ROCKLAND, CA — Matt Trask, creative communications director for Mosaic Christian Church, based here, has been using an Allen & Heath GLD-80 mixer to mix sound and overcome acoustic challenges for the church’s services, which are conducted in a strip mall environment.
More details from Allen & Heath and American Music and Sound (www.AmericanMusicAndSound.com):
Ask a live sound engineer what one of their biggest career challenges has been and you will no doubt hear a story about having to mix music and spoken word in a cavernous room. A room originally built for either manufacturing or as a Walmart. Meaning concrete walls and an open ceiling, with exposed steel trusses and sheet metal ducting. Not exactly Carnegie Hall. Not by a long shot.
Matt Trask, Creative Communications Director of the Mosaic Church in Rockland, California, has found a way to make just such a situation work for his congregants. Situated in a strip mall amongst RV and Auto Dealerships along with a Fitness Center, the Mosaic Church is in its tenth year, and thriving. This past April the church completed a renovation of their sanctuary which included upgrading the existing sound system with an Allen & Heath GLD-80 mixer and an AR 2412 break out box. Also added to the existing system is a pair of Tannoy V-12 speakers to compliment three V-12’s already in use. The church installed a Mi-Pro Microphone set up with a DPA headset for the pastor. Handling DSP chores for the new system is a RANE HAL2 processor.
With four to five Ministries using the Allen & Heath board during the course of a week, a digital mixer was the obvious selection. “The Allen & Heath GLD-80 has a clear and simple interface that has a lot of flexibility for so many hands touching the board all week ” says Trask. “And during our two Sunday services the GLD-80’s PEQ page gives me an instant read on our Pastor’s vocals and our five-piece band’s audio level in a very live room. This along with the reliable and very rich compression of the GLD-80 allows me to focus on the experience of the service, not just technical aspects”, he adds.
A compelling advantage of the GLD-80 is its modular and expandable capabilities. When you are a relatively young congregation, budgets can be challenging early on. Having a tool like the GLD-80 as your audio centerpiece is a smart choice given the range of expansion accessories available for the console. “The function and price point of the console, along with the sound quality set the GLD-80 apart” states Mark Thompson of Clarity AVL in El Dorado Hills, CA. When pressed to share what the real preference for the Allen & Heath mixer line is, Thompson replies, “I expected more trouble from the Mosaic room than I got – there is a musicality to the mixer that allows the audio sources to be more accurate. You don’t find this in very many digital mixers”
Creating an audio experience that is at once pleasant to the ear and uplifting to the soul; in a room built for anything but live music and worship, is a challenge not easily overcome. But for Matt Trask of the Mosaic Church of Rockland, California the Allen & Heath mixer has done just that.
