Calvary Chapel Las Vegas is a missions and outreach focused church with a highly capable tech crew that supports five worship services each week using an Allen & Heath dLive Digital Mixing System in their main worship space and an Allen & Heath GLD-80 Digital Mixer in a smaller chapel. Vocalists and musicians in both spaces use Allen & Heath ME-1 Personal Monitor Mixers.
The church’s several buildings, including a K-12 school, are connected with a fiber network and its audio systems communicate via Dante so that the chapel can be used for overflow from the main worship space and services or events in either space can be broadcast over a streaming service and recorded for the church’s website.
Technical Director Michael Millington explained the decision to adopt Allen & Heath, “I wanted the dLive because, at 96k, it was an amazing option and it met our budget. Second, it doesn’t scare volunteers away like some of the other digital mixers I’ve used. Also, we have a GLD-80 in our chapel and, if I train someone on the GLD, they have a good idea how to run the dLive.”
Purchased from Apex Audio of Huntington Beach, California, Calvary Chapel’s dLive system includes an S7000 Surface and CDM64 MixRack and its GLD-80 includes an AR2412 AudioRack and an AR84 Expander. Ten Allen & Heath ME-1 Personal Monitor Mixers provide monitor services in the main worship space with six ME-1s in the chapel.
Christmas and Easter services may include a full string section, a choir and additional sources on tracks. Michael manages these using dLive layers and scenes. He has a Waves card in the S7000 Surface and said, “The Waves system sounds phenomenal. I’m running a plug-in chain on almost everything on stage. We absolutely love it.”
Michael designed the monitoring system to feed in-ear monitors for the band and for the vocalists in both of the church’s worship spaces. “I’ve had great success making the ME-1s work the way I needed. And the user interface is extremely easy,” he added.
Calvary Chapel is planning a new building and sanctuary and Michael commented, “Not only has the Allen & Heath equipment lived up to our expectations, it has met many of the unforeseen needs that come with larger services. I’m planning to convert my entire campus to some form of Allen & Heath products because they work that well for us.”
