GraceHouse Family Church receive their Allen & Heath Avantis Mixer

Located in the heart of Blairgowrie in Johannesburg is the GraceHouse Family Church.  Led by Pastor Chuks Ozabor, they are a family orientated Christian congregation with a focus on strengthening their followers through specific ministries for Men, Women, and the Youth.  When the leadership team from GraceHouse were looking for an upgrade to their audio system the team from FortyEight Solutions were there to listen to their needs and facilitate a significant upgrade to their audio system.  

The team at FortyEight Solutions selected the Allen & Heath Avantis mixing console for the church. This full format Digital Mixer is a 96KHz platform that leverages A & H’s groundbreaking  XCVI FPGA engine with class-leading 0.7ms latency features dual 15.6” Full HD capacitive touchscreens, with 24 physical faders across 6 layers allowing access up to 144 faders with 64 input channels, to cater for all the needs and inputs the church may need. FortyEight Solutions also elected to add in a Dante 64×64 Interface Card, which gives them the ability to add another mixer to control a broadcast feed or handle monitors mixes whenever the need arrives.  

The final piece of the puzzle is the audio expander. The GX4816 is a 96KHz stage box providing 48 phantom-powered inputs and 16 balanced XLR outputs direct to the stage area. This is then connected back to the Avantis mixer via a CAT6 cable. The GX4816 also supports Allen & Heaths own Monitoring ecosystem with the ME-1 Personal Monitors. Each of the six ME-1’s in the venue allow for up to 40 channels of control for the performers with 16 user presets. This means that anyone on stage can adjust their own mix with controls for the overall channel mix, volume, pan and mutes all in real-time without having to engage with the Sound Engineer.  

Pastor Mnandi from GraceHouse Family Church had the following to say “Our sound is much better and clearer, and we have much more control over the dynamics.” He added that everything is much easier with the Allen & Heath system & the recording has been seamless since the install. Xolane from FortyEight Solutions also commented the following, “…house of worship system integration is a process that coordinates different applications, equipment and services that helps to improve operational efficiency. This is one of the primary goals that FortyEight solutions aims to achieve in every house of worship. Allen & Heath was a good choice for GraceHouse Family Church. The ME-1 monitoring systems give direct control to the Band while avoiding conflict between the band members and the sound engineer. 

The mixer, audio expander and monitoring systems at GraceHouse Family Church make for an incredible sound experience for the service attendees and ease of use for the team.  

Special thanks to the FortyEight Solutions team for the impressive work.