Interfacing in The Chapel
Interfacing in The Chapel
USA:
The Chapel is a non-denominal Evangelical church with eight campuses in the Chicago metropolitan area, the largest of which is its Grayslake facility, led by worship pastor Trent Cowart. With an interest in music, Mr Cowart has a strong technical background, having managed a contracting and A/V rental company before transitioning into life as a pastor. As a result, The Chapel has been able to take advantage of the latest digital technology.
The most recent addition to the church’s technical inventory is a pair of TASCAM US-20x020 USB audio/MIDI interfaces. With a wealth of inputs and outputs, eight Ultra-HDDA mic preamps and a built-in DSP mixer, the units are used for The Chapel’s praise band.
‘We have a keyboard that has an amazing feel but the sounds aren't so great, so I send MIDI from its 5-pin DIN MIDI out to one of our US-20x20s,’ reveals Mr Cowart. ‘The MIDI data goes to a computer running Ableton Live, which I'm using as a sort of container for virtual instruments, such as Native Instruments Komplete. The audio from the virtual instruments comes back to the US-20x20, where we submix the instrument sounds and send the submix to our FOH and monitor console. So we're using the US-20x20 as a MIDI interface, a submixer, and an audio interface.’
Physically located near the drums, the second US-20x20 was brought in for monitoring following the purchase of the first unit. ‘The interface we were using previously did not sound as good as the US-20x20, and it was unreliable,’ says Mr Cowart. ‘I had to reset that piece more often than anything else we use. So we've switched to another US-20x20, which is functioning as an audio interface for another computer running Ableton Live. We use that Ableton station to play loops, control the clicks, and play backing tracks. We submix those in the interface and output four audio channels. I want to route my stereo in-ear monitor mix from our monitor console into the US-20x20 and route them out the headphone outputs for our drummer's in-ear monitors.’
www.chapel.org
www.tascam.com
