Rosemont Baptist Church in La Grange, Georgia, is a vibrant, contemporary church with a lively congregation. Their mid-sized worship seats around 300, with multiple services drawing a full house every Sunday. As Tony Flammia of Cape Coral, Florida-based Creative Sound and Lighting Solutions explains, music is a big part of what brings the congregation together.
“Music is a really important part of their worship experience,” says Flammia. “They hold a contemporary service with a full band that's really high-energy, and people just love it. Their worship leader has another group that tours nationally, too.”
The church had recently been looking at replacing their aging analog mixer, and Flammia explains why they opted for a new PreSonus StudioLive 24.4.2 digital console. “We had met them at the Experience Conference a few months ago, and we got to talking,” he says. “Originally, they had been looking at a different system. But we were showing them around the StudioLive, and when they started to realize all the things they could do with the desk, they just fell in love with it.”
With a full band onstage every week, the StudioLive's advanced monitoring capabilities were a key factor in selecting the desk, says Flammia. “They're running six monitor mixes, plus they're using one of the aux sends for the subs. When they saw that the StudioLive would not only enable each person to have their own mix, but that they could control their monitor mix using an iPhone or iPod touch, that was a tremendous selling point for them.”
The StudioLive's powerful onboard processing was another major plus. “We were able to replace their one dual-channel compressor with 22 more,” says Flammia. “We were able to eliminate all their outboard equalizers. They had never even heard what a fully parametric EQ sounded like in that room.”
As with many mid-sized congregations, Grace Baptist's tech crew is staffed with mostly volunteers, and levels of technical expertise vary widely. “The learning curve on the StudioLive is very smooth,” says Flammia. “Their most inexperienced techs had the basics down in about 20 minutes. They've created preset snapshots for every vocalist. They've been using Capture to record the band and using multitrack playback to get to know the console. It's a great training tool.”
And if things really get out of hand, the StudioLive enables Flammia to step in and help. “One of the things we do with all our clients is to install a remote desktop program on the computer, tied to the mixer—with their permission, of course,” says Flammia. “That allows us to access the mixer remotely from my phone or laptop if they need immediate assistance. That's a great thing about the StudioLive: I can be anywhere, anytime.”
Flammia says the StudioLive is rapidly proving itself as a wise decision for Rosemont Baptist. “They've been thrilled with the console since Day One.”
