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Lake Forest, CA (June 17, 2009) — Saddleback Church, located in southern Orange County, has upgraded the performance sound systems at two of the venues at its main campus with the addition of Radian Audio APEX 1200 and 1500 low-profile, two-way coaxial stage monitor speakers. Saddleback Church was founded in April 1980, when pastor Rick Warren held an Easter Sunday service for 200 people, and has grown in less than 30 years to attract an average weekly attendance of 22,000, ranking it among the largest churches in the U.S.
At Saddleback Church’s Lake Forest campus, which sprawls across more than 140 acres, the main Worship Center is supplemented by permanent tented venues that house a variety of contemporary music services. Five new Radian Audio Apex 1200 12-inch wedge monitors have been added to a 15-inch MicroWedge already installed in Tent 3, the Praise! venue, for the bass player. In addition, an Apex 1500 15-inch wedge has been added to the guitar-driven, rock-infused worship service, Overdrive, in Tent 2. “We’ve been familiar with Radian for seven or eight years,” says Eric Kibbe, audio manager for all of the Saddleback Church properties, which include four regional campuses. “The reason we chose the Apex was that we already had a bunch of the 15-inch Radian Audio MicroWedges in our main Worship Center.”
Praise! features a gospel/R&B fusion band with a choir, according to Kibbe. “All the musicians are session and touring guys, so we really wanted to increase the quality of the stage mixes in there. The previous wedges were fairly inexpensive and were really not able to handle what they were doing in there. We already had a 15-inch Radian MicroWedge in there for the bass player; we just didn’t have any for the singers. So we bought the Apex 12s for in there.”
Kibbe comments, “I really admire the changes Radian Audio made to the new 12- and 15-inch Apex wedges from the MicroWedge. The Apex has a front port, which ports some of the low end back toward the person listening to the wedge. But they blend together really nicely. The products sound very similar, as it’s similar technology.”
The new Apex wedges were an immediate hit with the musicians, he reports. “They noticed a marked increase in quality right off the bat. The funny thing is, I’m not even running them biamped in the Praise! venue. We run four stage mixes in there, then there’s a drum in-ear mix. Those monitors are running on QSC amps.”
He continues, “In Tent 2 we’re running four stage mixes, all biamped, plus two wireless stereo in-ear mixes and one mono in-ear mix for the drummer. We threw the Apex 1500 on the one mix for the bass player. All the wedges in that venue are running on Lab.Gruppen amps.”
Kibbe notes that his ultimate desire is to standardize audio technology throughout the facility. As a result, he says, “My hope and goal is, at some point, to go with all Radian wedges in Tent 2.”
Based in Southern California, Radian Audio Engineering is a leading manufacturer of loudspeaker systems and speaker components for permanent installed and touring live sound applications.
