Aviom Digital Snake Simplifies Connectivity for Eagle Brook Church

When Eagle Brook Church built its Spring Lake Park Campus, it needed a digital snake for stage to front of house, a monitor mixing system, and a way to network audio between front of house and its video room. They found their solution in an Aviom digital snake and audio network.

For the third Eagle Brook campus, Jason Kartak, installation manager for Audio Logic Systems, the contractor for the project, built a system much like those in the other Eagle Brook churches with a Pro16 digital snake and monitor mixing system. Since a feed to the video production room was also needed at this campus, two Pro64 6416Y2 A-Net® Interface Cards were installed in the church's Yamaha consoles to network audio between front of house and the video room. The cards are used to send 16 channels in each direction between the Yamaha M7CL front of house console and the Yamaha 01V96 console in the video room. According to Kartak, "The added flexibility allows both engineers to send and receive 16 channels simultaneously in the digital domain over just one Cat-5 cable."

The Pro16 digital snake included in the design includes four AN-16/i-M Mic Input Modules on stage, each connected to an AN-16/o Output Module at front of house. These output modules connect to Aviom PB28 Patch Bay modules to allow flexible routing of the signals from the stage into the Yamaha FOH console for mixing. Using two Aviom16/o-Y1 A-Net Interface Cards, the engineer sends 16 channels of monitoring content to performers and an additional 16 outputs to the stage. "As we changed the style of music, one of our concerns was the stage volume that poured out into the front of the room. Having clean and clear audio is all part of the experience here at the church," says Bill Berger, director of technical arts for Eagle Brook Church. "The Aviom system right out of the box was a great fit for us. It has really made a big difference and has given us greater control over the audio throughout the worship center."

In addition to giving Eagle Brook control of its monitors and taming the interference between house and monitor sound, Aviom is also a cost-effective solution for connectivity throughout the church facility. "One of the critical benefits to Eagle Brook is cost efficiency," says Jason Kartak. "A large sound system is a must for large churches and this can become a budgetary issue for them. With the Aviom system, we were able to eliminate a major cost by doing away with the wedges and all the analog wiring that goes along with them. Now the church has their own personal mixers, so everyone is able to control their own mix and they saved roughly half the money they would have spent on a traditional system."

"The Aviom system has been really good for us. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to get away from floor wedges," says Ryan Jamieson, campus production manager for Eagle Brook. "Aviom also simplifies the installation and makes weekly setups very straightforward."