Welcome!

This blog is primarily a resource for the audio volunteer crew of Spring Creek Church in Wisconsin. It will contain tips, tricks and general information about our sound system, how it works and how to work with it. It is not an "official" church blog, the opinions and guidance expressed here are my own and are subject to review and correction. However, I've been studying the system for awhile now and have a pretty good understanding of how it works. Hopefully this will be a useful resource for you.

So what do we have exactly? The centerpiece of our system is a Crest X8 soundboard with 40 mono channels, 4 stereo inputs, 8 submixes , 8 aux outputs and 4 matrix channels. It is an imposing beast with nearly 2000 controls. It is pretty logically laid out and once you understand the basics, it's pretty easy to use. The mixed audio is sent to the mezzanine through a single line to a device called the Audia Flex. This computerized device controls how the signal will be distributed to the amplifiers and speakers. We have a stack of amplifiers driving the house speakers, monitor speakers and the subs.

Inputs to the board are routed through a patch bay which connects stage inputs to specific channels on the board.

There is a 24 track recorder made by JoeCo connected to the soundboard. It can record 24 simultaneous tracks of audio to a USB device for later mixdown. There is also a CD recorder which records the main output of the board with the help of the Nexia device. Think of that box as a "sound man in a can". It mixes audio according to a predetermined program and is used to feed the CD recorder and the foyer speakers (not the ones in the TV sets).

There are graphic equalizers for the lavalier mic sub, the choir sub, for Monitor A and for Monitor B. There are also several compressors for various channels.

So, now that we have a simplified overview of the system, we'll continue with a few more descriptions next time.

Blessings,

Jim K.