Avid VENUE at Reid Temple

Nestled deep in the leafy, rolling hills of Glenn Dale, Maryland, Reid Temple's sprawling, ultra-modern campus belies the church's humble roots. Originally located in nearby Bladensburg, the church's original home, Dent Chapel, was purchased in 1900 from the conference of the newly formed Methodist Episcopal Church for $500. Weathering more than a century of hardships and relocations, Reid Temple A.M.E. Church held its first worship service at its current location in the fall of 2004.

Today, Reid Temple is one of the area's largest houses of worship, with more than 10,000 members and two locations. It's also one of the most modern and technically advanced, offering a powerful worship experience both live and on the web. The church's main 3,000-seat sanctuary is outfitted with a full-featured video production suite and high-end sound systems designed by Acoustic Dimensions, based around EAW KF Series line arrays and Avid VENUE systems at front of house and monitor positions.

A VENUE D-Show System with dual Stage Racks and a front-of-house rack is the centerpiece of the church's front-of-house mix position, handling its 56 inputs. As Teddy Davis, the Temple's manager of audio and recording studio operations explains, the decision to replace their aging analog console with VENUE was sparked by the temple's pastor, Dr. Lee P. Washington. "After a theatrical play one Sunday, our pastor asked me if there was something we could purchase that would allow us to just press a button after an event and have all the levels and settings just revert back to their original settings," says Davis, a veteran musician and engineer who has worked with artists such as Kirk Whalum, Yolanda Adams, CeCe Winans, and many others. "I did the research, and we auditioned pretty much every digital console on the market, and Venue was really the ideal fit for us.

"From a work flow perspective, the transition was absolutely painless," Davis continues. "It really feels like you're working on an analog console. On the other hand, all of a sudden we had access to total recall, so we were able to create snapshots for every situation. That alone was a tremendous move forward, not only in terms of running the service, but for training purposes."

Another plus in moving to Venue was its tight integration with the temple's Pro Tools|HD 9 studio setup. "We've got a Venue Profile System at monitors, with stage and FOH racks, and both systems are fully integrated with our Pro Tools setup," says Davis. "We're able to pull up Pro Tools from either position and record every service and every sermon. We can stream live over the web, as well as put together podcasts and clips for our website."

The simplicity of the Venue system's onboard plug-in processing turned out to be another unforeseen advantage. "We were able to remove seven 96-point patch bays and several racks of outboard gear when we installed the Venue system," says Davis. "And ultimately we've ended up with far more processing power too. On so many levels, Venue has really helped us to accomplish things we would have never been able to do before."