Allen & Heath Simplifies Audio at St. Verena Church

St. Verena, a Coptic Orthodox Church in New Port Richey, Florida, worships in a new 600-seat sanctuary equipped with an Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing system controlled by a custom iPad touch-screen that simplifies the church’s audio.

The church’s new system was installed by Christian Sound Installations of Valrico, Florida. Owner Paul Garner says, “St. Verena was one of the most unique installations we’ve done at CSI. The church has multiple altars for different parts of their worship service and a group of singing deacons. We needed 42 inputs and multiple floor pockets because they constantly move their microphones. But the church told me, ‘We don’t want a mixer out there.’ So, we had to innovate to meet their needs.”

CSI teamed up with Aurora Multimedia of Morganville, New Jersey to create St. Verena’s touchscreen control system. The user interface (GUI) is an Apple iPad operating in kiosk mode and mounted on the wall in an alcove. An Aurora Multimedia QXP-2 acts as intermediary feeding a custom control screen to the iPad and communicating with the church’s dLive DM48 MixRack via MIDI. A Microsoft Surface Pro computer, installed in the equipment rack, runs Allen & Heath’s dLive Director software allowing full control of the dLive for setup, commissioning and any needed system changes or updates.

Garner used dLive scenes and DCAs to make it possible for the church to operate their sanctuary system, chapel system or both from the same screen. “When they move a mic from one altar to another, they never have to change anything on the mixer. It is a really neat system and it has been working flawlessly,” he said.

The Coptic Orthodox Pope visited St. Verena for its opening and complimented the church on their “robust and good” audio system. Garner commented, “Our job as a professional integration company is to give our customers the technology they need and make it easy for them to operate. And, for St. Verena, the Allen & Heath dLive was by far the smartest thing we could have ever done.”