Church Quadruples in Size, Adds Two SSL Live Consoles

Baton Rouge, La. (August 29, 2024)—Rose Hill Church relocated a few miles across Baton Rouge earlier this year, upgrading from a 200-seat sanctuary to one more than four times that size to better accommodate its growing congregation. As part of the upgrade, the church integrated an all-new sound reinforcement system at the new location. The system includes a pair of SSL Live L200 Plus mixing consoles, three SB 32.24 SuperAnalogue Dante stageboxes, and a pair of Blacklight II Bridges.

Rick Camp, owner of Las Vegas-based RC1 Productions & Designs, was the lead consultant for the project after a chance meeting at Southern University in Baton Rouge, where he designed and integrated a Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 recording studio. There he ran into Eric Johnson, Rose Hill Church’s technical director and bass player, as he would again one month later at NAMM in Anaheim, Calif. “We started our relationship right there at NAMM,” Camp recalls. “He was putting together a P.A. system for the new sanctuary, and I began introducing him to SSL and other manufacturers.”

The two L200 Plus 38-fader consoles are positioned at front-of-house and monitors with access to 96 inputs over Dante from the three SB 32.24 stageboxes. The Blacklight II Bridges—specifically designed for fixed-install applications—expands the console Dante interface count from the standard 64 to 256 channels. “They’re using almost 96 channels and we’re running everything over Dante,” Camp reports. 

The new venue is a big step up for Rose Hill Church, which was founded in 1882 and incorporated in 1953. The church’s previous location was about 11,000 square feet, while the building in Baker covers about 46,000 square feet and includes additional amenities such as classrooms..

With the move, the church also went from a relatively compact speaker system to the new state-of-the-art K-array KH3/KS5 loudspeaker rig. “It’s like going from a Volkswagen to a Ferrari,” Camp says. He provided training to Philip Washington and Isaac Davis, the FOH and monitor engineers, as well as Eric Johnson and Danny Donaldson, who has been the church’s pastor for about 20 years and is a Southern University graduate. 

“They’re totally happy with the consoles,” Camp says. “It was a little bit of a learning curve going from the old console to a pair of SSLs. But I got them up to speed with everything pretty quickly. They understand the topology, how to find and route things, and all of that. It’s great that all SSL Live consoles offer the exact same operator experience. Now they’ve learnt the L200s, they can operate any SSL Live console—and easily take their show files anywhere with compatibility mode.”

Although Camp had to bring in an electrician to upgrade the power in the building, the project actually came together quite quickly. “We didn’t start until January,” he says. “And it was all done and ready for the first service at Easter.”