“Bring people closer to God through the audio arts” is the mission statement of Lead Audio Engineer Randy Benitez at Harbor Light Church in Fremont, Calif. After a career in the touring audio world, Benitez decided he wanted to pursue technical production ministry on a full-time basis. “I'm doing it for the most important person now—God,” states Benitez. “God deserves better than what the secular world gets. That's how I come at it.”
Passionate about audio, Benitez strongly believes audio quality plays a large role in the effect a church's worship service has on those attending. “Excellence in audio enables people to really connect. It enables people to lose themselves in worship. And detail invested in the pastor's sound through the PA system can make the pastor sound like he's speaking directly to each person in the room. It makes it a more personal message. And that's our job in the church—to make this level of connection between the platform and the attendees.”
Benitez, along with the church's media director, is one of two full-time media staff that support the church, with Benitez also supporting Fremont Christian School, a preschool through twelfth grade private school associated with the church. An Assembly of God denomination, the church has an average attendance of approximately 1,000 and is capable of seating 2,800 (3,000 if additional seating is added) in the auditorium that is shared with the school. Approximately 55 years old, Harbor Light is a multi-generational church, states Benitez. “Two to three generations are pretty normal here. Some people have been here for 40-50 years. People really ‘stick' here—although the seniors tend to sit further back,” he adds with a chuckle.
Services are contemporary in style, but often feature an orchestra added to the band, and occasionally they will hire in a string section. The use of drama is prominent in the service, with the norm being a 5-7 minute drama skit leading into the sermon.
With a stage that is 92 feet wide and 32 feet deep, the auditorium is well suited for both the church's weekend service as well as supporting the school's events and bi-yearly drama productions. Most recently, the school put on the Broadway version of Fiddler on the Roof.
Youth Assets
With all this activity, Benitez needs a dedicated group of volunteers eager to lend a hand. Lighting, video, graphics and cameramen are all volunteer positions. And with the school involved in the arts, he looks for opportunities to tap into the school's student body when the large drama production comes around. And it is here that Benitez's other passion comes through: his desire to introduce and encourage youth to consider technical arts as a service area and potentially a career path.
“When there's a school event, I look to bring over students who show some interest in the technical arts,” Benitez explains. “The ones who do well at it are often kids who don't fit into the traditional academic mold, and are better suited for more of a vocation.”
For the big play that occurs every two years, Benitez brings students on in the A2 role (audio assistant), as well as to work as stage hands. To get them up to speed, he has them come Sunday mornings to help with setup and get some training.
While the normal academic and social lives of the students can prevent many from serving on the audio team, he does find a core of students where both the student and the parents are willing to make the commitment to the team. “I have a high standard,” comments Benitez. “I demand a lot of people who are going to commit to the audio team. So I'm choosy about who I bring on.”
When evaluating students for an invitation to try the audio team, Benitez looks for examples of commitment in other areas of their life. And he talks to the parents about whether they believe their child is able to commit to the hours needed when working audio. He also makes sure that the parents themselves are prepared to have their child be committed to the hours and time frames needed to serve on the team.
He also looks for heart—how much do they want to do it? If he's uncertain, he brings them into a smaller event to see what happens.
But those he does get are very committed, and he's finding that many decide to go on and make audio a career path as they consider life post-high school. Those who do make the commitment get a serious head start in their audio education, he reports.
“I want to teach these kids so there isn't a culture shock when they get outside of the church volunteer environment,” Benitez says. Many churches have pretty low standards compared to the professional audio world, and those who come out of a church volunteer situation and into “real-world” audio get a rude awakening. “I teach them things they need to know to work in professional audio—I try to bring this level of audio to them,” he adds.
For example, during the large productions, Benitez teaches students about mic placement for Broadway productions—how to properly attach the church's large Countryman mic inventory to actors to get the best sound quality while remaining inconspicuous.
When the Red Hot Chili Peppers were in town, Benitez brought one of his audio students to the show to meet the audio engineer (an acquaintance of Benitez) for the band. He had the opportunity to sit through sound check and see how audio works in the touring environment.
A young lady named Kemana Otosi is one of the high school students that discovered her passion serving on the technical ministries team at Harbor Light Church. “Through being on the youth worship team,” she says, “I learned the basics of sound. I became really interested in learning the ‘behind the scenes' aspects of worship.”
Always fascinated by circuits and wires, Otosi discovered the joy in combining music with technology through audio engineering. Benitez helped her prepare for pursuing this love in college, and she is now a sophomore at the University of Southern California, majoring in business with two minors: audio engineering and cinematic arts. She looks forward to interning at a recording studio and eventually moving into live audio and music production.
Technical Bonuses
In addition to experienced instruction, the students also benefit from a professional lineup of equipment to use. On the audio side, a 48-channel Yamaha MC7L console occupies the FOH position, with two Waves effect cards interfacing to a Waves Impact SoundGrid server for adding some serious effects processing power.
“I love the Waves system,” Benitez says. “It provides 32 racks of effects with eight effects in each rack, and 32 channels of input/output. The ‘Vocal Rider Live' effect makes the pastor sound like he's right in front of you having a conversation. The system provides studio-quality effects in a live environment.”
Six EAW KF-650 three-way cabinets form the core of two speaker clusters; EAW SB-528 subwoofers provide low-end coverage. All are powered by Crown Macro-Tech amplifiers, while speaker processing is performed by an EAW UX-8800.
Countryman is definitely Benitez's microphone of choice, with all of the Shure and Sennheiser wireless bodypacks equipped with Countryman E6 headset mics or B3 Lavaliere mics. Shure UR2 handheld wireless is also used for vocalists, and a variety of Neumann, AKG, Shure and Sennheiser mics are used for mic'ing instruments.
On the lighting side, a Jands Vista console provides control over the venue's two ETC Sensor dimmer racks, four Vari-Lite VL1000 moving lights, six ETC Selador Palette LED fixtures, four Martin Mac 500s, 12 ChromaQ Color Force LED fixtures, and PAR and ellipsoidal fixtures.
A Blackmagic Design Atem 1ME HD-SDI broadcast switcher forms the core of the video system, with Renewed Vision's ProPresenter 4 providing graphics support. A Panasonic dual-lamp PT-D7700 projector handles the main screen in the auditorium, with a variety of Boxlight projectors serving in other areas of the church in school. The church is in the process of replacing its video cameras, which are used for broadcast, IMAG, and recording of the services and events.
“We're in the processing [of] upgrading a variety of systems, but we try to move slowly so as to not overwhelm myself or our volunteers,” Benitez confirms.
For larger productions, the staff brings in additional lighting and trussing. “This can be a little tough,” says Benitez, “because this is primarily a volunteer area with limited availability. We're slowly building up the lighting team.”
And he closes, “Overall, it's an exciting time for audio. It's changing immensely. It's challenging sometimes to grasp these new concepts and technologies. But the opportunity to serve God in this capacity makes the work worth it.”Coming soon!
