurbishment programme that included an overhaul of the audio system in the building’s 600- seat auditorium. Supplied and installed by church sound and AV specialist DM Music, the new system includes an Allen & Heath dLive S7000 Surface and DM32 MixRack, complemented by a compact SQ-5 digital mixer and a pair of DT168 Dante-equipped audio expanders. Serving multiple rooms and employed for its flexible deployment options, the dLive and SQ-5 combination is used for both the church’s own services and for community events and concerts. “When it came to providing a new system, we needed something that was rider-friendly for visiting engineers to use, so the dLive and SQ-5 were ideal,” explained DM Music’s Graham Bennewith.

The DM32 in the rack

“When the church hosts large-scale concerts, the dLive is used at FOH with the SQ-5 for monitor duties and for various other uses. The ability to network everything via Dante adds very valuable flexibility, and the network capabilities allow for a very joined-up and versatile system which enables the dLive and SQ-5 to be used in multiple locations around the building very easily.”

All dLive and SQ mixers incorporate advanced AMM (Automatic Microphone Mixing) capabilities, allowing multiple zones to be mixed simultaneously. The DMM feature assists less experienced operators and as such was expanded upon by DM Music. “The church was in need of a versatile audio solution that could be used in a variety of situations and by people of very different levels of experience,” added Bennewith. “Although the Allen & Heath systems are extremely powerful, we can set them up for simple operation to take care of a handful of radio mics with an automix if necessary.”

Based on the XCVI Core with a 96kHz FPGA engine and 0.7ms latency, both the SQ and dLive surface controls provide added benefits at the church. “The fact that the SQ-5 architecture makes it feel very similar to the dLive also makes it a great training platform for inexperienced users that eventually need to get hands on with the bigger system,” concluded Bennewith. “It’s been a great solution for the church’s needs.”

www.allen-heath.com

www.dmmusic.com

www.guildfordbaptist.org