California's Bayside Church is committed to delivering immersive experiences during all services. A key element of that approach is an effective audio infrastructure. At each of its nine locations, Bayside uses a combination of Nexo loudspeaker systems and Yamaha digital mixing consoles, including the new PM5 Rivage model.
“Production value is a vital part of how we communicate our message,” says Jacob Cody, senior production manager at Bayside. “We want to create experiences that are highly engaging, high energy and current with modern technology and design. The worship services we produce here are equal to any high-quality entertainment experience in the secular world. They have that same polish and sensibility.”
With nine campuses located throughout California, and at least three new sites planned, Bayside designs each campus for maximum audio flexibility. “They are all built around what we call A, B and C packages of our Yamaha consoles and Nexo PA systems,” says Aaron Padilla, senior audio director at Bayside Church. “The campus’ size determines which audio package they get. That way, we can make sure the sound matches each room perfectly.”
For example, Bayside’s Granite Bay campus in Roseville, California is the largest and busiest, and as a result gets the most extensive audio package: two Rivage PM7s, a PM5 and Nexo M12 and S12 line array loudspeaker systems, with all gear connected on a Dante backbone so the audio team can view every device in each building and venue.
The combination of Yamaha consoles used across the Bayside campuses includes a combination of PM7, PM5, CL5, QL1 and TF series models. Nexo systems include a mix of the STM, M12, Geo S12 and PS series, as well as Yamaha DXR, DZR, VXS and VXC speaker systems.
Granite Bay, the only campus with dedicated front-of-house and monitor consoles, conducts five live and five online services each weekend. The other campuses operate independently conducting their own live and online services each weekend and have the option of switching consoles between FOH and monitors.
“These consoles more than meet our needs for each campus,” Padilla says. “One of the main reasons we use Yamaha is their dependability. We've never had a Yamaha console go down on us. They’re also very user friendly so our volunteers can hop onto them easily and start working.”
The new PM5, installed at Granite Bay in July 2020, is already following in its predecessors’ tradition of delivering what the church needs, with the team noticing upgrades in quality, ease of use and cross-functionality with other Yamaha equipment.
“We were already looking for a new broadcast console for our main campus since we had been doing so much online production,” Aaron says. “But once we started using it, we felt it was better suited to the monitor position. As far as sound quality, I feel it's right up there with any other top-of-the-line console out there right now.”
Bayside works closely with church-focused AVL integrator Amplio Systems on the design and implementation of its audio system packages.
“Bayside has a very experienced team, and they generally have a clear vision of where they want to go,” says Brian Turnbull, Church Relations Lead at Amplio. “We’ve been partnering with them for years and have developed an established relationship with them that has given us great insight into their production approach, allowing us to design systems that will meet their specific needs.”
Turnbull notes that Bayside operates its audio in more of a tour-style than most churches, relying on the ability to move equipment around for different events. “Given their unique use case we really approach the design of their systems differently,” he says. “For them, it’s more about configuring a system in a way that makes it as flexible as possible so they can use it wherever they need it.”
Bayside’s Cody added, “We do a portable setup for most of our events, whether it's a weekend service, a conference or a tour. That lets us be super flexible and also say ‘yes’ to our leadership as much as possible. The consoles are in road cases on wheels with easy tilt capability, so we can change the configuration in a day rather than uninstalling it and reinstalling it every time.”
The quality of Bayside’s Yamaha consoles is complemented by its Nexo PA systems. “Their audio quality can’t be matched, especially at their price,” Padilla says. “As soon as we started installing them in our room we noticed so much more high fidelity, much more quality and head-room.”
As Bayside considers its future growth, the team is confident their Yamaha/Nexo foundation will more than meet any future needs.
“The reliability and expandability of these consoles helps tremendously when we're putting them into new campuses,” Cody says, “and will help us in our goal to have the highest level impact in our communities both near and abroad.”