Southcrest Baptist Church has remodeled a former worship center on its campus in Lubbock, Texas, reopening it as The Venue, an 800-seat multipurpose space outfitted with a new Solid State Logic Live L200 digital mixing console. The new L200 desk is being used to mix front-of-house, monitors, and a live stream of The Venue’s Sunday morning service, which features a five-piece contemporary band.
Technical director Rusty Trowbridge and his AV media team integrated the new L200 themselves in the revamped space. The new SSL system, which is operated by FOH mixer Tyler Gutierrez, includes an ML 32.32 Stage box with SuperAnalogue mic/line inputs at the stage with an ML 32 at the FOH position, networked via an SSL Blacklight II.D MADI Concentrator.
“We’re doing a live stream out of The Venue, which was one of the things that helped us choose the SSL Live,” says Trowbridge. “We can actively mix the live stream but not necessarily need someone mixing just for the live stream. With all the routing that we have on these Live boards we can get really creative with how we send things. It gave us the ability to have a dedicated live stream mix without needing a whole other board.”
With the recent launch of The Venue, the AV team members now generate simultaneous live streams every Sunday. “We have our 9:30 a.m. service in The Venue with a five-piece band, and our 9:30 a.m. service in the Worship Center, where there is a small orchestra right now. Our Worship Center Team is usually comprised of a 40-piece orchestra and a 150-person choir in the Worship Center, when we’re not in COVID-19 times.”
Trowbridge reports that Gutierrez, who joined his team about 18 months ago, has been making good use of the dynamics processing on the L200. “We have MCs or people going up onto the platform to talk and we never know who those people are going to be. The compressors are so smooth and open that you can err on the side of caution and compress a little bit more than you need to, to protect the experience of the people in the room. Even though we haven’t had a soundcheck with that person, we know it’s still going to sound good.”
Although the live stream audio from The Venue is the same as the FOH mix at present, Trowbridge is considering some alternatives for the future, leveraging the flexible routing of the SSL Live desk and its remote-control capabilities. “One thing that I’ve seen work at other churches is using a stereo post-fader aux send. What we like about that is being able to send more of just the pastor’s channel, or more of the lead vocal, just to that one output. Or we might make use of the matrixes. We’re also planning on putting a person with an iPad somewhere to do a separate audio-for-video mix, letting them control that one aux send.”
