With multiple campuses across greater Los Angeles, Shepherd of the Hills is a modern church with a bustling congregation. In addition to their main campus in Porter Ranch, Shepherd of the Hills runs three satellite locations in suburban Los Angeles locations.
The West Valley campus operates out of a high school multi-purpose room in Woodland Hills. For Pastor Mike Johnson, part of the challenge is to create an environment that is anything but institutional. In a matter of hours, the entire room is transformed — draperies, comfortable seating, and a high quality sound system. “Our desire is, morning when someone walks in, there’s kind of an ‘ahh’ factor,” Johnson explains.
With limited access to the venue, the entire setup must be completed in a matter of hours. “Everything that’s not a high school gymnasium lives out in a trailer on campus,” says FOH Engineer Joe Fiorello. “Every Sunday morning, we set it all up, hold two services, and tear it all down.”
The sound system includes a pair of Mackie SRM750 loudspeakers and two SRM2850 subwoofers, all self-powered and cranking out 1600-Watts of power — more than enough to fill the room. Fiorello mixes the band on a Mackie DL32R 32-channel rack mount mixer with iPad control.
“A big plus for me in using the DL32R is that we don’t have to deal with cumbersome snakes, and we don’t have to deal with moving and storing a large console,” Fiorello observes. “Everything fits on a rack on stage, everything is wireless at Front of House.”
Monitor Engineer Christopher Tom-Hoon agrees. “You’re not tethered down to one spot. You can mix from anywhere in the house. Just to be able to go out into the crowd and make sure everyone is hearing what they should be hearing, that’s a tremendous advantage.”
“I try to get the audience experience, mix from an audience perspective, and my end mix does change based upon wandering around the room,” says Fiorello. “And the Master Fader app is great — really intuitive, really easy to use and navigate.”
As Pastor Johnson observes, “we’ve got the best band, we’ve got the best worship leaders, and of course, we want the best sound. And I believe we have it.”
Christopher Tom-Hoon sums it up: “It’s a game changer.”
