KNOXVILLE, TN — Joe Hamilton of ML Sound worked with Cokesbury Church technical director Mischa Goldman and the multi-campus church’s team of front-of-house engineers on a backs-turned, four-console shootout to pinpoint sonic nuances and preferences. Allen & Heath’s GLD-80 came out on top. Both the soundco and house of worship are based here.
More details from Allen & Heath (www.allen-heath.com) and American Music and Sound (www.americanmusicandsound.com):
Cokesbury United Methodist Church, based in Knoxville, TN, has three locations — four, if you count the Church’s online ministry that streams worship services on the web. Two of the Church campuses have a contemporary style of service with singers, keyboards, bass, drums and percussion, piano, horns and a string section. The third campus delivers a traditional service with classic choir, piano, guitar, bass, brass, woodwinds and strings.
Charged with orchestrating the diverse Cokesbury Church audio demands is Technical Director, Mischa Goldman. This veteran audio professional conducts his audio responsibilities’ with a wealth of product experience — in particular, mixing consoles. “I’ve been in production for over fifteen years and have used ten different mixing consoles. The Allen & Heath processing is fantastic and the sonic quality of their consoles can’t be touched in this price range,” states Goldman. But anyone who has spent time in the live sound realm will know that one audio pro’s preference can often be at odds with another’s. Mischa Goldman’s situation is no different; indeed this disparity of preference could have been an issue at each Cokesbury Church location. “My musical background is Classical, my front-of-house engineers come from Rock and Metal,” he says. “So we asked our audio contractor to arrange a shoot out for us.”
ML Sound, also locally based, has been Cokesbury Church’s audio consultant and contractor for over ten years. Which, given the three distinctly different acoustic environs of Cokesbury, is no small achievement. “Allen & Heath has been embedded in our company for over two decades,” says Joe Hamilton of ML Sound. I used their analog boards in the past, those were always way above the other available mixers.” he adds. Hamilton and his ML Sound colleagues had done other shoot outs previously, the Allen & Heath GLD-80 had held its own sonically against more expensive brands, he reports. So with their backs turned Goldman and his team of FOH engineers listened to the same audio track over and over, through an assortment of mixing consoles. Remember, audio pros have their distinct sonic preferences, regardless of a consoles feature set. What happened? Goldman puts it succinctly: “We did a four console shoot out, we all chose the GLD-80.”
Once the testing phase was over, it was time for the GLD-80 to prove itself in the various Cokesbury Church locations. With unabashed frankness, Goldman reveals his immediate reaction to the first hearing of the GLD-80 in situ: “I felt like all these years I’ve been listening to our sound through a paper bag — we turned the GLD-80 on without any processing — it was a whole new sound spectrum. It’s warmer with very clear articulation and the audio presence is very clean.” For Joe Hamilton and ML Sound, the Allen & Heath value proposition can always be counted on to deliver for a client like Cokesbury: “It’s a challenge and a thrill to be Cokesbury Church’s audio contractor. They have high expectations — A & H mixers always deliver great results for us.”
At the north campus of Cokesbury Church, contemporary services are performed utilizing two A & H GLD-80’s, one for FOH and one for monitor mixing with a Dante card to manage the network. Additionally, there are Mackie 1400 amps powering EAW point source speakers, a dozen Shure ULX-S microphones and Sennheiser G3 in ear monitors.
Goldman points out that both the FOH and Monitor Mix Engineers are using the Allen & Heath I-Pad app to check sound levels throughout the worship sanctuary, a welcome new feature, he mentions. “We are also doing all of our DSP in the GLD-80 console, a great advantage,” he adds.
Over at the south campus, another audio challenge awaits the FOH engineer and the GLD-80. This is a two-prong test for an audio engineer as well as the GLD-80 installed there. The south campus audio chain includes d&b audiotechnik point source speakers, d&b D6 amplifiers and a set of Shure ULX microphones for both choir and pastoral use. The space is very acoustically “open” and has a thrust altar jutting out into the sanctuary, according to Goldman. “Given this, the sound must be reinforced as opposed to replaced, it has to be amplified but transparent and not sound ‘amplified.’ This is where the older congregation worships and they don’t like a loud sound; they’ll come up to you and say so. The GLD-80 processing really delivers an ideal curve on all the audio,” Goldman adds. A big advantage here, as in the rest of the Cokesbury environs is the compatibility of the Waves card with Allen & Heath mixing consoles, shares Hamilton. “This feature made the client very happy. It’s a relief to be able to turn an EQ knob when using a WAVE effect and it does what you expect.”
The final stop on the Cokesbury United Methodist campus tour is actually a high school auditorium. The Hardin Valley high school auditorium is used each Sunday for worship services, but during the week, it is an active space for the school’s activities. Meaning, each Sunday at 8:00 AM, the Cokesbury audio team must set up a pristine sounding audio system and then break it down later. “It’s just like doing sound for a road tour, but with a shorter amount of time,” reveals Goldman. “We needed a console with a digital snake option, 48 channels of flexibility and processing that can happen on the fly — in other words: drag and drop what you need and forget the rest.” he states. This unique feature of the GLD-80, easily seen on its large LED screen, makes training the army of volunteers Goldman counts on a simple task. “The console has everything right there in a simple and logical layout. Terminology is understandable to the layperson and it’s quite quick to get around on this desk. Plus the metering on the compressors and gates lets you always see where your threshold is on a per channel basis — that’s a really cool thing about the GLD-80.” enthuses Goldman.
When you stand by a brand for as long as ML Sound has with Allen & Heath, there has to be a complete experience provided to cover any client request. “Cokesbury Church wanted to record their services. The GLD-80 has a wonderful multi-track recording capability with a Dante card. But more than anything, we are just grateful to work with Allen & Heath over the years — the tech support is always fantastic and the products do what they say they will,” says Hamilton. “Summing up his experience with Allen & Heath, Goldman relates “Not only do our engineers love the GLD-80’s, the volunteers have found them easy to use for all events or just for audio playback. The training took very little time.” Just when you think the appreciation couldn’t get any better, Goldman makes this pearl of a statement about his Allen & Heath experience: “If I was going back out on the road, I’d use the GLD-80 without hesitation.” Sometimes turning ones back is the best way to find what you’re looking for. At least that is what happened at Cokesbury United Methodist of Knoxville.
