Tech Forum

The webcasting audio environment makes different demands than the average church meeting. It is more like a theatre experience with microphone controls in the back of the room. We had the opportunity to do this thanks to a mixer that had been removed from a chapel and left on site. The EAW DX8 has a serial control. The manufacturer has free software to control this box. That software provides real-time metering and control of all functions. It has been controlled with a blue tooth interface but there was a little concern with range and reliability. A LAN port had been previously installed at the pulpit as well as an existing LAN cable at the back of the room. A Neteon GW212 serial device server was purchased that creates a virtual serial port connection thru the LAN.
All of the microphones on the stand, including the pulpit were connected to the DX8 under the piano. An EJ8 connected the mixer into the building system via a microphone jack. This kept all of the cabling clutter in a compact location. The podium volume was set at its normal position and untouched throughout the meeting. A modest PC controlled the mixer and Sony EVID70 camera.
The Shure DFR22 is another mixer with similar capability.

To fully disclose the configuration here, I should add that a Netgear FVS338 router is between the church router and the rest of the building. This makes it easier to see all of the IP address information and to configure them since we have more device address needs than the church router normally supplies. All of the hard wired devices are given 192.168.20.100+ and the WAP's give out 192.168.RFChannelNumber.100+. The FVS338 reserves certain addresses for the WAP's to ease WAP maintenance. MLS is happy.

Thank for sharing this informations. I never thought about this and your post rise in me several ideas. Thanks a lot!

I read your post from a while back and was so impressed, I picked a refurbished DX8 off eBay ($199), a used Lantronix wireless serial bridge ($40) to connect via our Stake's Wifi and an 8 channel XLR panel ($20) to make the connections easier.

Thanks for the idea!