Elizabeth Evans Photography
Point Source Audio Chase Oaks Church 1
While many pastors have little to no knowledge of production equipment, or at least not enough to have any specific brand preferences. Chase Oaks' Senior Pastor Jeff Jones was different.
The majority of pastors have little or no knowledge of production equipment. Or at least not enough to have specific brand preferences. But at Chase Oaks Church in Plano, Texas, a pastor's preferences did come into play--and the result was a mic specification burden lifted off the shoulders of Production Technology Director Paul Mitchell.
“Standardization is big for me,” Mitchell says. “It helps us create consistency from campus to campus since we are one church with many campuses. [It] keeps the sound and visuals consistent, and volunteers can move between campuses and have a similar environment to work in.”
Chase Oaks' Senior Pastor Jeff Jones was familiar with Point Source Audio microphones from past usage, namely the CO-8WD headset condenser mic. And while Chase Oaks had used Point Source mics before, Jones' thumbs-up on the mic made Mitchell and his team take note. With their standardization requirement high on the list, the team put Point Source to the test.
Shoot-out and selection
To find the right mic for the job, Mitchell brought in a range of microphones from several of the larger manufacturers and did a shoot-out that included Pastor Jones' mic from Point Source Audio. In addition to sound quality, Mitchell and his team considered comfort, product durability, cost and availability of replacement parts, and other factors. “Considering the bang for the buck [with Point Source's mics], we just couldn’t justify the higher price tag of the larger competitors’ products,” Mitchell found.
KELSEY KRUZICH
Pastor Jones recently upgraded to Point Source Audio’s new CO2-8WD, which offers dual microphones. The second mic is available as a redundant back-up if the signal from the first one fails, or the second signal can be routed elsewhere.
Test of strength
Although durability was just one factor in the selection process--for Mitchell and his team it ranked up high along with sound quality.
“[We found] you can’t break the headsets,” says Mitchell. Point Source Audio says their booms are unbreakable, but he wanted to see it for himself. To date, he has seen people take the single-ear version and straighten it out and then bend it back, and it still works.
“The only thing we’ve ever had to service were the X connectors. All I do is make a phone call to our Point Source rep and they get them out to us ASAP. And they’re cheap, so I buy several at a time.”
Mitchell also has people use them during baptisms, sometimes well within the splash zone, and the IP 57 waterproof rating has proved invaluable.
Mitchell says, there’s a simple reason why the Chase Oaks team uses Point Source Audio mics: “They’re very reliable, you can’t break them, and they get the job done.”
Mitchell reports that Pastor Jones recently upgraded to Point Source’s new CO2-8WD, which offers dual microphones, with the second mic available as a redundant back-up if the signal from the first one fails or the second signal can be routed elsewhere. At Chase Oaks, the signal from one mic is fed clean to the main house PA since it can handle the wide dynamic range. The second microphone feed is lightly compressed and sent to the lobby, overflow and internet, where Chase Oaks averages a reach of 2,000 IP addresses each weekend.
Sound results
Today, several years later, Chase Oaks Church owns 40-50 Point Source Audio headset mics spread across all five locations (Sloan Creek, Woodbridge, Richardson, a mobile campus, and Legacy, the broadcast campus and also the location of Chase Oaks’ Spanish services), as well as chapels and youth venues. In the youth venues alone, 24 CO-8WS single-ear mics are in action.
In the end, Mitchell says, there’s a simple reason why the Chase Oaks team uses Point Source Audio mics: “They’re very reliable, you can’t break them, and they get the job done.”
