It's early Sunday morning and the band members and technical staff of Eagle Brook Church, a multi-site, non-denominational church in Minnesota, are sitting in the sanctuary listening to a recording of yesterday's service. "Sometimes in our roles with the church, we get heads-down focused into the tasks we do," says Audio Director Adam Bufis. "It's nice to sit back and experience what the congregation has been experiencing. For me, its a good opportunity to walk around the room and see how my mix is translating in different areas. Our broadcast campus at Lino Lakes has a 2,300-seat auditorium and, unfortunately, not every seat sounds the same."
The playback opportunity is not without drawbacks, so expectations and ground rules were clearly set at the start. "When you're playing 90 dB music to an empty room it's obviously going to sound much different than when every seat is filled," Bufis says. "We have to keep that in mind. While we review each individual's performance and how the whole experience translates, it's not a critique-fest."
The feedback-especially since the church's switch to a 96k optical network through a new Digico SD10B broadcast mixing console, as well as a new M-48 monitor system from Roland-is typically more than favorable. "Usually playback is just a re-affirmation that we're doing a great job," Bufis says.
Rapid growth across five campuses ... and still growing
Eagle Brook Church was planted in 1948 as First Baptist Church in White Bear Lake. When Pastor Bob Merritt took over in 1991, incidentally, the year the term World Wide Web was coined, the church had 300 members. In 1997, the church changed its name to Eagle Brook. "We focus on how Biblical principles can be applied to life today," Bufis says. "That's [contributed] to the growth of the church over the past 10 years."
Since Merritt joined the church in 1991, the church has expanded from 300 worshippers in one building to 18,000 worshippers across five campuses each weekend, with approximately double those numbers for Christmas and Easter services. The church broadcasts live on a five-minute delay from the Lino Lake campus to four other locations-White Bear Lake, Spring Lake Park, Blane, and Woodbury-during two Saturday services and two Sunday services. Each location has its own worship team and praise band, video, and IMAG, but, when the time comes for one of the five pastors to deliver the message, a six-foot screen drops down and every worshipper gets an experience very similar to the 2,300 people sitting in the Lino Lakes auditorium.
Lino Lakes streams high-definition video to each campus via a point-to-point microwave signal using a Haivision Mako streaming media device. The signal is encoded into a Comcast service line. As Bufis summarizes, "The signal goes through the Internet, out of our building, and then is transmitted via a microwave signal to a dish on the top of each facility."
Bufis works closely with Richard Funderburg, Lino Lakes' production manager, to ensure that audio and video get transmitted seamlessly. Funderburg and Bufis report to Bill Berger, director of technical arts, who heads up a staff that includes a full-time audio mix director at each campus, a full-time video director for each campus, and one lighting director plus several part-time lighting engineers.
"With our expectation for a high level of quality, we've determined it's best to have qualified industry people, rather than volunteers, in certain high-pressure roles," Bufis says. "Our volunteer base is used primarily on the video side as camera operators and the like." Volunteer audio staff helps as assistants and also mixes youth services during the week.
Audio upgrades and smart thinking
Just as the church sets high standards for the people behind the music and message in every service, they also have high standards for the technology. Eagle Brook's rapid growth has driven equally fast advances in audiovisual gear to permit the church to continue delivering the message in the most relevant way possible.
In Fall 2011, Eagle Brook opened its fifth campus in Woodbury, Minn. "Since Woodbury is about 30 minutes south of our other locations, it expanded our broadcast reach, but also expanded our channel needs," Bufis tells Church Production Magazine. "We needed more cameras and more control on the broadcast side, which led to more essential audio inputs and outputs at our broadcast location."
The Lino Lakes campus had been using three Digico SD8 consoles and Digiracks for front-of-house, monitors and video broadcast production, all provided in 2010 by Minneapolis-based Audio Logic Systems. "Basically, every input and every output was full," Bufis says. "Once we started expanding our video and our band, we added another 10 or 12 inputs which, at a full desk, was challenging to do. I didn't hesitate to upgrade because I knew we could re-purpose the SD8 to Woodbury."
A Digico SD10B broadcast console with 96 k/2 gig optics capabilities replaces the SD8 boards at front-of-house and the monitor mix position. Pro Tools software, routed off a MADI connection from one of three new SDRacks, was necessary to streamline the functions of two boards into one. Smart Key Macros help manage monitor outputs, while GPI/GPOs trigger the start and stop of session files within ProTools. "I use pre-programmed snapshots controlled through GPI triggers out of my console to fire lobby music to start, credits to roll, and start and stop CD recording," Bufis says. "On the set-up side of things, it's made rolling through show time seamless."
Loaded with the Waves SoundGrid plug-in bundle, the SD10 also replaced all the outboard gear at FOH, vastly simplifying operations. Bufis notes that the Waves package gives the console "new character," and expands his creative toolbox substantially. He reports relying on the Waves Mercury bundle quite often, using the CLA and Fairchild compressors on vocals and drums and bass and guitar, respectively. "Sonic performance is key for me and I just love the sound of these compressors," he says.
Inputs and outputs
Bufis says he uses about 40 to 45 channels each service. Channels include inputs for the full band, which includes drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, and a horn section, plus five to eight background vocals, and two to 10 channels of loops from Pro Tools. During larger services, a 30-piece string orchestra is added to the mix for a total of 101 analog and 60 digital inputs. "I lay out the SD10 so I can change scenes and inputs and manage that many outputs more easily than I would be able to otherwise," Bufis says.
Outputs include the main L/R, main outhangs, front, outfills and subs, plus the 70-volt distributed audio system, consisting primarily of ceiling speakers that go across campus. There's also a full split for the broadcast studio SD8, which outputs all 24 groups of stereo outputs to 48 digital input devices.
96 k and an optical network ?improve sound quality
Thanks to the SD10B, all the digital inputs receive an optical signal sampled at 96 k. "Some of those digital devices are converted back to 48 k for various purposes, but most of the system runs at a full 96 k," Bufis says. "Whether we're talking live or recorded, the signal going out is just more present-sounding-tighter, cleaner-overall."
While the 96 k upgrade improved sound quality, the optical network simplified operations for broadcast and on-site recording. The Lino Lakes campus is equipped with 50 inputs and 30 outputs across the campus for recording live nearly anywhere in the building. The church does a live news broadcast called "On the Fly" immediately prior to each service. Each input/output location has a mini-rack, so operators would simply plug a cable into a wall pocket and be ready to go live in seconds, rather than running cables across the building.
The optical network simplifies the process even further. "Running MADI can limit you on gain-sharing and control," Bufis adds. "With the optical network, you can pick and choose who owns what mic pres or what outputs on which racks. It's a lot more streamlined now. Rather than flipping switches and changing routing on the MADI bridges, I can do it all basically at the desk now, with one big fiber optic loop connecting everything."
A new monitor system delivers
The latest wave of upgrades also includes Roland M-48 personal monitor mixers equipped with SMADI devices for taking a MADI signal and converting it to Roland's proprietary REAC system. Now, Bufis can assign each monitor mixer its own set of channel counts, so you can patch every performers' mixer separately. "We have a split of mixed ears, as well as personal mixers in use," Bufis says, "and this gives us a lot of flexibility when band members want specific things on those mixers."
The main audio system, installed by Audio Logic when the facility opened in 2005, includes a d&b audiotechnik line array with four columns of 35 Q1 boxes in each array, plus four flown J-subs and four B-subs on the floor, plus Q-Series front fills. The system also includes 70-volt distributed audio throughout, driven by the new Digico SD10 through SDRacks.
The other campuses also use d&b audiotechnik systems, either Q-Series line arrays or C-Series conventional speakers. When Lino Lakes upgraded to the SD10, the new Woodbury campus and the Spring Lake Park campuses inherited one DigiRack and SD8 each, so three FOH engineers mix on a similar platform. Bufis's intention is to have the engineers on all five campuses mixing on Digico boards in the future.
Bufis estimates the SD10 will work well for Lino Lakes for another three to five years, but he'll still get life out of the investment after that time. "We're looking at building a new, 5,500-seat broadcast campus and, if that happens, we'd move up to an SD7, the Woodbury campus would get my SD10, and their SD8 would go to their monitor mix."
He mentioned that having all buildings on the same platform will be an advantage, but he's already enjoying the flexibility of the boards. "Tonight, for instance, we were doing a concert at the Blane campus, which doesn't have any Digico boards. I pulled the Aviom card out of the SD8 at Spring Lake Park, grabbed a DigiRack, and combined it all," he adds.
"Real and relevant"
Throughout its 60-year history, Eagle Brook has worked to be real and relevant for the time. In today's world, this means delivering the message with high-quality sound and video. To Eagle Brook leadership, it also means leveraging technology to reach even more Christ-followers through the multi-site concept. As Merritt stated in 1999, when the church was just on the cusp of exponential growth, "It's not just about us in White Bear Lake [the church's original location]. It's about our city, state, country, and world. We've got to make room for these people."
True to this mission and vision, the church's most recent technology upgrades pave the way to deliver a high quality worship experience to an ever-growing congregation, wherever it may be.
