Dream City is a large and growing church with a central campus in Phoenix. In 2015, the church added a campus in Scottsdale, Ariz., and renovated its 5,000-seat Phoenix location. In early 2016, Dream City added a third campus in Glendale, Ariz. As part of its expansion program, the church acquired two Allen & Heath dLive S7000 mixers with DM64 and DM32 MixRacks for its Phoenix location along with 20 ME-1 Personal Mixers and two ME-U Monitor Hubs. The church also acquired a dLive S3000 mixer, DM64 MixRack, and 10 ME-1s for its Scottsdale location, and it plans to add another dLive S7000 and DM64 in Glendale this year.
Dream City Media Director Shawn Smith reports that the church previously mixed on a large, analog setup that had 112 inputs with 24 returns and took up 16 feet of mix booth space. However, even this high channel count was barely adequate for Dream City’s elaborate holiday pageants that may use 110 or more audio channels. The church’s previous analog mixer required several operators for these large productions, according to Smith.
Challenges meet solutions
Given these challenges, Dream City wanted a digital mixer with a high channel count. Staff wanted modern digital features like scenes and layers to simplify mixing Dream City's large productions and high-quality, built-in DSP for live services and special effects. They also wanted a mixer that would be easy to learn and operate so that the church’s volunteers could confidently mix normal services.
Clearwing Systems Integration of Phoenix provided Dream City’s new dLive mixers. Clearwing’s Nick Dressler says the church evaluated several digital mixers but chose the dLive because it gave them all of the features and capabilities they wanted in a great sounding mixer that met the church’s budget. Dream City uses one of its dLive S7000s for its weekly services and adds the second for holiday pageants and other large productions. Services at the church’s Phoenix location are mixed on the dLive and broadcast to its Scottsdale and Glendale locations, and the church provides Internet streaming on its website.
Acid test
Dream City Systems Engineer Sherman Jerrell says he and the volunteers are learning more about the dLive and using more of its features all the time. They use compression, EQ and reverb on selected voices, as well as gates on drum mics. They save scenes for dramatic presentations and use layers for aux mixes sent to the band’s ME-1 Personal Mixers and for eight additional wireless in-ear mixes for the vocalists. Jerrell says that he loves the dLive’s drag-n-drop displays that make it easy to mix the live auditorium sound while coordinating the broadcast. “I can hop on the console and immediately see what’s happening,” he says.
Dream City’s previous analog mixer had a good sound quality, but Jerrell says the dLive sounds cleaner and has a lower noise floor with enough headroom to “drive it – like an analog console.” He adds, “The dLive is a versatile, user-friendly mixer. Our volunteers are learning it quickly and even saving their own shows on a thumb drive. And, with this flexibility, if things change in the service, I can adapt quickly with the drag-n-drop displays. Anything I want to do, I can make it happen.”