Old School Gives Way to New School at Zion Lutheran with Allen & Heath

	Allen & Heath's GLD-80 mixer was at the heart of the audio system rennovation at Zion Lutheran.

House of worship sanctuaries' dating back to the 1960's or 1950's tend to make audio professionals a little crazy. Though they may be comfortable, those rows of thickly padded pews; and that carpeting everywhere may look warm and welcoming, but to a front-of-house audio pro there is just one thought: Yikes! Sound absorption -- on a big scale!

Originally built in the 1950's, Zion Lutheran Church of Anoka, Minnesota was ready for a facelift. "Five years ago I got called back to oversee the new audio system for the church," relates Mark Braaten, AV coordinator for Zion Lutheran. "I have played in bands for years and they (the church committee) trusted me. The church congregation has been growing steadily over the past few years given the popularity of the pastor who mixes positive energy with new and old school approaches to his ministry," relates Braaten. Having grown to over 2,500 congregants, it was time for some improvements. And that meant reconstruction and expansion, as well as an audio upgrade.

Begun in early 2013 and completed in late summer, the Zion Lutheran renovation included some extensive architectural additions. A series of skylights were added as well as an expanded sanctuary area. "The project had a lot of design challenges that added time to the build calendar." shares Jeff Geisler of EMI Audio, the AV design/build contractor for the project.

Enter the implementation of an Allen & Heath GLD-80 mixing console as the centerpiece of an extensive audio upgrade. "The ease of set up with the Allen & Heath GLD-80 helped us make up for lost time due to construction issues. Everything about Allen & Heath mixers and accessories worked as billed and are straightforward. Sometimes you have an audio product that doesn't do everything you expect it to do -- the GLD-80 is not one of those products -- it worked perfectly right out of the box." relates Geisler.

Along with the Allen & Heath GLD 80, with its MMO card providing a variety of formats of multi-channel digital output, there is an AR2412 Mix Rack, and 2 GLD AR84 expanders. This is the heart of the new audio system for the church which also includes Bose Control Space ESP signal processing, Bose PM-8500 amplifiers, Bose LT 9403, LT-9400, 402 speakers, Shure ULXD wireless microphones, My Mix monitor system, and DPA instrument mics.

"I was old school knobs and switches, the Allen & Heath console was unknown to me, but the GLD-80 has an old school feel with new technology -- nice." relates Braaten. Previously, the church audio set up consisted of three mixers linked together with a multitude of 40 some cables running from stage to the front-of-house position. According to Braaten, switching from a two or three microphone set up on a Saturday evening into a full ten to 15 microphone set up for Sunday consumed hours of time and, fingers crossed, hope that everything worked. "For being relatively worried about going digital, my fears were gone quickly with the GLD 80." affirms Braaten. "Our church has a lot of different types of services, the Allen & Heath GLD-80, with its large LCD panel for scene recalls make our different set ups easy to do, and easy for the volunteer to learn."

"Do you have a license to fly that Space Ship?" So asked one of the Pastors at Zion Lutheran. Generally speaking, an audio mixing board is a pretty intimidating looking device. Not so to the parishioners, volunteers, and pastors at Zion Lutheran.

"What is intriguing to me about the GLD-80 is that our pastoral staff wants to learn the board as well as the volunteers" says Braaten. "And it is easy to begin training them since we no longer have a complicated set of mixers, boxes, and cables all around the front-of-house desk. The GLD-80's built in compressors and effects are easy to learn, each channel EQ is right there on the surface, I don't need additional racks. Plus the channel strip layout, with its color-coding has attracted curiosity about the functions of the board." Braaten is happy to report that since training the pastoral staff, he has only been called once with a question about the GLD-80.

Braaten has no hesitation recommending the Allen & Heath mixers: "The speaking voice sounds real now -- not processed. The GLD-80 has a natural sound that enhances the vocals and makes the Bose speakers come alive in a crisp and clean delivery." Backing up Braaten's obvious enthusiasm with his own confidence, Geisler states unequivocally: "When I recommend an Allen & Heath I know I have the tools I need from matrixes to effects that will please the client -- and the smoothness of the sliders makes my point immediately, you can feel the quality."

With the sanctuary renovation now complete and his initial trepidations about digital mixers relieved, Braaten and his tribe of audio volunteers are free to explore the full capabilities of the Allen & Heath GLD-80 console. "I can see the future of the digital world much better now," he says. "I was such an analog guy, but now that my volunteers and pastors see me get excited about the digital world, they too are becoming fearless when approaching our new audio system -- the GLD-80 with its friendly set up deserves a big thank you!"