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.

Senheiser USA just added a plug about our new facility on their website. I was at an Expo in Chicago while at the Willowcreek Arts conference and one of the Sennheiser guys saw my name tag and told me about it. I gotta be honest, it felt kind of cool to be “noticed” by their East Coast rep. Apparently two of the guys in Chicago had worked on our wireless coordination. Even though I am not mentioned in the short article, I think I am famous by association right? I mean, A LOT of people read the Sennheiser Houses of Worship news feed right? Hmmm. I think this blog may have more readers (6) than that. Anyway, in a geeky sense, it was cool for them to “know me,” same thing happened at the Meyer Sound booth as well. EDIT: Turns out as I was about to post this, Bo found another article at Lighting & Sound America about the build. REMEMBER, these were written by our systems contractors and not us.

On that same note however, this “new building” thing was already on my mind. Nancy Beach, one of the creative leaders at Willowcreek, said something that really stuck with me yesterday. She discussed how much Willow strives to be known for making a difference in their community and the world and NOT to be known simply as the church with the big building in town. She actually teared up during that part of her talk. It really hit me hard.

I don’t want SSCC to become known only as the big church on the island or anything like that. I don’t think that we SHOULD be known only as that. But it is an important challenge to never forget. The baptisms we regularly hold and the missions teams we send out each year are a constant benchmark for the work that God has called us to do… Even if I do get excited about tech toys and the like. I like the exposure that the facility can give us, I just pray that we use it only to more greatly glorify God.

I feel like I can breathe again. I actually got home during daylight hours yesterday for the first time in probably a month. I sat at home, almost restless, because I have grown accustomed to having a ton of things to do all with the same deadline. Praise-alujah that the deadline has passed and I met the deadline on all but one thing that I can recall. I didn’t have my distributed video working properly. Our camera in service for some reason only wanted to show green on the TVs elsewhere in the building. At 10:45 pm on Saturday night I gave up temporarily. I had already fallen asleep sitting in three different places in the building and realized that I didn’t have it in me to do any more. I needed rest to return somewhat refreshed at 7 am the next day.

I must publicly thank Jerry Davidson and Richard Taylor, two awesome volunteers, for their over-the-top efforts that helped me get everything done. Jerry was everywhere I needed him with regards to getting the sound system up and running and Richard was all over our new lighting system among other things. God always seems to provide the right people for the jobs.

As many of my coworkers have already published (Chris, Fred, Shannon), our first weekend in our new facility went off wonderfully. God showed up in many ways.  David preached a message about the bottom line of our church, “never be the same again.” Our desire as a church is to see Christ impact people in life-changing ways. It was awesome to see him do that yesterday. People hit the altar after both of our services, something they have hardly been able to do for a couple years now because our chairs were all the way TO the altar. We are super-grateful for the tool God has blessed us with. Now we need him to bless us with a parking miracle. Come Lord Jesus, and bring parking spaces. We had around 1600 adults in our two services, around 200 middle school students in RushHour and somewhere around a billion little kids in Tiny Town, FamJam and KidJam. It is kind of a scary feeling to open your new facility that was built FOR GROWTH and have most of its resources packed out the first week. I am sure that numbers will drop some after the curiosity wears off, but still, WOW.

Well, since this blog is supposed to be technical, I should say something technical. Our main service went off almost without a glitch at all. The only issues I faced yesterday were wireless mic signals dropping out a bit. Just a growing pain/learning curve. We had 8 vocal mics, 3 speaker mics, 1 guitar and 11 in-ear monitors all on Sennheiser wireless systems in the main room. In children it was 8 speaker mics, in youth it was 3 vocal mics and 2 in-ears. Needless to say, there is going to have to be more frequency coordination. Worship in the main service turned out great. It was awesome to be in the back and see so many people engaging the Lord like that. The music is coming across full and clear, two things I am thankful for. Our engineer from Baker Audio spent a few hours Saturday night tweaking the room system after our first worship service in there Friday night. He was able to finally hear some tings I had been hearing after his last visit and get them cleared up.

Ok, back to resting for me. I am still whipped.

-Travis