Chris McKinney, the Head Audio Engineer and Production Manager at Christian House of Prayer (CHOP) near Fort Hood, Texas, pictured with several of the church’s Focusrite RedNet units.
Located right outside Fort Hood, Texas, the largest military installation in the free world, the Christian House of Prayer was founded in 1980, and from its main location in Killeen and a satellite location in Copperas Cove serves a ministry that reaches across the country and into Europe.
As the need to improve the sound at the main sanctuary increase, Chris McKinney, the church's head audio engineer and production manager, is researching the best way to go about modernizing the system there. His inquiries have led him to the Focusrite RedNet suite of Dante-networked audio converters and interfaces, which he says is the perfect bridge from the church's existing analog sound system to the Danley PA system they intend to install later in 2017.
Supplied by Sound Productions of Irving, Texas, a system comprising the following RedNet components provide the basis for the larger transition to a more advanced sound system: 11 RedNet MP8R 8-channel remote-controlled microphone preamplifiers and A/D, and a pair of RedNet HD32R 32-channel Pro Tools Bridges, linking with the Pro Tools HD recording system located in the church's broadcast control room.
“We knew we needed to transition to a more contemporary and more digital sound system in the future, so I looked into the available technologies and products,” McKinney recalls. “Looking at the features that RedNet offered, including the Dante connectivity and the amazing mic preamps, it was clear pretty quickly that RedNet was the key to our sound system's future.”
The 11 RedNet MP8R's are located in a rack in the Killeen location's choir area and are connected to the Soundcraft Vi Series consoles used at FOH, monitors and broadcast positions by two strands of Cat-6 cabling. Underscoring both RedNet's efficiency and its reliability, McKinney points out that only a single run of Cat-6 is necessary, with the second run used solely as a back-up. To confirm that, he disconnected one of the cables during a test and the other took over the signal transport seamlessly, without dropping a note or a word.
“We had 128 analog copper cables before RedNet; now, we have two Cat-6 cables, and we only really need one of them,” he says. “That really shows you the scale of the transformation that we've been able to accomplish just with RedNet.” And the two RedNet HD32R interfaces enable them to connect the stage outputs directly to the multitrack recording system, bypassing the consoles and directly feeding Pro Tools, which McKinney says provides a pristine signal that makes recordings clearer and editing easier. “Once the new sound system is installed next year, RedNet will have already provided us with the foundation for a digital signal transport that will make the new sound system perform even better,” he says. “RedNet makes a big difference.”
