For some reason, in the past week I have had a handful of people ask how we were set up for production in our main sanctuary at SSCC. I decided I would just post a couple pics here and describe what is happening.

First, the main booth. (Click on the image for full size.) This is 4 separate iPhone pics that I stitched together, so the quality isn’t great.

SSCC Sound Booth

From left to right… first is our lighting control, we have a Strand Classic Palette with a 15″ monitor. It is covered in the image because I had already programmed lights during rehearsal and shut it down. Next is a 20″ iMac. It is used for Smaart Live, PlanningCenterOnline live mode, iTunes and M7CL control primarily. (It checks a lot of facebook and email during second services too.) In the rack is CD recording & playback, a storage drawer and a Presonus Firepod. We use the Firepod as an I/O for Smaart Live mainly. Next is the Yamaha M7C-48. After that is our tracking rack. In it are 2 Alesis 24 track HD recorders. We use two 16 channel optical I/O cards from the M7 to record 32 simultaneous tracks. Editing takes place in Logic or Pro Tools, depending on who is editing it. The last two racks are our wireless racks. The first has 13 channels of mics: 4 countryman, 4 hand held, 4 countryman OR hand held and one guitar pack. The second rack has 8 channels of IEM transmitters. We use those in stereo and dual mono depending on how many we need that week. Not pictured is a battery backup for the Palette, a key switch for power sequencing our entire A/V system (except presentation computers & projectors), and a rack with 2 GEQs for floor wedges (rarely used) and a wireless router for connecting to the M7 and Alesis wirelessly.

Second, the video booth. (Click on the image for full size.) This is also an iPhone pic so pardon the quality.

SSCC Video Booth

From left to right… first is a 20″ iMac that is used with ProPresenter for lyrics, notes, and nursery calls. Next are two preview monitors for our video switcher (one is blank). After those are the monitor, keys & mouse for our Power Mac G5 that we use for ProVideoPlayer. All graphics & video are run from this computer (the tower is underneath the counter). Last is the video rack. The rack contains a DVD player, an audio 8 input mixer for sending the video sources to FOH, a HME wireless com main station, and two video switchers. The first switcher is a FSR switcher used to send camera or computer sources to our distributed TVs and rooms. The bottom switcher is a FSR Eagle 200 used for the main screens. Not pictured is a rack of cat5 patch bays for getting video signals to and from various optional locations and a wall plate switch for turning the main projectors on and off.

That basically covers our two main tech positions without getting into even more boring detail. The main gear at the other end of those control systems is: 2 Christie DW6K projectors, Meyer M1D arrays, MM4 front fills, UPJ side fills and 700HP subs.

I hope this answered some of the questions that have been asked recently. If you have other questions, feel free to ask. We all learn from these conversations.