Wildwood Baptist Church Deploys HARMAN's Soundcraft Vi1(tm) To Attract Top Christian Artists

scraft_wildwood.jpgLAS VEGAS, Nevada - When searching for a new digital console for the Acworth, Georgia-based Wildwood Baptist Church, Dennis Pope, Technical Coordinator at the church, chose HARMAN's Soundcraft Vi1, knowing it would attract top artists in the Christian music community and allow for flexibility and expandability.

Pope, who has been a sound engineer for over 10 years now, has been the FOH engineer at Wildwood for the past five years. "I definitely did my homework when it came to finding a new board," he said. "We wanted something that would not only be attractive to bring in entertainment, but allow us plenty of options and inputs for additional events. Once I sat in front of the console it just felt right, I was sold!"

The Wildwood Baptist Church, which caters to about 1,300 members, holds worship services twice on Sundays with rehearsal and band practice taking place on Wednesdays. "With the same band every weekend, it's great to save my settings with the snapshot option," Pope explained. "I simply boot up the board and run a quick sound check and I'm ready to go, it's an amazing time saver. I make different pages for each song and even if I need to tweak a setting it's straight forward."

Pope hopes the Vi1 will help draw top Christian artists to perform at Wildwood. "Whenever we tell someone what console we are using they are instantly impressed. We've had musicians come in and simply plug in their flash drive or USB and be able to have their settings right there."

Recently, the Church has brought in artists such as young Contemporary Christian music star Jamie Grace, Christian/Latin group The Katina's and The Annie Moses Band. "These groups have helped to bring exposure to the community here, and we are pleased to share the music and experience with our members," Pope said. "Having a state-of-the-art board makes it easy to promote."

One feature of the Vi1 which stands out to Pope is the built-in Lexicon engine. "The board has endless settings and functions, it's great to have all the effects built in and I don't need to bother with third-party software. You get so much bang for your buck," he stated.

Dennis also went on to praise the layout and Widescreen Vistonics(tm) user interface, saying, "The knobs and touchscreen are very easy to manipulate. I'm always impressed how easy it is to find what I'm looking for, I can maneuver through the touch screen without any hassle which is normally where I find myself getting lost with other brands and consoles."

Since deploying the board, the Church has received nothing but positive feedback, even from the Minister. "After the first Sunday using the console, the Minister asked what settings I was using to make him sound better," Pope said jokingly. "Another member of our congregation mentioned that it sounds like HD surround sound."

"We are all so pleased with how everything has turned out and I look forward to learning even more about the console every day," Pope summed up.

For more information on the Wildwood Baptist Church, please visit: http://www.wildwoodbaptist.org/

HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of audio and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets - supported by 15 leading brands, including AKG(r), Harman Kardon(r), Infinity(r), JBL(r), Lexicon(r) and Mark Levinson(r). The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 13,000 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported net sales of $4.3 billion for the twelve months ended March 31, 2012.