Calvary Spokane upgrades with Soundcraft Vi1 console

In a bid to provide a more user-friendly sound system at Calvary Spokane, Kungpow Production has replaced the previous analogue system with a Soundcraft Vi1 digital console and Compact Stagebox.

Located in northern Spokane, the campus of Calvary Spokane decided on the switchover as part of its attempt to remake the sound system into something that could be easily managed, whilst maintaining optimum audio quality.

Calvary’s aging 56-channel analogue console presented a formidable challenge for training volunteers, and for many years the church resorted to hiring professional engineers to operate the console on Sunday mornings. Kungpow Production was then called in to design a system that would allow the musicians who were taking turns leading the worship service, to mix for each other.

Kungpow Production integrated a Digigram Ethersound card into the Soundcraft Compact Stagebox networked to the central processing hub via an Avitran AVY-ES100. From there, Digigram ES network nodes provide multichannel audio feeds to and from the video production room and nearby family centre. The Avitran AVY-ES100 also connects to a PC running ProTools at FOH via an ASIO over Ethernet connection as an affordable way to track and play back rehearsals and services via the Vi1’s second input on every input channel.

"After carefully considering a number of approaches, we decided on the Soundcraft Vi1 for two main reasons: number one, it sounds phenomenal and two, it’s so easy to train volunteers on this desk," said Kungpow’s Darrell Smith. "We had them up and running after a couple hours of training. That’s pretty remarkable considering how new they were to mixing sound."