Grammy Award-winning contemporary worship music group Elevation Worship recently completed the initial leg of its “Elevation Nights 2026” tour with Solid State Logic Live mixing consoles at front-of-house and monitors and the new UMD192 MADI & Dante digital audio interface. The SSL consoles were provided by Spectrum Sound in Nashville, Tennessee.
“This is our sixth tour using the L650 desk and I couldn't be happier,” says Cory Edwards, the band’s Nashville-based FOH engineer and production manager. “Pat Scherer, our monitor engineer, has an L550 Plus, and we're connected via the SSL Blacklight II MADI system.”
SSL Signature Sound
Edwards, who has also worked with Lauren Daigle, Jesus Culture, Kari Jobe and many others, is a longtime SSL Live console user. “One of the things that drew me to SSL is the signature sound of the preamps and the EQs — everything that we all know and love. I also wanted to move more away from doing so much external processing. One of the highlights of the Live desk is the sound of the channel strip, and I'd say 95% of the EQ on our show is just on the desk with this EQ. I'm really proud to say that. And I love that I can make 1 dB or 3 dB adjustments and hear the changes very clearly. It's an EQ that I love and can rely on, and that’s helped streamline our process.”
He continues, “I also love the preamps and the summing buses on this desk. We run the inputs pretty hot, and then I mix pretty hot coming out of the console, so to have a desk and summing buses that can handle that, is really important to me. Aside from that, the dynamics section is amazing. I love the compressor and the gate. They feel like the old analogue channel strips to me. To have them built-in and onboard is a huge plus.”
SSL Live Processing Power
Aside from the processing power available through the channel strip, “I have access to a huge library of SSL processing tools in the Effects Rack that I really love to use. One of my favourites is the Blitzer,” says Edwards, referring to the multi-character compressor. “I use that all over the rhythm section of the band. I’m also using the Listen Mic Compressor, which is an old school compressor/limiter that has become a signature sound on my drum overheads. Then, recently, SSL added the new Fusion effect on the desk, which is super helpful. I have a real Fusion in my rack, but being able to use a Fusion in a couple other places has been an addition to my arsenal.”
Scherer generates in-ear monitor mixes for the vocalists and band members, as well as mixes for a handful of wedges, Edwards also reports. “We create a stream mix for every show – just in case a broadcast mix is required at short notice, alongside using the Blacklight Concentrator on stage, in case we ever need to do MADI splits for broadcast trucks or any recording. I'm using the matrix mixer in the L650 with a couple of routing tricks, so we have a pretty slamming stream mix that I'm able to give out. We've done a couple of live stream shows on this tour from that stream mix, which we're really proud of.”
Leveraging SSL Live Scene Capabilities
Both Edwards and Scherer make extensive use of the Live’s scene capabilities. “Pat and I have quite an extensive list of scenes that we run throughout the show. Both he and I are firing these off timecode from our playback system, which SSL has made very easy to do. Within the songs, we have quite a few lead vocals on stage. They switch in and out all the time, so we're using the scene list to fire off those changes during the show, which keeps us focused on mixing and not on navigating the desk.”
FOH Multi-Track Recording with the UMD192
The tour is an early adopter of SSL’s new UMD192 audio interface, which supports bidirectional audio between any two formats – MADI, Dante or USB – with the third format able to receive a split feed. “It's been incredibly easy to use and is very plug-and-play,” Edwards reports. “We're currently driving it via Dante and utilizing the USB-C port as the connection to the computer. This port is class compliant with Mac, so we just plugged it in and it showed up. We're using it for all of our multi-track recording at front-of-house, and we have the UMD192’s MADI split reserved in case we need to do a backup recording or provide a broadcast split.”
Beyond the extensive capabilities and signature sound of the SSL Live consoles, Edwards comments, “The support that I've received from SSL has been amazing. Since day one, when I switched to this platform, they have had my back and have always been a phone call away — not only on the support side but also on the development side, listening to what engineers like myself and some of my friends who work on this platform have had to say. It's been fun to see some of those suggestions become available in some of these recent versions. So I'm excited about all the things coming down the road.”
Elevation Worship is a contemporary worship music collective from Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina — where they routinely record through an SSL Duality in the church’s music production studio. The next leg of the group’s Elevation Nights tour begins in the fall with dates across Midwest arenas starting October 9, 2026.
For more information about SSL, please visit: www.solidstatelogic.com.
