T.D. Jakes Potter's House Mega Church in Dallas Transforms Audio Infrastructure with A Trio of SD7 Consoles

Cited as one of the fastest growing churches in the nation by Christianity Today, The Potter's House in Dallas, Texas has evolved from 50 families to more than 30,000 members since opening in 1996. With signature events such as "Woman Thou Art Loosed" conference, "Megafest" and the forthcoming "ManPower" men's leadership conference on August 11-13 founded by Bishop T.D. Jakes, the mega church prides itself for staying on the cutting-edge of technology, from its main sanctuary (built in 2000), to the broadcast command center, which distributes materials and messaging to two satellite campuses as well as simulcasting online to an audience of around 10,000 connections for its weekly Sunday services.

Technical manager of production, Jacob Campbell-who has also overseen all of the production elements for the church since coming onboard in 2008-was one of the proponents in the search to replace consoles servicing FOH, monitor world and the broadcast arena. The several year-long research project led them to DiGiCo and the purchase of a trio of SD7 systems that would serve their immediate, as well as long-range, Broadcast audio production goals and provide consistency throughout the facility. After the 2010 WFX Conference, Atlanta Audio Visual's Brad McWhorter and DiGiCo's Matt Larson, took Campbell and chief of administration Gerard Robinson through the bells and whistles of the new SD7 console and all the capabilities of the newly released DiGiCo SDRack with Opticore. By the summer of 2011, the deal was done and the integration began with the aid of McWhorter and the Atlanta AV team of Jim Greene and Mitch Donner, and from DiGiCo's technical sales manager Taidus Vallandi.

"We have been looking at replacing the Yamaha PM1Ds for about 3-4 years now. The PM1Ds have been in use since we opened our doors to the new sanctuary in 2000," recalled Campbell. "They have served their purpose well for the timeframe that they were designed for, but these units are now outdated and starting to show some age on them. We looked very aggressively at lots of products lines-including Yamaha first, Avid, Allen & Heath, and Midas, to find some level of replacement product for what we currently had. After purchasing an SD8 for our Fort Worth campus, we knew DiGiCo was the way to go! We were very pleased with what the DiGiCo console offered in terms of the expandability of the product, and what we felt it could do in the future. The SD7 just blew away all the competition when it came down to expandability, ease of use, flexibility and its ability to be sonically superior in its audio quality."

One of the concerns in looking at other solutions Campbell was confronted with was input capability. "We're at about 117 inputs at any given time," he explained, "for a 12-piece band, 100-150 voice choir, 9-12 praise team singers, playback from video, playback for miscellaneous tracks, six Pro Tools lines, Bishop's mic and a backup, and six-eight handhelds-nothing else out there that would successfully complement the existing needs that we had. Our worship services are very unique and spontaneous. There is no time to find which bank of faders you need when the order of service changes. DiGiCo SD-7 allows us to really be in sync with the mix of services. So from a baseline perspective, with the exception of DiGiCo, the other systems fell short in what they were able to offer."

In total, the install included over 2000-feet of 50Um 6-strand fiber installed to three locations in the existing infrastructure-across four floors and two buildings-to connect the world broadcast suite with FOH and monitor consoles. The fiber network allowed all users to take control of mixes from each location and share I/O on each rack.

The three SD7s serve critical functions for Potter's House. "One is situated in the main sanctuary at FOH providing about 18 mix output feeds," outlined Campbell. "The Main Worship Center has to be mixed like an arena, not your typical left, right, fill, and sub set up. All FOH feeds are sent via AES to a BSS Audio Soundweb London for speaker processing. The Soundweb London is driving the delay rings comprising delay speaker zones one-four, under balconies, Gallery, VIP, Far Delays, Step Fill, under balcony, hallway, lobby, translation (approximately four), a listening assist feed, press feed, and a backup Internet feed. At monitor world, the SD7 handles approximately 40 mixes, interfacing with an Aviom 16-channel mix system, 12 stage mixes, and four stereo pair mixes distributed on the stage for in-ears. And in the broadcast area, another SD7 drives the TV broadcast audio master, which is used to produce our national TV broadcast and also drives an Internet feed as well as additional in-house feeds to the nursery and other areas of the church."

Campbell, whose background is steeped in both corporate events and entertainment music production, has been extremely pleased with the onboard features available on the SD7 in just the few weeks he's been mixing on the console. "Currently, I mix FOH with my wingman, Brian McKinney," said Campbell. "I stepped into the driver's seat not only to get more familiar with what the console is doing in general, but to find out what its capable of, which is more of my background. I've done production for 17 years, 14 of which were as a FOH engineer and production manager, so it's second nature to me. The onboard effects are really good and make life so much easier. Some of the features we really like are the snapshots and the de-esser, which is just amazing. They're just as good if not better than any of the outboard gear I'm used to, from a Lexicon 300 to TCM2000. It makes me feel like I'm in front of a high-end, clean studio desk. Plus, with the SD7's dual engine, stealth processing and fast operation, it makes mixing on the fly an ease."

"Since we did the integration," Campbell continued, "one of the first things out of the gate I noticed was the console's clean gain structure. The mic pre's are very very clean. Before we put in the DiGiCo, our system with the PM1D was very cloudy and just didn't sound sonically clean. The PM1ds at best were doing 18-20 bit conversions at 48 KHz. We are now doing 24bit and 48 KHz. After putting in the SD7, literally, even with our existing speaker system-which we're planning to upgrade in the future-it sounded like it had a blood transfusion. There was so much more clarity, pristine definition and space in what we were able to mix and create sonically, and the sound signature of the room changed, too. For us, we've merely changed our console, but it feels like we've really infused more interaction with our audience because they're able to properly respond to the charge of worship. With the video, audio and all the things you can do from a creative standpoint, we're able to utilize these tools to make what is being said in the word come to life and give them the maximum amount of impact."

One of the biggest hurdles the DiGiCo has been able to help the Potter's House crew overcome is getting vocal intelligibility and headroom over an enthusiastic crowd. "They can yell and scream with a volume exceeding about 105 db," Campbell mused. "For all of us at the console controls at the end of the day, I don't care how good of a mix you think you have, it doesn't mean anything if we can't get Bishop Jake's lav to cut through that mix. That's our hardest challenge and biggest focus. Making sure that when he walks out, he's got the volume and the comfort he needs to deliver the sermon that he's got in his heart. To try and have a lavaliere compete with that-without feedback-was a difficult thing to do with the PM1D, if not impossible. We were always underneath what the crowd was making happen to the room. And in this situation, having it in place for only a few weeks, we feel more in control. We're able to really get Bishop's mics and vocal in front and on top of the crowd so we're not competing with the crowd noise."

With world-class musicians gracing the stage weekly, the SD7 and Aviom combo has greatly improved the monitor situation for players and engineers alike. "With approximately 30 mixes in total-including 12 onstage mixes, and 16 in-ear mixes-we're much better off than where we were two years ago," Campbell stated. "We have the Aviom system running to the drummer and guitar player, with wedges on the horns and choir, the praise team, and on organ and keyboards, so there's lots of volume onstage. Another challenge is to make sure we don't impede the flow or the feel of the worship service. So it's a heavy gig. It's nothing short of a full-on, R&B rock show or Essence Festival on any given weekend. We've got a group of really stellar musicians; many of who play for some of the top names on the market, from Jill Scott to Jay Z... so these guys are pros. When they're happy, we know we're doing our job and we're really maximizing the tools we have to make their performance more fluid."

Campbell says there's rarely a predictable service from week to week, and being able to flex within these unforeseeable changes was another deciding factor in going with the SD7. "There's never a dull moment in our service. It can go from something that we thought we were going to do and it'll just break out into something totally different. And that was a key factor in deciding on a console. We needed something that was going to be flexible and allow our operators to get to where they needed to and quickly because that's our imperative. We'll never have a second chance to get it right. We need to be fluid in order to capture the movement of the whole experience. As a matter of fact, the first week that we incorporated the consoles, we had one of our pastor's come back from having major heart surgery. Right out of the "Praise & Worship" segment-Bishop Jakes walks out onstage to engage the audience on the amazing recovery of our Senior Associate Pastor. Bishop would normally come out later in the service-however he decided to walk out on stage to make this testimony. So we had to switch gears quickly. And then from there, instantly we went into a straight, Pentecostal Praise & Shout moment for the next 15 minutes, and then went back to our normal scheduled service. But that's what happens at any given time on any given Sunday. It never goes exactly as planned which is why flexibility was key to us. Being able to get to things quickly and not have to bank through pages, faders and knobs was critical because our service could take a turn at any moment."

Having consistency in the operating nature of the consoles between the different audio stations was a critical factor for Campbell and his audio team, making it possible for each engineer to move between FOH, monitors and broadcast world with ease. "We actually put an SD8 in one of our satellite campuses, too, early this year," he said, "and that was another of our goals, to have consistency in the equipment as far as how it operates and how our operators work in those environments, that is another reason we are committed to the DiGiCo SD series. To have all the consoles on the same software platform was critical in making sure we didn't shoot ourselves in the foot with different consoles that each has a different learning curve." That can be a crippling situation especially when operating multiple campuses.

Campbell is confident that the addition of the DiGiCo consoles will prove to be an audio solution that will serve the house of worship for many years to come, and will be expandable and flexible to accommodate their needs as they grow and evolve. "At the end of the day, our purchase had to be approved by some level of executive administrator and some accounting process, so if you only have to go to the bank once and get the maximum value for that dollar, then that's a real bonus. We looked a number of console manufacturers and a number of solutions and DiGiCo really stood out. Again, we're at 117 inputs today, but we have the flexibility to go up to 200+ inputs/outputs from there. I don't know if we'll ever get there, but it's good to know from my standpoint, we have the ability to support our current and our future audio demands. It is very comforting to be able to expand the system to grow as we do. We have 2 satellite campuses that ultimately the audio and video are going to tie together. With the integration of fiber and some of the other features including MADI available with the SD7, that makes that argument easier to get into place, in terms of infrastructure. And we're pretty much there already. The feedback from our executive administrators in the first two weeks has been great; they can hear a significant difference, which is very encouraging. We know we've gone in the right direction."