Audio Capture for Recording at Coast Hills Community Church
Feb 28, 2013 5:13 PM
Designed to function much like a traditional performing arts center, Coast Hills Community Church is housed in a nearly square building with seating for 1,300 worshippers. The sanctuary has undergone minimal acoustical treatments and exhibits a lot of natural reflection, making intelligibility of the spoken word an issue.
The front of house is situated on a balcony above and behind the parishioners, causing the mixing and equalizing to be a challenge. Mike Sessler, the church’s technical arts director, employed d:fine miniature headset microphones from DPA Microphones to manage these issues. The d:fine ensures that Senior Pastor Ken Baugh always sounds natural, without producing any feedback. “Baugh has a very distinct voice that is difficult to mic and still sound good,” explains Sessler. “Previously, we had to balance a lot of EQ to make him sound acceptable. With the DPA d:fine, we use very little EQ to make him sound natural. He no longer sounds like a processed, analyzed version of himself. Simply put, he sounds like him.”
The DPA d:fine headset features a miniature capsule that allows Sessler to position the microphone on Baugh in a spot that produces the biggest sound without losing clarity. The miniature capsule also keeps the microphone discreet, making Baugh’s voice sound loud and clear while, at the same time, making it look like he is not wearing a mic at all.
When recording sermons for live streaming or DVD, it is critical to hang speaker or ambient microphones to capture the live sound of the congregation. Coast Hills relies on several DPA 4098H hanging supercardioid microphones for this task. Sessler has positioned some of these mics over the house to provide ambient sound back to the musicians’ in-ear monitors. He also places them near the choir and musicians for performances and to capture their sound for church recordings.
As a popular venue for worship performances, Coast Hills also requires reliable, easy-to-use microphones. Sessler also relies on the 4098Hs for a variety of other church functions, including baptisms and large-scale musical performances.
In addition to the microphone set up at Coast Hills, Sessler also relies on a Digico SD8 mixing console at front of house and Roland M-48 personal mixers for the musicians.
PRODUCT AT WORK
DPA Microphones d:fine
This one-ear headset that has been ergonomically designed to fit any ear size and head shape while mounting on either side of the head. The d:fine offers accurate, natural voice intelligibility along with high SPL capabilities. The omni microphone is generally not sensitive to wind, breathing, or handling noise. A service connector splits the cable from the microphone boom and allows for quick exchange of cable lengths/colors/connectors and is valuable for servicing if a cable is damaged.
