News

Youth Ministry's New Mix

Lancaster, PA (October 24, 2003)--Hempfield United Methodist Church in Lancaster, PA has installed a new sound system, based around various equipment from Allen & Heath, Electro-Voice, Frazier and QSC.

"We needed a system that could be turned on and operated without technical assistance and that would meet the rigorous needs of our youth program," said Dave Marks of Hempfield UMC's Youth Technical Ministry. "The audio system must handle a variety of events during the course of a day. The room is used as a play area for the church's day care, a Sunday morning children's ministry, and a Sunday evening Youth ministry featuring live bands, multimedia and worship. During the week, there are aerobics classes held in the room, and it is also used as a meeting and wedding reception hall."

The church contacted Dale Shirk of Shirk Audio and Acoustics (Terre Hill, PA), an audio system design and installation firm that has been in operation since 1992. Shirk presented a design that centered around using an Allen & Heath iDR DSP system for the aerobics and simple meeting events and an Allen & Heath GL2200-24 analog mixing console for the youth programs.

Regarding the GL2200 to handle the church's various ministry programs, Marks noted, "We can go from several inputs for CD playback and singing for the children's ministry to all 24 channels for a live band in minutes. The GL2200's layout makes it easy for our youth to understand signal flow and create mixes."

"The iDR remote touchpanel and volume control with LED indicators is extremely easy to use," Marks said. "Dale programmed three settings into the DSP--two settings control the aerobics instructor's wireless mic and the CD player, with an added 10 dB boost at 30 Hz to really push that bass beat. The aerobics instructors just plug in their CD player, wireless mic and go. The third setting is the auto mic setting. Dale designated four mic inputs in the floor boxes for the iDR. Now anyone can walk in, plug in a mic and conduct a meeting."

Shirk also installed Frazier CAT 59 main speakers with Electro-Voice EVID 6.2 in-fills, and custom-built a subwoofer into the room's former organ chamber, with QSC CX Series amplification throughout.

Allen & Heath
www.Allen-Heath-USA.com