St. Peter Lutheran Church in Appleton, Wisconsin is almost as old as the state itself. It was founded by a small number of German immigrants in 1868 and has grown over the decades to its present 1,100 members. Much of that growth has come recently and the church raised funds for a new, larger worship space to ease the crowded conditions that had become a part of its four weekly services. The new sanctuary was designed to acoustically and aesthetically meet the needs of both modern and traditional worship styles. As an integral component of the new worship space, Peak Systems Group (Reedsburg, Wisconsin) installed a SymNet Radius 12×8 Dante network audio DSP with a SymNet xIn 12 audio input expander to accommodate the church’s large number of inputs. A Shure ULXD4Q four-channel wireless microphone receiver connects to the Radius 12×8 via the Dante network.
　　Chris Mittlesteadt of AVA Engineering (also of Reedsburg, Wisconsin) designed the system. “The stakeholders at St. Peter Lutheran visited nearby churches to put their finger on a system that did what they wanted their new system to do,” explained Jason Keagy, president of Peak Systems Group. “They found a system that sounded great and was intuitive to operate. Chris had designed that system and we had installed it. The church asked Chris to design their new system and when the project went out to bid, we won it.”
　　Keagy continued, “What we find in church installations is that good automix functionality, such as Symetrix’, makes simple traditional services and meetings possible without the need for a dedicated audio tech. That reduces the burden on volunteers and makes it easier to staff the times when a tech really is needed, such as during a contemporary worship service. At St. Peter Lutheran, we worked with the client to identify those inputs and configurations that would be useful for automixes and programmed the Radius 12×8 to those specifications. Three Symetrix ARC-2e wall panel remote controls give them intuitive selection of those configurations, as well as some basic control over volumes. The SymNet Radius 12×8 was a great choice because it has all of the audio horsepower we needed, great sound quality, and backing from Symetrix’ excellent customer support team.”
　　A Midas Pro 1 digital mixing console serves the church for more complicated services and events. Many of the system’s inputs feed both the Midas and the SymNet Radius 12×8, either via its twelve built-in inputs or via the inputs of the SymNet xIn 12. Dante seamlessly integrates the xIn 12 with the Radius 12×8, as it does the Shure ULXD4Q receiver. “Collecting and routing inputs and outputs via Dante is very efficient,” said Keagy. “It’s a robust solution at St. Peter Lutheran and looks like the way we’ll be doing this sort of thing in the future.” Outputs from the Radius 12×8 feed dual RCF TTL11A active column line array loudspeakers and two Danley TH-115 subwoofers. The audio system integrates with a complete video system including sanctuary projectors, video distribution for overflow areas as well as infrastructure for a future camera system.