ICF Church Celebrates With dLive in Munich and Herrenberg

Founded in 1996, ICF (International Christian Fellowship) is a contemporary free church with congregations in several countries across Europe, South America and South East Asia. The services, which are called Celebrations, utilise modern event technology to meet the demands of the large-scale worship performances that characterise ICF’s vibrant and modern approach.

 

Marc Deisen, ICF Munich’s head of audio, has been happily using an Allen & Heath dLive system since the beginning of 2019. A dLive S5000 Surface and a DM48 MixRack are used for the Sunday Celebrations at Neuraum, a 2,400-capacity nightclub in central Munich. “Since we set up and tear down every Sunday, we needed a lightweight and flexible system,” explains Deisen. “We also wanted a straightforward and intuitive control surface. The dLive fulfils exactly that with its menu structure, and it’s signal flow is very similar to analogue.” Additional onstage I/O is provided by a pair of daisy-chained DX168s, and a 128-channel Dante card provides digital I/O for wireless microphones, virtual soundchecks and general audio distribution throughout the venue.

 

 

ICF Herrenberg chose a dLive C3500 system based on positive feedback from ICF Munich.

 

The ICF Munich setup is often moved to larger venues for the major Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter. For last year’s Christmas Celebrations, they moved to the Munich Showpalast. Due to the distance between the stage and the mixing position, two fibreACE cards were deployed to provide a secure fibre optic connection between the DM48 and the S5000 at FOH. “The fibreACE expansion cards were plug and play, and in general the dLive system has always performed solidly,” reports Deisen.

 

The C3500 system at ICF Herrenberg is used for mixing both FOH and MON.

 

After observing the success of the Munich setup, ICF Herrenberg opted for a similar setup in 2020, partnering an Allen & Heath dLive C3500 Surface at FOH with a CDM48 MixRack onstage. “As a test setup, we had been given an Allen & Heath Avantis in addition to the dLive, but we needed ten stereo in-ear mixes for the band, various subgroups and three more aux paths for the stream, as well as a matrix. The Avantis is a great console, but due to the amount of output paths, we finally decided on the dLive,” explains head of audio Phillipp Reineboth.

 

Ten metres away from FOH is the video control room, used for streaming the services to the internet. “We have an Allen & Heath IP8 controller in use there which the video technicians can use to remotely control the dLive for the live stream” Reineboth adds.

 

An IP8 controller is used in the video control room to allow the video technicians control over the audio stream.

 

Audio engineer Reineboth was advised by Matthias Weis of FullRange Events GbR, who also acted as an intermediary for the setup. “We recently purchased a Dante expansion card from FullRange Events. It is installed in the MixRack and is mainly used for multitrack feeds and the integration of our radio links,” explains Reineboth.

 

As in Munich, the Celebrations at ICF Herrenberg are supervised by volunteers from the congregation, most of whom do not have a professional technical background. “I wanted to provide our audio team with a well-configured setup that can also be operated by lay people,” Reineboth concludes.