Cornerstone Church goes digital with DiGiCo
Published: WORSHIP
USA: The decision to upgrade to digital at the 4,700-seat Cornerstone Church sanctuary in San Antonio, Texas, wasn’t a case of simply following the fashion. To make the renovation worthwhile in the eyes of the ministry, three targets needed to be achieved – freedom for the ministers’ and musicians’ visions, financial responsibility for proper stewardship, and foundational planning for the future. With a church that ministers to 20,000 members locally and broadcasts globally, two DiGiCo mixing consoles have been installed in the sanctuary to act as the hub of a new fibre-based signal transport system. These desks have reportedly transformed the church’s signal flow and vastly improved the sonic quality of both live and broadcast services.
‘This ministry has an incredible amount of musical talent,’ says Joey Engel, one of Cornerstone’s FOH engineers. ‘Pastor John and Pastor Matthew are remarkable preachers, so supporting the spoken word is obviously important and consistently accomplished, whereas the limitations inherent in our original system were holding them back musically. The pastors had reached a point where we needed to overhaul the system to keep up with their vision – and so the search began.’
Planning for the new system began in 2014, with direction from noted church-sound consultant Kent Morris. The two DiGiCo SD series desks (an SD5 at FOH and SD10 for monitors) are connected via a DiGiCo fibre optic loop. Furthermore, a digital split from each SD-Rack feeds the church’s broadcast facility via DiGiCo Purple Boxes – Cat-5/Madi-to-optical converters capable of taking either a Cat-5 connection from a DiGiCo SD console or D-Rack, or a Madi connection from an SD console, SD-Rack or other Madi device, and then converting it for optical transmission. The Purple Box reportedly allows two Madi or D-Rack streams, or a combination of the two, and offers up to 128 available channels with completely independent I/Os. This allowed the church to increase the number of available channels after maxing out the original system. The SD10 used for monitors is also fed from an Allen & Heath ME-1 personal monitoring system via Madi for the stage musicians.
‘With the SD10/ME-1 combination we can give the musicians so much control over what they hear,’ notes Franco Herrejon, monitor engineer for the ministry. ‘It was like Christmas in August when we rolled this out; the musicians were in control of their mix and that has allowed them a freedom they have never had here before. Also, Pastor Matt and the other singers can hear so much better. I can direct whatever they want to their in-ear mixes without compromising stage volume or risking feedback.’
Ryan Shelton, sales and support for DiGiCo/Group One Ltd, and Troy Bishoppetty from local DiGiCo dealer, BP SLV, were responsible for the design, planning and training phases of this project along with Cornerstone FOH System Engineer Daniel Cale. ‘We had exactly three days to tear out the existing copper from the conduits, run all of the fibre, install the consoles, set up the personal monitor mixers, set levels and EQ for every input, and make sure that broadcast and the sanctuary were ready for Sunday, which included scheduling a rehearsal with the orchestra so they could dial in their monitors.’
In preparation, the consoles were set up in a classroom scenario, side-by-side in the choir loft, playing back a recorded Sunday morning service from Waves Tracks Live. ‘This way we could do a lot of the preliminary work, like laying out and labelling the consoles, running the pre-recorded services top to bottom and getting some “stick time”, so the first Sunday with the new equipment would be flawless,’ adds Mr Cale.
‘We had all of the equipment in their installed locations except for the FOH console, so that the only unknown we would be dealing with was how long it would take to pull out hundreds of feet of 28-year-old copper wire,’ explains Mr Bishoppetty. ‘And even if the conduits could not be cleared in a week, we had enough tactical fibre to run from the stage racks to FOH so that Sunday would be secure. It really took the stress away from everyone, especially the engineers, because we knew all of the equipment and fibre connections were working beforehand. It was a real blessing to have the sanctuary to work in during the week, which allowed us to take this approach with the install.’
Veteran DiGiCo trainer Taidus Vallandi came in to do some training in addition to hooking up the SD5 to the existing speaker system for a test run. ‘Bypassing the copper and hearing this console over the fibre was a night and day difference,’ remarks Mr Herrejon. ‘It opened everything up, like the system could breathe again.’