Upgrading an audio console can be about more than just replacing a failing system. For Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the upgrade came about because of their online broadcast.
The Lawo mc2 56 Audio Production Console has received the Church Production Road Tested Certification.
“For me, the broadcast is our highest point of audio. You have front-of-house, you have monitors, you have broadcast, …but it’s the broadcast that reaches the most people, and that's what's going to live on for eternity,” says the church’s production director Keithan Carroll.
"Like what happened? I can hear this detail..."
The team at Transformation Church picked Lawo’s mc²56 Audio Production Console for many reasons - one of which was because it allowed more flexibility than a traditional console.
“Honestly, we had a great console in here before. It was awesome, but when we started looking at where we wanted to go moving forward when we're launching campuses, when we're potentially touring, and stuff like that, we wanted to bring all of that back through our broadcast.” Carroll adds.
“We won't get this much flexibility, and we would have to increase the IO for most generic consoles to be able to do what we're wanting to do. Whereas this keeps the path digital, and it's already built into the workflow that we're planning,” he explains.
This is not a traditional console. The Lawo mc²56 features built-in I/O, Lawo-grade mic pre-amps, frames with 16 to 144 faders, up to 1,024 DSP channels, 256 summing buses, 48 and 96 kHz operation, and Lawo’s suite of Home Apps that help with media connectivity, security and management. It’s designed for IP-based infrastructures with support for all relevant IP standards: ST2110, AES67, Ravenna, Dante, Ember+, NMOS.
"...there's no messy high end or saturation that you don't want... - Matt Marin, Music Producer/Mix Engineer at Transformation Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Carroll says they’ve been using the new console for about eight months now and he calls it a game changer for the quality and crispness of the sound. “The moment that made me realize the difference between what we were using and the Lawo now was when I had a volunteer come up to me and he was like, ‘Hey, I was listening to the broadcast, the clarity, everything just sounds so crisp. Like what happened? I can hear this detail...’ And I was like, ‘Oh, wow. It took it to a new level, where someone that's not trained to listen for it is hearing it,” he says.
Matt Marin is a music producer/mix engineer at Transformation Church. His main role is to mix the online experience and match it to what people are getting from the recordings of Tranformation Worship, the church’s music ministry. He says the Lawo console delivers much higher quality sound, has made his job much easier, and allows him to do a lot more. “It's by far the cleanest sound I've heard, which I think gives you more opportunity to do whatever you want because there's no messy high end or saturation that you don't want that you're getting straight out of the console,” he explains. “You're just getting clean and clear sound. It gives you a lot more options to do what you want without having to fight against anything that the console itself is doing. And if you listen to a feed from our monitor console and then listen to the broadcast console --- I haven't heard a comparable console sound quality-wise.”
Carroll and Marin agree the console makes so many operational things easier like accessibility, moving things around, and changing color. They say it’s easier to change the signal flow because you can see it all on the massive touch screens. The console also runs Waves software without having to integrate with another computer.
To hear more of the interview with Carroll and Marin and see the Lawo mc²56 audio console in action, watch this video!
