WILLINGEN, Germany — The Spring Harvest Festival drew some more than 3,000 German-speaking Christians for a six-day conference here April 6-11. Along with 12 A360 Personal Mixers in the largest hall, Aviom provided two AN-16/i-M Mic Input Modules, one AN-16/i v.2 Input Module, one AN-16/o v.4 Output Module, one D800 A-Net Distributor, and one A-16D Pro A-Net Distributor to support the event.
More details from Aviom (www.aviom.com):
This year’s German SPRING Harvest Festival brought together more than 3,000 evangelical Christians from Europe’s German-speaking community for a six-day event featuring more than 300 artists, speakers, and volunteers. One of the largest Christian festivals in Europe, SPRING was founded in 1998 and is supported by the German Evangelical Alliance.
Since 2004, Gaetan Roy, the director of the Worship Academy in Altensteig, Germany, has served as Director of Arts for SPRING, and in that time he and his band have led worship eight times at the festival. Roy and his band first used an Aviom personal mixing system at the 2008 festival, and this year the band incorporated Aviom’s A360 Personal Mixers for the first time. As an official sponsor of SPRING, Aviom provided 12 A360 Personal Mixers in the largest hall, along with two AN-16/i-M Mic Input Modules, one AN-16/i v.2 Input Module, one AN-16/o v.4 Output Module, one D800 A-Net Distributor, and one A-16D Pro A-Net Distributor. The combination of the D800 and the AN-16/o v.4 allows for eight musicians to use Network Mix Back, which sends the stereo mix output of each A360 connected to the D800 to wireless in-ear monitor transmitters so that performers can use wireless in-ear monitors and all of the cabling can be elegantly kept off stage.
The Worship Academy and Roy’s band have been using Aviom personal mixers since 2007 for tours, worship nights, band seminars, and national conferences. Roy credits the Aviom system with having “improved our musical experience as performers” and says the system “helps us play tighter as we hear ourselves at a level not possible with traditional monitoring where signals compete with each other in a single mono signal source.” Using the Aviom system has also helped the band manage the unhealthy stage levels that can come with having twelve musicians on stage and that can bleed into the sanctuary. “Sound engineers compliment us on the ease of creating a cleaner mix. Feedback potential is almost completely eliminated and musicians are thankful to have a mix that fits their expectations instead of having to share a compromise with someone else,” explains Roy.
With the upgrade to the A360 Personal Mixers, the SPRING Festival decided to forgo using a monitor mixing console and a monitor engineer, resulting in some cost savings for the event. The musicians also appreciated a superior monitor mix. The combination of per channel reverb and tone on the A360 Personal Mixers help to create a more “live” sounding mix. Roy says, “The improved sound definition that the A360 offers over the A-16II greatly enhances the clarity of our mix and sets a new standard in the industry.”
The band also likes having the One-Touch Ambience feature of the A360, which gives them a stereo ambience channel. According to Roy, “We now feel more connected to the singing congregation, an issue which is important in leading worship and which allows us to serve better by being more sensitive to where the church is going in the song.”
When Roy and his band are using the Aviom A360s at the Worship Academy, they also take advantage of the ability to easily share the units with the various bands at the Academy. Musicians can save their mixes and settings to a USB drive and then immediately retrieve their mixes from the last rehearsal or show when they return to the A360 by plugging the USB in again. No matter how many other musicians may have used the same A360, musicians can revert back to their mix quickly and easily.
To learn more about SPRING, visit www.meinspring.de. To learn more about the Worship Academy, visit www.worshipacademy.de.
