Back in 2017, New Life United Pentecostal Church of Austin—aka “New Life Austin”—became one of the first houses of worship in the country to implement a pair of KLANG:fabrik immersive in-ear monitor mixing processors. The tech-forward church wanted to improve the performance experience for the eight to ten musicians and vocalists on its stage every Sunday, giving each worship team member full control over their personal monitor mix while also improving its sonic quality. The result the church said at the time was “nothing short of amazing!”That’s only become more so now that New Life Austin has upgraded by installing a new KLANG:konductor, replacing the :fabriks. The installation, part of a package purchased through Heart Of Texas Music Inc., also included a new DiGiCo Quantum225 console at front of house. The KLANG-DiGiCo combination has taken the church’s audio to a new level once again, and just in time, as New Life Austin’s music production has continued to grow—just the number of vocalists onstage now would have outnumbered the entire worship team seven years ago.
“We have nine or ten vocalists during services now, along with bass, drums, a couple of guitars, keys, percussion, sax, and so on,” says TJ Feronti, New Life Austin’s Tech Director and FOH engineer. His channel count now exceeds 70, which was straining the capacity of the previous pair of 56-input KLANG:fabrik systems.
“The :fabrik is a great IEM processor, but we were having to send groups from one into the other to accommodate everything we needed,” he explains. “And we had been maxed out on the DiGiCo SD9 console we had been using for front of house and to route the monitors. Now, we have up to 128 channels and 16 separate mixes available, going over MADI through the Quantum225. It’s all so much easier to manage.”
Feronti says the church’s musicians and singers have taken to the KLANG’s immersive mode, with most of them choosing to use it. “They’ve been very impressed, whether they’re new to the professional aspect of this or have been doing it since they were using wedge floor monitors or just stereo IEMs. They love being able to move things around spatially in their mixes on their iPads and have them reflect what they’re experiencing onstage.”
And Feronti says the :konductor has made his job easier, able to listen in and keep an ear on any of the stage mixes from his own iPad. “Plus, it’s so easy to use,” he adds. “Whenever we have other worship teams visiting, our house team can help them adjust to it very quickly. It’s just made everything a whole lot easier here.”
For more info on New Life Austin, visit www.newlifeaustin.com. Heart Of Texas Music Inc. can be found online at www.heartoftexasmusic.com.
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