PRIME Time for South Korean Presbyterian Church

Sumkim of Sarang Presbyterian Church has recently become the first house of worship in South Korea to invest in Allen & Heath’s PRIME cards as part of an upgrade to its mixing systems.

With plans to move into a new facility in the near future and a desire to host more colourful worship services, the 2,500-member church recognized that the time had come to retire its previous generation digital mixer. Working closely with systems integrator, CGI and Allen & Heath distributor, SAMA Sound, the church opted for a solution centred on the latest 96kHz, 64 channel Avantis mixer.

The new system takes advantage of A&H’s Everything I/O ecosystem, including a pair of portable DX168 stage boxes and a modular DX32 expander, providing connectivity where it is most needed. The DX32 is fitted with the new premium PRIME Input module for use on key sources, including the mic used by the pastor during sermons. The decision to go with PRIME was made after resident audio engineer, Taehun Lee and other church officials attended a SAMA Sound demo session. “PRIME offers a wider dynamic range and a finely tailored sound, as if it had undergone a sophisticated mastering process,” comments SAMA Sound’s David Son. “You can also feel the difference in balance between low/mid/high frequencies. In AB blind tests, even general users can clearly perceive the difference.” The DX32’s remaining slots are used for additional analogue I/O, plus AES outputs to feed the power amplifiers.

The Avantis console is fitted with a WavesV3 option card, allowing both 96kHz multitrack recording of services and the ability to employ Waves plugins via a SoundGrid server. The console has also been upgraded with the A&H dPack processing bundle, which includes the Dyn8 dynamic EQ, DEEP compressors and Dual Stage valve preamp emulation.

Sumkim of Sarang Presbyterian Church has also invested in six A&H ME-1 personal mixers for its musicians, giving each of them simple but highly detailed control over a mix of up to 40 sources. A wall-mount IP1 remote controller in the church’s kids’ room completes the mixing system, providing extremely simple push-n-turn source selection and level control.

“We’ve been excited to come up with flexible, scalable I/O, high-end PRIME preamps, the most powerful personal mixing system in existence, and a convenient kids’ room solution with the IP1 remote controller,” enthuses CGI’s CEO, Bumshin Kim. “We’re going to continue to propose and develop these solutions with Allen & Heath products.”